The Press. — London, England, 1858-04-03 00:00:00

~` 124 THE PRESS, APRIL 3, 1858. tions of a personal kind that require prompt and decisive adjudication, and for dealing with such questions Lord STANLEY is remarkably qualified by the natural tendencies of his mind. Such questions cannot be solved by echoing the language of " parties," or by enun ciating precedents. Their solution depends mostly on economical principles; and a mind accustomed to form conclusions by estimates of pos►tive consequences is the best for arranging the great mass of subjects that demand the attention of a Colonial Minister. Tho recent lamentable fire in Bloomsbury has naturally provoked much sympathy and much indignant comment from the public press. It is indeed a terrible calamity, and one that may well blind our eyes to the obstinate facts which underlie it. The facts are disagreeable, inconvenient, unpalatable, to all those classes who consider a bank note a legitimate substitute for all other species of charity. But as long as the poor are driven back before the advance of improvement, and crowded into these miserable lath-and-plaster tenements, so long may we be sure that nothing but an accident is wanting to insure a similar catastrophe. In this case, whatever may have been the cause of the fire, there can be little doubt of what caused the almost unparalleled loss of life. The shoring up of the house inter cepted the lodgment of the fire•escapes, and it is quite clear that a cer tain number of lives were sacrificed in consequence, though per haps not all. Yet no one is to blame for the shoring up. In fact, to have neglected the precaution in the existing state of the buildings would have been highly culpable. Again, as to the want of trap doors, back-windows, and other modes of exit, or communication, we can only say that if Londoners are never to be secure till these things are established all over the vast area of houses which constitutes London and its suburbs, it is a very dismal prospect. Nor, on the other hand, does it seem so imperatively necessary as it has been represented to be. How seldom do we hear of any fire in a housa inhabited by a single family, or even in the better class of lodging houses. Shops are liable to dangers of their own. But in dwelling houses the real danger arises from the over-crowding of the inmates, and the reckless habits thereby engendered. Till this class of houses is improved, we are liable at any moment to a repetition of the Blooms bury catastrophe. The conduct of a particular journal in violating the literary and social conventions of the public press cannot be allowed to pass without condign notice. if once the practice be tolerated of an organ attacking the management and commenting on the private affairs of contemporaries, we may bid a farewell to the respectability of the English press. At present there is only one London journal which systematically trades on the literary defamation of its rivals. That journal, we need hardly say, is the Saturday Review, which has obtained a disagreeable notoriety by its detraction of the chiefs of all parties, and by its reckless aspersions of other organs addressing the English public. That THE PRESS should be abused by a print which has earned for itself the title of " The Spatterday Review," is a fact not to be surprised at. As a journal closely connected with and represent ing the principles of the Conservative party, THE PRESS seeks no immunity from the legitimate warfare of honourable polemics. But the use of poisoned weapons is the practice of the assassin, and not the custom of the open adversary. To comment with critical poignancy on the reasoning of a political antagonist, is one thing; but to peer with intrusive eyes into the internal arrangements of a political organ, exhibits the meanness of a spy. Such conduct, of course, cannot be allowed with impunity, and the Saturday Review has egregiously miscalculated its resources, and ridiculously exaggerated the calibre of its small artillery, if it supposes itself to be invulnerable. That the Saturday Review is a curiosity in journalism cannot be denied It is a sort of weekly porcupine, whose quills are in constant insurrection against all who do not like the tainted theology which subordinates the study of the Holy Scriptures to a proficiency in the jargon of architectural [esthetics, and who are not ready to pin their political faith on some Cabinet of invisible states men which the Saturday Review is one day to reveal. Lord 13aououam, when exhausting his energies, and when drinking the lees of his once great popularity, was wittily caricatured under the symbol of the schoolboy's toy of " the man who kicks all manner of ways ;" and the Saturday Review hopes to rise by adopting the practices through which Lord BROUGHAM fell. A catalogue of its antipathies is a confession of its being the "anti-English in everything" journal. It is anti-Con servative, anti-Whig, and anti-Radical. In one and the same impression it has astonished its readers with the discordant sounds of a small political menagerie. Lord DERBY, Lord PALMERSTON, Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Lord ELLENBOROUGH, Mr. DISRAELT, have all been virulently attacked in it, and the leaders of the popular Liberals have also been bitterly assailed. Even some of the followers of the late Sir R. PEEL have suffered equally from its pompous praise and its capricious censure. In search of subjects for its vituperation, the Saturday Revw circumnavigates the political world, a literary Captain Cook in search of Slander Islands. Yet there is a purpose in this apparent universality of detraction. Political and religions Jesuitry could not Letter carry out its purposes than by striving to make the great English public distrust its own capacity. To weaken the confidence in public opinion is one of the objects pursued with constancy by the Saturday Review, and its shallow and