The Press.
London, England, 1855-02-24 00:00:00

RUSSIA.

The ukase ordering a levy en masse for the army
throughout Russia has been followed by two supple-
mental edicts. One contains a fresh appeal for sub.
scriptions and voluntary offerings. The second orders
a forced extraordinary contribution throughout the
extent of the Russian empire. This contribution
comprises a forced loan and fourfold requisition for
provisions. Every " hide " of land in Toland is to
pay fifteen roubles.
According to the manifesto published on the 10th
by the Czar, he says that he had endeavoured to
uphold the rights of Christendom in the East without
a contest, and had therefore consented to negotia-
tions, but that the hostile armaments of other States
had obliged him to increase his means of defence ;
and that, trusting in the grace of God and the love
of his people, he had commanded the general organi-
sation throughout the country of the militia.
The wear and tear of human life in the Russian
army during the last two years has been enormous,
so much so thatthe constantly repeated conscriptions
and calling out of reserves have scarcely sufficed to
keep up the battalions of the six active corps at their
original effective amount of 750.
- - •

The Vienna paper, the Oat. Deutsche Post, publishes
a letter from St. Petersburg, in which it is stated
that:—

The Emperor is much irritated against the officers of the
ittaff, who declared last year that the disembarkation of more
than 40,000 men in the Crimea was impossible ; and hence
it was deemed sufficient to augment the Russian army by
a third. It has been raised to 100,000 men now, and pos-
sesses an excellent body of cavalry, ; but a large portion of
the latter has been necessarily withdrawn, on account of the
scarcity of fodder and the great difficulties in the way of the
commissariat—difficulties which prevent a larger number
I of troops being sent thither. From Simferopol to Sebes-
, bastopol the way lies across salt steppes devoid of vegeta•
tan, and you are obliged to carry water with you for man
and beast. Nearly 7,000 draught horses have already died
along that route, and they now use oxen instead. It is,
therefore, impossible to support an army in the Crimea,
unless one has the sea ; and if the allies succeed in cutting
off the communications of the Russian army by land, albeit
for a very short period, the fate of Sebastopol will be soon
decided. Unheard .of efforts are making for the spring
campaign, and every day we expect extraordinary measures.
No one desires a peace prejudicial to Russia, and more es-
pecially because the war is considered over all the empire
as a holy one. They will cheerfully give up to Austria the
protectorate of the principalities, because they feel sure of
getting it back again before long, provided Russia's power
remains intact. We consider the free navigation of the
Danube a mere verbal order with which Russia will wil-
lingly comply. The main point is the domination of the
Black Sea. This domination was the first case of the war,
and it will be defended to the very last. The Black Sea
lost, all is lost ; but the Black Sea saved, all is saved. Such
is the rallying cry of Russian policy.

IN the week that ended on Saturday last the deaths
of 1,475 persons, namely, 741 males and 734 females,
were registered in London. There died last week,
in addition to what is usual in the middle of Febru-
ary, 280 persons, whose lives have been shortened by
the sharp and long-oontinued frost.

181

THE BOUNDARY MAP OF EUROPE.
IN the current number of the Dublin University
Magazine there is an article on the settlement of

Europe at the Congress of Vienna, which is worthy
of notice from certain strong points being put
forward in it which just now require attention. Not
entirely concurring with the writer in several of his
opinions, we shall offer a brief analysis of his
detailed views of the last settlement of the European
boundaries.

Reverting to the circumstances under which the
Congress of Vienna met, the reviewer directs atten-

tion on the fatal prominence given to the Pope at
that important time. England was represented by
Lord Castlereagh, and France by M. Talleyrand ;
while Spain, Portugal, Murat ( King of NapleC,
Sicily, Holland, Saxony, Switzerland, Genoa, and
Venice, had plenipotentiaries present. Besides these
important functionaries there were present in person
the Emperors of Austria and Russia, the Kings of
Prussia, Bavaria, Denmark, and Wurtemburg, along
with a host of lesser princes. In such an extraor-
dinary assembly, with such prodigious pretensions
and conflicting interests, regularity of business was
a great difficulty, and dissension was almost in-
evitable. It is singular enough that it should have
been the Emperor of Russia who suggested the
course for regulating the precedency of the various
States. He proposed that they should en that one
and exceptional occasion rank according to the
letters of the alphabet. A new difficulty, however,
then intervened:—

lint was the entire of this mob of purple•born or purple-
invested beggars to join in the discussion of their own
claims and counter-claims ? The idea was manifestly
absurd ; and at length, after much disputation, a committee
of business was nominated, to which all questions before
the Congress should be submitted. In accordance with
this arrangement, the actual work was done by the
Ministers of England, Russia, Austria, Prussia, France,
Spain, Portugal, and Sweden, with whom was associated,
upon the special intercession of the Prince Regent of Eng-
land, Cardinal Gonsalvi, as the representative of Pope
Pius VII.

