The Press. — London, England, 1856-10-11 00:00:00

OCTOBER 11, 1856. THE EARL OF CARDIGAN AND COLONEL BUCK, M.P. COLONEL Bucies reply to the letter of the Earl of Cardigan, published in last week's PRESS, has ap peared this week:— Hartland Abbey, Oct. 2,1&76. My Lord,—My letter of the 20th was intended to convey is a few words a reply to yours of the 18th, containing an extract from the Daily News paper. It seems my attempt has failed to please you, and, having no wish to evade the expres3ion of my feelings upon the subject, I gratefully avail myself of the opportunity which you have afforded me fur giving a fuller interpretation of my speech at Tor. iington. You are anxious to know why your speech at Leeds appeared to me unsatisfactory. My dissatisfaction, in great measure, coincides with the much severer condemns lion which you will find in the Times newspaper of Sep tember 4th. This newspaper is no scurrilous portion of the press. It can hardly have escaped your notice, and I yet wait for the violent language with which you question * statement contained in it, that your speech at Leeds *" was a falsification of history ," the writer in that news pi.per said more : indignantly lie adds, " England failed utterly in playing a great part in the late campaign. From the beginning to the end, mistakes, quarrels, short-sighted. Delis, want of skill, want of common professional know ledge, marred the exertions of the British army. From the first reconnaisance in Bulgaria to the last attack upon the Redan there were, on the testimony of highplaced officers themselves, proofs of unmistakeable incapacity and folly. The men died, the horses died, the hospitals were without stores, the camp without victuals. A brigadier @ezieml of cavalry (your lordship) executes a movement which the general of division declared to have impaired his forces, while the general of division orders a charge whiok Pais subordinate (your lordship) takes every occasion to sneer at as indicative of ignorance, or worse." Such sneers and such insinuations against your late ,commanding officer cannot fail to disgust others than the writers in the Times newspaper, and again call to our ressollection how the horses starved under your command with stores at Balaklava—distant about seven miles ; how Y 0 • lordship, leaving your companions, your privations, an d ) . our command, sought the comfortable shelter of your yacht—.' act of generalship unrecorded in the history of o th er cava. h7 commanders. Your lord,:hip has done me the honour of writing a very interesting account of some portion of the cavalry affair at Balaklava. As the friend of Captains Nolan and Lockwood, I have not failed to gather the details of their gallantry and death. Your lordship, however, may be aware that individuals, newspapers, a book written by a Mr. Ryan, mid to be bought at railway stations, have ques tioned your skill and judgment with reference to another ration of that battle, and your lordship may, perhaps, on a figure occasion complete your narrative by giving details of the skill, judgment, and coolness with which you rallied and drew off your men from that terrible en counter. Your lordship evidently requires from me some explana tion of my allusion to the sums of money paid for your advancement in the army. Considering your lordship and Colonel Morris to be types of the two differing systems of promotion in the English army —your lordship represent ing that of advancement by money without distinguished merit; Colonel Morris, on the other hand, illustrating that of advancement by distinguished merit in the field before the enemy in India and in the Crimea—l congratulated Colonel Morris upon having achieved by merit what it was reported your lordship had attained at the cost of between 30,0001. and 40,000/, My attention was called to this matter by a return which was circulated among members of the House of Commons, giving the dates of promotion of every staff officer who had served or was then serving in the Crimea. Your lordship's promt.tion, without any distinguished, or, I believe, foreign service, was by far the most rapid of any officer. In May, 1824, your lordship was a cornet; in December, 1830, you obtained your lieutenant-colonelcy. lour lordship was subsequently removed from the command of your regiment for organising a system of espionage in your orderly room by which you gathered matter for a court martial upon Captain Wathen, a distinguished officer. Captain Wathen was acquitted of the charges preferred by your lordship, and you were removed from the command of your regiment. Notwithstanding this, your promotion went on, and in 1848 you obtained your colonel's commis sion. I confess, upon looking over this return, I en deavoured to ascertain from those acquainted with the Horse Guards' machinery how your lordship had attained such rapid promotion. I failed in understanding the process, but I was informed your lordship's advancement had cost you 34,000/. Jf your lordship to secure your advancement were compelled to expend so large a sum, the inference can only be that an officer without such resources would fail in his advancement in the British army, and that money—not merit—decides the destiny of her officers. I shall be happy to join ultra• Radicals or any other class of politicians during the next session of Parliament in securing for the army a more just and efficient system of promotion. I believe, with you, the British public, although liable to deception, in the end judges a just judgment of the merits of her serva n ts, an d I w ill conclude with one more short extract from the same article in the Time. newspaper of September 4, " That no such oratory as has been lately listened to should he allowed to blind the public to facts which less partial communities daily comment on. While in the eyes of both allies and enemies our army was re duced to a contingent by the incapacity of its chiefs, no provincial speeches at home can permanently raise the 'THE PRESS. character of the men who thus worked its ruin, and lowered the national fame."