The Press. — London, England, 1855-05-12 00:00:00

438 highest council of the land maintains vigilant watch over our interests and honour, and will not permit the one to be sacrificed nor the other sullied through treacherous political combinations or family intrigues. No insti tution of our time can afford to rest on tradi tionary glories or historical recollections. Ti maintain its place as a real governing body in the State, the House of Lords must show that it is equal to its constitutional duties, add ready to discharge them. The Address of Lord ELLENBOROUGH will test both its capacity and courage, and probably have no mean effect in determining the place it will hereafter hold in the regard of the country and the direction of its affairs. MR. SIDNEY HERBERT AT CONFESSION. THE evidence given by Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT on Wednesday, before the Sebastopol Coln mittee, must on no account be overlooked by those who desire to trace with accuracy the causes of our grievous disasters. Both as affecting the Cabinet to which he belonged, and the department in which he served, it is impossible to overrate the importance of the testimony given by Mr. HERBERT, and we must request tho special attention of our reader 3 while commenting upon it. Before doing so, we may record that the evidence was given in a manner highly characteristic of Mr. HERBERT. The candour of an accom plished English gentleman was occasionally diversified by the artificial casuistry of the peculiar school of mediaeval revivalists to which he belongs. The goodness of his natural disposition was evident throughout, and yet there were not wanted traits of that dogged ness in hardy assertion which belongs to a condemned ex official. At times there was a little graceful assumption of an air of suffer ing martyrdom, which might provoke a good humoured snub, and it was impossible to avoid admiring the piano of the witness' manner, even while regretting his want of forte in execution. Ho confessed his errors as gracefully as if Father Roebuck, in a priestly chair, were going to shrive him for all his official peccadilloes, or as if some fair Belgmvian artist was in a corner of the Committee-room, making a sketch for the gallery at Wilton, of a " Portrait of a Right Honourable Victim to Public Opinion." But on the importance of Mr. HERBERT'S admissions there cannot be two opinions. He gave additional proofs at the outset of his evidence to the flagrant fault of " the leap in " the dark " error. Apologists for the Coali tionists have attempted to give different con structions to the memorable despatch of the Duke of NEWCASTLE to Lord RAGLAN (10th April, 1854), ordering the siege of Sebastopol. " I think the expectation was in favour of a " coup de main," was the admission of Mr. HERBERT on Wednesday. From that cala mitous and most precipitate "expectation" resulted the disasters of the long protracted siege, of whose probability, or possibility, the Cabinet never seems to have conceived. We have dwelt, previously, on the terrible results of that huge blunder, and we shall not repeat our observations, though we must remind our readers of the additional importance derived from Mr. HERBERT'S substantiation of our charges We prefer, here, to direct notice to the overwhelming exposure by Mr. HERBERT of one of the greatest fallacies diffused by the ingenious apologists for gross Ministerial mismanage ment in Downing-street. Hitherto, " the system " and " the subordi nates" have been made to bear the blame of the mistakes of the chiefs of the War Depart ment. After Mr. HERBERT'S evidence on Wednesday, we trust to hear no more of the plea of " the subordinates." Lord SEYmona inquired " whether the witness had been " satisfied with the way in which the duties " connected with his department were dis " charged ?" and Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT an swered, " I am bound in gratitude to the " gentlemen employed in the War office to say " that I believe it is the best constituted office " under the Crown. My subordinates worked THE PRESS. " with great zeal. I made great demands on ' " their time; their office hours were lengthened, " but I never heard a murmur. Never was a " man better stirred bg his subordinates than I " was." For this candid and concluikve admission we thank Mr. HERBERT. NI honourable frankness with which he test* to the merits of " the subordinates" does hilt gloat credit, ktid ice acknowledge that it ill with pain we are obliged to expose some of the serious errors of that department of which Mr. HERBERT was • chief. We always felt regret at seeing an amiable and accomplished gentleman like Mr. HERBERT placed in a fatal pre-eminence by the arduous intrigues of his political connections, who would insist upon it that both the Duke of NEWCASTLE and Mr. HERBERT were endowed with great " admi " nistrative abilities." Thus, quoad the Cabinet, the evidence of the principal witness this . week before the Sebas topol Committee confirms the charge as to the heinousness of "the leap in the dark" blun der, while exonerating " the subordinates " from censure for our principal misfortunes. Let us now see, quoad the War Department, how the evidence of Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT him self crimivates its recent " heads." The utility of " division of labour," and the value of simplicity of design in gaining a dis tinct purpose, seems to have never crossed the mind of Mr. HERBERT. As we listened to his candid answers on Wednesday, at the end of every dozen sentences, the operation of the Duke of NEWCASTLE'S significant phrase, " It " grew out of the circumstances," seemed to be echoing in our ears. Mr. HERBERT'S own posi tion in the War-office "grew out of the eir " cumstances." He turned himself into a fac totum general, and tried to play as many parts as Caleb (Motor". The weakly and indecisive touches of an amateur dallying with his purpose was visible in all his acts. He filled no distinct specialty. Responsible for no one branch, he meddled with every question. Sometimes he interfered as "only assisting " the Duke of NEWCASTLE ;" and