The Press. — London, England, 1855-01-27 00:00:00

JANUARY 27, 1855. nobleman with less social popularity has never filled the elevated office of First Minister. In Parliament he never had a following, and in general intercourse his freezing manner, cold as a Crimean blast, repelled the few, and displeased the many. On his graceless demeanour and corrosive cynicism Lord BYRON concentrated a volume of satire when he derided him as "Athenian Aberdeen." But his disagreeable defects as an indivi dual shrink into nothing when compared with the gloomy results of his public life. It was his retrograde " Foreign Policy" that preci pitated Europe, at the critical period of 1830, into a whirlpool of revolutionary passion. The extravagance of his absolutist prejudices were fatally provocative of democratic frenzy. At a later time his policy has made nations " moan" under his cold-blooded aversion to a generous and spirited line of action for Eng land. Singularly enough, whatever errors Lord PALMERSTON produced by too much in terference were increased by Lord ABERDEEN pushing his policy of indifference into the other extreme. If Lord PALMERSTON was too precipitate, Lord ABERDEEN thought that the mistakes of his antagonist were to be rectified by a miserable inertness and a protracted vacillation. The blunders of too much zeal were to be cured, forsooth, by showing no British sympathies at all. So when the Pope parcelled out England, and Doctor WISEMAN snatched at an English ecclesiastical title, Lord ABERDEEN tolerated the Papal audacity, and with his sardonic smile courted tho inso lence of further aggression. He helped to spread schisms in the Church of Scotland by his legislation, as he aided in Romish attacks on the Royal prerogative, and after a mediocre career, without the inspiration of genius or the blaze of glory, by an utterly unscrupulous intrigue he made himself Prime Minister, to the grievous and (we fear) lasting detriment of his Sovereign and country. Yet such is the man whose want of self respect induces him now to grasp at the honours of the Garter! Our readers do not require to be told that (unlike the case of peerages) the vacant Garters are, by custom, at the disposal of the Prime Minister. Except in requital of extraordinary services, sig nalised by victorious results, it is not the custom for Prime Ministers to consent to their own personal decoration. But Lord ABERDEEN, sinking in influence, thwarted and baffled in his continental combinations, must have some external marks of honour to hide the degradation of his impending fall. The least chivalrous public character in Europe must have the star of the Garter blazing over his heart of insincerity. Seldom was ambition more vainglorious—rarely was personal con ceit more miserably selfish. The genealogists of his family tell us in the peerage books that the Gordons of the Aberdeen branch descend from that BERTRAND LE GOIIRDON who shot the fatal arrow at King RICHARD Cmun DE LION, and the living head of the house authenticates his pedigree with marked antipathy to the lionhearted spirit of England. While the Czar was trobly fortifying Sebastopol our Premier was prating of peace, as if he had been whispered by Mr. BRIGHT ! yet such is the man who assumes for himself the illus trious Order of the Garter. But this attempt to overbear public opinion, this crafty parade of honourable emblems, will not pass current with the people of England. Neither birth, nor fortune, nor courtly privileges can shield public characters from censure in this land of freedom when their actions discredit their distinctions. Neither the transient success of an " austere intriguer," nor the official influence of a servile tergiversator—no! nor " his ribbon, star, and a that," can quell the indignation of free sub lects at beholding the highest honours avished on that incapable Minister whose craven heart has jeopardised the existence of one of the noblest armies that ever fought in fields of fame. Lord ABERDEEN has cursed our soldiers with his wilful blunder of placing them under the control of an ignorant Minis ter of War. Their hardships, their cruel suf ferings, their famine-diet, their unclad bodies shivering in cold Crimean hills, are all directly traceable to the dreary designs of that dismal old man, who would trifle with statesmanship THE PRESS. at a time when he had " one foot in the grave." The performances of a poet stales pede to uno are treated with contempt, but the exploits of a tottering statesman, through whose faint heart a heroic inspiration never flashed, are, forsooth, to be rewarded with the badge of the most brilliant of knightly ranks. But, after all, it is in the hearts of the wearers, and not in the glittering jewellery, that we must look for the chivalry of the order. Mere external emblems cannot communicate greatness. By their bold actions, or their noble natures, Englishmen must register their claims to brotherhood with the historical knighthood of the Plantagenet& A generous Minister would have rejoiced to decorate the heroic patrician who led the tre mendous charge at Balaklava, and the army might have exulted at the star of honour being given to the fiery valour of the Earl of CAR DIGAN. But magnanimity towards any fol lower of the Earl of DERBY could never enter into the breast of that ancient intriguer whose evil example in snatching at an honour due to nobler souls will be mitigated in the eyes of posterity when it is known that, with a cunning characteristic of his owl-like prudence, our high•souled Prime Minister—conferred it on himself ! OUR WAR ADMINISTRATORS. Ws have now reached a point in the present war at which every post brings us fresh testi mony to the incompetence of those who affect to conduct it The evidence of one blunder succeeds that of another with such rapidity that we scarcely remark it before it is lost in an accumulating chaos, which taxes analysis at the same time that, for the present, it defies remedy. As it is no longer possible to deny facts, it only remains to shift responsibility, and therefore we are pressed with efforts to shield Ministers by attacking generals who have no opportunity of defending themselves. At the same time the circumstances of many of these failures exclude this reckless mode of accounting for them by being brought incon testably to the home authorities. We learn, for instance, that the hospital stores at Scutari contain no tea and sugar. Yet, why are these