The Press. — London, England, 1856-03-08 00:00:00

■ MARCH 8, 1856. MA T H Mr. D: A publi important ask him a previous would pe publicly tl at Paris, house, if t if he cane some iuf real state Lord I The he articles w, consent to serve a the bag( Russia w agreed to That acce an accep wards rec by the plc I rather tentiary d at Paris, ii ing this p should be cotiferenc, o' Vienna the force I that, with prelimina proceed t finite trea matter. Ii that is tc the force, treaty in tiaries, to suhstantis Mr. lltt Lord P exact day. RELA] Mr. L relations had led t and the the Cou Murray's Persian that ultit his op aide. lc ness to wife iron seize he we had r of 1811, to send s patch Mi Mr. Mur Persia— in the I prejudice fall of Kt with the throw P conclusic Governrr especiall; get hono Lord . Mr. Lay national viduals universe. quiesced the case the Pert Mirza I elsewher to Shire: agent fen who had Governn Mirza be imme, tested, c, Lion of t Shiraz a negotiati sized relative 0 one of demand, husb,,nd gave rise some vex sian Mir coming Vrott6ings zn Varlianunt. THE PRELI3IINARIES OF PEACE. DISRAELI, 013 Monday, rose and said : , public statement has been made today of the utmost iportance, and perhaps the noble lord will allow me to .sk him a question relative to it, without having given him previous notice, which, however, under the circumstances perhaps scarcely be necessary. It has been stated ly th.it the preliminaries of peace have been signed saris, and it would be satisfactory, I am sure, to the if the noble lord would assure us of that fact ; and, cannot, it would still be of advantage if we could have iuf,rmation from the noble lord as to what is the state of affairs in that respect. Lord PALMERSTON replied : house and the country are well aware that certain articles were proposed a' me time ago by Austria. with the —.it of France and England, as conditions which were serve as the foundation fur a treaty of peace between belligerents. Those articles were at first accepted by with a reservation, but afterwards, that not being . to by Austria, they wet a accepted unconditionally. acceptance was what is called in diplomatic language acceptance pure et simple. Those articles were after recorded in a protocol at Vienna, which was signed plenipotentiaries of England, France, and Austria — rather think the instructions of the Turkish plenipo ntiary did not arrive in time. When the conference met Paris, it was agreed that in the protocol of the first meet this previous protocol, simply recording those articles, -maid be inserted as part of the proceedings of that ilay's eonference. and that it shou d be declared that the protocol 'Vienna and the articles accepted by Russia should have force and value of a preliminary treaty of peace, and , without going through the ordinary form of a separate simivary treaty, the plenipotentiaries should at once proceed to discuss the other questions on which the de finite treaty would turn. That is the precise state of the -kr. In one sense, a preliminary treaty has been signed, is to say, those articles have been recorded as having force, value, and virtue of a preliminary treaty. No in the ordinary form, signed by the plenipoten , to be ratified by sovereigns, hat been signed, but substantially a preliminary treaty has been signed. Mr. DISRAELI: When? Lord PALMERSTON :It was last week. I forget the ' day. Very recently. .LATIONS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND PERSIA. . Lorain), on Monday, calling attention to our ilations with Persia, recapitulated the incidents which led to the departure of Mr. Murray from Teheran, the consequent breach of official intercourse with Court of the Shah. He pointed out that Mr. Lurray's ultimatum having been rejected by the 'ersian Government, we had resols , ed to support Itintatum by an expedition to Bushire. Now, opinion we had neither right nor justice on our In the first place, Mr. Murray bad no busi to protect Mirza lashim, or to demand his from the Shah, who had an undoubted right to Le her as his relative; and, in the second place, had no tight or authority, in the face of the treaty which stipulates that we should be permitted send agents only to Teheran and Bushire, to des •h Mirza as an agent to Shiraz. In our support of !array we had taken the first step in a war with Persia—a step v. hich would lose us our high character the East for justice and honesty, increase the iudice to our interests in Asia occasioned by the 91 Kars, assist the efforts of Russia to embroil us the Central Asian States, and for the future r Persia wholly into the arms of Russia. In -Alston, Mr. Layard entreated the house and the Government not to j.rosecute this miserable quarrel, Tally as there were means for both parties to honourably out of it. Lord PALMERSTON thought the course pursued by Layard was not calculated to promote the .tal interests. The custom of persecuted intli tuals taking sanctuary at a foreign mission was nversally recognised, and had been specially ac miesced in by the Persian Government. Tins was case of Slirza Hashim, when Mr. Murray, finding ?ersian Government had an ill feeling towards Mirza Hashim, thought it desirable to move him 'where, and accordingly proposed to send him shraz, where this country for a long time had an t for the transaction of commercial affairs, and had been acknowledged as such by the Persian Government. The Persian Government said that if lirza Hashim quitted the British mission, ho should amediately arrested ; against this Mr. Murray pro