The Press. — London, England, 1855-05-26 00:00:00

496 ,~. . u ~~> ~, . . THE WEEK. TUE proceedings in the Commons this week have been of higher importance than any which occurred since the commencement of the war. It was understood that Mr. DISRAELI had fully resolved to bring the conduct of Ministers before the House in relation to the Vienna Conferences, but it was imagined that his motion would not be made until after the Whitsuntide recess. The farce in the House on Monday night, however, when Mr. M. GIBSON withdrew his motion, and the ambiguous language held by the Premier, seems to have induced the Leader of Opposition to give the House an opportunity of expressing its opinion on the great question of peace or war previous to its adjourning for the holidays. The notice of Mr. DISRAELI excited some alarm in the Ministerial ranks, and the old contrivances for patching up differences, and for giving the Ministry as large a majority as possible, were resorted to. Various amendments to suit the views of various members of the party were arranged, but this time the general muster of Ministerial supporters was held at the residence of Lord PALMERSTON instead of at Cheshain place. It was rumoured at the close of last week that the Peelites, faithful to the policy of their late chief, the venerated ABER DEER, were prepared to make common cause with the Manchester peace party, and the course pursued by Mr. HERBERT and Mr G LAD STONE on Monday countenanced this report. It was not until Thurs - day, however, that Sir W. HEATHCOTE and Mr. GLADSTONE distinctly broke ground; and the evening would be memorable if only for the first appearance in the Commons of a distinctly organised peace party founded on the principle that all the objects of the war have already been attained, and that to prosecute it after the concession proposed by Russia would be not only a political error, but a national crime . Mr. BRIGHT will have now a powerful rival for favour in the St. Peters &nary Gazette. We have no doubt that Mr. GrAnsToNE's speech will meet with the honour of reproduction in that journal . Mr. DISRAELI'S speech was principally directed to an analysis of Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S diplomatic doings at Vienna. He brought dis tinctly out the opposition between his language and his actions at the it. Conference. His lordship declared that no peace was to be expected on terms inconsistent with the honour of Russia, while he proposed 2 '- se ' ' Vow which , in the position of the belligerents, it was morally certain . that Russia would not deem it consistent with her honour to accept. The defence of Lord JOHN to this charge was singularly illogical. He said that Russians of great experience and sagacity were of opinion that though the Russian fleets might make a great parade in time of peace, they could not cope with the fleets of the other maritime powers in time of war; that, in point of fact, the Russian fleet at Sebastopol was of no use whatever, as the ships skulked into harbour as soon as the allied fleets appeared ; and that now, from the vessels sunk and destroyed, years must elapse before her fleet could be restored to its former state. That was his case to show that Russia would make no dishonourable concession in consenting to limit her fleet. But then why, as the Russian navy in the Euxine was practically powerless, insist on its limitation ? A different case had now to be made out. Russia, by maintaining her fleet, would indicate an inten tion to possess herself of Constantinople, and by her fleet being at hand, while the fleets of the Allies were at a distance, she might fulfil her intention before the Sultan could call the fleets of his Allies to his assistance, and take the Turkish capital by a coup de main. Thus the Russian fleet was represented almost in the same breath as all powerful and all•powerless ; and the Plenipotentiary who at the Con ference was so solicitous for the preservation of the dignity and honour of Russia, now declares his conviction that if a peace had been concluded, in which Russia, with the other contracting Powers, had guaranteed the integrity of the Turkish territory, she would only have watched for an opportunity of pouncing on Constantinople. With such a plenipotentiary, is it wonderful that the negotiation failed ? The debate was continued in the Commons last night, Mr. WHITESIDE being the first speaker. His brilliant and effective address made a strong impression on the House. Lord PALMERSTON was cruelly interrupted in the midst of his peroration, which had appa rently been prepared with more than usual care, by a message from the Lords. When the interruption was over he had his re venge—in a joke. " The Lords," he said, " had spared the " right honourable gentleman opposite the necessity of punish " ing him as he doubtless meditated in his reply, by inflicting "on him the chastisement of the rod." And with this pleasant pun, delivered with a well-pleased air, the Chatham of the Reform Club concluded his oration on the great peace or war debate of the session. The House divided at t o'clock this morning, rejecting the motion by 319 to 219. In the Lords last night Earl GREY, in a speech of considerable length, brought forward his motion for an address to the Queen affirming that the proposals of Russia conceded all the original objects THE PRESS. SATURDAY, of the war, and would have afforded all the advantages the Allies had a right to expect. His Lordship generally defended the conduct of Russia, but met with support only from Lord LYTELLTON, and that of a qualified kind. Lord DERBY, in a noble speech, declared his con viction that honourable peace to be