The Press. — London, England, 1856-06-21 00:00:00

580 willing, and at the same time be admirably fitted, for the posts in question. Many of these have retired at an early age under hopes and expectations which have not been fulfilled, while others in the various commercial crashes which have occurred have lost the greater por tions of the incomes they were possessed of when they quitted India. Some, again, not straitened in means, are tired of England, and would be very willing to engage abroad once more in professional life. All of them have a more or less intimate knowledge of India and its languages, while several of them have already filled with credit the offices of district or cantonment magistrates, or other respon sible appointments of various kinds. In short, they are of all others the men best fitted by their antecedents for the office of district ma gistrate in India. We do nut mean to say that every retired officer is so fitted, or that any indiscriminate employment of retired officers in such duties would be at all advisable. But what we do say is, that numbers of them are persons in the highest degree qualified ; that by a judicious selection the services of these might be obtained ; and that the means of making this selection without even a risk of failure are existing at the India house, where every retired Company's officer's previous career is both known and recorded. In Ire land, in Ceylon, and in the other colonies, as well as in the English rural districts, retired officers are generally found to be the best men in such appointments. With a proper limit, therefore, as to the age of candidates and other qualifications, we do not see why the Govern ment should fail to find them equally useful in supplying the great and pressing want at present felt of district magistrates in India. PRACTICAL LIBERALISM. THE political character of the present Cabi net, and the conduct to the great mass of its supporters, exhibit extraordinary features. We are now governed by a Ministry of Tory fied Whigs, kept in place by a combination of loose Liberals and renegade Radicals. Lord PALMERSTON, in his own laxity. personifies the policy of his followers. On all social topics, on organisation of the Civil Service, on education, on political economy, the Premier's tone and habit of thinking are just such as would have been fashionable in a Tory of forty years ago He cannot hide his contempt for the personal pretensions of a large class of the representatives of the northern towns who sit behind him, and he is not at any pains to conceal his defereiise to the scruples and wishes of the Conservative gentry of England. He does not fear Lord JOHN Rus- SELL, and he does not case about Lord GREY, nor does he apprehend any danger from the opposition of Independent Radicals. He knows well how offices about the Court, largesses of illicit patronage, and glimpses of possible baronetcies, can " manage " the lip-Liberals of the present time. The conduct of these gentlemen shows how unconscious they are that there are such things as constituencies in the world. We have no desire to use hard words, but, judging of the diversity between the principles and the prac tices of the Liberal Members, we are entitled to say that such glaring hollowness of politics was never before seen in Parliament. The Liberal M.P.'s swarm to a division for the " Ballot ;" they make a point of mustering against the lush Church; they support vague proposals for impossible changes, and recon cile a speculative admiration for imaginary reforms with a servile acquiescence in sys tematised jobbery. The question is, there• fore, forced on our consideration whether the Liberals are sincere in any of their avowed objects beyond the selfish desire of place. If they were in earnest about the levelling schemes which they profess, would it not be natural for them to tell the Premier that they would not support his Cabinet unless he sup• ported their measures? On the other hand, if they are not in earnest, how contemptible is their conduct ! They regard the retention of office in their own hands as of more import ance than the triumph of their principles. They allow themselves to be absorbed by the Spirit of Jobbery, which in our times seems to be their sole animating purpose. - pompon 'TILE PRESS. Much evil results to the public at large from such a state of affairs. The working of Parliament has become anomalous. Domestic improve ment is checked as much as if we were still at war. Two or three committees on commercial questions are kept at work, and the old subject of University Improvement is put forward as a great measure. Army Reform, Civil Service Organisation, educational measures, are un heeded ; and the Liberals are weak enough to acquiesce in being used as accomplices in this do-nothing-at-all policy. Where have gone their sturdy promoters of social improvement? Where are their members of Parliament— frank, bold, and independent—like the late Mr. HOME, cr Mr. GROTE, or Colonel THODIP SON? No briliant reputations are rising amongst them. The public Treasury is their temple of liberty, and when denied admission openly they are content to slihk in at the side doors. How they must laugh in their sleeves as they look back upon a time when Liberals really did believe in the British Constitution, as interpreted by statesmen and orators of high renown, before Mr. HATTER was accepted as the true model for practical politicians. Cort!'nonlitntt. MR. CRAMPTON. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—ln my letter last week 1 attempted to show why I thought it nearly impossible for America to go to war with us without a disruption of the Union following closely on such an act of fully. In that letter I carefully avoided everything which could be construed into an expression of opinion relative to the merits of the question at issue between the two countries. Neither will I now trespass upon ground which will be so much better oc cupied by yourself. The title of Mr. Hunt's extraordinary pic ture in the Academy has been already applied to oue diplomatist on whom it was supposed that the Government were anxious to shift the responsibility of the fall of Kars unrelieved and uncured for. But it strikes me that there is a disposition on the part of the public press to invest Mr Crampton still more unmistakeably with the attributes of the Levitical scapegoat ; and it is against such unfair and ungenerous treatment of this gentleman that I would re cord my humble protest through the columns of your journal. The Daily News never thought much of Mr. Crampton. The Times always knew he was an agreeable sort of fellow, a pleasant com panion, and a good raconteur; but, as for his diplomacy, Heaven save the mark ! the less said about that the better (though, to be sure, it did tell us a week ago that he was the best and most p)tilar Minister we had ever sent to AmericaT; while even the paralytic Post, which a few days ago mouthed and gibed at Mr. Dallas with senile fury, and threatened the United States Government with more dire punishment than ever Pantaloon iu a panto. mime seeks to inflict upon Harlequin, is at the beginning of this week as willing to sacri fice Mr. Crampton as the Thunderer or the Daily News itself. Now, pray, sir, what right has the Times to draw an absurd and unfeeling caricature of an honourable gentleman and able public servant, and then hold it up to the public, as his vera effigies! To be sure the Times knows every thing; even such unknown facts as that Washington is a limbo fur incapable diploma tists, and that the members of the mission to the United States are " shelved " for ever and placed out of the pale of promotion, which is manifestly the reason why Sir Charles Bagot, Sir Stratford Canning, Sir Charles Vaughan, Sir Richard Pakenham, Sir Henry Bulwer, and such inferior fellows, have been i acked off to the banks of the Potomac, in which stream they doubtless committed suicide, for the world has never heard of their very existence since they went there ; and as for their advancement in their profession ! good heavens ! is it not well known in Printing house Square that no Government could venture to promote such condemned blun derers? But, seriously, there is no reason and there can be no reason, as Mr. Disraeli has well SATURDAY, said in the House, why the acts of Mr. Cramp ton should be separated from th ose o f t h e Government which has steadily approved his conduct and pertinaciously refused to acknow ledge that there was any just reason for his recal. It is too late to discuss the expe diency or wisdom of the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1854. The only questions now are, did Mr. Crampton zealously carry out the in structions of a Government whose servant he is? If so, is it fair that his actions should be separated from that of the Government which employed him? Is it not quite enough that he should be involved in the consequences of acts which were decided on in Downing -street, in a council where he had no voice? But some persons will say that he should have warned the Government at home of the dis astrous consequences likely to follow upon an attempt to enlist soldiers in the Union, and should have urged his own recal, in order to save his superiors from the humiliation which he ought to have foreseen would full upon them. I would put two questions to persons using this argument. First, are they quite certain that it would be considered fitting in an envoy to express his dissent from a course of policy deliberately adopted by the Cabinet and sanctioned by the Legislature at home? Secondly, supposing the Secretary of State were to invite the Minister to enter with him upon a discussion of the pros and cons. of the matter, is it to be expected that the whole country is to be taken into their confidence, told what arguments were used by the envoy, what rejoinders made by the Secretary of State, and invited to pronounce its opinion which of the two officials had formed the clearer judgment of the rk sults of the policy decided upon? If so, a reporter from the Times had better be accommodated with a chair ut all future Cabinet Councils. But what would have been said if Mr. Crampton had done what a more selfish or less conscientious public servant would un doubtedly have done—if he had contented himself with writing barren despatches, and taken care never to commit himself with the Government of the United States by raising one soldier for the Queen? A tool of Russia, a lukewarm Gallio, a traitor to his country, would have been the mildest epithets applied to him by the fulminator of Printing-house Square. I can think of no other reason fir styling Mr. Crampton a second or third rate diploma tist than that he is not a lord. I have heard that Americans much prefer a titled envoy. But such administrative reformers as the Times and Daily News can hardly indulge a similar partiality. For the Post, passe. Mr. Crampton's high character, ability, and great accomplishments furnish the best answer to such a wild assertion. If his can did calumniators deny iu him the existence of those qualities, I can only meet them by the counter-assertion that there is no man in the kingdom more especially qualified in every way to represent us in America than our late able Minister. Not only have four successive Foreign Secretaries—Lords Granville, Mahnes bury, J. Russell, and Clarendon—shown that this is their opinion, but such Americans as President Fillmore, Mr. Webster, and Mr. Everett have repeatedly declared their high appreciation of Mr Crampton. I myself have often heard Daniel Webster express that feeling with all the solemnity of utterance with which he always spoke a profound conviction If laudari a laudato be a legitimate source of sa tisfaction to any man, Mr. Crampton may well be proud of the admiration of that greatest of American statesmen. I will trespass on your time no further : I am confident that my humble protest against the ungenerousness and injustice of English men echoing the worst Transatlantic calumnies against Mr. Crampton, and sneering at Ins personal bearing and demeanour, which even Ivlr. Cushing felt compelled to respect, in order the more easily to reconcile ourselves to the humiliation which we have sustained, will be cordially responded to by every candid and honourable man in this country, especially if, like myself, he has chanced to he at any period during the last six years A TRAVELLER IN AbusaicA. 1