The Press. — London, England, 1856-09-06 00:00:00

THE WEEK. THE world keeps moving. In the lull of domestic politics, foreign intelligence of great moment presses on us. The condition of affairs in the United States has become serious ; the slavery question, after long threatening disturbance, has at length taken a turn which has placed the Executive and the Legislature in direct collision, arid raises doubts as to the stability of the Union, and as to that capacity for self-government which the people of the Old World has hitherto given the people of the New th e cr edit of possessing. The Kansas question has brought the free-soil and pro-slavery parties face to face. The parties in that State have begun to fight out the dispute in earnest; several desperate encounters have already taken place; the killed and wounded are numerous in the skirmishes that have taken place ; and the factions aro mustering their forces for a more regular and extensive style of warfare. Meanwhile the Executive is precluded from interference. The House of Representatives has refused to pass the Army Appropriation Bill without a clause providing that no troops shall be amploye d to en force the authority of the Kansas Legislature. The Senate refused to adopt this proviso, and the session terminated without the supplies being voted. President PIERCE has called an extra session, and in his message to the Senate, details the serious difficulty in which the Execu tive will be placed through the suspense of the military power. It does not, however, appear that either party is likely to yield, and General CASs views the " difficulty " as so urgent that he fears the days of the Re public are numbered. The question is the more serious, as it is but an evidence of the violent animosity which the slavery question has excited. For the time the authority of the Government is completely paralysed. The political institutions of the States are evidently des tined to undergo a fierce trial, and the "Model Republic" may, after all, be destined to have but a transient existence. The appointment of a successor to the late Sir 'WILLIAM TEMPLE affords our contemporaries much food for speculation. Last week the Daily News suggested such a number of necessary qualifications for the post that Lord PALMERSTON must have been fairly driven to his wits end, or to Windermere. to discover so accomplished a diplo• matist. This week Mr. Lofty has taken " King Bomba "--his own phrase—in hand, has looked down upon the vacant diplomatic stool, and decided that its filling is a question of the " most serious nature." The peace of the world is threatened from this Vesuvian Naples, and the question is so urgent that Mr. Lofty determines to catch that" right man so long sought for, and this time to put him into the right place. The question is, where to find this right man. Mr. Lofty does not believe that the diplomatic list can furnish him. That list may supply a dexterous negotiator, or a philosophic statesman, but that is not the man required. Mr. Lofty is Liberal in his sentiments—therefore he will have a Liberal, who has given so many pledges for his liberal behaviour that he dare not recede from them without infamy. He will have none of your French or Italian scholars. A Liberal by style —not education—is the man. A mere knowledge of the rudiments of tongues, with a Levizac and a Zotti packed in his portmanteau, and a "Murray's Conversations" in his hand, will suffice. Then Mr. Lofty will have him "gifted with peculiar firmness as well as moderation " of temper," for he will have to put up with cajolery and offensive bearing, and must neither be deluded by the one, nor intimidated "by the other." More than this, Mr. Lofty would have him chosen " from among those who have taken a leading part in commercial " legislation," and, above all, Mr Lofty would have him possessed of an English head and name, as significant of the resolution of England to be trifled with no longer. These are alarming times for the Court of Naples. Who is to be this Ambassador who will scatter terror from the folds of his handkerchief ? Is the Nineveh Bull intended, or the " little bird," who is so kind as to whisper Government secrets into Mr Lofty's ear. Some particular person is evidently pointed at, but then Mr. Lofty's appreciation of his character and merits may be so different from the sense entertained of them by the rest of the world that we may never guess right. There is no help for it. We must wait. The severities of military discipline are one of the last things to give way to the advance of civilisation. The absolute necessity of a stringent code of laws to restrain men who constantly have arms in their hands, and can at any moment wreak their vengeance upon those appointed to command, is sufficiently apparent. At Nenagh, the other day, a private soldier brought his bayonet to the charge and exhorted his comrades to " skiver " all the officers who were out. Men who constantly stand up like a mark before a body of ignorant and excita ble fellows armed with muskets and bayonets, must, of course, possess some more than ordinary guarantee. In the ease of the Tipperary Militia there is, perhaps, as much cause for commuting the sentence as would often occur. The officers to some extent brought the danger upon themselves, for they neglected to impart to the men the very piece of information which would probably have quieted them, and alter their dissatisfaction had become apparent, omitted any endea vour to appease it. This is not the way to treat soldiers, and there is, perhaps, a little too much of it in the British army. But it is very possible that the stinginess with which the other British militia regi ments have been treated on their disembodiment may have had some thing to do in exciting the suspicions of the Tipperary men. What number would volunteer either in England or Ireland, if again called on, is extremely doubtful The military profession is one in which sordid exactness of dealing is wholly out of place. The soldier, anal especially the Irish soldier, look for a certain openhandedness and generosity in their superiors. And it would be very bad policy to give them any cause for relinquishing the feeling. SATURDAY, The letter of Lieutenant-Colonel CADELL to the