The Press. — London, England, 1855-12-22 00:00:00

DECEMBER 22,1855, States is unknown to its annals ; and that it was unknown is principally attributable to the fact that the great principle of the balance of power was then undiscovered. But, to quit theorising, it is certain that no better guarantee can be devised against Rus sian encroachments than to strengthen as far as in us lies the conterminous kingdoms. Turkey in the South, and Sweden in the North, may act as solid barriers against Rus sian advance, and form sound extremities to that long boundary line which extends unbroken from Varanger to Bakii. To raise an impregnable wall against the further ad vance of Muscovite armies should now be the object of Western statesmen, rather than the dismemberment of the territories Russia has already acquired. Confined within her present limits, she is innocuous, but once let her burst through to the German Ocean above, and the Mediterranean below, and the inde pendence of Europe would be seriously im perilled. ► We sincerely rejoice to find the old Baltic blood on our own side. That blood is the best in the whole world. The Norman races have never yet lost their ascendancy in war; and with the policy of our Northern brethren thus openly declared, we may with out difficulty check the ascendancy of Russia in the Baltic. We may observe, in conclusion, that any measure must be hailed by this country with the liveliest pleasure which tends to give a more Protestant character to the alliance. We have noticed with regret the hitherto unavoidable ascendancy of its Papal elements, but with the accession of Sweden this cause of annoyance is removed. It is pro bable that this fresh evidence of European unanimity will induce the Czar to listen to the pacific proposals which are now on their way to his capital. WHO IS LORD PANMURE ? NOT long since we were heartily amused by the variety of answers given in a general circle to the question, " Who is Lord PAN MURE ?" One glibly answered, "Oh ! he's " something to Lord DALHOUSIE." "I think " his family name is Maule," replied some one else. "Not so," interposed a third, "you'll " find he is a Ramsay." Now, after we have had our laugh at these good plain folk, who are not conversant with political coteries, it is really a most remark able thing how little is known about the War Minister of England. How his Lordship ever came to have such a hold on the Whig families is a most singular fact. The Ramsays are a Tory stock, and he is paternally one of their race, while, by the mother's side, his Lordship is a Manic. The Secretary to the Admiralty might be facetious on the meaning of such a name. In the active voice it might certainly answer very well for a Minister of War, but in the passive one (as used in the Kars war school) it is painfully suggestive. By his patent of creation his Lordship is " Baron " Panmure of Brechin and Navar." An enemy of ERSKINE, the orator used often to torture " Chancellor Ego " by reiterated harpings on his Lordship's second title as " Baron Erskine " and C/ackmannan." Splendid as are the asso ciations called up in French history by " Navarre," and that first of kingly gentlemen, HENRY IV., very dissimilar ones must be evoked by the Scotch " Navar " of our War office. Mr. MACAULAY will never chant the glories of Lord PANMURE in an historic ballad. Our " epic historian " has sung the " Battle of Troy," and the white plume of its glorious hero. The White Feather of a War Minister who left Kars to its fate would only be a sub ject for satirical song. Apart from these points, it is really most strange, we repeat it emphatically, that so little should be known about our War Minis ter. Travel where you please, go into any hotel, coffee-house, or commercial-room in England, ask " Who is Lord PANMURE ?" and you will be at once amused at the ignorance shown of the personal antecedents of our War Minister. There never was a public charac ter, holding a great office, about whom so little was popularly known. Yet Lord PAN- THE PRESS. MITRE is not a young man. He is seven years older than Mr. PITT when the latter died, and he is nearly of the same age as was at his decease that celebrated Whig by whose name he was baptised. Burn in 1801, our War Minister was called " Fox" after the great Whig orator, and his speeches show that his talent for silence is his finest gift. There is something exquisitely ludi crous in " Fox " being prefixed to the name of such a speaker as Lord PANMURE. But one holding such a post might exclaim, " Words are but wind, actions speak the " mind ;" and General WILLIAms would like that the saying was acted up to in Downing street, and that it was translated into deeds which the Turks might construe without the help of Doctor JO/114:80N. But it cannot be denied that, as Lord PAN MURE has vast nominal pretensions to be an orator, so his Lordship has great matrimonial claims to be installed in the War-office. Mr. LABOUCHERE and Mr. SMITH are accepted as Whigs, because one married a Lady MARY of the Howarcls, and the other espoused a Lady MARY of the Greys. In a similar way Lord PANMURE, though not a man of military mind, married one of the Abercrombies ; and, as his lady belongs to a military family. the Whigs, in his case, acknowledge, according to their cus tom, the jut; matrimonii, and place hint in the War-office, where he equals Lord CHATHAM in the gout, and burlesques him in everything else. Yet, even when his family antecedents aro stated, we have got no satisfactory answer to " Who is Lord PANMURE?" The question has a political as well as a personal signification. His Lordship never did aught in either House of Parliament to merit so great a distinction as he now possesses. Let us be told, if any one can mention them, of any actions of his previous career which displayed bright con ceptions, happy sagacity, or an enlarged in tellect. He had the shrewdness common to every Highland laird. He had considerabls activity as a small but resolute factionist in the train of the Melbourne Whigs. We recollect, also, that the only occasions in which Fox MAULE'S name used to