The Press. — London, England, 1855-05-05 00:00:00

.e* - - - Irol No. 105.—VoL. 111. LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1855. PRICE SIXPENCE. Ebt V rtss. fresh negotiations were in prospect, as he be lieved they could have no other result than to waste the time and injure the cause of the Western Powers. LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1855. "PRESS" OFFICE, Friday Night, May 4. THE Court of Vienna has submitted to the Allies the course which it recommends for concluding peace. It adopts, as a basis, the counter propo sitions of Russia, with the addition THAT TWO FRIGATES OF THE WESTERN POWERS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO CRUISE IN THE BLACK SEA. The rejection of this proposition by the Allies, though not offered as an ultimatum, will be looked upon by Austria as a conclusion of its engagements under the treaty of December. It is said that the Austrian scheme has been received with much favour at Paris. A MEETING is to be this day held in the City of London, for the purpose of establishing some kind of organisation to enforce Adminis trative Reform. The object is a legitimate one, but there are circumstances in connection with it which we are anxious to bring under the notice of rational men to whatever party they may belong. In a time of difficulty or danger, to mistake the true remedy is a fatal error. False sign-posts are worse than none. In our perplexity, to take a wrong road is not only to remove us further from the path of s tfety, but to exhaust the energy which might have fjund and followed it. Let us see how far the departments of the State—irrespective of their heads, the respon sible Ministers of the Crown—are answerable f 1r the disastrous circumstances of our na tional condition. From the statements of Lord CLARENDON and Lord JOHN RUSSELL, we arrive at the facts relative to the failure of the Vienna Con ferences. The Russian Plenipotentiaries would not listen to the proposals of France and England, and they would make none of their own. They refused a project to limit the strength of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea —they refused a project to make that sea neutral, and available only for commercial Purposes. The Conferences were thereupon suspended, and other proposals subsequently made by Russia were deemed inadmissible. Upon this explanation Lord DERBY re marked, on Thursday evening, that he heard, almost with regret, the extent of the conces sions proposed to be made to Russia, as they would have rendered the war useless and given no substantial security for peace. He heard too with concern, that fresh propositions and By the admission of the Government, then, concession on our part has been met with con tempt on the part of the enemy. We have stooped to sue, and our suit has been scorn fully rejected. We have exhausted every means of concession without shaking in the slightest degree the haughty hostility of our foe. Yet we are to continue to negotiate still. Let us hear Lord CLARENDON—" ANY pi oposi " tion that may be made to us shall receive " from Government a patient consideration." We say that this is the Ministers' own case. We do not comment on it—we are not in a condition to do so. This only is certain. We have been ridiculously duped by false profes sions, or the negotiation has been miserably mismanaged. What influence could " Administrative Re form" have on this situation? Are we to sup pose that Russia despises us for certain theoretical defects in our departments? Yet is it not established that the Administrative Departments of Russia are all grossly corrupt? What is the secret of her confidence and her strength ? There can be but one answer—the vigorous will of her Government. We turn to our army. There are in the Crimea at this time all the forces which our Ministers judged it expedient to prepare and to send out. The bombardment of Sebastopol began on the Ilth April and continued to the end of the month without producing any sensible effect on the town. There is no*, at least, no lack of ammu nition, of food, of clothing, of arms. What effect are we to imagine Administrative Reform would have on the siege ? Would it make our fire heavier, or discourage that defence of the enemy to which, in spite of national prejudice, the word " heroic" alone can apply? Would it make Lord HARDINOE a more enterprising general ? Would it affect those decisions of the Cabinet which are in effect the motive power that puts the whole machinery of the State into action? Imperfections are natural to institutions as they are natural to men, but great Administrators always know how to turn the agencies at their disposal to good account. We should hear little of the defi- ciency in departments if there was not infinitely greater deficiency in the Ministers who control them. In fact, the more perfect a department is, the more readily it yields to a guiding mind At best a department is but a machine. It cannot and should not work itself. It should obey the will which presides over it, to move backward or forward, to be more or less active. The better drilled a regiment is, the more ad mirably does it fulfil its functions under right command, and the sooner does it become dis organised under wrong command. A generous steed is docile to a practised rider. Like the elements of nature, branches of the public service are good servants but bad masters. You cannot have them at once obedient and self-acting. Irresponsible themselves by their very constitution, their faults and defects are solely chargeable on the responsible agents whose express duty it is to form, wield, and direct their forces. Our fleets are on the seas, and our army is in the field. Can it be through defect in our de partments that they are not inspired by some principle of action—that they have no design traced out for them—that they are not ani mated by the spirit of decided councils, and of courageous genius? Was it the fault of departments that the Duke of NEWCASTLE had made preparations for our army wintering in Sebastopol, or on the shores of the Bosphorus, but none for their wintering where they were forced to winter, on the bleak hills of Balaklava? It is for departments only to fulfil the designs of their responsible heads. If such designs be wanting, the departments are at fault ; if they be erroneous, the departments must go wrong. Last winter the Transport, the Commissariat, the Hospital, the Ordnance Services, all went astray and were found wanting, simply be cause the Duke of NEWCASTLE had calculated on contingencies which never occurred, and had made no provision whatever for the con tingency which did occur. Not the depart ments, but the Ministers, who were supposed to preside over the management of the war, were culpable. When the Chariot of the Sun rushed from its course, was it the fault of the fierey coursers or of presumptuous Phaeton who held the reins ? Thus it must ever be when faction usurps the place of intelligence, and a mighty nation, through false political combinations and cor rupt influences, has its destinies intrusted to au incapable Government. The cry for Admi nistritive Reform, on whatever grounds it may be founded, is at the present moment a gross delusion. We suspect it is raised to give the Whig party one more chance of continuing in power by making iflnocent officials the soape goat of its scandalous incapacity. The cry proceeds from those Ministerial back benches which support the Government with their votes while attacking them with their voices. How comes it that Administrative Reform is now so urgently needed after the Reform Bill has been in operation for almost the lifetime of a generation ? For what purpose but to correct abuses have the eloquent PELLATT, and the incorruptible WILLIAMS, and the magnani mous HALL, been sent to the Legislature ? There are no reforms in departments which an able Ministry would not be perfectly com petent to make, apart from organised move ments and pressure from without. This new agitation points to a conclusion it will not recognise. The great reform wanted is a total change in the responsible Ministers of the Crown. Were it practicable, which it is not, to make departments responsible to any other power than to the Ministers who are their nerr. ml and appointed heads, of what avail would their responsibility be, when we see what a byword responsibility has become by con tinuance in office of the Ministers on whose conduct a virtual vote of censure has recently been passed by the Commons? Success may not always be a test of merit, hut it is the only test which a nation can afford to apply to its rulers Disaster con demns them. Our Ministers have failed in every duty of a Government. They know neither howto command nor how to negotiate; how to fight nor how to administer. Superior minds are urgently demanded, and yet every change brings into the Government meaner capacities, more grovelling in their views and more abject in their submission to factious necessities and democratic With no energy in the forbearance amounting to Opposition, the country is at to its own direction. It may change of men and measures. dogmas. Government, with weakness in the it this moment left y resolve on a total s. It may demand 1