The Press. — London, England, 1855-10-27 00:00:00

1014 delusions." The grave Dutch were once half crazed about tulips, but our political and com mercial bubbles have been far worse than floricultural follies. We have had " The " Young Pretender in the Warming-Psi," " South Sea Stock," " Wilkes and '45,' " th• " Cock-lane Ghost," " Field Preachers," dow*. to the follies of our own times, including the frenzy of the fo,tal " 18.25," " St. John Levy," " Cold Water Cure," " Teetotalism," " Railway Shares," and " Spirit-Rapping." But the cata logue has too much sarcastic eloquence of its own for us to enumerate the particulars, which touch us too poignantly. Of all the manias to which our English society is subject, the rage for meddling with the affairs of small communities is of the most singular kind. A petty territory—whose name is probably omitted by some of the gazetteers, and whose frontiers have the same proportions to European demarcations as the borders of a Kidderminster carpet to the boundaries of England—cannot go right unless its internal affairs be supervised and regulated from our too famous " F. 0." in Parliament-street. We must conquer Brobdignag, and we must also dwarf our minds to the backstair -in. trigues of each atom of the Lilliputian Confe deration. The late Doctor CHALMERS told us a few years ago that we were living in " an age "of little men and little measures. The squab Ming policy of Lord PALMERSTON realises that description. Our Premier personifies our mania for meddling. And it is time for us to bestir ourselves, unless we desire to become thoroughly ridicu lous to the whole world. Our diplomacy, under Lord PALmEasTon's auspices, is becom ing purely ludicrous. Its cumbrous machinery is applied to the arrangement of trifles beneath contempt. Village scandals are exaggerated into diplomatic questions of momentous im portance. Somebody, in some place, pulls another body's nose, and their respective na tions must have recourse to protocols. The most contemptible squabbles are brought before the Cabinet of the British Empire. Under no other Prime Minister was there so much personal acrimony, such envenomed littleness, such constant spleen about trifles, RS under Lord PALMERSTON. He was once called the " Captain Rock of Europe," and the unmeaning lawlessness of agrarian outrage is not inaptly imitated in the desultory fierceness and blustering arrogance of our Prime Minis ter's mode of regulating foreign affairs. There is scarcely a country in the world where we are not now involved in a diplomatic entanglement about some ridiculous trifle, entirely beneath the statesmanship of a great empire. In Greece a Minister insists upon introducing to the Court a lady of doubtful reputation. The Queen resists; then comes a Ministerial crisis, and all our diplomacy is set at work. Could anything be more ridiculous than our interference in such petty Court scandals at the other end of Europe ? If Mayfair was gossiping for a week about the tattle of the Orkneys or the Hebrides, or if the Secretary for the Home Department were called on to act in a case of female small-talk about what Mrs. Honour said of Mrs. Abigail and John Thomas, we should all laugh. But our attempt to arrange all matters in the case of the alleged " black sheep," at the Court of Greece, is equally absurd. At Tuscany, the matter is almost more ridiculous. A squabble about an attache of the Sardinian Legation is magnified into a mighty affair, as if it were as serious as some of the causes of quarrel between CHARLES V. and FRANCIS 1. And then, crossing the Atlantic, we fi nd that our Foreign office busybodies are all in a fidget on account of some despicable filibustering expedition. The steam is to be got up to an Armada-panic temperature. Im mense events are looming in the distance, when, lo two or three suspicious-looking craft are seen hull-down in the horizon ; our West Indian fleet gives chase, " England expects that every —" little middy should have a laugh at the blunders of the big-wigs and the farce ends—not in another Trafalgar, but after the plan of battle in the Critic: — ",The Yankee fleet I cannot see, because 'tie " not in sight !" We will certainly back Lord PALMERWON against any public character in the world for THE PRESS. nursing a whitlow into an ulcer. His poli- tical habit is so inflammatory, so constitution ally excitable, that tile prick of a pin is a grave wound in hie ease. To exaggerate trifling grounds of irritation into serialist causes of anger, is a Aktal and foolish matey. " This oeunti7 cannot afford little wars," sal WELLINGTON ; nor can it. The consequences of this mania for Puddling aro ruinous and also ridiculous. A " busybody" is always mis chievous to himself, while the cause of mirth to his neighbours. Dramatists and novelists in all ages have delighted in painting the character of one who minds everybody's busi ness but his own. The character has a popular relish, because it is so readily recognised. John Bull is now playing it before the world. Foreigners may take his "F. 0." in Downing street as a contraction for Figaro, the cypher letters which supply the key to our Premier's foreign policy It is time that public opinion should pronounce decisively against this preposterous system of intermeddling. The dirty little intrigues of dirty little Courts are things that ought to be beneath British statesmanship. When some one asked why Cossarr brought home the bones of Tom PAINE from America, a wit answered, " I suppose to make a broil." But our Premier now does the work of the demagogues that flourished in the days when he was following BEAU BRUMMELL. When the remonstrance of England is called for, it should be calmly deliberate in thought, grave in its tone, and thoroughly ear nest. It should be inspired with the majestic spirit of a mighty empire. We should not threaten without being prepared to act, and the language of habitual menace should be avoided as insulting to others, and un worthy of ourselves. Trifles should be de spised, and our conduct in relation to other countries should be thoroughly becoming the dignity that we possess. HOW THE MONEY GOES. A LETTER in the Morning Herald of this week lets us into the secret of how some of our millions are