The influence thus given to the Pope by the
Protestant powers has appeared to many publicists
to have been a blunder of the first magnitude. It
can only be attributed to the strong reactionary
spirit against all that savoured of the infidelity of
the French Revolution ; and the error of Napoleon the
First in imprisoning the Pope (after having made an
elaborate concordat with the Papacy) had undoubt-
edly contributed to excite some tenderness of feeling
towards the Vatican inconsistent with Protestant
opinions. It was trying to cure the frenzy of infi-
delity by the benumbing opiate of superstition,
which is always sure in the course of events to re-
produce infidelity again.
Turning from the Pope to the Czar, the reviewer
then proceeds to show the barriers attempted to be
raised against the ambition of Russia. In doing so
the reviewer does some justice to the memory of
Lord Castlereagh, whose character was for years the
target for every foul calumny that political malignity
could devise. Lord Castlereagh saw the necessity
of checking the designs of Russia, and he attempted
to do 80 :
The great evil of modern Europe (Lord Castlereagh then
said), which has hitherto led to such frequent want of am•
bition by the greater powers, has been the number of lesser
states with which they are surrounded, at once a geld for
their hostility, and a prey to their cupidity. It is our
wisdom, therefore, so to strengthen the second-rate powers
as may render the balance inure even, and prevent their
dominions from becoming, as heretofore, the mere battle-
field in which the greater powers find an arena for their
contests, and the prize of their hostility.
And after recounting the artful diplomacy employed
by Russia, the reviewer then proceeds to show the
indifference of England, quoting authentic proofs :
Thus, evidence enough was before our Ministers of the
nature of the designs entertained by the Czar, and we have
now before us abundant proof that it was not lost upon
them. Their letters are filled with expressions that leave
no donht upon this point. " It is quite astonishing ( wrote
Lord Liverpool to the Duke of Wellington) how little in-
terest is taken [in England] in what is going on at Vienna."
Again, warnings are given by various Ministers and diplo-
matic agents not to " assist the credit of a caltivick prince
to overrun Europe ;" " not to suffer Russia to acquire any
establishment in the lonian islands, to the hazard of the
internal tranquility of timece and Hungary ;" and so on
throughout.
These facts are remarkable, that in English
popular opinion at that time the great bugbear
should have been Imperial France, and not Russia.
But, self-protected by its insular situation, England
does not in ordinary cases pay strenuous attention
to foreign affairs. It can "sympathise" no n
line w and
again ; but it has never pursued a steady
foreign politics. Even on the question of. Poland,
i
how wavering has been the sentiment in England.
The reviewer shows that Lord Caetlerengh was
decidedly favorable to the erection of an indepen-
dent State in Pr.land as a barrier against Russian
ambition, and he quotes parliamentary evidence
prove it, and hints that after Lord Castlereagh was
to
obliged to leave the Congress in order to attend his

182

parliamentary duties, that the liberties of Europe
suffered from Lord Castlereagh's place being filled
by the Duke of Wellington, who was more partial to
the absolutist powers.

LORD STANLEY AT LYNN.
ON Thursday week Lord Stanley addressed his con-
stituents of Lynn in a speech of great ability, and
embracing a comprehensive range of topics. Assum-
ing that it was "the duty of the Government to
initiate legislative measures," he blamed the late
Government for not having carried all the measures

... _
promised in their early programmes. He then
adverted to his own course on some important ques-