come prominently before the House of Commons were in connection with the Scotch distilling interests, and we do him but simple justice in admitting that his Lordship was a most per severing and practical friend to the Scotch distillers. We do not see any connection between his Lordship's championship of those particular interests and his fitness for the War-office, unless it be out of respect to the sentiments of Burns : Inspiring bold John Barleycorn ! What dangers thou canst make us scorn I True. The old political friend of the Barley corn interest did " scorn " the " dangers " of the gallant WILLIAMS and Lis army at Kars. Such a War Minister may help Scotch agricul turists to sow larger fields of barley, but he will never reap a harvest of laurels in the field. PEGU. Os the occasion of our last quarrel with Burmah there were three sufficient modes open to us of obtaining redress ; one the blockade of Rangoon, another the bombard ment of it, and the third the seizure and re tention of it until our demands on the Bur mese Court had been fully satisfied. Any one of these three methods would have answered our purpose as vindicating the national honour and insuring a prompt compliance with our behests. It suited the Indian Government, however, to act otherwise. Pegu was sup posed to be a rich, and fertile, and thickly peopled country, and the possession of it was thought calculated to bring us enormous wealth. There were not wanting men at the time who exposed the fallacy, but the vision was an agreeable one, and the conquest of the province was forthwith made. The value of the teak forests was descanted on ; rice, it was said, might be grown in sufficient abun dance to supply the wants of every nation , and, finally, Rangoon was to be a vast centre 1207 of commerce for the Eastern world. Expe rience has shown how baseless was the fabric of these dreams. The teak forests are neglected, as leaving no profit after paying for the transport of the wood, the cutting, &c. ; the rice-fields that were to be are still in their original state of uncultivated swamps ; instead of exporting rice from Pegu, we are obliged to import it in large quantities for the use of our troops, and to prevent an actual famine in the land ; and the commerce of the port of Rangoon is even still more limited, if the supplies for our army be left out of account, than it was under the Burmese rule before the war began. The revenues of the province are insufficient even to pay what may be called the Civil charges, and the whole naval and military cost of the occupation goes to swell our annual deficit and increase the public debt. The Indian organ of the Government, in accounting for these results, lays the blame on the want of population in Pegu, and pro poses a method by which the occupation of the province may in future be ma le remunera tive. The population of the province was, it appears, estimated in the outset at above four millions, but a census lately made by us fixes it at twelve hundred thousand souls. Either then, it is said, the estimate was absurdly exaggerated by our officials in the first in stance, or three millions of people have died since the commencement of the occupation, or emigrated from the districts under us into those still in the possession of the Burmese King. In any case, the possible causes thus assigned by the official journal for this extra ordinary decrease afford a sufficient oom, mentary on the supposed sagacity of our officers, the excellence of our administration, and the popular character of our rule. To which of the three the deficiency in the popu lation is really ascribable, it does not pretend to determine ; but the remedy it proposes is an importation of labouring families from Bengal on an enormous scale. Bengal. it is said, overflows with people, while in Pegu the numbers are deficient. The Government, therefore, it tells us, has only to transport three millions of the inhabitants of the former country to the latter, when the swamps will he changed into rice-fields, and the annual deficit removed. Those who are not aware of the sanguine views, the mania, one may call it, of the present Indian Government, in respect to the riches derivable from annexations of every kind, may suppose that in making this statement we are perpetrating an indifferent joke at that Government's expense ; but the fact is as we give it, and the importation of three millions of our subjects from Bengal is to the official mind the remedy for the now admitted poverty of Pegu. Of course it were needless for us to combat a plan which must bear impossibility on the face of it to the eye of every practical man. Supposing that three million Bengalees were willing to go to Pegu, we should have to find transport for them, which, at the lowest esti mate, would be twelve million tons. This would require twelve thousand ships of a thousand tons burden to supply it, or twenty thousand of such as ordinarily navigate the Eastern seas. Twelve millions sterling would be the lowest sum that would have to be paid as freight, and, reckoning five pounds a head for inland conveyance to and from the ports of embarkation and landing, and for outfit, the cost under this head would be fifteen millions more. An equal sum would have to be given to supply food for the first year in the new locality till the time of the harvest came round, and the coat for bullocks, seed, and agricul tural implements would come to very nearly the same amount, it being perfectly clear that the immigrants could do little for the agrieul ture of Pegu without these aids. Fifty-seven millions sterling is, therefore, about the sum that would be required, according to this new Government theory, to be laid out upon Per in order to procure the realisation of its original dreams! The philosopher of Laputa had a plan for extracting sunbeams out of cuc umbers. Why not reverse the project. get cucumbers out of sunbeams, and so turn to golden account the ever-burning rays of our Indian sun ? The plan may n ot at first sight appear a very promising one for arriving at national wealth ; but we can assure the Indian