—l have the honour to remain, my lord, your lordship's obedient servant, Gioll4l STIICLZY BUCK. The Earl Cardigan, &c. AGRICULTURAL MEETINGS. LORD CHARLES RUSSELL presided at the Bedford shire Agricultural Meeting held last week, and in the course of his speech on the occasion referred to the question of agricultural statistics. The subject he thought rather equivocally dealt with : One scarcely knows the opinion of the agricultural world upon the subject. Some are for and some are against it; but no one appears very much in earnest about it, for no one lays his shoulder to the wheel to collect the general opinion. If agriculturists were really in earnest, and really desirous to cast off the certain stigma under which they will labour as long as people are under the im pression that they want to keep back something, they would collect the opinions of all persons interested in the question, and then, either through their representatives in Parliament, or by means of a deputation to the Home Secretary, make known their views and wishes to the Go vernment of the country. I say this, because I am anxious that the agriculturists should, as a body, stand as well in the social scale as it is possible for them to do. They stand at the present moment almost as high as any body of men can, and no human being has a right to com plain of them, or to throw at them the charge that they profess what they do not practise ; and if some are a little dissatisfied, and sneer at the agriculturists, while at the same time they expose their own ignorance, it is owing to the fact that the farmers have opposed the collection of agricultural statistics. Let them, then, put theirshoulders to the wheel and remove that stigma, and then they will occupy as high a position as any industrial community in the universe. SIR JOHN PsitiNoToll, M.P., was present at the Worcestershire Agricultural Meeting held at Worces • ter last week, and in the course of the evening alluded to the prosperity of the manufacturing and agricultural interest When he spoke of the prosperity of the farmers he wished to guard against being supposed to allude simply to those high prices which, undoubtedly, had been in some degree caused by the circumstances of the war, but which, he was happy to think, would, to a certain extent, survive the war. He believed those prices had been for some time higher than was consistent with the interest of any class. He did not believe that the occupiers of the land would desire—and, if prudent men, would not desire —that the prices of agricultural produce should remain so high as they had been during the last two or three years; but, on the other hand, they had a right to hope—and they must hope—that prices would not 'elapse to any low ness of range which could not be borne by the farmer in a manner consistent with that prosperity which was in a great degree to be attributed to his own energy, spirit, and skill, but in some degree also to the circumstances of the times in which he lived. The returns which were monthly made to the Board of Trade showed that the commerce and manufactures of England were never in a state of greater vigour than of late, and no man could shut his eyes to the fact that the prosperity of commerce and manufactures, and also that of the landed interest, were attributable in no small de• gree to the immense influx of the precious metals which had marked the last few years, and whieh he believed would beneficially operate in future. Nor was that all. Those few disastrous years had taught them that the practice of agriculture was governed by the same laws as any other occupation; that the time had gone by when the man who had neither money enough nor wit enough for any other profession might take a farm and say he would try and live upon it. With reference to agricultural statistics, he con sidered it most desirable to obtain them, especially for the benefit of the agriculturists themselves : He did not believe, however, that they could be collected effectually without the good will and hearty cooperation of the farmers themselves. He believed and hoped that some system would be discovered in England not in quisitorial in its nature which would give satisfaction to the farmers and arrive at the desired object. In con clusion, he remarked that the prosperity of the land was not simply the welfare of an individual farmer, nor of a class, nor of a district, but the welfare in a most essential degree of the great community of which they were all proud to be members, and of which he believed the landed interest was the soundest and most enduring support. Numerous other speeches followed in the course of the evening on the subject of agricultural statistics. Mr. H. litmsos, a celebrated agriculturist, of the Vale of Evesham, thought there would be no advan tage in these returns, but to show to the world everything the farmer was doing, nor did he think it was necessary to know the exact amount of every crop