The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-03-04 00:00:00

THE

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TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1856.

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

MONDAY MORNING.
HER MAJESTY and the Court continue to reside at Buck-
ingham Palace, devoting such brief spaces of time as the
public affairs leave at the QUERN'S disposal, to a discharge of
those domestic and maternal duties which it is her happiness
to attend to, and in the fulfilment of which she sets so com-
mendable an example to even the humblest as well as the most
exalted of her subjects. On Wednesday, a levee, the second
of the season, was held by HER MAJETTY at St. James's
Palace. The presentations were numerous, those of military
and naval officers predominating. In the evening of the
same day, HER MAJESTY entertained a select party at dinnC'i,
among whom were Her Royal Highness the PRINCESS
ROYAL, Mr. Bucruacut, Minister to the Court of St. James's
from the United States, the Earl of EGLINTON, and the
Right Hon. B. and Mrs. DISRAELI. On Thursday, the
QUEEN. and Prince ALBERT, together with the PRINCESS
ROYAL, honoured the Haymarket Theatre with their presence;
and on Saturday HER MAJESTY graced the performance at
the Lyceum Theatre by attending. The performances on this
last occasion were for the benefit of the Pavilion company of
actors, who have suffered so severely in the loss of their pro-
perty by the recent fire at their theatre. Preparations are
already on foot, on au extensive scale, for the reception of the
KING of the BELGIANS, who is shortly expected on a visit to
the QUEEN, and whose sojourn in this country will, it is
understood, extend to about a week.

How important soever the routine of our domestic public
affairs may at this time appear, and doubtless are, all eyes are
at present fixed on Paris. The transactions there being car-
ried on arrest not merely the attention of Great Britain and
her august Allies, but rivet the observation of all Europe and
engage the sympathies of the civilized world. In that capital
a small council of men are assembled, delegated to discuss and
arrange the conflicting interests, and to represent while they
amalgamate and modify the opinions of the independent Mo-
narchies ,of Europe—it may indeed be said, of the world at
large. Considering the importance of the subjects submitted
to their arbitrement, it is not to be wondered at, that every
motion, whisper, or expression which may emanate from them
is watched with the most intense anxiety. In vain, however,
are all eyes and ears upon the stretch. The avenues to the
meeting chamber are barred against intrusion by means so
strict that

"Nor eye nor listening ear an object finds"
on which to rest conjecture. In the absence of information
the fancy has been busy, and rumours the most fantastical
have been freely circulated with respect to the negotiations
and the resolutions of the conclave. The first great act of the
Plenipotentiaries has been ratified and promulgated. An
armistice has been concluded, and proclaimed, the armistice
being of course a useless affair unless proclaimed and
publicly acted on. It includes more than the mere
formalities implied in the temporary cessation of hos-
tilities. It was authoritatively stated that no armis-
tice would be agreed to by the Allies, until a formal
recognition of the principles on which the negotiation
should proceed were definitely fixed. The proclamation of
the armistice is therefore looked on as a proof that some sin-
cerity is evinced on the part of Russia, and that there is at
least a probability of peace. Having divulged so much
of their proceedings, the members of the Conference have once
more drawn around them the curtain of obscurity, and all
concerning them and their deliberations is again involved
in that mystery which forms so fertile a source of conjec-
ture. The suspense thus occasioned is painful, and some
maintain disadvantageous; but a moment's reflection must
convince even the most anxiously curious that affairs so mo-
mentous as those concerning which the assembled Plenipoten-
tiaries are deliberating must be carefully secluded from general
discussion, at all events until they have assumed a practical
and definite form. Those whose monetary and mercantile
interests are deeply involved in the issue, will no doubt long
eagerly for such intelligence as may guide them in their future
proceedings, but in the meantime prudence dictates to them
and others to " wait a little longer ;" to refrain, in fact, from
speculations and conjectures which must prove vain and
fanciful, and may occasion themselves much risk and
detriment.