tested, contending that Mirza was under the protec tion of the British Government on his way to and at Shiraz as much as if he remained at Teheran. Whilst negotiations were going on, the Persian Government !ized his wife, who was hot, as had been stated, a sire of the royal family of Persia ' but a relation one of the many w i ves o f t h e Shah. Mr. Murray inanded that the wite should be given up to the . t.ind either at Teheran or Shiraz. That demand e rise to a correspondence, in the course of which me very improper letters were written by the Per- Aan Minister, being couched in insulting and unbe coming terms. Mr. Murray then made demands THE PEE S. which it was not necessary to go into, in the coarse of which he asked that the impolitic letter from the Shah should be withdrawn. That was not granted, and the consequence was that Mr. Murray struck his flag, withdrew from Teheran for Bagdad, but had stopped on the road, as the differences were pending, and it was hoped they would be satis factorily settled. Two very small vessels had been sent up the Per. ian Gulf to protect British property, but without the slightest view of provoking hostilities. Under these circumstances he hoped the question would be pushed no further. Mr. LAYABD then withdrew his motion. PURCHASE IN THE ARMY. Sir DE LACY EVANS, on Tuesday, rose to move for a select committee to consider, examine evidence, and report to the house, on the expediency of abolish ing the system of sale and purchase of commissions in the army, and on the means that may be adopted f r the accomplishment of that object. The gallant officer examined in detail the objections offered to a change of the system—namely, that the abolition of the sale of commissions would necessa rily cause their disposal to degenerate into a system of seniority, and that the expense attending the abolition would be enormous, and contended that the latter objection was more apparent than real. To the question what were the abuses of the exist ing system ? he answered that, from his own know ledge, many excellent officers were compelled, from want of funds, to abandon all hope of rising in their profession, and that neglect was the portion of officers who had neither money nor interest. No thing could be more dishonourable to the country than such a state of things, and now was the time to apply the remedy. He thought the abolition of the present system was only a question of time. The Horse Guards should take steps to accelerate the change, particularly with regard to tie higher ranks of the army. A system of retiring allowances might pro mote the desired obj et. In conclusion, the gallant general explained that his object was to have an in quiry into the subject, and if the Government objected to a committee, and preferred a commission, he was ready to modify his motion accordingly. Lord GODERICII supported the motion. In considering how the present system could be best abolished, he calculated that, deducting the value of commissions given away, the re purchase of all the commissions in the army would not cost more than 5,000,0001. or 6,000,000 t, and that sum he thought not too large to pay for the great advantage of getting rid of the evils of a sys tem of purchase, and exchanging it for another sys tem that would open a wider avenue to merit, which he denied to be, as Lord Palmerston had alleged, a matter of opinion; it was, he said, a matter of fact. Mr. ELLICE warned the house to proceed with great caution. No doubt the time had come when a thorough examination of the question should be made, but the question was one surrounded with difficulties. He hoped, however, that the Govern ment would have the matter fairly investigated. Mr. S. FITZGERALD supported the present system. If the regulation price of commissions were always adhered to, no advantage accrued to officers of for tune. The only injustice of it was the purchase of unattached rank by officers not on service. Mr. F. PEEL thought there was a great deal to be said on both sides. He could not say that the purchase system was unobjectionable, but the system had coexisted with our army, and could not have existed for so long a period without some advantages that were found to compensate for its alleged disad vantages and drawbacks. Its opponents ought to show positive evils connected with this system, and a substitute which might be pzim& facie submitted to the inquiry of a committee. This had not been done. A system of promotion by merit would give rise to complaints of unjust preference, as now prevailed with reference to staff appointments. Under the existing system, the benefit was not confined to the purchasing class; the non-purchasing class of officers likewise indirectly benefited. If it could be shown that the purchase system rendered the army less efficient, he should say, at once, abolish it; but he asked for the proof of this. How would the interests of the country be advanced by the abolition of the system' The officers would not he of a better class. A higher standard of military education, if required, could be engrafted upon a system of purchase. He denied the practical evils imputed to that system; but, passing this by, he insisted upon the large pecu niary sacrifices which its abolition would entail, not merely by the repurchase of commissions, but in the enlarged scale of retirements, which he considered would be a prodigal and wasteful expenditure of the public money. He hoped the house would adopt the motion. Lord STANI.F.Y urged the necessity of instituting an inquiry. If it were postponed, he feared it would soon be forgotten or neglected. The present system was the purchase b 3 private persons of a vested in terest in the public service. In no country in the world did such a system as that of purchasing com missions exist; it did not exist in our own navy. It was essentially anomalous, and a departure from general rules, and could be defended only upon the ground that it existed, and that to abolish it would lead to greater evils. As to the money ques tion, he confessed it was not to be disregarded ; but, after all, the highest estimate ever made of the value of commissions—namely, 8,000,000/.