The Press.
London, England, 1855-08-11 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1855.

THE Parliamentary campaign is over—the
smoke of battle has cleared away—we can
survey the field at our leisure, and now calmly
count our gains and losses. To speak of
the legislative results of the session would be
absurd. Measures have been introduced only
to be withdrawn. The principal business done
has been to vote supplies, and the great de-
bates have been upon the misconduct of
Government and upon the frequent changes
in its constitution. Its ambiguous language
and uncertain conduct have received memo
rable explanation fiom subsequent events.
What have been our gains? We have re-
placed a Cabinet of all the Talents by a Cabinet
of all the Mediocrities. At the head of the
Government one Septuagenarian has been ex•
changed for another. By adroit management
every man of marked ability has been wormed
out of the Ministry, and their posts filled by
the hungriest place-hunters to stop their
clamour, and the most veteran hacks chosen
for their docility. Every change has of course
been favorable to the ascendancy of Lord
PALMERSTON, and he has attained the height of
his ambition. He is now indisputably a Triton
among the minnows.
What have been our losses ? The progress
of social amelioration and practical improve-
ment has been stopped. A considerable
increase has been made, both to our direct and
indirect taxation ; twenty-three millions have
been added to the public debt; all prospect of
peace is at an end ; and that promise of
Austrian aid which for two years was employed
to cheat us, has at length been formally and
definitively announced to be without founda
tion. Lord PALMERSTON has at last entered on
his career—casting care to the winds—as a
War Minister. What is this to him but the
pleasing excitement of appearing in a new
part? Loans, subsidies, foreign legions, armies
on land, and fleets at sea, give dignity to the
Minister's position. A gay, jovial tempera
ment at his time of life is not disposed to look
far ahead.

Our position at the present moment is very
much what it was a year ago. We are still full
of expectation. We await intelligence from
the Sebastopol army, and we look for news
from the Baltic fleet, though we are, with
reason, somewhat less sanguine than we were
when the Reform Club banquet was given to
Sir CHARLES NAI'IER, and the reports came
thick and threefold that Sebastopol had fallen
The first year of the Coalition involved us in
dispute with Russia, the second drifted us
into war. The first six months of Lord
PatmEnwrox's Administration have been
marked by a prodigious augmentation of ex-
pense, but with no corresponding results.
To what point his rule is tending no one can
tell, as he has no policy to guide him ; but
every rational man feels that it is impossible
for the existing system to continue for any
length of time.
He is now free from the control of Parlia-
ment, and some influential politicians con-
ceive that he will in the recess endeavour to

reopen negotiations for peace. We do not
think so. In such a course there would be
responsibility, and he is not the Minister to
undertake any responsibility he can possibly
shun. His talent consists in evading difficul-
ties. While the war continues popular he has
nothing to fear. He is sure of a majority to
support it in Parliament, and his whole idea
of statesmanship is to keep level with the
public feeling of the day. In the troubled
times of the French Revolution he would have
been a Talleyrand without his wit; or, had he
lived in the congenial age of our cabal, he
would have been the patron of Tyres OATES and
the " Plaat," have turned Papist under JAMES
the SECOND, and been the first to wear Orange
favours to welcome WILLIAM Il I. Such poli-
ticians are most in their glory when the age
is most unreasoning, as it is easiest to sail
with the tide when it sets in strongly.

Trieksy politicians of this order may pass
through life creditably in subordinate offices,
but are infinitely mischievous when in times
of difficulty they rise to superior power. At
such periods a nation is safe only when it is
under the guidance of men of honest convic-
tions and firm, strong will, resolved to shape
their conduct by principles of duty, and to
stand or fall by that course of policy which,
looking to the future as well as to the present.
their conscience approves. A strong Govern-
z ent can afford to act in this manner, a weak
one seldom or never.

The very means by which Lord PALMERSTON
gained the Premiership show his unfitness for
the post. He jockeyed Lord DERBY; and what
is his position at the present moment? Is it
one of real dignity and authority as it should
he at so critical a period? On the contrary,
the party which keep him in power deride
him as a charlatan, and watch an opportunity
for his overthrow.

