The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-07 00:00:00

APRIL 7, 1855. complicated question, have often won our ad miration. His gladiatorial feats of intellect could not fail to gratify those fond of follow ing acute argumentation, supported by aca demic eloquence; but an attentive view of his career enables us to see how grave are the defects in a man whose character wants stamina _ _ Ingenious, versatile, and eloquent, Mr. GLADSTONE has never shown the capacities of a political leader. The fact is more remark able when we recollect how high is his pri vate reputation. Unlike Sir JAMES GRAHAM, the member for Oxford University is not obnoxious to charges which more or less compromise a man's personal dignity in the Senate. And yet, if not so sinister, the course of Mr. GLADSTONE is almost as oblique as if he had taken the member for Carlisle as his model. It has been our privilege to have heard Mr. GLADSTONE speak with all his power on the opposite side of several questions, and on no side at all on some topics. Constantly setting difficulties for his adversaries to solve, he has not unfrequently placed himself in the ridiculous posture of being tortured in his own mantraps. _ . _ The frequency of his falling into pitfalls exca vated by himself is enough to caution any sen sible person against choosing Mr. GLADSTONE for his guide. On the greatest political questions of his time, Mr. GLADSTONE'S former self has always been his most formidable adversary. He deliberately applied his in tellect to the subject of Church and State, and he has passed through a series of develop ments. We have seen him leaving the Cabinet of Sir ROBERT PEEL rather than increase the Maynooth endowment, and we have heard him justifying the aggression of Cardinal WISEMAN. He has been anti-Whig, and anti- Conservative ; he has been both at the same time, the first to advocate a Coalition, and one of the first to destroy it. A career of such instability would cover him with ridicule, but that the ingenuity of his intellect extorts admiration, even while his perpetual process of transition leaves him without confidence. A mind so forcible in its faculties, and so facile in conversion, is an object worthy of study. His personal antecedents partly explain the contrarieties of Mr. GLADSTONE. Close in spection reveals the strata in which his opinions lie in layers together. Scotch by descent, he is of Liverpool by birth, and of Oxford by sentiment. With the new aria tocracy (the " plutocracy" of COLERIDGE), and with the old Church, his personal sympathies are equally strong. A prEe-Lutheran in his theology, he is a post-Cobdenite in his political economy, and while his contemporaries believe in the Constitution, or in utilitarianism, or in Church and State, Mr.GLAnsTorix's sole trust is in his own logic. Yet, often trying to split him self into metaphysical hairs,he remains as great a riddle to himself as to hisneighbours. Nature has not given passion sufficient to assimilate his antagonisms, and thus greatly gifted, but not great, he remains an incarnate political conundrum, always puzzling to his friends, and often most amusing to his foes, in spite of his abilities. But a man who perplexes his followers can never become powerful. He who is always making his mind up, and setting the senti ments of to-day against those of yesterday, cannot be a lord of thought. Opinion spurns the control of tremulous volition, and seeks the sway of intellects that can wield free minds with the sovereignty of will. In our age a mere dialectician could never dominate, for the time is past when the rulers of Christen dom were selected from the serfs of ARISTOTLE. A statesman like Mr. GLADSTONE-90 subtle, so sharp, and so indecisive—can only realise the unsatisfactory mission of a Parliamentary Erasmus. He can sap one side more easily than he can strengthen the other. Admired and dreaded by both, he can never enshrine himself in the affections of either. To be incapable of strong sensations is for a man of mere intellect to be doomed to remain a nonentity. Without the emotions that soar, and thrill, and enkindle, it is impos sible to attain to a grand moral vision. When Mr. GLADSTONE aims at philosophy he attains rnly to casuistry. His synthesis is not large ; a THE PRESS. sense of the vastness of the questions which he has attempted to decide has never dawned on his mind. The means by which he tries to solve them shows the limits of his views. The line and plummet can give us the mensuration of lakes and rivers, but to measure the starry spheres more lofty science is required. So there are questions within the apprehension only of divining minds. On such complex problems men of formal logic and finished rhetoric fail, where more genial natures, by their sympathies and intentions, are fertile in suggestion. With all their wonderful qua lities the Jesuits have only partly succeeded. Ephemeral good and immense evil have been the fruit of a society of disciplined intellects, without manly emotions, family feelings, or national passions. And it is impossible not to observe that there is a parallel between Mr. GLADSTONE'S mode of reasoning on affairs, and that followed by the sons of LOYOLA. It is one of the arts of the Jesuits to exaggerate the worth of logic, and to disparage the beautiful instincts of home, family, and country. The intellect of Mr. GLADSTONE is eminently of that kind most prized by the Jesuits, keen, subtle, and with innate propensities to polemical exertions. What their society is to the Jesuits his own individualism is to Mr. GLADSTONE. He is an Order unto himself, and he supports his own interests as much from mental zeal as from self-love. " It may be fancy," said a shrewd observer, " but, looking on Mr. GLADSTONE and " Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT sitting side by side, " the latter with his rather saturnine face and " straight black hair, and the former emi " nently handsome, with his bright, cold smile, " and subtlety of aspect, I have often thought " that I was beholding the Jesuit of the closet " really devout, and the Jesuit of the world, " ambitious, artful, and always on the watch " for making his rapier thrusts." It is