grown. Agriculturists should be content and let well alone ; and when they went to market it should be to buy or sell at the market price, without making speculations as to what quantity of any par ticular article remained in the country. A much less healthy state of things than the present would exist under a system of statistics which would foster speculation, and unduly raise or depress the markets. Sir T. E. WnwnioTow, M.P., said he was not one of those who thought great advantages would result 979 from the adoption of them; still he thought they should be tried. He suggested that they should be tried first in a simple form, and be confined to oh• taming information as to what crop each acra was planted with throughout the country, leaving for future consideration the question of stock and other things. THE SURREY AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION held its annual meeting at Epsom on Thursday. Mr. H. Drummond, M.P., Mr. Evelyn, M.P., Mr. Alcock, M.P., were present, and spoke severally upon the question of agricultural statistics. Mr. ALcocx was of opinion that the farmers should not he subjected to any legal compulsion in the matter, but at the same time be would recom - mend them, if they wished to avoid anything of the sort, to freely and fairly furnish the returns. The hon. member further remarked upon the injustice of the malt and insurance taxes, and made a few practical remarks upon the system of modern farming and the employment of steam power, &u. Mr. EVELYN, M.P., replying for the county mem ber, disapproved of agricultural statistical returns. He did not think they were of much value except to enable the foreign merchant and speculative dealer in corn to undersell the farmer. Alluding to the late war, he observed that during the struggle the agricultural class had manfully supported their Queen and country. Having passed triumphantly through that war he sincerely hoped that our Minis ters would not engage the nation in another on ac count of King Bomba. _ Mr. HENRY DRUMMOND thought that people and nations were going mad after statistics. It was per fectly absurd to suppose that agricultural statistics were of the slightest use, and it was nothing but nonsense to pretend that any advantage could arise to the farmer from their collection. The hon. mem ber then alluded to the question of the malt tax, and admitted that he must do Mr. Disraeli the justice to say that he was willing to take off half the malt tax : But by whom was he prevented ? Why, by the same gentlemen who cry out, " Oh, dear me, don't tax the poor man in the articles of his consumption. No, no; tax realised property." They were great advocates for taxing realised property. " Well, then," thought Mr. Disraeli, " what is so much realised property as a house ? I'll put a tax upon houses." But what was the consequence? AU London got up in arms. Every large provincial town got up in arms, and declared how shamefully they were served. By what? By his putting a tax upon what? Why, upon realised property. Mr. Drummond then referred to the bad quality of the beer drunk in the present day, told how small was the quantity of malt used in a hogshead of porter, and concluded his speech by declaring that if the malt tax were repealed, and good beer given to the people, more would be done to reform the morals than all the other trumpery schemes now advocated. LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. THE Right Hon. Joseph Napier, M.P., delivered a lecture last week at Keswick on " Labour and Know- ledge in Connection with the Condition and Prospects of the Working Classes." Mr. Napier showed that labour and knowledge in every sphere of life should go together, and that the performance of the one and the acquisition of the other were duties incumbent on every class. He animadverted on the notion entertained by some against a popular increase of knowledge, on the ground that presumption and in fidelity would be fostered by it, and proved that nothing was so presumptuous in itself, or so expensive and injurious to society, as ignorance. Experience testified to the opposition of sloth and ignorance to welfare and prosperity. In showing the connection between knowledge and labour the lecturer pointed out how labour without knowledge is misapplied, and how knowledge without its application to labour is fruitless. He illustrated this pert of his subject by reference to the great field of labour—agriculture, in connection with the science of chemistry. He next proceeded to notice the influence of knowledge on labour among our manufacturing population. In reverting to the improvements science bad introduced to the manufacturer, whereby the demand and the production had given rise to an excitement of com petition, he asked what price humanity paid for the changes that had resulted? He quoted from an authority on this subject in proof of the increased depravity arising from the wide extension of compe tition wrought by an advance of mechanical science. The more frequent use of intoxicating liquors had been resorted to as a stimulant to keep up with the exciting requirements of the times. The social as well as the moral condition of the people was to be greatly deplored. He then reviewed the means by which these evils were to be counteracted—an en larged system of education, and the teachinf moral and religious duties being the principal be achieved. The religious should always advance of the political condition of a people. hing of .1 end to s be in le. Mr ••