The Press. — London, England, 1856-06-07 00:00:00

530 last of a long series of concessions to the superior ascendancy and vigour of will shown by the representatives (both in London and Paris) of the Imperial Court of the Tuileries. Never, therefore, wits a Minister less suited than Lord CLARENDON for dealing with a emit munity like the Anglo-Saxon race of the Unites} States. Lord CLARENDON does not believe iq public passions. It is a proof of the narrowt. ness of his nature that he does not at all ap preciate the volcanic power with which " sen timent " inflames masses congregated in society. Lord CLARENDON, in his views of mankind, is only an economist u At the Board of Trade, or in the office filled by Sir CORNE WALL LEWIS, his Lordship might work with the talents adequate to such posts; but statistics, and proficiency in ADAM SMITH and his com mentators, will not give the hardy qualities peculiarly needed at the present eventful crisis by a Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In intercourse with individuals we admit that Lord CLARENDON may have some small show of success. His Lordship is specious, and apparently conciliating; but his courtesy and condescension are overdone. His reputa tion for insincerity may possibily be ex aggerated, though it is apparently confirmed by the unfortunate episodes in which his confidential Corry Connellans and Birches played their peculiar parts. We cannot for get, also, that Lord CLARENDON is, in the eyes of the Whigs, only a tolerated Minister of State. He is essentially a professional poli tician, and has been aptly called a " first-rate " aristocratic clerk." That is, certainly, near his exact measure. He did not win his rank by Parliamentary services ; he has no fol lowers, nor is he. the elected chief of a par ticular connection ; neither is he an orator, brilliant in reply, or formidable in attack ; but he is assiduous, and habituated *to the desk, and is, beyond doubt, s, capital clerk. In his Irish Viceroyalty Lord 'CLARENDON betrayed all the infirmities of his fidgetty and nervous disposition. liven already the same fluttering sort of mind has been revealed in this American complication. Fear is a rash counsellor, and, at such a time, we distrust a man of Lord CLARENDON'S characteristic ner vousness. THE INDIAN ARMY. IT would appear from the latest accounts that the Indian army is rapidly approaching a point in respect of under-officering beyond which it will be in the last degree unsafe to go. The Company's regiments bear on their muster-rolls very much fewer officers in pro portion than her Majesty's, and, there being no unattached or half-pay list, the whole of the staff of the army have to be provided from the regimental officers' ranks. Then, again, a very 1 tige body, the Commissariat, which in her M ijesty's service is a civil institution, wholly distinct, has in India to be filled by selection from the regimental officers' lists. There can be no doubt whatever that this mode of pro viding for it is infinitely the best as far as the efficiency of the Commissariat is concerned ; but, on the other hand, it brings with it a heavy draft on the regiments from which officers can so ill be spared. Besides this, nearly the whole diplomatic service of India is furnished from the list of regimental officers on full pay, as are most of the survey and public works appointments, and all the class of miscellaneous offices which in so vast an - [pire that of India are daily springing side. In the newly-annexed instance, the Civil Service is very led for by selection of officers . eral military corps, F.* much so . the majority. perhaps, of all the employed. Then, again, as the idia is reformed, the officers se charge of the several police corps military men ; and there are, whole of the irregular corps, ifantry, which are otficered in the .or is this an unimportant item, corps have now been increased in largely as to form almost an army Reckon in addition to all this an empire as tl up on every provinces, for i largely provide from the sere that they form persons thus e police of Indii lected for cha are always ix besides, the ti cavalry and inl Billie way. N( ' for these Corp number so lark in themselves. 1111116._ THE PRESS. the officers absent from their regiments on furlough, sick leave, &c., and it may be imagined that the number left for duty at head-quarters is becoming infinitesimally small. now, with offigers, regiments are at the best mpst imperfeo machines ; discipline ig neglected, °niers are unheeded, and all sob dierly feeling* end l} its are forgotten. That is the best state of .bings that can happen under such a want, if so long continued as to be an habitually prevailing one. The worst state it is fearful to poutemplate, and will be unnecessary to describe. Those, however, can easily imagine it who know that our native soldiery in India is composed of men who are not our countrymen, and who bear towards us no feelings of natural allegiance ; men who are kept well affected to us solely by the habit of being commanded by us—by the readiness with which we listen to and redress their grievances, by liberal pensions well secured to them, and by regularly issued and most excel lent pay. The pay and pension part of the question are, of course, not affected by the absence of any number of the European officers, but in other respects a marked differ ence is soon perceptible when there is not a sufficiency of such officers on the effective strength. And if such be the state of things in time of peace, what must it be in war, when, owing to the additional absences from casualties, the evil is greatly increased, and this at a moment when the necessity for European officers is so much more pressingly felt? To be sure, in such cases, all staff officers who can be spared are remanded pro tempera to regimental duty, but it seldom happens that any great number can be spared at such periods, as the same necessity for additional officers in war time applies almost equally to the staff. Nor are officers thus remanded of much use generally, for they come back disgusted at losing even for the moment the more high), prized situation they have left; and, besi4,sa, they