By inconceivable mismanagement, the war,
which should have been on our part a series
of rapid and decisive strokes, has degenerated
into lengthened sieges and blockades We
are, as a nation, capable of immense exertions,
but we have to consider what will be the effect
on our industry of a war both lingering and
expensive.
Other considerations press on us. The
elements of disturbance are gathering to a
head in Italy. It is a serious question what
course this country should adopt in the not
improbable event of a general revolt against
Austrian domination. We have never viewed
the contest with Russia as a contest of prin-
ciples of government, but'to that course we
may be driven by the necessity of self-preser-
vation. War will admit of no mean. We
must use against an enemy the sharpest and
strongest weapons we can obtain, with a view
of bringing it to a close as speedily as possible.
It is through German neutrality that Russia
finds the means of maintaining the struggle.
Confined within the limits of her own tern
tory, she would want the first necessaries of
warfare—saltpetre, lead, and iron.
It is our great misfortune that the war is
carried on without plan or object at the time
when it has most need to be directed by
statesmen of enlarged view and vigorous
capacity. We have a collection of Ministers,
but no Government in the proper sense of the
term. Lord PALMERSTON is in the position of
a sailor whistling for a wind. No matter from
what quarter it blows so that it fills his sails.
Happy carelessness, which can concernedly
sport with the fate of nations, and make a jest

LORD GEORGE PAGET.

THE brutal attack on Lord GEORGE Pamir in
the "leading journal " at the close of last week
has called forth a modest remonstrance from
his brother, Lord ALFRED :

TO THE EDTTOIL OF " THE
Sir,—l read with feelings of great pain and regret your
leading article of Friday last, which I had not an oppor•
tunity of seeing until this morning.
Had you confined yourself to questioning the propriety
of awarding a pension to my brother (Lord George Paget)
I should not have considered myself called upon to troutlb
you with any remarks ; but as I think you are not justified,
in impugning the bravery of a man who, as bodt oaken and
men present in the battle of Balakiava have testified,
two regiments most gallantly into action, 1.1. Mr. P
truly stated in the House of Commons, " them
• the other side, brought them back again, and
throughout the whole affair in the most
manner," I cannot allow your observations to pan
out notice.

It is not true, u yon state, that my brother was pre-
vented from leaving the army in consequence of a quilled
with a brother officer. It had always been his intention to
quit the service upon his marriage ; but, as the war broke
out about that time, he thought it possible that his rim*
went might be selected for foreign service, sates, ran-
fore, determined not to retire until ha had had an
tanity of distinguishing hissain, and of showing tarile
was not unworthy to bear a warm which hitherto has nags
been associated by the people of this country with
cowardice. I will leave it to your own judgment to decide
whether such comments as the following, taken from the
article in question, that—" • man wonli willingly have
shirked the charge ;" " is not known to hay- run away ;"'
" was forced to charge the Russian batteries sorely *gibe!
his will;"—are likely to inspire fresh heroism in those
who go out to fight our battles, and endeavour to discharge
their duty, to their country ?—I have the hewer to be, SW.
your obedient servant,
ALII2IID PAoZT.

Harwich, August O.
Whether Lord GEORGE was the fittest
person in the army for the receipt of this
good-service pension, is, of course, open to
debate; though we do not think such rewards
ought to be lightly questioned. They lose
their value when they are subjected to invidious
comment. A gift of 1001. a year for distin-
guished gallantry in the field is, after all, no
very splendid boon. Life must be risked to
obtain this " signal distinction," as the Times
calls it, though we see almost every day much
higher rewards conferred for services which
must be held every way inferior. But, admit-
ing the pension was wrongly conferred, who is
to blame? Not, surely, Lord GEORGE PAGET, who
is at present absent from the country. He had
not the pension in his own gift ; if he had, the
abuse showered on him would have had some
show of reason. But he had no more to do
with the bestowal of the pension than had the
writer of the stupidly-arrogant article in the
Times himself. Blame, if there be any, must
rest with the Government. The authorities
may be called to account if they have acted
unfairly. Lord GEORGE may have acted
gallantly, yet not be the most gallant man in
the whole army. Why basely , -ek der-
ciate his services, to load

obloquy, blast his reputation,
to the derision of the troops
because the Government (if

admitted) has made an injudil

More cruel inuendoes ajgainL
never insinuated through the

Times boasts of its enormous

responsibility should be the

tremendous - power—every oni
assertions hare a world-wide

ly iieek to depre-
his name with
R, and expo4l
ps he too ~4 .....>
, wit . 4. '
ifthei • . .., 1,......,..e., 1.
icious ~,
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• .../.7, r.'„ zi,_,. ...01
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750

that very reason, it should be the more careful
of the assertions it makes.
It is good to have a giant's strength,