Times on the subject of OMER PACER, confirms in many respects the opinions we expressed ourselves some two months ago. We firmly believe, now, as then, that the Turkish General is an injured man. The unfortunate part of all these discussions usually is that the public are impatient of military details, and, looking merely to results, take no trouble to inquire, if these are unfavorable, whether any other were possible or not. OMER PACHA did not relieve Kars. There is what such reasoners call " a broad fact," and on the strength of that they immediately forget all his former actions at the outbreak of the war,—that he made the Turkish army, which we had come to think could never be an army again, and triumphed over the Russians whom we considered so formidable both in strategy and in fair fight. But if his failure to relieve Kars be suf ficient to cover with ignominy a general who has done so much before, why should the failure to maintain it cover with glory a general who has done nothing ? The one is just as " broad a fact' as the other. So far as military science is concerned OMER PACHA has a right to be placed on at least an equality with General WILLIAMS, and why should not his condemnation of the attempt to hold Kars be received with as much respect as the strictures of the latter on the attempt to succour it ? Nobody, we should suppose, doubts the personal prowess of either soldier. General WILLIAMS exhibited great powers of resolute endurance, but that does not prove he was an eminent strategist. He deserves the laurels he has won. We do not begrudge them him at all. But he ought to make a better use of his influence among his countrymen than to sanction, in ever so remote a degree, an imputation upon one who strove to do his duty quite as manfully as himself. In regard to the lateness of the expedition, Mr. OLIPHANT'S account of this matter has never yet been overthrown or even subjected to any attempt at overthrowal. And so far as SELIM PACHA i 8 concerned, we can only say that our own experience of military men's opinions com pletely tallies with that of Colonel CADELL, and that competent judges, and among them distinguished officers who have served on the spot, consider it would have been madness for him to have left Erzeroum with such a force, and at such a moment. Lord STANLEY'S agricultural speech in North Lancashire is like all the addresses of a similar nature which the Noble Lord has lately delivered, practical, full of facts, and looking the Future in the face as boldly as the Present. The feasibility of high farming, machinery, and manure, were the three topics to which his Lordship principally addressed himself. Of the first he declared his opinion that it would be found the cheapest plan in the long run. He quoted the yearly saving of the people, and the sum which has been invested in railways during the last twenty years, as an incontestable proof of our pecuniary resources. He pointed out the propriety of making use of our sewage, and the almost certain failure, whether at a long date or a short one, of our supply of guano ; but at the same time explained clearly that it was not fanners who would be expected to be first in the scientific process of rendering our sewage available. On the subject of machinery and agricultural statistics Lord STANLEY'S remarks were equally sensible. It is this union of common sense and sympathy with agriculture, which in his Lordship is known to be real, with the appreciation of scientific aids, for which he is no less famous, which renders such appeals as these of real use to the farmer A professed lecturer he considers a charlatan, and is very often right. An ordinary country gentleman educated when these things were less attended to, can tell him nothing. But Lord STANLEY possesses all the qualifications requisite to insure him a patient and profitable hearing. Sir KAYE SnurnEwoaves speech was a useful addition to his Lordship's. Lord BLANDFORD'S letter to the Times on Saturday last, and the comments of that journal, call for a few brief remarks. When it is asked what loss of dignity the Bishops would sustain by becoming stipendiaries, the point at issue seems to be a little mistaken. Not but what they would thereby sustain such, and one we think likely to prove injurious to the interests of the Church; but the principal question is a constitutional one. It is folly to speak of Bishops in the same category with lay functionaries of the Crown. We do not bilk of Law and State, or of Medicine and State, or of Army and State, but of Church and State. These two together constitute England, and other men are members of them. So far, then' as theory is concerned, the identity sought to be established is purely fanciful. The evil consequences which might practically result from reducing the Church to the position of a mere profession we have before pointed out. If anybody wants further arguments we refer him to M. DE TOCQUEVILLE'S chapter on the French Church, as it existed before the Revolution of 1798, and as it exists now. The resolutions arrived at by the Select Committee on Trans portation contain a declaration in favour of the revival of that system, and also in favour of the continuance of tickets of leave. In regard to the expediency of the first point there are not probably now two opinions. Few convicts have sufficient mind to appreciate the advan tages which may await them in a new country, while the parting from wife and children, beershop and gin-palace, is a blow to the most brutalised as well as to the better sort. In respect of tickets of leav:. we certainly have the strong testimony of Sir JOHN PAKINGTON in their favour, yet we cannot smother a doubt whether after all the public feeling on the subject may not be in the right. Whether this be so or not, we are still met by the original difficulty-, how is the released convict to obtain employment? The Commissioners recommend " that every convict on his release with a good conduct licence, ought " to be reported to the police of the town or district to which he is sent." We know what this leads to. If the convict chance to get work he is very soon sent about his business, and takes to theft again with a comparatively clear conscience. Ile has tried to be honest, and failed. THE PRESS. 852