have for the most part long since ceased to have any communi cation with, or knowledge of, their men. In such car tia the best officer loses half his value, for in war time nothing hardly can compensate for a want of knowledge and of sympathy with those placed under one's command. Under these circumstances it is with great satisfaction that we learn, on the authority of the Indian prints, that General ANsoN, the Commander-in-Chief in India, has brought the matter under the consideration of the Go vernment in terms so strong as almost neces sarily to enforce attention to the representation he has made. The evil is one which has been of long duration, and by nearly every succes sive commander-in-chief an attempt to obtain a remedy for it has been essayed ; but the vast drafts made latterly for civil employment, and for officering irregular regiments iu the Plinjaitb, Nagpore, Pegu, and Oude, have brought matters apparently to a head. At the same time, though the evil is obvious, and the necessity of doing something to meet it pressing, it is not so easy a matter to hit on that something as might be supposed—or rather, we should say, it is not so easy to obtain from the Home Government the sanc tion to the expense which so large an addi tion to the number of European officers in I India, as any thorough cure for it, must neces sarily involve. Still in such, cases the first expense is usually found to be the least, and it will be more economical in the long run to face the matter boldly than to stave off the question till the army shall have become dis organised and the power of applying a remedy is past. The simplest and best plan, and that most strongly advocated by the highest authorities upon the point, is the formation of a staff corps for India, or, more properly speaking, the placing all officers permanently required for duties apart from their regiments on full pay unattached. The difficulties that have been raised in respect of this are more imaginary than real, for nothing would be easier than to direct officers on the staff to be taken off the rolls of their regiments and placed upon an unattached list, filling up the vacancies in the regimental lists by the pro motion in succession of the officers below them. The mode of promoting the unattached SATURDAY, officers afterwards to the higher grades when fairly entitled to them might be arranged by giving them the higher commission in each instance on tl4O day an which, had they re mained with their reginiente, they would have in the cgqrse of seniority attained it. With a view of obviating diffietiliies from remands to their °gyps, the pistrictigns as to the grades of tl4e holders of st uppgintinents might be particula Onee unmeaning ones at presen;, in #Q44 in relation to various office; coming under the desig na ti on of civil employ. This would have little lik e lih ood of remand, except for causes hardly necessary to provide very favorably for, and in those the officer might he sent back as a supernumerary to the corps from which he had been taken out. This seems a better mode of supplying the absence of so many officers from their regi, ments on staff duties than the plan which General ANsoN is said to have proposed. The General's plan would be calculated to shift the evil only instead of removing it ; his idea being to provide for the wants of Bengal by drafts from the officers of the Queen's service in India, and from the army of Madras. The Queen's army in India, and the Madras army, should doubtless be allowed to par icipate to their full share in the advantages which staff employment bestows; but this would entail a corresponding decrease in their present regi mental efficiency, unless the officers going on the staff were transferred to an unattached list, and the vacancies in the regiment filled up in the manner that we propose. THE CABINET AND IRISH TENANT RIGHT. THE conduct of the present Ministry in rela tion to the tenant-right question is extremely culpable. Some of the officials connected with the Irish department are more particu larly liable to censure, and their proceedings ought to mit for an explanation. The tenant-right question is only an un solved problem in political economy. In England the landlords make the improve ments, and charge rent accordingly ; in Ireland (for the most part) the tenants make the im provements, and the question for solution is, how to compensate these tenants when thei leases determine. We regret to say that the subject cannot be left to the Irish landlord ,- , or to the laissez faire system, or " no.system," of modern political economy. The general laws of trade, of compact between buyer and seller, do not apply to this particular case. It is a problem, certainly, but we do not believe it to be impossible of solution. • Though it should not be left to such deeply interested parties as the landlords of Ireland, neither should it be handed over to the murder clubs of Ireland. Parliament has left the question to " Political Economy," and the agrarian code has accordingly been enacted in its bloodiest form in several counties of Ireland. Now, let us see what the present Govern ment has done, and not done, upon this sub ject of twenty years' standing. The question was to be brought before the House on Wed nesday. Mr. GEORGE MOORE was identified with it, and his antecedents ought to have taught the Government that they should have been prepared to meet him. Ministers were napping ; Mr. HORBEAN was " elsewhere." Mr. GEORGE MOORE succeeded in getting a most equivocal bill, with many dangerous provi sions, read a second time by a majority of $8 to 59. What then takes place? On the next morning (Thursday) a reck lessly-penned article appears in a favorite organ of the Cabinet, written in a remarkable style, and urging on the House of Commons to fling overboard the measure which it had i approved of the day before. A newspaper s appealed to in order to atone for the ladies of the Government! Then Mr. HoasmAs gots down to the House of Commons on Thursday night, and abuses the "Tenant League" of its resources. and contemptuously derides resources. The good easy man forgot that the agrarian disturbers had long since Iva-