The Press. — London, England, 1855-01-13 00:00:00

26 ment after regiment came cheerfully out, although both officers and men suffered severe inconvenience. But the universal feeling was, "We will not desert our regi ment." The men, in many instances, aban doned a far higher rate of wages, although the diminution was serious to those who hgli families. The officers left the management of their estates, and quitted their avocations in life, at great pecuniary loss. We need not dilate on their exertions in their regiments. Sufficient testimony has been borne by Lord PALMERSTON and every speaker in Parliament to the efficiency into which they brought their eorps. The embodied Militia formed the reserve force of the country. It was small in num bers ; through the fault of Government, not their own. Lord PALMERSTON tells WI that all the regiments, without an exception, volun teered for service. They came forward at a time when no other force was in existence or was thought of, and they filled up the void occasioned by the departure of our regular troops to the war. Such services deserved reward. They earned for the Militia the right to rank next to the army, to be employed wherever our regular forces required help, and to receive all the promotion and honour to which such assistance could entitle them. They consti tuted a claim to liberal and generous treat ment in any fresh service to which Government might invite them. _ _ No such acknowledgment has been given. The first measure of the Administration was a circular in November, asking every regiment to send one fourth of its men as volunteers into the line. To reward the officers, the circular said, the Commander-in-Chief would give them ensigncies in the line, without purchase, in the proportion of one ensigncy for every seventy-five volunteers. The circular caused great dissatisfaction among the senior officers commanding companies. The reward was one which they could not accept, and yet they had performed all the labour of bringing their companies into a state of efficiency. In almost every instance the ensigncies were taken by junior officers, who had had no re sponsibility and done little work. The Foreign Enlistment Bill and the Militia Bill were brought forward in Decem ber. Instead of having the first chance of volunteering for active service, the Militia found themselves degraded to the second rank. Discharged land wehr and cast-off soldiers of every foreign State were to be preferred to them. These foreigners were not yet enlisted, they were without arms, and might not have borne arms for years, they never had been drilled together, and yet they were declared superior to the Militia of England ready armed, ready organised, and accustomed to act together. They were reserved to fight our battles, while the Militia were condemned to inactive garrisons. The inconveniences of the service offered in the Mediterranean are not slight. The volun teering regiment or provisional battalion is to be enlisted for only one place, Malta, or Corfu, or Gibraltar. It cannot be transferred to any other place without a revolunteering and a re enlistment on the part of every individual. The practical effect will naturally be to make it irremoveable ; a local militia of the particu lalgarrison to which it was sent. It will be a banishment from home, without the constant change and adventure which alone render such exile endurable. No hopes are held out of future opportunities of acquiring distinc tion, or of rising to eminence in the service. The only distinct intimation is that on being disembodied at the close of the war no half pay of any kind will be given. An officer who sacrifices his prospects at home, and gives up several years of the prime of his life to the service of his country, has only the certainty that he will be thrown at the termination of that period upon hie own resources. It is not right or fair to any body of men, much less to those who have rendered service to the State, to offer them suoh a career. Itplaces them in a false position. If they go, they injure their own prospects in life. If the service does not respond to the invitation of its Sovereign, it is disgraced. THE PRESS. Officers of militia say this :—" If fresh bat talions are required for actual service, they " can be formed from our ranks more rapidly " than they can be recruited in German States. " IVe have abundance of officers, still in the " Mime of life, who have seen service in the " line. We have, also, plenty of young MA " enterprising spirits, w h o have learnt their " duty, and will be only too glad to have the " opportunity of distinguishing themselves. " We should not object to eny intermixture et "line officers, or any regulations calculated to " promote our efficiency, but we do object to "the post of honour being snatched from us ",by foreign interlopers, men who have not " our nationality, and have not performed our " services. We are ready to enter any service " where we may win honour, but we do not " think it just that we should be condemned "to a service ,of inaction, without adequate " provision for our future life, and without a " chance of achieving distinction." HOW DO WARS BECOME POPULAR ? WE have been much interested in observ ing the gradual affect produced by the pro gress of the war upon the moral tone of our commercial classes. Previously to the com mencement of hostilities there was no passion for "glory" amongst our middle orders, who spend their lives in warehouses or behind the desk. That we were merely "a nation of " shopkeepers" might have been, two years ago, the safe conclusion of an observer con tent to base his. opinion upon the style of our newspapers and the talk of our private socie ties. But, probably, no national character is more curiously complex that that of our Eng lish race, for no other species of human being exhibits such opposite contrasts in one person as are to be seen in an Englishman when cool, and in the same man when his passions are aroused. Other nations inherit a physical temperament which is always, more or less, under the influence of