disposed of in " the vigorous prosecution of the war." In our zeal to assist our excellent ally the Sultan, we have made an attempt, at vast expense, to embody some of the vagabondage of his dominions in various corps. First we have those " irregular cavalry" —very irregular, indeed—the Bashi Bazouks; next, the " Turkish Contingent ;" then the " Turkish Land Transport Corps." These various bodies may be capable of doing good service, but they seem very reluctant to allow us an opportunity of putting their valour and ability to the proof. The Bashi-Bazouks are ready to fight every one but the enemy ; and as for the other two corps, the order that they were to embark for the Crimea was the signal for their simultaneous desertion. How will some future Joseph Hume feel when, turning over dusty files of old newspapers, he comes on the following paragraph : _ - - - Constantinople, Oct. 11. General Vivian returned from the Crimea on the 9th, and immediately after his arrival orders were given to the Contingent to embark for Yenikale and Kertch. The sol diers, I am sorry to say, have been worked iik) to oppose this order, and when it was known that the Crimea was the point selected for winter quarters they became excited, and about five hundred deserted. Of this number but three have been retaken, the rest having returned to their villages. The same thing occurred with the drivers of the Land Transport. They unanimously agreed to run away, which, indeed, they did at night, leaving their cattle, and taking to the hills. About 220 drivers have since returned, on the pro mise of a free pardon, but several hundred are still absent. As for the horses and mules, more than one hundred and fifty have been stolen. It is time to do something with the Con tingent. The experiment has already cost the British Go vernment upwards of three millions sterling, and no results have accrued thereof. - - ------ The Land Transport Corps would appear from this account to be the best disciplined of our Turkish auxiliaries. They deserted " unanimously," but, on the other hand, the " Contingent" seems to have unanimously re solved not to be retaken. Three out of five hundred are a meagre per centage. The animals of the " Transports" have been so repeatedly stolen, that it is a curious subject for speculation how often the same horses and SATURDAY, mules have been repurchased by our autho rities for the use of the corps. We agree with the correspolideat of the Herald, it is time to do something with this Contingent, but wkat? The men have cost us so much that &strong body of the Landon police might be useful to keep watch over them. As for tke Bashi-Bazoidlul, their movements have bee* so irrest b r i la that it is impossible t o keep acceount of The reports concern ing their commander, General BEATSON, are as conflicting as those spread by the Chinese rebels of their Mrs. Harris-like Emperor, YANG-Tar-KuNo. At one time he is murdered, at another a prisoner, and at another pre paring to march at the head of his force against some offending Pacha, who objects to the Bashi-Bazouks making a target of the bodies of his officers. The last account of him is—that he is dismissed from his command. Perhaps to-morrow we may hear that his faithful Bashi-Bazouks have recovered him, and have stuck the head of the Pacha, his enemy, on a pole at his tent door. There is much that is amusing in a letter we publish elsewhere, from the Dardanelles, only that in reading it we cannot help heaving a sigh over our lost "three millions sterling." ARE HIGH PRICES CAUSED BY THE WAR ? A QUESTION has been raised at agricultural meetings whether the present high price of produce is mainly to be referred to the war or other causes. General opinion at these gatherings seems to connect rising markets with a continuance of hostilities. The farmers are contented ; rates are realised which no one ever expected to see under free trade ; and there is an universal admission of agricultural prosperity. The question is one to be cautiously ap proached. Supposing that the excessive prices which now prevail were really caused by the war, we must set them down to the ac count of those inevitable evils which in one way or other war is sure to bring in its train. All war involves wasteful expenditure, for which sooner or later the nation must be pre pared to pay. The account may accumulate, but it is not to be got rid of by postponement. We all know what frightful distress was caused among every class of our community by the reaction from high prices at the close of the last war, and what an artificial system it was found absolutely necessary to adopt to save the landed interest from absolute ruin. Supposing the same causes were now at work, the same results would in degree attend the termination of the war, whenever that might be; and when the balance was struck agricul turists would have little cause to congratulate themselves on the excessive rates which for a time had benefitted them. The effect of high profits is immediate—the producer finds his means at once enhanced. It is not so with the expenses which are attendant on high prices. They creep on at a slower pace, they gradually follow rising rates, but also they re main for a time behind them. Take the case of rent for example. It is not raised on account of the high prices of one year or two, but it is surely raised if those prices assume any character of permanency. The proprietor of the soil has a struggle to get more from the cultivator while the upward ac tion goes on ; but, on the other hand, the cul tivator has a struggle to induce the owner to take less when the downward movement has set in. Both parties wait to see whether the move ment is merely accidental, or arises from causes likely to endure. It is the same with other items of expense. If, therefore, the farmer is the first to profit by rising prices, ho is the first to lose from falling ones. The farming interest which throve on the exces sive rates of the last war was beggared when it came to a close. But there is solid ground for believing that the present high rates are at least only partly attributable to the war. The interruption of the supplies from the Black Sea, joined to the , demand for the stores_ necessary to feed the