on other occasions he acted in proprid persona as Secretary-at-War. Now he appeared as offi cially supervising the military hospitals, and again he figured as " a friend of Miss N [CHITIN " GALE." Yesterday he spoke as a Cabinet Minister, to-day he would talk as a senti• mentalist, and on to morrow he might be sure to appear as acting from some passing mood of amiable impulse, but ineffective benevo lence. In the meanwhile, troops without clothing, food, and shelter, hospitals in horri ble derangement, testified that dire calamities " grew out of the circumstances," that the chiefs of the War-office were not men of the " administrative ability" which they were pro claimed to he by their panegyrists, and which they believed themselves to be, in their in fatuated ambition for wielding the thunder bolts of war The Medical Department seems to have been peculiarly under the special cognisance of Mr. HERBERT, and yet it was that which most completely failed ! Our readers recollect the evidence of General EvAus, and his remark that it would appear to have been contem plated that there were to be no wounds at all. Now observe the culpable conduct, not of " the subordinates," but of the chiefs of the War office. 1. " The expectation was that Sebasto " pol was to be carried by a coup de main.' 2. It is not denied that in the month of February, 1854, the eminent military surgeon, Mr. GUTHRIE, submitted an excellent plan for the medical arrangements of the expedition. 3. Mr. GUTHRIE pointed out the necessity of a third assistant surgeon to each regiment, and he drew the attention of Ministers to the deficiency of the general mcdical staff. Yet, though thus forewarned, were the War Ministers forewarned as they ought to have been ? That question is at once answered by a brief extract from the crushing letter of Mr. GUTHRIE, in the Times of yesterday (Friday, May 11.) Mr. GUTHRIE states : At the battle on the Alma there ought to have been twelve medical-officers with the Brigade of Guards. General Bentinck, in his evidence, says there were six, but of that he tells me he is not quite certain ; and I have reason to believe there were only five, and the conse quences I need not point out. With that fact in their remembrance, let SATURDAY, our readers turn to the evidence of Mr. SID NEY HERBERT on Wednesday, and what will they find him to have said? Mr. Boum reminded Mr. S. Hatitikiti of the speech in the House of commons, in which the then Secre tary of War liinited the medical men at Scutari, and then Was asked how to reconcile his official promises with I.tie proven state of the hospitals, and Mr. H.ERBERT ausvvers— with mere casuistry than candour—" As " medical men they exerted themselves well, " but as organisers they broke down." But did it not occur to the witness that organisation is not one of the special things to be expected from military medical men ? Would it not have been becoming in him to have recollected the paucity of their numbers, the burthen of their duties, the ambulance of pensioners sent out from the War-office, and the enormous quantity of work cast upon the deficient Medical Staff? And it is thus throughout the whole of Mr. HERBERT'S evidence. He had sympathy in misery, but he had not the skill by which, with some forethought, it might have been greatly mitigated. Beyond taking an active part in sending out Miss NIGHTINGALE, we do not see of what service Mr. HERBERT was in his post, even with all the kindness of his manners, and amiability of his intentions. The Peelites prided themselves on their rows of statistics and facility in returns. Have they perused the awful return moved for by Mr. LOCKE KING? It appears that about five thousand British troops were lost from actual conflicts with the foe, and thrice that number (at least) have perished—from what? Not from " the subordinates"—but from a Cabinet, which intrusted the War-otfice to inexpe rienced chiefs, who provided for certain evils after " they grew out of the circumstances,' and which calculated on carrying Sebastopol by a coup de main, without knowing ought of its defences. LORD PALMERSTON'S GOVERNMENT. THE feelings of the nation at the period which immediately' preceded ' the overthrow of the Aberdeen Coalition appeared to he so intense, its convictions deemed so profound, and its tone so determined, that it would have been thought an act of monstrous daring to impugn its sincerity or resist its purpose. He who had ventured to predict that the sentiments which so generally prevailed with regard to the mode in which the war had been con ducted under the sinister auspices would prove to be shallow, vapid, and evanescent, would have found his prophecy received with indignant contempt or scoffing incredulity. Such an one would have been told that he mis conceived the genius and the spirit of the English people. He would have been re minded that though the public mind might be slow to be taught and difficult to be awakened, when once the lessons of wisdom were en forced by the admonitions of experience— when once enlightened to feel the ign )miny of the yoke to which it had been subject—its course was bold, its decisions rapid ; nor would it rest till every link in the degrading chain was broken, and it stood erect in the proud consciousness of a realised enmancips tion. How have these bright anticipations been fulfilled, and this high character vindicated? The Government of Lord ABERDEEN fell not from intestine divisions : it had held its place, we will not say with dignity, but at least with the semblance of strength, though long dis tracted by conflicting counsels and low in trigues. But its disruption was the deliberate act of the community, roused to indignation by the accumulated evidences of its disastrous blundering. The vote which was taken ou the memorable motion of Mr. ROEBUCK was pronounced to be an overt expression of national distrust and parliamentary reproba tion. The country would no longer tolerate the rule of a Cabinet which, while arrogantly assuming to itself a monopoly of legislative capacity, had shown itself weak and ignorant, timid and irresolute, and, by its infatuate