emotion. French, Spaniards, and Italians, are prone to an eager demonstrativeness, to which our phlegmatic dispositions are repugnant. But when once the English passions swell, their vehemence has a sustained fierceness, formidable to all opponents, but sometimes in its excess attended with no small evils to its possessors. This strongly-marked phase of our national character may be seen at the present time. Competition and comparison with our foes and our allies have drawn forth a sudden martial aspiration from classes which some months since would have cheered invectives against the promoters of war sentiments. Passion has begun to play upon our national temper, and a burning desire to inflict humi liating discomfiture upon the enemy animates bosoms that but recently abhorred the slaugh ters, the crimes, and ruinous consequences of war. As it is now, so it often has been before, with our people. So far from acting as a drawback upon their excitement, it would even appear that commercial life has some tendencies to quicken a popular admiration for war. The routine of the desk is diversified for a time, and the formal iteration of a life passed in petty details is broken by the wel come intrusion of romantic sentiments. The sphere of common and every day existence seems enlarged. Visions of splendid events d4zzle and allure the imagination. Send zifents of " hero-worship " unconsciously are generated amongst the least chivalrous of society, and the vocation of the soldier be comes ennobled all at once to minds that dis paraged it not many months ago. An in creased sense of personal importance, and a confidence in his own powers, takes posses sion of many a mediocre spirit, intoxicated with the pride that results from reading of the splendid exploits of his countrymen in the battle-field. Such is the manner in which a passion for " glory," and a popular lust for war, are generated amongst nations. If in this process of national aspiration, this appreciation of martial life, there be some thing to admire, there is, also, not a little to make us cautious how such passionate senti- SATURDAY, ments are fostered. For unhappily it i s easier to stir than to slake the flames of dis cord; and mankind can be more readily preci pitated into war than urged into steady social progress. Nor should it be forgotten that semi-barbarous nations which recoil from the efforts necessary for civilisation can be easily induced to keep up arms to the very last. The feverish longing for war as a source of mental and physical excitement is one of the most karful marks of human corruption. In nothing do we more approximate to the fe rocity of the lower animals than in this rabid destructiveness which gloats over havoc and horrors, and revels in fancy over descrip tion of the dreadful deeds of the battle field. _ _ Unless, therefore, there he a truly great object in view, the war sentiment per es is positively demoralising, and is the source of numerous evils. Without lofty moral ends, capable of being practically realised, a popular war becomes perniciously prolific of unwhole some influences. Those who undertake to cherish and arouse war passions are bound to show that they advocate a war of reality, and not one which merely excites passions, but can possibly produce no profound moral ad vantages. In the present iustance many amongst our people fondly believe that this war, as it progresses, must necessarily even tuate in the liberation of certain nationalities. They do not care to inquire whether such can really he the case, and they are foolishly credu lous on the subject, forgetting that the Coali tion Ministers did not communicate to the country on what policy they have inaugurated the war. When inquiry was made from the Opposition benches as to whether there was a distinct understanding between the great Powers that the subject of the nationalities should not be stirred, there was no clear or satisfactory answer. In such a state of things, vague, objectless, and uncertain, the war sentiment becomes unwholesome. It is not hallowed by lofty purposes, nor justified by distinct aims. It degenerates into a love of excitement, gross in its origin, and silly in its manifestations. If we are to have the evil of war, it must be for something better than to im part variety to the current of our domestic life, and to give us " something to talk about." THE POPE AND HIS POLICY. WHILE all Europe has been occupied with the momentous struggle in the East, it is an extraordinary fact that the Church of Rome, true to its old policy, has made a great effort to reorganise its formidable influences, and concentrate them more closely against the spi ritual liberties of Christendom. Following her ancient practices, she has again shown singular craft in the propagation of her power. She has entered into the polemical arena simply, forsooth, for the purpose of dogma tically pronouncing upon a metaphysical doc trine of the schoolmen. It is merely for the stricter definition of a subtle point that she has called together two hundred and fifty prelates from various countries, from the shores of distant oceans, from lands of tropical luxuriance, and regions of eternal snow. Ah 1 they who would believe in her insidious smiles and learned words, as to the simplicity of her intentions in defining the " Immaculate Con eeption," must be even more credulous than the simplest of the votaries whom, from their birth, she has reckoned within her pale. The doctrine of the " Immaculate Conception" itself we shall not now discuss. Such theolo gical subjects can scarcely receive adequate treatment in journalism, and considerable space is required for their appropriate eluci dation. But we are justified in calling atten tion to the logical dilemma in which the Church of Rome has placed itself. Either the dogma is true, doubtful, or false. If it be positively true, and worthy of being matter of faith, as the Pope has now declared, how conics it that such a question was left un noticed by the self-styled Infallible Church Why has not the piety of devout worshippers been previously edified by the promulgation