The Press. — London, England, 1856-05-10 00:00:00

THE WEEK. THE debates in both Houses on the Peace this week, thougn not with out good points, have been languid, from a general indisposition to criticise tho details of an accomplished fact. The Peace is made. Turkey, on the European side, at least, is secured from Russian aggression, as fast as she can be secured by Treaty, and thus a great end, long felt to be desirable by European statesmen, is accomplished. With more leisure the part taken by the Plenipotentiaries of England at the Conferences will be criticised more closely, and a feel ing of bitter dissatisfaction will spring up in the public mind. It is remarkable that the neglects and faults of this settlement are wanton faults and neglects—that they might have been avoided by ordinary dis cretion and firmness on the part of our Plenipotentiaries. Nothing, for example, was wanted to check Russian conquest in the Caucasus but the neutralisation of the east coast of the Black Sea, which it would have been impossible for Russia to have refused if firmly pressed; while, as regards the Belgian press, and the maritime decla ration, the English Plenipotentiaries might fairly have declined to enter on those subjects at all. How can any general alteration of the maritime law be attempted in the absence of so great a maritime Power as America ? While at Constantinople, a deputation from Circassia, alarmed by a report that peace has been established without mention of Circhssia, though ignorant that the right of Russia to their terri tory has been acknowledged, is invoking the protection of Turkey, the Ministers of Sardinia are appealing to the Chambers to support them in the appeal they contemplate to France and England against Austrian occupation in Italy and in favour of Italian reforms. What answer will be given to this appeal? Would it be made unless Sar dinia had received some kind of hint that the part she has taken in the war wall.' be remembered to her advantage ? It will be remembered that the opposition offered to the Foreign Enlistment Bill was grounded upon the assertion that the number of men required could be more readily and less expensively raised in England. Lord PALMERSTON, in his speech on Thursday night, calling attention to the zeal of the Militia, said : Ten of the militia regiments volunteered for foreign service, and their offer was accepted by the Government, and no less than thirty-seven other militia regiments made a similar offer, but the Government was of opinion that their services abroad would not be 'squired. Truth will out at last. If the services of thirty-seven regiments of militia were not required abroad, where was the necessity of raising at a vast expense a Foreign Legion, which has never yet been employed on active service, and to which we are requested to " behave hand somely," for the honour of the English name, now that the time for paying off has arrived,? It is a significant fact that militia troops have been ordered to mount guard over the German Jagers now in mutiny at Plymouth. The confidence felt in the stability of Government, from its large majority on the Kars question, has worn off. It is now felt that the political situation is unchanged. The majority was hollow. The Morning Post—the Premier's own organ—proclaims him to the country as a Conservative Minister ; but a Conservative Minister, professing adherence to a Liberal policy, and relying for support on all shades of Liberal opinion, cannot be in a secure position. There must be false hood on both sides—on the part of the Minister to keep his place, on the part of his supporters to receive his patronage. In the Court of Exchequer, yesterday, the principle for which the eminent Queen's Counsel, Mr SLADE, has manfully contended, was affirmed by the unanimous judgment of the court. It is lawful to pay a voter's travelling expenses to the poll. If it is lawful for a candidate to convey a voter to the poll in a cab,—why not in a railway carriage ? We congratulate Mr. SLADE on this triumph of his cause and of o )mmon sense. Colonel TuLtoen has completely broken down under the hard work both mental and physical, of the Chelsea inquiry. No one can fail to sympathise with the gallant officer who has succumbed in the per formance of a most arduous and disagreeable duty. But we cannot help asking the question —Does not this teach us to be merciful to others? The gnawing anxiety suffered by officers high in command in the Crimean campaign must, we think, have been at least equal to that by which Colonel TuLLocti has been recently prostrated. Here is evi dence brought home to ourselves, under our own eyes, of a man not supposed to be less vigorous than others of his own time of life, who has proved incapable of sustaining' the burden ofj a jndicial in iuiry, with all the comforts of home ready to refresh his strength, and with a responsibility on his shoulders at all events not greater than that endured by our Crimean generals. Let this thct teach the British public a little soft heartedness. It may be said we should have sent out younger men ; but this is a question which does not admit of any off-hand decision— DANDoLo and RADETSIT stare us in the face. Again we say, let us remember the terrific wear and tear to which the men who commanded our armies were subjected under peculiar circumstances which are by no means common to all wars, and not be too hard on the short comings for which possibly physical weakness is alone answerable. Without attempting to anticipate the nature of the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER'S Budget, we are now in a condition to form a guess as to the kind of balance-sheet he will have to present. It is certain there will be a considerable deficiency to be made up, even should it be decided to continue the whole of the war expenses ; and taking the revised estimates as they stand we do not see how it will be possible for the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER to do with less than a loan of at least 10,000,0001. The calculation is easily made. The THE PRESS. SATURDAY, expenditure for the year ending the 