The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-29 00:00:00

Alma. We do not believe in the silly rumour that Sir BENJAMIN HALL is to be made a Peer. He has made himself a most invidious character by constantly dealing in " exposures ;" he is not an orator, or a ready debater, or a practical statesman. and it would be useless giving the rewards given to distinguished Englishmen if a Coronet was beto wed on the brawling Member for Marylebone. We can understand the policy which makes peers if commoners of high birth and great estate, but no one could see grounds for bestowing hereditary honours on one whose station in Parliament or society does not justify such an elevation. The resolution of the Government to add twenty new battalions to the regular army is not wholly satisfactory. We are unfeignedly glad to see any evidence of active preparation for avenging our tor tured countrymen and regaining our lost dominions ; but the tone of the Government on military questions for some time past has indi cated a desire to make a permanent addition to our standing army, and to allow the Militia to become obsolete. Now, we are strongly opposed to such designs for two reasons. In the first place, in time of peace it would be a superfluous expense, provided we always had the Militia to fall back upon ; and in the next place, it increases the patronage of Government and the power of the Executive to an undue degree. It is, in our opinion, perfectly useless to keep up the Militia as a channel of recruits for the Line. Such a go-between is net required ; it is merely an expensive encumbrance, and benefits nobody except the militia adjutants, who get so much a head for every volunteer into the line. It is their interest, of course, to keep the regiments disembodied and to that end ineffective. Embodiment removes them from their homes without increasing their pay; and if the men remain firm to their regi ments, their emoluments are of course diminished. It is possible that this class of officers may exercise an injurious influence upon the prospects of the Militia ; and we advise all who are interested in the subject to aid in investigating what the colonels have been doing during the last twelvemonth, and how far they have allowed the adju tants to have their own way in this !natter. A good deal of correspon dence has appeared in the 'lilacs relative to milli.ia officers in general. We have no doubt that a judicious admixture of linesmen and county gentlemen is the best system. The one are respected for their know ledge of discipline, the other for their local influence. The latter bring recruits, and the former keep them. And we strongly urge upon all militia officers the propriety of averting any unseemly collision between the classes. The Hon. Mr. BYNG has published an address to the electors of Middlesex, in whieh he simply enunciates the stereotyped Liberal creed. Among its articles are the " total abolition of church rates, the adoption of the vote by ballot, the admission of my Dissenting fellow subjects to the advantage of our university education, and all ►measures tending to promote and secure iu its best and highest acceptation the great principle of civil and religious liberty." We should not have called attention to this otherwise unimportant circumstance except for the purpose of repeating to all our readers that the time is fast approaching when Englishmen will have to decide between the two great conflicting parties of this country—the Destructives and the Conservatives. Mr. BYNG has spoken out plainly. His friends and his enemies know what they have to expect. This is fair fighting. But the true enemies of both stability and improvement are those varnished obstructives who talk politics without acting up to their talk—who have one voice for the reporter's desk, and another for the peer's' drawing-room. We have too many such, who, because they are unprincipled, call themselves independent. Lord STRATFORD has done it all ! This is a repetition of the old cry when Kars fell. Her Majesty's Government, it must be admitted, are very frequently in want of a scapegoat, and of course, because the intrigues in the Principalities of Lord PALMERSTON have been recently exposed, and the Noble lord has been compelled to " eat his leek " which be did, by the way, with all the humility becoming a Prime Minister of England—Lord STRATFORD is by anticipation to be visited with public indignation, and to be recalled. The conduct of the Noble Lord has created a lively sensation in Europe, and particularly at Paris. Assertions of his Lordship's immediate recall are rife. The Times Paris correspondent calls him " a troublesome and turbulent personage." The continental papers teem with remarks upon his " arrogance" and his eminent " unfitness " for his post, and in anti cipation dwell with no little satisfaction upon his approaching downfall. Lord STRATFORD has weathered too many such storms, has triumphed over too many more subtle diplomatists than himself, to be easily shaken from his post. At the same time the pliant Minister who so humbly " eat his leek " at Osborne might feud no obstacle in his way to sacrifice our veteran Ambassador to considerations of expediency. The recall of such an energetic representative of British influence from Constantinople at a moment when our prestige and our power is to the Eastern mind quivering in the balance, will tend to confirm any doubts in the Divan at Constantinople or at the Court of Teheran that the power of England has in reality declined. The late lamentable and fatal accident to Mr. T. PLATT, the Liberal Member for Oldham, is one of those occurrences with which the shooting season is but too often ushered in. Next Tuesday will, no doubt, witness the debut of many a youthful sportsman, Who, amid THE