heartless mockery of " the English public " betrays at its indefatigable the foreign element which inspires its sinister industry an d indefatigable detraction. Thus, it attacked the Times partly with the double purpose of tempting a great leading organ to advertise it by . a controversy, and at the same time to disparage the newspaper world in general by singling out a great organ for systematic abuse. i Thenit fell foul of Punch, who unwarily fell into the trap, and aided tt advertising it for a time, until our facetious contemporary took ample THE WEEK. A FEW further diplomatic appointments have just been made, in all of which Lord MALMESBURT has had reference both to seniority in the service, and to proved ability; and the effect of which will doubtless be both to encourage merit and to increase the efficiency of the diplo matic corps. Mr. GORDON, her Majesty's Minister to the Swiss Confederation, is appointed Minister to the Court of Hanover. Captain the Hon. E. J. HARRIS, lately Chargé d'Affaires to the Republic of Chili, is appointed Minister to the Swiss Confederation. The Hon. HENRY GEORGE ELLIOT, now Secretary of Legation at Vienna, is appointed Minister to the Court of Denmark. Mr. Omits, now Secretary of Legation at Copenhagen, is appointed Charge d'Affaires to the Republic of Bolivia. Mr. Lowman, late Secretary of Legation at Naples, is appointed Secretary at St. Petersburgh. . Mr. PAGET, now Secretary of Legation at Lisbon, is appointed in the same capacity at Berlin. Mr. HEnRIES, now Secretary of Legation at Berne, to be Secretary at Lisbon. Mr. Hums BURNLEY, Paid Attaché to the Legation at St. Peters burgh, is appointed Secretary of Legation at Berne. Mr. MANLEY, Paid Attaché to the Legation at Athens, to be Seore tar y of Legation at Copenhagen. Mr. GIBBS, Tutor to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, is appointed a C 8., third class, Civil Service. The Duke of MAIAKAFF, who has taken a mansion in Belgrave square. is expected to arrive in town about the 12th of the present month. The anxiety of certain " Liberal" organs to disparage Lord STAN LEY, is a strong proof of their regret that the Liberals do not boast of any rising young statesmen, from whom the world has high expecta tions. It may be worth while, therefore, to make a few obt•ervations upon the position of Lord STANLEY at the present time. Born to a great station, heir to an ancient earldom and a princely estate, Lord STANLEY has worked as hard to acquire knowledge, and to perfect his mental discipline, as if he were dependent on his own personal exer tion. He has read deeply and widely; he has travelled in many lauds not visited by tourists in search of pleasure ; he has sojourned for a prolonged period in the West Indies and the South American colonies; and he came back from the East Indies to accept the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs. On questions of trade, finance, colonies, and social progress, Lord STANLEY has repeatedly spoken with closeness of know ledge and exactness of detail; and on all these occasions the Noble Secretary for the Colonies has shown a rare faculty for applying the principles of political science to social facts, and exhibited an amount of attainment which would have done honour to politicians of thrice his length of service in the House of Commons. In estimating the degree of hope which may be fairly entertained of Lord STANLEY'S future career, we should recollect that his nature is pecu liarly one to be greatly improved by experience. To come into office too young is in some respects a disadvantage to an Eng lish statesman. Sir ROBERT Perr., probably, suffered from his being "rocked and cradled in official life." Too early an immurement in the routine of a department necessarily cramps the growth of the moral faculty, and renders a statesman's vision feeble in discerning princi ples. It is easier to make a mind already expanded converge closely upon details, than to enlarge an understanding narrowed by a long apprenticeship to the desk of office. In former periods the country suffered severely from falling into the hands of official for malists, who were educated in a sort of idolatry of routine. Like most minds of independent power, Lord STANLEY undoubtedly is apt to think a good deal for himself, but no Minister can put together a Cabinet in which minute conformity of opinion on all pos sible subjects is to he expected from its members. In the many Ministries in which Lord PALMERSTON served, did the Noble Viscount cry " ditto "to his various colleagues? Had not Lord JOHN RUSSELL, also, many marked views on religious subjects, which distinguished him broadly horn several of his political associates? In the last Cabinet were not Lord HARROWBY, Sir GEORGE GREY, and Mr. BAINES at each corner of a political triangle? Or could any Ministry be now formed from the chiefs of the Liberals in which there would not be a far greater discordance ou general views than is assumed to exist between the Noble Secretary for the Colonies and his colleagues? The truth is, that the factious adherents of the late Ministry are extremely mortified at Lord STANLEY having accepted the office of Secretary for the Colonies. In that appointment they perceive that a pledge is given to the country in favour of social progress In Ho other depart ment of the State can a Minister do so much to promot, social ad vancement as in the colonies. Trade and commerce in every variety of form link the colonies with England. New and strong growths of the Anglo-Saxon family are springing up in all parts of our wide .3olontal dominion. Their welfare and prosperity exercise the most beneficial influence on the home community, and primarily the %ell beingof the colonie s d e p en d s c hiefly o n the regu l a ti ons for trade and shipping, and for the tariffs of foreign and British merchandise being adapted to their special wants. There are always many local ques-