The Press.
London, England, 1855-05-05 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1855.

"PRESS" OFFICE,
Friday Night, May 4.
THE Court of Vienna has submitted to the
Allies the course which it recommends for
concluding peace.
It adopts, as a basis, the counter propo-
sitions of Russia, with the addition THAT
TWO FRIGATES OF THE WESTERN POWERS

SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO CRUISE IN THE
BLACK SEA.

The rejection of this proposition by the
Allies, though not offered as an ultimatum,
will be looked upon by Austria as a
conclusion of its engagements under the
treaty of December.
It is said that the Austrian scheme has
been received with much favour at Paris.

A MEETING is to be this day held in the City
of London, for the purpose of establishing
some kind of organisation to enforce Adminis-
trative Reform. The object is a legitimate
one, but there are circumstances in connection
with it which we are anxious to bring under
the notice of rational men to whatever party
they may belong. In a time of difficulty or
danger, to mistake the true remedy is a fatal
error. False sign-posts are worse than none.
In our perplexity, to take a wrong road is not
only to remove us further from the path of
s tfety, but to exhaust the energy which might
have fjund and followed it.
Let us see how far the departments of the
State—irrespective of their heads, the respon-
sible Ministers of the Crown—are answerable
f 1r the disastrous circumstances of our na-
tional condition.
From the statements of Lord CLARENDON
and Lord JOHN RUSSELL, we arrive at the facts
relative to the failure of the Vienna Con-
ferences. The Russian Plenipotentiaries
would not listen to the proposals of France
and England, and they would make none of
their own. They refused a project to limit the
strength of the Russian fleet in the Black
Sea—they refused a project to make that sea
neutral, and available only for commercial
Purposes. The Conferences were thereupon
suspended, and other proposals subsequently
made by Russia were deemed inadmissible.
Upon this explanation Lord DERBY re-
marked, on Thursday evening, that he heard,
almost with regret, the extent of the conces-
sions proposed to be made to Russia, as they
would have rendered the war useless and given
no substantial security for peace. He heard
too with concern, that fresh propositions and

By the admission of the Government, then,
concession on our part has been met with con-
tempt on the part of the enemy. We have
stooped to sue, and our suit has been scorn-
fully rejected. We have exhausted every
means of concession without shaking in the
slightest degree the haughty hostility of our
foe. Yet we are to continue to negotiate still.
Let us hear Lord CLARENDON—" ANY pi oposi
" tion that may be made to us shall receive
" from Government a patient consideration."
We say that this is the Ministers' own case.
We do not comment on it—we are not in a
condition to do so. This only is certain. We
have been ridiculously duped by false profes-
sions, or the negotiation has been miserably
mismanaged.
What influence could " Administrative Re-
form" have on this situation? Are we to sup-
pose that Russia despises us for certain
theoretical defects in our departments? Yet
is it not established that the Administrative
Departments of Russia are all grossly corrupt?
What is the secret of her confidence and her
strength ? There can be but one answer—the
vigorous will of her Government.
We turn to our army. There are in the Crimea
at this time all the forces which our Ministers
judged it expedient to prepare and to send out.
The bombardment of Sebastopol began on the
Ilth April and continued to the end of the month
without producing any sensible effect on the
town. There is no*, at least, no lack of ammu-
nition, of food, of clothing, of arms. What
effect are we to imagine Administrative Reform
would have on the siege ? Would it make our
fire heavier, or discourage that defence of the
enemy to which, in spite of national prejudice,
the word " heroic" alone can apply? Would
it make Lord HARDINOE a more enterprising
general ? Would it affect those decisions of
the Cabinet which are in effect the motive
power that puts the whole machinery of the
State into action? Imperfections are natural
to institutions as they are natural to men,
but great Administrators always know how to
turn the agencies at their disposal to good
account. We should hear little of the defi-
ciency in departments if there was not
infinitely greater deficiency in the Ministers
who control them.

In fact, the more perfect a department is,
the more readily it yields to a guiding mind
At best a department is but a machine. It
cannot and should not work itself. It should
obey the will which presides over it, to move
backward or forward, to be more or less active.
The better drilled a regiment is, the more ad-
mirably does it fulfil its functions under right
command, and the sooner does it become dis-
organised under wrong command. A generous
steed is docile to a practised rider. Like the
elements of nature, branches of the public
service are good servants but bad masters.
You cannot have them at once obedient and
self-acting. Irresponsible themselves by their
very constitution, their faults and defects are
solely chargeable on the responsible agents
whose express duty it is to form, wield, and
direct their forces.

Our fleets are on the seas, and our army is in
the field. Can it be through defect in our de-
partments that they are not inspired by some
principle of action—that they have no design
traced out for them—that they are not ani-

mated by the spirit of decided councils, and
of courageous genius?
Was it the fault of departments that the
Duke of NEWCASTLE had made preparations
for our army wintering in Sebastopol, or on
the shores of the Bosphorus, but none for
their wintering where they were forced to
winter, on the bleak hills of Balaklava? It is
for departments only to fulfil the designs of
their responsible heads. If such designs be
wanting, the departments are at fault ; if they
be erroneous, the departments must go wrong.
Last winter the Transport, the Commissariat,
the Hospital, the Ordnance Services, all went
astray and were found wanting, simply be-
cause the Duke of NEWCASTLE had calculated
on contingencies which never occurred, and
had made no provision whatever for the con-
tingency which did occur. Not the depart-
ments, but the Ministers, who were supposed
to preside over the management of the war,
were culpable. When the Chariot of the Sun
rushed from its course, was it the fault of the
fierey coursers or of presumptuous Phaeton
who held the reins ?

Thus it must ever be when faction usurps
the place of intelligence, and a mighty nation,
through false political combinations and cor-
rupt influences, has its destinies intrusted to
au incapable Government. The cry for Admi-
nistritive Reform, on whatever grounds it may
be founded, is at the present moment a gross
delusion. We suspect it is raised to give the
Whig party one more chance of continuing in
power by making iflnocent officials the soape-
goat of its scandalous incapacity. The cry
proceeds from those Ministerial back benches
which support the Government with their
votes while attacking them with their voices.
How comes it that Administrative Reform is
now so urgently needed after the Reform Bill
has been in operation for almost the lifetime
of a generation ? For what purpose but to
correct abuses have the eloquent PELLATT, and
the incorruptible WILLIAMS, and the magnani-
mous HALL, been sent to the Legislature ?
There are no reforms in departments which
an able Ministry would not be perfectly com-
petent to make, apart from organised move-
ments and pressure from without. This new
agitation points to a conclusion it will not
recognise. The great reform wanted is a total
change in the responsible Ministers of the
Crown. Were it practicable, which it is not, to
make departments responsible to any other
power than to the Ministers who are their nerr.
ml and appointed heads, of what avail would
their responsibility be, when we see what a
byword responsibility has become by con-
tinuance in office of the Ministers on whose
conduct a virtual vote of censure has recently
been passed by the Commons?
Success may not always be a test of merit,
hut it is the only test which a nation can
afford to apply to its rulers Disaster con-
demns them. Our Ministers have failed in
every duty of a Government. They know
neither howto command nor how to negotiate;
how to fight nor how to administer. Superior
minds are urgently demanded, and yet every
change brings into the Government meaner
capacities, more grovelling in their views and
more abject in their submission to factious
necessities and democratic
With no energy in the
forbearance amounting to
Opposition, the country is at
to its own direction. It may
change of men and measures.

dogmas.
Government, with
weakness in the
it this moment left
y resolve on a total
s. It may demand
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