PRESS, AUGUST 29, 1857. his zeal for the destruction of partridges, would do well to remember the sad loss of life which has recently taken place. The constant observance of one or two very simple rules would he sufficient to prevent this class of accidents. The first and most obvious is never to carry the gun with the muzzle pointed, not merely at, but in the direction of, any human being. The second is, that all parties in the field should walk as much in a line as possible, carrying their guns either on the shoulder or under the arm, not swinging across it, as is too commonly done, thereby bringing the trigger into dangerous proximity with coat or waistcoat buttons. In the next place, the hammer should always be at half-cock, except at the very moment when game is expected to rise. In the act of firing, the young sports man should always remember that he must never shoot at a bird unless the coast is perfetftly clear ; and in loading, that he must avoid hanging over the muzzle of his gun, and never allow his hand or fingers to cover it. Simple and obvious as these precautions appear, it is astonishing what a number of even experienced persons neglect them—dangling their gun as they walk with the trigger at full cock, and the muzzles cover ing their dearest friend dead within a dozen paces ; leaning over the barrels as they load, and firing recklessly when birds rise, whether any one is in the way or not. It may possibly be of some use at this period of the year to fix our readers' minds upon the point. On so trite and common-sense a subject nothing very new can be said. To repeat and enforce universally acknowledged truths is all we pre tend to. We were concerned to remark yesterday the apparently sudden attack of indisposition suffered by the Speaker. Our readers are aware that it is the custom of the Members upon the final rising of the House severally to offer their congratulations to the Speaker upon release from his arduous duties. Yesterday Mr Speaker DENISON, having rather abruptly read the Royal Speech, shook hands with his fides Achates. the Premier, and disappeared ! The many hands held out, and the half•uttered congratulations of the different Members sur- rounding the Chair, contrasted oddly with their blank faces. Whatever be the impediment in the way of Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S elevation to the Peerage, the possibility of such an event may supply us with food for reflection. We think it is unfair to repre sent Lord JOHN RUSSELL as " used up." His Lordship is only sixty six, and we know of no visible decay in his physical or intellectual powers. At his age, Lord LYNDHURST, Lord BROUGHAM, Lord CAMP BELL, or Lord PALMERSTON, were young men. %o less untrue is it in our opinion that he has been superseded by Lord PALMERSTON in the lead of the Liberal party. Lord PALMERSTON does not lead the Liberals, sod never will. He is a tolerated locum tenens, and nothing more What, then, can induce a certain class of politicians to be so anxious for Lord JOHN RUSSELL:B removal to the Upper House? Their reasons are probably numerous; but it cannot be doubted that the most powerful is the unfavourable light in which the Premier is placed by his presence. Lord JOHN RUSSELL is a scholar, a rhetorician, and, more than all, a statesman of deep con victions. Lord PALMERSTON is the reverse of all this. He has small literary culture; his speeches " invite one to sleep " ; and his princi ciples remind us of the accommodating author described by POPE:— Aw, aw ! the piece, you say, is faulty ; take it — I'm all submission : what you'd have it, make it. The more respectable of the Whig Liberal connection cannot but feel it as a great slur upon their distinguished party that they have sunk so low as to be compelled to follow Lord PALMERSTON and to see Lord JOHN RUSSELL on the hack benches. The consciousness of this senti ment must sting Lord PALMERSTON deeply. But Lord JOHN RUSSELL thinks he can afford to bide his time, and knows that he is greater out of office than Lord PALMERSTON is in. We can well understand, too, that the Government may be anxious to recruit their forces in the Upper House, where, as Liberal organs admit, Lord DERBY has no equal. The appearance, however, of even Lord JOHN RUSSELL at the side of the smiling GRANVILLE or the tinkling little Duke would not destroy the Noble Earl's supremacy ; while Ministers might natu rally be fearful of a collision between the spirited ex-Premier and his ducal colleague concerning the command of the Channel fleet. Our readers may depend upon this, that the first reason assigned is the true one, and that the Premier would sleep more soundly if that well known hat were not nodding at him from behind with a mixture of in dignation and amusement . An evening contemporary, which was described by Mr. Column in terms of well-known unsavouriness, has thought proper to repeat, for about the twentieth time, a very stale joke and a very unfounded bit of gossip concerning ourselves. We are sorry to drive our contemporary into the necessity of inventing a new joke, though the time-honoured one about " the fine Roman hand" has not perhaps that species of point which educated Englishmen have been accustomed to associate with wit, and we also offer our condolences on the exposure of the often re peated " canard," respecting the authorship of certain articles in this journal. We beg most emphatically to declare that the gentleman whose name is thus brought forward by these would-be well-informed writers, whose recklessness is in proportion to their ignorance, has no personal share in the conduct of TA E PRESS newspaper. This journal is the organ of a political party, and those who are irritated by that fact seek to impugn it by every species of trickery, invention, and falsehood.