tions, and defended his vote on church rates as
having been given in support of a principle that
must inevitably be of general application—namely,
the principle of self-support fur all our institutions.
Lord Stanley afterwards referred to the questions of
national education and parliamentary reform, de-
claring upon the latter point that the extension of
the franchise was one of time and degree. Referring
to the war, he declared that the Emperor of Russia
bad been deceived by the English Ministry into a
belief that England would not oppose the dismem-
berment of Turkey. Proceeding to notice the allega-
tion that the failures in the management of the war
had arisen from our parliamentary system of Govern-
ment, the noble lord said :
The complaint commonly made is this —that under this
system all power and authority are monopolised in a few
hands, and that talent, without connection, does not find
proper scope. Now, the question to ask ourselves is,
whether that is true or no ? Is it the fact, that in the
present day and during the present century high adminis-
trative offices have been usually filled by incapable men,
having no merit except that of connection? Take the
facts as they stand. Take the House of Commons as it is
actually constituted; take each party in the House of
Commons, and consider who, in those parties, are the
leading men. It is invidious to mention names ; but I
will undertake to say that if any one takes the lists of the
House of Commons as they are at present constituted, he
will find that a clear majority of those who are or who
hate been in the highest offices, or who have filled a large
place in the public eye, are men who have made their way,
not through connection, not through family influence, but
simply by the exercise of their own faculties and powers.
(Hear.) I am not defending our parliamentary system
as by any means perfect. It has great faults ; but its
faults lie, I think, in the contrary direction to that now
urged. The fault of our parliamentary system is, that it
does injustice to men who, with considerable power of
labour and with considerable administrative talent, do not
possess the faculty of debate. If there is any class to
which it does injustice, it is that class. It certainly is the
case that in the House of Commons, as in every popular
assembly, the mere power of public speaking, the mere
facility of reply in debate, is a talent more valued than
properly ought to be. (Hear, hear.) But that is not a
fault on the side of an aristocratic or exclusive system ;
that is not a fault which tends to throw a monopoly of
power into the hands of a few persons and families. That
is a fault which, if it is inherent in our Government, we
share, and share in pretty equal proportions, with the
Republican Government of America. (Hear, hear.)
Whatever the defects of the system may be, it certainly has
this merit—no man absolutely without talent or capacity
can hold a high parliamentary office or represent an im-
portant department.
Our army, Lord Stanley observed afterwards,
might be deficient in the practice of united action,
and our military system had faults arising from the
limited number of our troops :
But, after all, it is not the military system, it is not the
organisation of the arm) which is responsible for most of
the errors which have been committed. It was not the
fault of the military system that, after we had twelve
months' notice of a war impending, the English army was
sent out from this country destitute of the means of
moving. (Hear, hear.) It was not the fault of the mili-
tary system that when that army had been sent out it was
despatched to the moat pestilential quarter that could be
found on the shores of the Black Sea, and there detained
in inaction many months. It was not the fault of the
military system that that army, scantily provided with
materials for a siege, and decimated by disease, was sent
to undertake the siege of Sebastopol, Government nut
having apparently taken the trouble to inquire what was
the strength of the place, or whether it had a garrison of
20,000 or 100,000 men, and that that army was sent out at a
season when the operations of a protracted siege had be-
come impossible. ( Hear.) Again, it was not the fault
either of the military or of the naval organisation that our
largest and heaviest line-of-battle ships were sent to the
Baltic to attack forts within reach of whose guns they
could not possibly come. All these errors are distinctly
chargeable upon individuals--upon the late Cabinet—upon
those who had the conduct of the war in the late Cabinet.
They are indisputably the faults of Ministers, and not the
faults of any system. ( Hear.)

Tun. QUEEN has just given 1001. towards the erec-
tion of a girl's school for the children of mechanics,
artisans, and upper class of labourers in and near
Windsor. The school was established seven years
ago, and supported wholly by the family of the late
Dean of Windsor, the Hon. and Very Rev. Dr. Neville
Grenville. It having been proposed to build a school
as's house, collections were made, and an
. laid before her Majesty, who hab thus
responded to it.

THE PRESS.

TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE.