now obtained must be conquered. The feeling of the House was so decidedly adverse to the motion that Lord GREY, not venturing on a dig ision, withdrew it. The immense accumulation of force now on the heights before Sebastopol may fairly lead us to hope that the day for active field operations has at length arrived, for the allies at this moment must muster nearly 200,000 men, the ma,xitnum which has been fixed as the number requisite to insure the capture of the fortress. We may now daily expect to hear of the advance of the allied troops without their impregnable lines. Still the difficulties of a campaign in the Crimea are not to be lightly estimated ; our means of transport and land carriage are very deficient, and the self-sustaining power of the army, inadequately supplied as it is with light cavalry, if separated from its fleet, would be put to a severe test. But we have no reason to believe that anything like a campaign over the arid steppes of the Crimea will be attempted. The allied generals will probably content themselves with so far enlarging their sphere of operations as will permit them to invest Sebastopol more completely, and at least pre vent supplies being afforded the fortress, while a covering army will hold in check the Russians, or perhaps, in conjunction with Ontkut l'AenA, advance to Simferopol. But even these operations, simple though they seem, will not be successfully carried out without some desperate fighting. Every road is scarped and fortified as the Rus sians know how to fortify, and every inch of ground will be severely con tested. OMER PACHA had arrived at head-quarters, and General DE LA MARMORA with 3,000 men, the advanced guard of the Sardinian Contin gent, had reached and encamped outside Balaklava. Seven thousand more of the Contingent were daily expected. Among other arrivals at Ba laklava we must not omit to notice those of Miss NIGHTINGALE and M. SOYER upon a tour of inspection through the hospitals and their kitchens in the camp. The secession of General CANROBERT and the advent of General PELISSIER to the supreme command seems, in some measure, to have restored tha tone of the French army, which was becoming demo ralised to a great extent, and which the unhappy termination of the Kertch expedition would have seriously affected had not an imme diate change taken place in the command. With regard to the expe dition to Kertch, it seems a moot point whether General CANROBERT was justified, by the despatches which he received, in recalling the expedition at the moment he did, when, at all hazards, it should have been allowed to attempt what it had undertaken. In the first instance, the instructions which he had received from Paris were stated to con tain directions for the concentration of the army for some great stroke, and the sailing of the reserve from Constantinople, under sealed orders, lent a certain colour to the statement ; but the arrival of the reserve at Kamiesch, and the inactivity of the army since their arrival, contradict this view, and compel us to lay the blame more upon the ha bitual indecision of the French General, than upon any intructions which he had received. AUSTRIA still continues, if we may trust the telegraph, to coque with a Conference. One is to be held to-day, at which the Russian Plenipotentiaries will not be present, and a second on Monday, at which those distinguished diplomatists will take their seats. We are not yet assured whether Lord WESTMORLAND attends. Lord PALMERS TON, in answer to questions from Mr. Rosnuex and Mr. MILNER Giasox last night, stated that although Lord WESTMORLAND possessed the power to attend any renewal of the Conferences, yet his exercise of that power would depend upon the instructions which he received from home. Considering that the instructions can be delivered in a few hours, Lord PALMERSTON'S 'reply, which of course raised a laugh, is about as vague as his most ardent admirers could wish. Lord JOHN is certainly not a reticent man ; he can neither contain his temper nor his secrets under extraordinary circumstances. For the last five months we have been soothed with an Austrian sop, which we are told was to heal our differences, or•, failing that, to aid us sincerely in the cure of them. For this we have sacrificed time, honour, position, interest, everything which we could offer to entice the wily Austrian out of his neutral hole. Treaties were signed and sealed, the Principalities were handed over to the tender mercies of a Coronini, the Russian Danubian army was freed for a march to Inkermann. And now Lord JOHN gravely tells us that " Vienna is not Paris or London," and that he was not prepared to expect " that Austria should take immediate part in the war against " Russia, for should a battle on the frontier be lost, there was nothing "to prevent a Russian army from marching direct to Vienna." This naive confession of topographical knowledge was the total result of the late Vienna Conferences, and was made not only in " justice to " Austria," but because the late Plenipotentiary " did not wish to " hold out hopes which might not be verified." This fits but poorly with all which we have hitherto been led to expect as the issue of this Austrian alliance. Mr. JACOB BELL, one of the " right men" in a " wrong place"— a square pestle, to use a homely simile, in a round mortar—lately ob served at an Administrative Reform meeting. that " he attributed a " good deal of the present incompetency to the fondness of consti " tuencies (and some of them large ones) for returning Lords to Par " liament." Bearing in mind the result of a late election, we are half inclined to ask for " an ounce of civet, good apothecary."