While anxiety connected with foreign matters occupies so
large a share of general attention, and while on the subject
of our external policy ministers are iu the enjoyment of what
may prove a portentous and treacherous repose, they have
during its continuance been tossed upon a sea of domestic
troubles. In the House of Lords they have been beaten
and baffled on a question of vital interest to the state—
in the same place they have been constrained to grant
a commission of inquiry into the report issued by them-
selves, although prepared by their commissioners to in- '
quire into the state of matters in the Crimea, which had
produced such disastrous effects upon our army and had so
tarnished the glory of our arms. In reference to this report
two ministerial blunders already stand prominently revealed.
The commission issued was not sufficiently extensive. It em-
powered the commissioners to inquire into the state of affairs
which had produced the evil complained of, but it conferred
on them no power to ascertain who were the parties immedi-
ately to blame for that state of matters. For example, it
enabled them to ascertain that the great mortality among the
cavalry horses was occasioned by want of food, which was
plentiful at a few miles' distance from them, and that Lord
CARDIGAN refused to allow the cavalry horses to go for forage.
It also enabled them to ascertain with precision the mehsn.
.choly fact that the morlity occasioned by this want of forage
was not confined to the horses, but extended its ravages with
frightfully fatal effect among the men. Here, however, it
stopped. They were not entitled to inquire into the reasons
which induced the Earl of CARDIGAN to refuse, even, in the
trying emergency referred to, to convert his cavalry chargers
into beasts of burden for the:conveyance of commissariat stores.
Sir JOHN AINSID and Colonel TuLLocE inquired with search-
ing and impartial scrutiny, and reported with responsible
though fearless fidelity, so far as they were entitled to go; but
here, like provident men, they m de a virtue of necessity and
proceeded no further than their commission gave them
warrant for. In these circumstances, parties, who like
Lord CARD/GIN imagine they have been presented to the
public in an unfair and invidious light, demand to have the
supplementary portion of the inquiry gone into. It is per-
fectly obvious that various and conclusive reasons may have
operated on Lord CARDIGAN'S mind, and may have fully jus-
tified him in acting as he did in the peculiar circumstances
referred to ; and so of other officers, whose conduct is im-
pugned by implication. The demand made iu reference to
further investigation has wrung from Ministers a military
commission for further inquiry ; and thus, as is the case with
most half-measures, the piece-meal style of the examination
gives rise to endless misrepresentation out of doors, and varied'
castigation in Parliament. By one set of opponents, Minis-
ters are accused of issuing an imperfect commission for the
purpose of screening the great offenders, while those who are
so designated by an imperfectly-informed public complain
loudly that they have been denied the opportunity of stating
their own case, and vehemently affirm that their reputation is
undermined by insinuation and tarnished by inference, which
they could have disproved if permitted the opportunity to do
so. A third class maintain, that, in appointing the military
commission to prosecute the inquiry further, Ministers are, in
effect,invalidating the report, censuring the investigation, and
seeding their own commissioners for trial before..a newly-con-
stituted and anomalous military tribunal. In point of fact,
the whole of the ministerial procedure, in respect to this Cri-

mean inquiry, has been of so extraordinary and unbusinesslike
a character, as to provoke, if not to justify, the most sweeping
suspicions. Every one has long since agreed that the
parliamentary investigation was so adroitly manipulated by
the artistes who preside over the politico-culinary arrange-
ments of the cabinet cookery work, that its conclusion was a
farce, sorry enough, no doubt, in the enactment and result,
but still a farce. Here the second branch of the inquiry seems
to have been so "cribbed, cabined, and confined," that even
the unwearied assiduity and dauntless courage of the commis-
sioners have been circumvented, and a third commission must
now sit upon the cruelly-mutilated subject of inquiry, to com-
plete a work which the two gentlemen sent to the East have,
by their report, proved themselves so fully competent to
perform.
Bad as it is, however, this is not all with which. Lord
PA.LMERSTOII and his colleagues stand fairly chargeable in
respect to the report of Sir Jon's' APNEIL and his coadjutor.
On receiving the report, Ministers did not communicate it to
the Horse Guards ; and, in ignorance of its contents, the
Commander-in-Chief conferred promotion, and bestowed
places of emolument, trust, and high responsibility, on officers
underlying suspicion, if not deserving of severe censure, in
accordance with the terms of that report. In withholding
the report from the head of the military department, Minis-
ters inflicted manifold wrong. In permitting the ignorant
act of patronage, they exposed the public service to detriment ;
they placed the Commander-in-Chief in a false position with
Parliament and the country ; and they set the recipients of
the patronage in the invidious light of being rewarded first,
and punished or acquitted afterwards, while, at the same
moment, they lay the conduct, motives, and judgment of
their own commissioners open to misconstruction, and expose
them to undeserved suspicion. The matter was gravely de-
bated in the House of Lords ; and, on Friday last, it was dis-
lussed with much acrimony in the House of Commons, the