31st of March last, independent of all military and naval charges, amounted to 33,880,0001. This included the interest on the Funded and Unfunded Debt, the Civil Service, &c. The military and naval services for the current year were origi nally estimated at 55,070,1511., which would raise the whole expendi ture to 90,950,151/. But since the conclusion of peace revised esti mates have been published, showing a total reduction to the extent of 17,558,981/. The real expenditure to be provided for, therefore, in this first year of peace, amounts to 73,391,1901. Now, the revenue for the last year, including the new taxes imposed, amounted to 63,361,605/. ; and, assuming it be the same for the current year, the deficiency will be 10,026,5651. The figures speak for themselves. Our expenditure has grown to such enormous proportions that it w ill require a master-mind to reduce it again within proper bounds —to clear off all liabilities of the war. and to place our finances on a solid and satisfactory footing. The loan of 5,000,0001., announced yester day, cannot meet the deficiency indicated by the above figures. The death of Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON has created a gap in the scanty ranks of British metaphysicians which will not soon be filled up. Uniting intellectual qualities rarely conjoined in the same indi vidual—the inventive genius of the discoverer with the massive learn ing of the mere scholar, extensiveness and accuracy, profundity and acuteness—he seems, in addition, to have possessed a strength of will and to have displayed, under the tedious pressure of a severe and lengthened illness, an un tiring devotion to duty which it is hardly an exaggeration to say would have rendered him remarkable, among lite rary men, had he possessed no other claims to distinction. His great logical innovation, known as the " Doctrine of the Quantified Predi cate," and his " Theory of Perception distinguished as the Doctrine of Natural Realism," are sufficient of themselves to place their author in the highest class of philosophical inventors ; while his various contri butions to the Edinburgh Review, his editions of the works of RF.ID and STEWART, enriched with notes touching on every great question of philosophy from the very first dawn of speculation, display an amount of learning too rarely shown in these days of " rash assertion and " slovenly inference." Those who have admired his intellectual power will be surprised to hear that for many years this distinguished philo sopher had been entirely deprived of the use of one side by hemi plegid. Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON was a son of the late WILLIAM HAMIL TON, Esq., Professor of Anatomy in the University of Glasgow. He was horn in 1789, and received his early education at Glasgow, and Balliol College, Oxford, where lie took first-class honours in 1811. He was ninth baronet of his line de jure, though only third in actual pos session, the title not having been assumed since the death of the second baronet in 1701, whose son squandered away the family estates. Sir WILLIAM was second heir male in general to his father in 1816, and in 1829 married his cousin Janet. daughter of H. MARSHALL, Esq. The gallant General whose name is so honourably connected with the defence of Kars, and who is rewarded with a Baronetcy and a pension of 1,000/. a year, is comparatively a young man in the prime of life. We believe (he was born about 1810, and, having received his early education at Woolwich, obtained a commission in the Artillery in 1825, in which he rose by gradual promotion. His first military employment was in Turkey, from 1840 to 1843, when he was rewarded with promotion to the rank of Major, and four years later took part in negotiating the important treaty of Erzeroum. In the following year he was engaged in settling the Turko-Persian frontier, which he effected with great skill and tact. About a year and a half ago he was selected as her Majesty's Commissioner to the Turkish forces, and promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General : he had continued to dis charge the duties of that post with distinguished ability, when the battle on the heights of Kars (Sept. 29, 1855) suddenly brought him out from a civil into a military character. In this engagement his coolness and courage was the greatest service in repulsing the forces of MOCRAVIEFF, and had he been adequately supported by the Turkish and British Governments subsequently, there can be little doubt that he would have been spared the mortification of seeing the fortress which he had saved in September evacuated in the November following, and of capitulating to the very general whom he had so nobly defeated. But upon this we have said enough of !ate. For his success at Kars General WILLIAMS was advanced to the barren dignity of a K.O B. ; and when he capitulated, the whole nation felt that the failure was not his own, but belonged to the officials of her Majesty s Government. And, now that he is on his way home from Russia, where he has been a prisoner since December last, the same Govern ment which offered him up as a victim to their own remissness. Is forced to come forward and bestow upon him a pension of 1,0001. a year and a Baronetcy, by the name, style, and title, of " Sir WILLIAM FENWICK WILLIAMS, of Kars," as a compensation for the injuries he has sustained at their hands. So much for the tardy recognition of General WILLIA3is' splendid services. But we cannot let pass the opportunity of calling attention to his brave colleagues in arms. Colonel LAKE, Mr. TEESDALE, Mr. THOMPSON, and Dr. SANDWITH are, we understand, to be rewarded by the honourable, but still some what barren, title of Knight Commander of the Bath. 1s it not fair to ask whether their reward is to stop here? We love to call our selves an eminently practical nation; is the title of K.C.B. a really practical reward for such men ? ORIENTAL DIALuLrUE S. The King of DUDE : Annexation is a vexation, The King of BIIRMAH : Invasion's twice as bad ; INDIA GENERALLY : The rule of D Did trouble me, JOHN BULL: But his pension drives me mad