THE Society for Promoting the Repeal of the Taxes
on Knowledge held their annual meeting on Wednes-
day at Exeter hall, when Messrs. Milner Gibson,
Cobden, and Bright successively addressed a
numerous assembly. The first-mentioned hon.
member, in congratulating the association on its ap-
proaching triumph, adverted to the bill brought in
on the previous evening in the House of Commons
by the "late " Chancellor of the Exchequer
Thu bill (he said) was designed to abolish the com-
pulsory stamp on newspapers and entitle all printed matter
up to the weight of four ounces to be transmitted by post
at the charge of one penny. The measure would also abro-
gate the security system, and all those odious gaing
statutes passed in the dark days of the Castlereagh Admin-
istration, and known by the name of the " Six Acts." it
likewise contained a concession to the vested interests of
the existing newspapers—namely, the right of retransmis-
sion through the post during a period of seven days after
publication, without any additional charge, for such por-
tion of their impression as they chose to print on stamped
paper ; and this privilege was to be continued for a period
of ten years to one metropolitan journal, which they all
knew exceeded the prescribed weight of four ounce. ("Oh! " )
Such were the leading features of Mr. Gladstone's bill,
which instead of inflicting an injury confers a positive boon
on the established press ; and he could only account for
their opposition to the measure on the supposition that
they apprehended the competition of penny newspapers.
That association wished t, see daily newspapers brought
within the reach of the humblest classes of the community,
and not confined to the affluent; and they believed that
the repeal of the stamp duty would have the effect of in-
suring the cheap and expeditions diffusion of intelligence
of all passing events, as well as of extending the influence
of the best intellect engaged in journalism among the
great mass of the people, and thereby mitigating the evils
arising from the want of a comprehensive system of national
education, which the dissensions unhappily existing among
different sects of religionists rendered impossible in this
country.
Mr. COBDEN regretted Mr. Gladstone's retirement, but
did not believe that what had occurred would endanger the
safety of the bill. These sudden and kaleidoscopic changes
in the Government, however, could not but excite one's
wonder and surprise. We were, it was true, engaged in a
war, but really war appeared to be nowhere carried on with
such vigour as in our own Cabinet; and, if our statesmen
were to go on slaying each other in that way, we must soon
resort to a Foreign Enlistment Act to secure a Ministry.
(Laughter.) With respect to the bill before them, he, for
one, would not quarrel with the few compromises and tem-
porary conditions that were comprised in its provisions.
He cared not whether the carriage of half an ounce more
or less for a period of ten years was allowed to an existing
newspaper so long as the main object of that association
was gained ; and, indeed, he would be glad to buy off the
opposition of a powerful journal upon these terms.
Mr. BaronT went through soma calculations re-
specting the per centage of taxation at present im-
posed upon newspapers, which he declared to he
exorbitant, and then proceeded to remark upon the
social aspect of the question :
By the measures they advocated they were doing more
than could be accomplished by any other means to incor-
porate the great body of the working classes with the
mind, intellect, progress, and life of the country, and to
give a wider power, and wiser direction to public opinion
than we had witnessed in past times. (Hear, hear.)

Lord Stanley has addressed a letter to the
Northern Whig, in reply to some strictures offered by
that journal on his recent letter, published in THE
PRESS, advocating the remission of the newspaper
stamp and other changes in the law. His lordship
says :
As the question is about to be debated in Parliament,
and as Mr. Gladstone has, in fact, conceded the chief
point in dispute, I shall not attempt a reply to your argu-
ment. You are mistaken in supposing that there is any
necessary connection between the repeal of the stamp duty
and the grant of a copyright in news. The latter question
would probably, under any circumstances, have been mooted,
and the removal of the stamp can only a little hasten its
consideration in Parliament. You appear also to think
that the copyright suggested would be unlimited in point of
time. That has, I believe, never been proposed ; the limit
of time usually mentioned is twenty-four hours. If a news-
paper has gone to great expense in obtaining information
from exclusive sources, I confess I do not see on what
ground the right to derive an exclusive profit from such in-
formation can be disputed. In defining and limiting such
right, difficulty may occur ; but similar difficulties may
occur and are overcome in the case of copyright in books,
and still more in that of patents taken out for inventions.
This, however, is a question altogether separate from that
of the stamp. You assume an absolute identity of opinion
between my views on the subject of the newspaper press
generally, and those of the other members of the Asso-
ciation for the Repeal of Taxes on Knowledge. Here again
you arc in error. I have always objected to the use of the
term " tax " as applied to the stamp, believing that charge,
though an unjust and unequal one, to be a postal charge,
and not a tax, in the usual sense of the word. The distinc-
tion is carefully drawn in the pamphlet from which you
quote extracts. Neither have I, in the present state of
finance, pledged myself to the repeal of the paper duty,
which is one of the principle demands of the association.
I do not wish to make other members of that body respon-
sible for my views, nor to become responsible for theirs. I
have thought that so much notice of your comments was
due in reply to your letter. In what manner you consider

SATURDAY,

the liberty of the press endangered by the alleviation and
equalisation of a fiscal charge now pressing upon it, you
may, perhaps, be able to explain. Without explanation, the
connection between the two is not easy to understand, any
more than your expressed fear lest trial by jury, which is
found sufficient to protect all other classes and interests in
the community, should prove an inadequate defence of the
interests of journalism. STANLEY.
London, Feb. 17,1856.

and mistree
application
gradonaly
11