The Press. — London, England, 1854-02-04 00:00:00

r .} ~7 I 98 I •,. in 1829, only the exponent of the policy of the Duke of W EL LINGTON, who was then Prime Minister, and therefore responsible for what occurred. The impression which Lord ABER DEEN attempted to convey to the House of Lords, that he was merely the organ of the Duke of WELLINGTON, and that there existed between him and that Illustrious man n com plete understanding on Turkish affairs, is, we regret to say, not correct. It *is far other wise. How Lord. AsEftutew, .with. the recol lection of the private engagement that he entered into with Count MATOSZEVICH as to the blockade of the Gulf of Enos, which would have starved the Turkish army at Adrianople, and other similar matters, and which the Bake violently forced him to repudiate, Could have made this declaration in the House of Lords, is marvellous ! Lord ABERDEEN is indignant that he is described as the tool of Russia, and to prove his independence vows that he has, when Secretary of State, written very " acrimo nious" despatches against that Power. Secretaries of State ought never to write " acrimonious" despatches. This proves too much. There is no quantity of " acrimonious" despatches that Russia will not digest, if they be accompanied by blockades of Enos and treaties of Adrianople. If the letters of Lord ABERDEEN to the " foreign conspirators, " who are his correspondents at Paris and elsewhere, had been a little more acrimonious as regards Russia, affairs might have been better, nor should we have Count MEYENDORFT at this moment stating in the circles of Vienna that the first idea of the Menstchikoff treaty was given to. the Emperor of Russia some years ago by Lord ABERDEEN himself. But there is another " calumny," and that Is, that Lord ABERDEEN is the tool of Austria. We do not exactly know who said this; not ourselves; we rather believe a present colleague of the noble Thane. They must settle it between them- with other phrases. Lord ABERDEEN knows nothing of Vienna " these forty years." A very few years ago, however, he was proud to tell the House of Lords that he had been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and for all that he knew of politic lore was indebted to Prince Marrramen. This frequent boast used to make that illustrious Minister smile. " Lord Aberdeen," he was wont to observe with serene irony, " says he is my pupil ; " there is, however, I believe, sometimes a " difference between pupils and professors." For nearly half a century Lord ABERDEEN has been connected, in a certain sense, with public affairs ; and he has failed in every great enterprise in which he has embarked. He talks largely of his relations with the Court of Vienna forty years ago. The improper favour of Lord CASTLEREAGH saved him from being recalled from that scene of action. Selected :by the Duke of WELLINGTON to deal with the Turkish difficulty in '2B-29, his labours con , eluded with the treaty of Adrianople. He boasts of being the founder of the entente cor diale ; it terminated with the Château d'Eu and the Spanish marriages. Lord ABERDEEN, with the aid of " foreign conspirators," then got up an elaborate impeachment of Lord PALMERS TON. The speech of Lord ABERDEEN on that . occasion, which should have been the greatest effort of his life, is the most signal failure on record. Finally, this sage Minister tries his safe hand at Turkish politics again, and after ti year of vacillation and incapacity confuses all Europe, and perhaps involves his country •in war. We assure Lord ABERDEEN that, in treating of his conduct and career, there is no necessity to have recourse to calumny. MAIL-STEAMERS AND MEN-OF-WAR. THERE is something ominous, yet opportune, in the appearance at this moment of a parlia mentary paper headed " Mercantile Steam Navy for t'urposes of War." The substance of this document we propose to extract. Under Lord DERBY'S Government, in May, '52, a cogakaittee of officers was appointed to examine how far, in ease of necessity, it might be possible to arm the contract mail-packet steamers, or otherwise to apply them to defensive or THE PRESS, offensive operations. These gentlemen were instructed to ascertain the number of steamers employed by the various oompanies—their materials and utaks—the possibility of dis pensing with them iu regard of their ordinary duties—the time required to fit them for fighting—the cost of the process in each case— with innumerable miner details not. necessary tosbe inserted here. These orders were acted upon; and the result is in Our hands. It appears that the Penifisular and Oriental and the West Indiari lines own collectively : Vessels I Collective tonnage Collective horee•power 21,117 . Of which, vessels built of wood are in number BO Their tonnage Their horse-power • • 12,8Sti Vessels of iron are 23 Their tonnage 29,189 Their horse-power None of these vessels, however, are, in the 53 committee's opinion, efficient substitutes for men-of-war. " Under a very pressing neces " city for home service " they might constitute a kind of naval militia, but their principal utility would be as armed packets and troop ships. Out of fifty-three vessels, only sixteen ply between Southampton and foreign ports, the rest being intercolonially employed, or under repair, or building, or otherwise out of the way. But of these sixteen, five are of iron, an d three of inferior construction and capability, insomuch that eight only remain capable of efficient service, and which might be rendered available within nine weeks. They could not, however, be spared by the companies except in actual emergency, and at the cost of con siderable public inconvenience. Independent of these considerations, the construction of a passenger steamer varies