these phases of his character that must ever prevent Mr. GLADSTONE from be coming a great representative spirit amongst Englishmen. His nature is alien from that type of manhood—frank, resolute, and direct — most prized amongst a people who recoil from all that is tortuously refined. In English politics, Mr. GLADRTONE stands on the narrow est footing, extremely eminent, but strangely eccentric in his intellectual isolation, a Simon Stylites amongst the statesmen of his time. THE DISBANDMENT OF THE MILITIA. ENGLAND is doomed to another humiliation. It was not enough that her diplomacy had been outwitted ; that by insincere negotia tions and pacific protocols and promises she had been cajoled and deluded with the hope of peace till the preparations of her adversary were completed, and she found herself dragged into war with her forces still on the peace establishment. It was not enough that her army had been half ruined ; that the deficien cies of the Commissariat, the non-existence of the land transport corps, and the atrocities of the hospitals had at one time reduced her expeditionary force to a fourth of its original strength ; so that the civilised world resounded with exclamations of astonishment and contempt. We still could console our selves by hopes for the future. Errors were inseparable from the commencement of a war, and soon would be repaired. We had lost an army in the field, but we had a supplementary army at home. Before long the Militia would muster 136,000 men, a force sufficient for all the exigencies of the war. It would provide for our home defences ; it would garrison the Mediterranean fortresses ; it would be able to relieve the regiments in the colonies; and it would furnish inexhaustible supplies of volun teers for the regular army. With so large a reserve we could not be beaten. Alas for the vanity of human expectations ! The ground is suddenly cut from under us, the staff on which we were leaning snaps like a reed, the force on which we relied is fast vanishing from our sight. The Militia has had a double share of mismanagement. A crowning blunder has made it necessary to release the men from 319 their engagements, and at this moment num bers of militia regiments are virtually dis banded. The Third Staffordshire Regiment has suddenly become disembodied. Six hun dred and sixty were entitled to claim their discharge, and only 89 would remain ; 570 re turned home. In the West Essex regiment 192 were reattested, and 200 were discharged. In the West Kent 120 were reattested, and nearly 250 were released. The North Durham lost 175 out of 200. The South Durham, which had attained a high degree of efficiency, and was under orders fur the camp at Alder shott, has only 100 remaining. The full com plement of these two regiments is nearly 15,000 ; and their total strength only 185. The Suffolk Artillery retain 30 out of 140. The Royal Sussex is one of the best, having lost only 150 out of 400. Plymouth and Devonport are garrisoned by the Ist Somerset and the South Devon. The former is reduced from 600 bayonets to 180, the latter from 600 to 200. Fresh regiments have been ordered to proceed immediately to complete the garri son, but these are scarcely in a better state than the corps they join. Conceive the con dition of garrison towns and important arsenals, with only 380 men on duty, each of whom has a sovereign in hie pocket, and every temptation to spend it with his comrades in a mob of 830, just freed from all the restraints of discipline. We might multiply instances, but the above will suffice. They show the disorganisation which has taken place, and the total disruption of the regiments. This news will be welcome at St. Peters burg. It will lessen our influence at Vienna. The Czar will laugh at the proud nation who arrogated superiority over the armies of Russia, while unable to feed their regular troops or to keep their militia to their colours ; and Europe will deride the weakness of our measures and the incapacity which insures their failure. England has a different duty. She must adopt vigorous means to repair her losses. She must exact retribution for the past. She must take a guarantee for the future. What is that guarantee? Greater power, more boundless means, more unlimited confidence it is impossible to give. They have already been granted to the utmost, and they have been misused. It is no use voting millions when they are to be wasted, raising men when they are to be disbanded, or in trusting the resources of a country to Ministers who cannot wield them, and who, after all our efforts, after all our taxes, after all the lives that have been sacrificed to the desolation of thousands of hearths, paralyse the national strength, render impotent the national enthu siasm, and, in place of a harvest of glory, reap for us ridicule and disgrace. "OUR GOVERNMENT OFFICES." A PAMPHLET has reached us under the above title, the practical character and general good sense of which entitle it to fuller notice than such publications usually receive at our hands. We propose, first to analyse, then to comment upon, its contents. The writer deals with the actual state of the Civil Service, rather than with that which it may assume under altered regulations, or different conditions of society. He argues that reform is wanted now—that war will not wait—time fails to train up a new class of clerks. The existing service contains good raw material ill worked up ; its higher mem bers are gentlemen, and the number of edu cated officials whom it includes insures a large field of selection. The system is more in fault than the men. The best aro not brought forward—there is a vast amount of latent ability wasted, because unknown. The practical defects, according to the author, are as follows: First—a want of unity; defective intercom munication between the various offices. One department may contain more men of talent than it can find employment for, while another has not a single member who can be ranked under that category ; yet no transfer is pos sible. The state of things (if we may add an *illustration of our own) resembles that of the inland provinces of India, where from want of roads grain may be rotting uselessly in one '1