But tyrannous to use it like a gii‘t:
The Times seems to 'think it nedessary that
it should every now and'ihen sacrifice's victttld
to the power of which' it is the high prieitt.
The evil passions of democratic clamour must
be appeased. If the 'guilty are not at hand,
the innocent will do. Only, never lei Moloch
wait for his victims, or he may get angry with
his priests. There are contemptible features
in the grandeur of our civilisation, but none
so contemptible as the utter disregard of
decency, truth, and justice by the Times when
it is in search of prey There is one consols-
tioh, however, fbr those whom it assails. If
vilified to-day, they have a fair chance of being
deified to morrow. It is as ready to unsay as
to say. It presumes much on the forgetfulness
of the public. Who more forward than the
Times in crying down the principle of the
Foreign Legion last December; who more
ready than the Times to cry it up in yesterday's
impression ? The Times has a nettle-like
ptoperty of injuring only the sensitive touch.
Grasp it boldly, and it is harmless. It has a
most bully-like discretion about it of knowing
when it is for its interest to curl its tail
between its hind-quarters and slink away.
Throughout the whole of this war the Times
has systematically attacked officers in high
command, both personally and generally ; has
denied their claims to distinction, spoken
contemptuously of their merits, depreciated
their services, and endeavoured in every way
to render gallant men contemptible in the
eyes of the troops they command and the
country they serve. To say that its constant
effort has been to sow dissension between
officers and men by frequently and upon every
opportunity drawing invidious comparisons
between the services of the one and the
duties of the other, and to elevate the indi-
vidual bravery of the men by depreciating the
devotion of the officers, would not be saying
more than the truth. In this instance it is
insinuated that Lord GEORGE headed a charge
because he did not dare to shirk it ; that
he only did not run away—that his valour
was discretion—that he went because there
was no help for it, and returned safely be-
cause he had sought the only protec-
tion there was—the protection of numbers
around him. His good service consisted in
not bolting outside the column. What
achievements could possibly stand against
this Thersites style of criticism ? WELLING-
TON liberated the Peninsula. What of that ?
It was his only chance to escape destruction
himself. He conquered at Waterloo; but
wasn't it his interest to do so? By this
standard of estimating men's actions, courage
is degraded into cunning, achievement into
necessity, and success itself resolved into the
instinct of self-preservation. If such ideas are
to prevail, all chivalry and heroism must be
degraded to the sordid level of mercenary cal-
culation.
The whole assertion that Lord GEORGE
PAGET went out with his regiment because he
" could not sell," from a quarrel with a brother
officer, and consequently against his will, is a
fabrication. Lord GEORGE, when he married
in February, '54, had arranged to sell out and
settle the value of his commission upon his
wife. The gallant old Field Marshal his
father was averse to his son's leaving the
army, and Lord GEORGE, in deference to his
father's wish, postponed his retirement. The
Marquis of ANGLESEY died in the course of the
spring; but, matters having by that time as-
sumed a serious turn in the East, Lord GEORGE
resolved to go out, if ordered, Faith his regi
merit, and still further to postpone his retire-
ment. His visit to England in the winter,
at a time when no active service for the

cavalry was possible, was with a view to make
a proper provision for his family in case of
his death.
But need the officers of the army or Lord
GEORGE himself be surprised at this attack?
Was not their brave old chief misrepresented,
decried, abused, and—regretted by the Times!
How often were we told in the winter that
Lord RAGLAN was never seen in the camp, that
he felt himself unequal to amend the ills, and
.TmErkept out of sight"—a charge utterly dis-