widely from that of a man-of-war, making the union of both qualities well-nigh impossible. Guns eould not be firod, otty tho committee, from the stern, nor yet fore-and-aft ; the machinery is exposed • to shot and shell ; they are undermasted ; the amount of fuel con sumed by them is enormous in proportion to the guns they can carry ; they are not pierced for guns, nor could ports easily be cut ; " a " total change in the internal economy would " be necessary ; " and it is, after all, doubtful whether they could be made to receive the requisite armament, stores, and provisions. In plain words, they are unfit for fighting-work ; they cannot be made fit for it except at vast cost, and then inadequately ; and if employed they might endanger the credit of our flag, from the disproportion between their apparent proportions and real efficacy. As regards the vessels of the British and North American Company, the report is one degree more favourable. Eight steamers belong to this company, being Total collective tonnage Total horse-power and capable of being rendered serviceable, not, however, without extensive alterations, involving for each ship a cost of 3,0001. The utmost number of heavy guns which they could carry is ten apiece. None of the other packet companies have vessels fit for war purposes. • The general result of the committee's report is, that, out of ninety-one ships belonging to different mercantile bodies, there are only sixteen capable of being used as auxiliaries to the regular fleet, and even of this number one half would, when fitted for the purpose, be of very doubtful capacity. The results of this inquiry tend to confirm in a remarkable degree the opinion expressed by us about four months ago, in an article on the contract packet service—namely, as to the inconvenience entailed QU companies by re quiring them to build vessels capable of being armed in case of emergency—the delusive nature of the guarantee thus obtained--and its tendency, by encouraging a fallacious belief in our strength, to prevent real and proper preparation for war. SATURDAY, STRIKES AND SAVANS. THERE is always something ridiculous in an utter disproportion between means and ends ; and not the strongest sympathy either with the goodness of the design, or with the amia ble character of the nobleman who occupied the chair, can lead us to treat otherwise than as a philanthropic vagary the attempt of the Society of Arts to settle the labour-and -strike question by a single conference; at which all kind of abstract propositions were to be dis cussed. Lord R. GROSVENOR, after expressing regret that custom forbade him to open the meeting with prayer, proceeded to explain the nature of the intended discussion iu terms of which the solemnity would not have ill befitted the inauguration of a new Parliament. The range of topics was tolerably extensive and miscella neous. Combinations, whether objectionable or no—strikes and their consequences—the right of Parliament to interfere between mas ter and workman—the law of partnership and limited liability—arbitration, its expediency, and the best means of applying it—all were tossed promiscuously on the table, to be dis cussed by a heterogeneous assemblage, in which mere spectators formed by far the larger proportion, and delegates from operative clubs a considerable part of the remainder. It is not too much to say that the questions thus casually and collectively taken up would have furnished materials for a treatise equal in length to " The Wealth of Nations "—half a Volume, at least, being devoted to each. And, to add to the absurdity of the affair, each speaker was limited to ten minutes, and the general subject arbitrarily divided under three heads, so that the whole argument could by no possibility be grappled with by any single orator; and he who rose, almost without ex ception, argued some point different from that on which Ints ; ni niediat. pa vtieuessor had peen decfl.'..ming. But the climax of folly was reached when the chairman, after requesting that all demonstrations of applause might be suppressed—a rule, of course, violated every five minutes—announced it as his intention to put no resolution to the meeting on which unanimity did not exist, as if a resolution in which every individual of a mixed multitude professedly differing in opinion was likely to agree could be a resolution worth passing at all. As might have been expected, so it proved. One Chartist delegate contrived to introduce his forbidden topic, and thereby infused a momentary animation into what was otherwise a very dull ceremony. It is a peculiarity of these people, by the way, that they are all more or less monomaniacs : if a meeting of savans were called to discuss the potato-rot, and one of them got access to it, be sure he would be on his legs forthwith, and moving a resolution in favour of the " five points?' /y/r. ROBERT OWEN, or somebody representing him, also delivered his sentiments, unfortunately not upon spirit-Tappings, in which case his harangue might have been more interesting than it was. Here and there a bearded or moustached figure jumped up to denounce millowners and expatiate on the sufferings of the poor, but no millowner replied ; and in the absence of contradiction, and before an unwonted audience, the rough energy of the operative agitator deserted him, leaving only a residuum of empty, tame, and dull verbiage. This prevailing dulness was, h ow ever, - ex ceeded by the loquacity of the l is t e ners, three fourths of wham had come, not to hear, but to i f v o lg r o , n know not no li t after three bad grammar and inconsecutive reasoning, we retired in sheer weariness , wish ing more wis dom to future philanthropists, and heartily regretting a wasted morning. lik.