The Press.
London, England, 1855-01-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

horrors which the French escaped, and to which
our soldiers have so cruelly been subjected by
the scandalous neglects of Ministers in office.
Well, and what is the result? Look to the
evidence supplied by the colums of the most
potent supporter of the Coalition. In the Times
of iahullty 15th, we read from one of its bed
correspOlidenti Writirim from Constantinople---
"At this monietit, the Turks are full of ad-
" miration at the greatness of the Western
" Powers, and espritetieliv of France." Theme
after recounting the "energy" shown by the
latter nation, the communication states—" It
"is not without something like humiliation
" that an Englishman finds how small a part
" his country fills in comparison with its ally,
"and how universally this struggle is spoken
" of by the people of the country as a war be-
" tween France and Russia." Surely this
statement is most painful, and deserving of
the most serious attention. It is more re-
markable, as the writer commemorates how
great was the effect produced by the first ap-
pearance of the English in the East. It would
seem, however, that owing to the evident
earnestness of the Emperor NAPOLEON'S policy,
and his great resources, the skill of his officers
and the general effectiveness of his forces, an
impressied not flattering to England, as con-
trasted with France, was produced at Con-
stantinople.
But there are still later, and more mortify-
ing, testimonies as to the superiority of our
French rivals. In the Times of yesterday
(January 19th) Colonel ELVES NAPIER has
published a long letter, addressed to him from
Sebastopol, under date of the 28th December.
Its writer is an officer, and some of his state-
ments are painful to our national pride,
though we fear that they cannot be dis-
puted. Thus he writes—" The French seem
" to have everything, plenty of clothing, food,
" and forage ; their horses look fat and sleek,
" and their commissariat mules splendid ;
" they beat us in everything but fighting—both
" armies know that." This is, indeed, a painful
admission, but it is corroborated by a letter
from an assistant-surgeon, printed in the next
column of the same journal, who says—" The
" French, as I think I have told you before,
" beat us into fits as to arrangements and
" comforts."

Unfortunately, these facts cannot be gain-
said. Hundreds of private letters tell the
same tale; and the correspondents of the
various journals, differing in many things, are
nearly unanimous upon the superior feeding
and comforts enjoyed by the French. We
know that it is asserted, on excellent autho-
rity, " that the French alone have an army in
" the Crimea now. Our force is completely
" disorganised, and in whatever is undertaken
" against Sebastopol the French must have the
" entire direction." Wooden houses are sent
out, to arrive in January, for men who have
been left to a Crimean winter through Decem-
ber. The whole English commissariat system
has broken down for want of waggon-trains
and adequate horses. The troops cannot get
up their biscuit and beef, and is it expected
that they can convey their wooden houses
from Balaklava ? And side by side are the
French, " with plenty of everything." Surely
the contrast is deeply humiliating to any man
with a spark of honest British pride. No na-
tion excels the English in method and. prac-
tical talent for affairs. In the difficult art of
colonisation we have surpassed all the world,
and yet our army exhibits this melancholy in-
feriority in its physical condition.
And why is this the case? Its men are of
the same stock as those who filled the Crystal
Palace with wonders, and who have challenged
the world to excel their industrial ingenuity.
Many of its officers are of tried experience and
courage, and how, therefore, can snch morti-
fying contrasts have been shown ? It is be-
cause a great Red-Tapist presides over our
War-office, and because no military man is in
the Cabinet. It is because the most im-
portant of Ministerial offices is given to the
worse than second-rate capacity of the Duke
of NEweAsnE, a politician who never pre-
viously discharged the duties o f any great
office of the State, and whose innate medio-
crity of mind is patent to any one who ever
passed an hour in his company„ or listened
to him twaddling in the House o f Peers.

SATURDAY,

There are persons who will say, while sigh-
ing over these statements, that the French
have the advantage of an old military system,
and that onr English .ray is only impro-
vised. The a 5.1141011 StMOurs of calumny
against the institutiObs of odr country. We
shall Sot here disnos tbt issues raised by
that question, whish call be better treated
elsewhere i but we lie (bigot's of fastening
attention to the fact that tinder the vaunted.
" administative power*" of the Coalition,
our army and our public service have been
defrauded of the honour due to them. Nay,
more, there is a case proved by the ad-
vocates of the Coalition, that our Minis-
terial mismanagement has tarnished the na-
tional credit and sullied the fame which our
combatants at Inkermann and Balaklava so
gloriously supported. Our soldiership is ad-
mitted to have been first-rate, but of our states-
manship it is enough to say that ten thou-
sand brave men perished under the fatal rule
of the destructive Duke of NEWCASTLE. Never
had any country so incompetent a Minister
of War. Nor can it be matter of surprise that
such painful comparisons are drawn in the
East between the French and the English so
long as the latter perish under a War Depart-
ment whose administration is more calamitous
than the hostility of the Emperor of all the
Russias.

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON'S MOTION ON
EDUCATION.
THE days are gone by when the education cry
could be made available for the purpose of
strengthening Whig power—when lingering
prejudice among Conservatives of the old
school, and reckless exaggeration on the part of
Radical orators, acted upon and increased
each other, or when the claims of religion
and those of intellectual progress couli be .
represented as mutually irreconcileable. We
are all wiser than we were ; reformers have
come to expect less, anti-reformers are ready
to concede more ; both parties seem willing
to treat upon fair terms, and a treaty of peace,
on a durable basis, ought not to be difficult of
arrangement. Iu fact, the extreme partisans
of conflicting theories have retired and left
the field clear. The advocates of the volun-
tary system, for the most part, contend, not
unplausibly, against State control in educa-
tional matters ; to assistance given by the
State they have less objection, if that can be
done in such a manner as not to discourage
private efforts ; nor has a fuller knowledge of
the real position of the question of the
frightful ignorance which still pervades large
masses of our population been without its
effect in leading members of this party to
reconsider their views. The secularists, again,
have had their trial, and failed. No discus-
sion could be fuller or fairer than that which
took place on Mr. Fox's scheme, during the
session of 1850 ; the result of which discus-
sion was their defeat, decisive, and probably
final. At least, they themselves appear so to
regard it ; for since that time, though active
in criticism, they have not again produced a
plan. Setting aside for a moment the argu-
ment from principle, it is obvious that a
system of free, rate-supported, secular schools,
from which all religious teaching should be
excluded, cannot be made operative in Eng-
land. The opposition of the entire body of
clergy of all denominations, and the fact that
such a system ignores and undoes everything
that has been accomplished up to this time
in establishing the schools actually existing,
are too self-evident obstacles which none but
the merest dreamers can overlook. Pure
voluntarism, therefore, and pure secularism
are convicted of non-practicability; they cannot
supply a want which the nation feels, and
which all statesmen acknowledge. On the
other hand, it may be safely alleged that the
anti-educationists—those who argue against
the teaching of the people as either unsafe,
unnecessary, or impossible—have ceased to
exist as a class. Individuals hero and there
may cling to opinions which were common in
their younger days, but their number yearly