The Press. — London, England, 1855-12-15 00:00:00

1182 there was no ground for concluding that his influence was destined to suffer a complete collapse. Those, however, who have watched the political history of the last three years, will find that, instead of consolidaing his posi tion and maturing his authority, he has th con tinuously retrograde 4 in public esitimatEnh, and now wields only e ii:imnaittis ori broken sceptre. The reaction* it4 isi which Pig tradnahlt overwhelmed Mtn I.)iVin to set % when liit stooped to become a member of Lord ABER DEEN'S Cabinet. With his antecedents, with the principles he professed, and the party he commanded, to be a subordinate in such a Council was not condescension—it was dis honour. Of the blunder he had committed he himself became sensible, when subse quently, in the act of severance from his new confederates, he declared that in consenting to unite with them he had exhibited a self= abnegating magnanimity. Varied as were his positions in the Government, he reaped credit in none. The historian who writes the chronicles of hie administration as Foreign Secretary will have this only to record of him, that, having accepted the office without thought and relinquished it without dignity, he enlight ened the Eastern question with the notable discovery that the Russian protectorate of the Christian subjects of the Porte was " prescribed " by law and sanctioned by treaty." As Leader of the House of Commons with out a department, he failed to confer any strength upon the Ministry, then first con vulsed with those rival counsels and low intrigues which preluded the catastrophe of its disastrous career. The manner in which— having taken occasion to repeat the senti ments which his " Durham Letter " avowed and his Ecclesiastical Titles Bill did not embody—he permitted Lord ABERDEEN to dis claim all sympathy with his opinions, pre sented him in an attitude than which it would be difficult to find anything more mean and unmanly iu modern annals. The Protean Minister, however, appears in another shape. He became President of the Council. The episodes which marked his tenure of that post are fresh in the indignant recollections of the country. The first of the Cabinet to realise the calamitous conse quences which had resulted from the Duke of NEWCASTLE'S unhappy administration of the war, he had neither the courage nor the honesty to give effect to his convictions. But he contented himself with feeble pro tests and petulant complaints, the record of which serve only to demonstrate that the sufferings of a noble army concerned him only so far as they affected the stability or endangered the popularity of the Government, and that he was ready to gratify his ambition by the sacrifice of his integrity. But if he continued in the Coalition without credit, he quitted it without honour. It was when the ship was about to founder on the surrounding breakers that he left it to a fate which was the result of counsels in which he was associated, and blundering in which he had shared. But the conduct of the Noble Lord when accredited to Vienna as Plenipotentiary of the British Government appears to us the most flagitious act of a flagitious career. The relative merits of the rival systems of limita tion and counterpoise it is idle now to discuss. That he should have giN en his assent to con ditions he had himself pronounced to be unsatisfactory and illusory, was certainly discreditable to his judgment and fatal to his consistency. But, having accorded his sanc tion to the Austrian proposals, that he should not only have concealed the fact from Parlia ment until the confession was wrung from him, but endeavoured to deceive the country by making bellicose orations, and invoking popular odium on the peace party, was an offence against political virtue and an outrage upon public morality. Such it was unmis takeably declared to be by the Legislature . What has followed ? The character of the war is unaltered. Experience has profited him nothing. He acts upon the same rule, and is animated by the same motives. Still, as for merly, he works warily. He is not the unvisored egotist whose objects are patent and understood ; but he is the masked self- THE PRESS. seeker, who is never so plausible as when he is least honest, or more truly a partisan than when he affects to be a patriot. We say, • - that we commise- We the - Allen position. Toth 1 . in of a f: .... clan, k On ;hted to h. . for mi lA . ' , ntury, shoal be d: •'.s. mrdinate, an ho. „ , n with civil a , 1•eli " .14 11 . a Hebrak . his ost, ii the vicissitudes of populai regret that he should be -,ity of trotting himself out to Exeter-hall audiences. But if he would again shine in a higher sphere, he must for the future carefully resist the risings of an unhallowed ambition, and make personal advancement subservient to the honour of the country and the welfare of the people. ~, in sobpr s 4ess, that No ; 11 his fal the e . td chieftaii g . Ibis deligh tha q 'er.of a cen led hi cr finer sub( n th t , even t. slibertk ..?ct, and is a sadlto .'Yot (ton th ar favour. ' do re e reduced .. to The necessi SIR ROBERT PEEL. WE chanced sonic years since to be sitting near an American gentlemanjunder the gallery of the House of Commons. An Irish Member inheriting an historic name was making himself particularly absurd. " Can it be possible," asked the American, " that the Member on " the floor is son of the celebrated naming a deceased orator. He was express ing his astonishment at being answered in the affirmative, when a person sitting before him suddenly turned round, and said, iu a tone and voice we never shall forget—" Ah ! " Sir, we sons of great men are poor creatures." And the person who made this strange remark was the commonplace son of a distinguished literary character. We never hear or read a speech of the pre sent Sir ROBERT PEEL without thinking of that incident. That the eminent statesman now no more should be succeeded by so sin gular a son is one of the exceptional facts which puzzle ethnologists with their arbitrary ideas of " race." But the Peel family is not the . only one