indispensable comforts not forthcoming? On the assumption that they already existed in store, the Government some months since rejected an offer from the tea dealers of the metropolis to supply such tea and sugar gratis. Now that they have de prived themselves of this gratuitous aid on the ground of the adequacy of their own provi sions, it is found that the sick have been sacrificed to the official dignity of the War office. This, then, is one instance of many which are commonly known ; but to this we will add one or two others, of which we have ourselves obtained information. In no respect has greater hardship been inflicted on the army, according to the ac counts which have reached us, than by serving out to them rations which they had no oppor tunity of cooking. Yet for this Ministers are answerable solely from their own obstinacy. It singularly happens that the remedy for this state of things, and which was pressed upon their acceptance, is derived from the Russian experience of the Emperor NAPOLEON, in 1812. To prevent the scurvy and other diseases which then afflicted the French army from the use of salted provisions, the Emperor offered a reward to the French chemists to devise a better mode of preserving meat. This led to the discovery by APPERT, the chemist, that if meat be boiled in tin canisters, as the steam escapes, it may be hermetically sealed, and the meat, thus preserved in a vacuum from the action of the air, will remain wholesome food for years. Meat ready cooked and thus preserved has been long extensively used by the mercantile marine, and even by the navy, till GOLDNER, the Hungarian Jew, then established at Galatz, brought himself, rather than the process, into deserved disrepute. Our Ministers were aware that there was no better means of aresting the evils arising from salt provisions and the want of fuel, and, accordingly, several months since in vited tendors from provision merchants for 75 the supply of 600,0001b5. of this very meat, but, under the influence of the panic occa sioned by GOLDNER, they imposed such ex traordinary conditions as made their offer nugatory. We have not space to mention their impracticable terms, but the consequence was that from the whole body of provision merchants only a few insignificant tenders were made as an experiment. Shortly after this failure, one of these, at least, offered the Government to purchase meat subject to the approval of their own inspector, to preserve it under similar conditions, to accompany it to the Crimea, to deliver it himself to the Com missariat at Balaklava, and only to be paid on its examination and approval there. To this offer, made some months ago, he had not a few days back received any reply, and in the meantime our army have been rotting on raw pork which they had not the fuel or the apparatus for cooking. Diarrhcea and dysen tery, as far as this cause has contributed to them, are thus distinctly traceable to the pur veyors for the war in London. Another instance occurs in their failure to supply, in the absence of cooked meat, a ready means of cooking it. No use is made of the admirable invention which it is said that Mi nisters individually approve, for supplying each tent with the portable stove and oven which we have ourselves seen in operation, and which may be put in use or extinguished as easily as a gas-jet. No answer comes to the public-spirited company who offer to supply them in the needful quantities at the cost of labour and materials, and whose honourable status is a guarantee of their perfect good faith. In consequence of official folly or neg ligence in this and other instances, we hear those incessant details of misery beneath which our soldiers droop and die ; and for this folly or negligence some one must be answer able. But it is not in these instances Lord RAGLAN or his aide-de-camps, or the autho rities at Balaklava, or at Constantinople. We have not the shadow of a pretext hero for attacking generals abroad to ward off indignation from Ministers at home. MILITIA FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN. A CIRCULAR, dated Jan. 15, 1855, has been addressed by the Duke of NEWCASTLE to the colonels of a certain number of militia regiments, asking them to volunteer, under the provisions of the last Militia Act, for service in Gibraltar, Malta, and the lonian Islands, and stating the conditions under which the volunteering shall take place. The privates are to receive a bounty of 81., given in the following manner :-21. in cash on taking the oath, U. to he expended in necessaries, and Si. to be paid in quarterly sums of ss. during the five years for which they are enlisted. Each company is to consist of 85 privates and 5 non-commissioned officers, and will have the usual complement of officers, viz., a captain and two subalterns. One field officer is to accompany every 300 men. We are informed, on semi-official authority, that this Circular has been sent to fifteen regiments of those which have been the longest embodied ; and that they will go out with six service companies, leaving four at home as a depot. Each service regiment will, there fore, number 540 rank and file, and the total force sent out will be 8,100 men. It is added that these fifteen regiments will relieve an equal number of regiments of the line, which will be immediately available for service in the Crimea. As line regiments are stronger by two companies than these militia regiments, it follows that a force of 10,000 men will be set at liberty to reinforce Lord RAGLAN'S army. Such a reinforcement is of the utmost importance. But, as this is the case, how comes it that the Dnke of NEWCASTLE'S Circular has been so long delayed ? Parliament was called toge ther to pass measures with the utmost rapidity. The provisions of the Militia Bill had received full dis cussion, and were understood to be settled, on the 19th of December; and the bill received the Royal assent on the 23rd. Every one expected instant measures for carrying it. into effect. The Circular is a mere transcript of the Act, and might have been ready lithographed, and sent by the post of the 23rd, to every militia regiment that was to be asked to volunteer. Three weeks and two days elapsed, from the 23rd of December to the 15th of January, before the document appeared. Such are the dela)s of the present Minister of War. The question arises—Will the fifteen regiments go ? Can a sufficient number of men and officers be