—amounted only to one half the sum which was yearly voted by the house in time of peace for naval and military ser • vices; and that sacrifice, whatever it might be, the country would not be called upon to make at one time, or in one sum ; but it would be scattered over a long series of years. The system of purchase was not an integral part of our military system, it was an excrescence which had grown up in the course of time:— There were two questions to be asked—Were they prepared to do away with the system ? And what other were they prepared to adopt in its stead ? To the first question, he answered unhesitatingly, yes ; for they could not adopt a system more invidious in principle, or worse in practice. ( Hear, hear.) The precise plan to be adopted he was not prepared to state, but let them have an investi gation, let them learn the opinions of officers and civilians, and he had no doubt that the investigation would result in t he adoption of a system very far superior to that at present in existence. (Hear, hear.) Colonel LINDSAY said that of all the speakers in favour of the motion none had pointed out any prac tical mode for securing the efficiency of the army on the abolition of the present system. He thought that the purchase system, instead of being abolished, should be improved. He did not know how purchase in some form could be excluded from the army. It had crept into the Indian army ; and who was to prevent money being given to induce an officer to retire? He was an advocate of a system of pur chase, because it prevented jobbery. Promotion without purchase would give rise to constant sus picions that other interests than merit were exerted. The present system secured physical efficiency, and we might have mental efficiency under it if we went properly to work. Mr. HEADLAM objected to the existing system, because it placed the State in a false relation to the service, producing evils to both. He considered the State to be in debt to the army in the aggregate amount of the purchase money of the commissions. lf, therefore, the State was called upon to pay this sum, there would be no injustice in it. Colonel NORTH was averse to the abolition of the purchase system, which would prejudice non-com missioned officers receiving commissions. Mr. alusies thought the subject should be judi cially investigated by a rnyal commission. Colonel Anare was of the same opinion. Lord PALMERSTON admitted the abstract inex pediency of the purchase system, but explained that it possessed many advantages, such as the facility it afforded for the retirement of elderly officers, and the substitution of youthful and energetic successors. All substitutes fur the system hitherto proposed were either imperfect or enormously expensive in their operation. Another advantage attached to the purchase system which should not be undervalued was, that under its protection the army was more likely to be officered by gentlemen. The noble lord added that he had no objection to have the whole subject investigated, if the inquiry were left to a mixed commission to be appointed by the Crown. Sir DE L EVANS, in the course of a brief reply, in timated his assent to this proceeding. The motion was then withdrawn, on the under standing that a royal' commission was in due course to issue. NATIONAL EDUCATION. Lord JOHN RUSSELL, on Thursday, rose to move his promised resolutions on the subject of national education. Remarking upon the importance of the subject, and sketching the present state of education in this cou trv, he pointed out that there were upwards of 4,000,000 children between the ages of five and fifteen, of which only 1,730,000 attended school. He did not deny that the Clromittee of Council on Education had done much by wisely expending the sums placed at their disposal in train ing teachers, and in generally bettering elementary education, but with such advantages there had unde niably been great defects. The attendance was in: adequate, the chiblea left school at too early an age, and the schoolmaster s were often below par in edu cation. Mr. Horner, alluding in one of his most recent reports to the operation of the education clauses of the Factory Act, mentioned that, having been struck with the ignorance of one of those so-called " school masters," he ventured to ask him whether he could read, and the reply was "Yes , I can summat." Mr. Norris, of Staffordshire, i n his report last year of the examination of twenty four boys of fifteen years of age in the mines, and who had been at school till they were nine, asked them the names of the four Evangelists, which they did not know, and to the question, "Which of the disciples betrayed Jesus r they answered, " Peter, " or " Abraham." Now, it appeared to him that Parliament should lay down two principles, from neither of which it should depart—first, to make the education of the country