in Parliamentary history pre senting such singular contrasts. CHATHAM was our greatest War Minister, and CHATHAM'S eldest son was that unhappy General with whom the disasters of Walcheren are igno miniously associated. In an arithmetical ratio the first Lord CHATHAM was to the second one as the late Sir ROBERT PEEL was to the present Baronet. We have no wish to deal harshly with the escapades of a young man, and the indiscre tions of early years ought always to receive large allowance. But Sir ROBERT PEEL has doubled Cape Thirty, and we cannot forget the fact that he holds a post at the Ad miralty. He has recently been exercising his tongue in ways entirely inconsistent w;th the rules of the public service. We do not now allude to the strange speeches about the " Army and Navy," on which we previously remarked, but a still more extraordinary harangue is reported of him in this week. It seems, according to the Times of last Monday, that this Lord of the Admiralty, who is Captain of the Anglesea Troop of the Staffordshire Yeomanry Cavalry, entertained at some hotel "the non-commissioned officers and " privates of his troop," and that he " proposed " the toast of The Army and Navy,' in a style " which betokened universally strong feeling " upon the subject." The mere " style " of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S speeches would not deserve comment. Their desperate attempts to attain the soapbubble lustre of the rhetoric of the Secretary at the Admiralty remind us of Lurram.is coarsely clever definition of French cookery at an English hotel. Not one, but two speeches, were delivered by him to the Staffordshire Yeomanry. The first appears to have been intended as an amendment of the former harangue. 'Here is a sample of its " style " :—" Sooner than in " sinuate a slur against the navy," quoth the Lord of the Admiralty, " he would rather lose " the utterance of his lips, the power of speech " which God had given him," &c. If ho lost some of the too fluent "utterance," and acquired more reticence, the readers of news- SATURDAY, papers would not so often smile at his gre-- tesque illustrations of " Every man his own Punch." Neither Doyle nor Leech could equal 4, Igenutte tihticature Sir ROBERT'S queer gaikbols. , As , §ir holm& : EL if, .iot only a p u bli c but 'ii an o . ta iial Ilto.aracter, we feel our ye fully j •I:.ific, n directing spe cial tt on to ?1 i e ~ t • 1 ; ranee of his li ps." i Th in s setbon4 ;,,. •, he delivered him self ws :---=" r . 1., limes is no longer "an tegral part of ussia, and it never must l i " be, and lie would add it never should be. Let " them think of the carcases of their countrymen," &c. Are we to accept this " style" of speak ing as a specimen of " the power of speech " which God had given him" ? _ It is really true that a stop should be put to such " utterances " from an official sup ordinate. Mr. OSBORNE complains that he is not allowed to speak, yet others may " brag " as much as they please. There ought to he more equality in the taciturnity of underlings. Either let them loose altogether, or insist that they study Orator Mum in Mr. OSBORNE'S edition. " Sell or sail," wrote the Duke of WELLINGTON to a colonel wanting to avoid foreign service. " Hold your tongue, or don't " hold your office," should be Lord PAL. MERSTON'S orders to his pet Lord of the Admi- ralty. The rules of the public service are not to be set at defiance for the caprice or eccentricity of any individual. British foreign policy is to be taken from the Ministers of the Crown, and not from the juniors of the departments. THE INDIAN CURRENCY. IT is now about a couple of years since Mr. DISRAELI threw out a suggestion in the House of Commons as to the desirability of the Directors issuing a gold coinage in India. Since then, however, nothing has been done, and silver is the only currency and the only legal tender there. It was at all times a dis advantage to India that her monetary standard was different from that of Great Britain, on which ;she is dependent, and with which lies so large a proportion of her trade. Still, before the discovery of the gold-fields the difference was of less importance, as the relative values of the two metals were pretty steadily maintained. Now, however, that so many millions are annually added to the stock of gold, while that of silver increases only in its old proportion, or even a less, the evil is deeply and widely felt. Nor is it confined to India alone ; everywhere the effect is to raise greatly the proportionate value of silver, to make it less easily attainable by individuals, and in the aggregate more scarce. In former days gold generally bore a con siderable premium in India, as it did in France and most other countries where silver was the standard fixed by law ; and this, together with its portability and the little space it occupies, made it the favorite means with natives of investing their accumulated hoards. It would be difficult to estimate the amount thus lying buried in the secret recesses of native palaces and houses when the discovery of the gold fields first took place. The depreciation of the metal which this discovery caused naturally deprived gold of the qualities essential for such purposes. People no longer desire to hoard a substance which is daily falling in comparative value; and for gold is now being substituted silver. The gold thus set free forms a considerable addition to the amount which Australia and California have thrown upon the world. While, there fore, gold is still more and more depreciated by the process, the comparative value of silver, on the contrary, is proportionately raised; it bears even a higher premium than its position as the monetary standard of would give ; and as it is more and more with drawn from circulation, the Mint is k4 , pt perpetually in operation to supply the void. The quantity thus absorbed, added to that indispensably retained in circulation to supply the necessary medium of exchange, is creating a demand for silver upon 'Europe which it is daily becoming more difficult to supply. Large shipments of silver are being made constantly