The Press.
London, England, 1855-03-03 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

We are induced to make these remarks by
seeing in an Indian newspaper that Mr.
MANSEL, a civilian of the highest standing in
Bengal, and late the Resident at Nagpore, has
been driven from his appointment, and com-
pelled by Lord DALHOUSIE to resign the ser-
vice. His crime, it appears, is, that on the
death of the late Rajah of NAGYOBE, ho re-
ported against our annexing the territory, as
being a measure unwise iu policy and unjust
in principle, if not a direct violation of our
plighted faith. In these opinions we think
that there are few who study the question im-

partially who will not to a great extent agree ;
but, whether or no, it was Mr. MANSEL'S duty
to report to the Governor-General, not what he
thought would be the most palatable to the
latter, but what was truly and really his judg-
ment and belief. The course pursued towards
him by the Governor General is, therefore,
rightly received in India as a great blow to
the freedom hitherto conceded to high official
station ; and the result will necessarily be, that
men will henceforth shape their reports en-
tirely according to the supposed views of the
Government of the day, and that the only
means now existing of ever learning the truth
as to the state of distant provinces will be
thus greatly corrupted. By this course, to be
sure, the governmental machine may for a
time appear to run well and smoothly, but it
will be only to create a false security and give
rise to greater difficulties in the long run.
The least reflection must show that it is im-
possible for any Government to be forearmed
which is not forewarned; and no Government
can be forewarned which thus treats the agents
on whose entire honesty and openness and
truthfulness it is compelled to rely.
While Lord DALHOUSIE was thus adding
another victim of his imperiousness to the
illustrious list which in our preceding issue
we named, he has found time, it would appear,
to embroil himself with the whole native
society at Calcutta, who have in a body de
dined to present themselves any more at the
Governor-General's levees. Submissive aa the
Oriental may be, there are hounds to his
submission, and in the wanton insolence of
power Lord DALEIOUSIE has exceeded them.
Not content with the homage paid to his pre-
decessors, he has notified that no native, what-
ever his rank, is henceforth to be admitted to
his levees without leaving his shoes in the hall
and entering the presence barefoot—a prac-
tice certainly in accordance with ancient
etiquette in the East, but which at the Presi-
dencies had long fallen into desuetude, and
which the almost universal adoption by
natives of English-shaped trousers and stock-
ings, and English dress boots or shoes, ren-
dered it utterly impossible to comply with.
The only means of conforming would be to
revert to a costume which the more civilised
Orientals, whether in India or Turkey, have
abandoned—or, in other words, to go back into
barbarism of dress, for the purpose of render-
ing a homage as barbarous to the Marquis of
DALHOUSIE. The orier does not appear to
have been passed without the most serious
remonstrance founded on long usage in
society and at the Calcutta Court, and at the
Court of her Majesty in England. The
Governor-General was, however, obdurate,
and would insist on the natives coming into
his presence barefoot or not at all: they
have accepted the alternative, and at the last
levee, being the first under the new rule, not
a native nobleman or gentleman appeared.
NERO fiddled while Rome was burning; and
at a time when the most entire harmony and
unanimity among all classes is most essential,
this mastermind, as he is called by his flat-
terers, sets the whole body of native society
at feud with us on a question of shoes. What
with actual war in Turkey, a threatened war
with Persia, and the probability of a rene wed
outbreak in Burmah, one would have thought
we had enough on our hands for one while ;
but the Marquis appears to think otherwise,
and so, to make our troubles complete, he deli
berately alienates and insults the only class in
India by whose pecuniary aid we have hitherto
been able to conduct our wars, and on whose
sympathy with us, and fidelity, we have been
able entirely to rely. If the matter were not
one too serious for joking we should pro-
pose as the best solution of the question that

• •-•

SATURDAY,

each party should revert to its earliest known
costume, or rather no costume—the natives
appearing in the undress of their remotest
ancestors, and the Marquis of DALtioustz as
an ancient Piot.

MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENNTS.

Tim appointment of Lord John Russell in his absence as
Colonial Secretary was announced on Monday morning by
the appearance of the noble lord's address to the electors
of London. Further nominations, as they were completed,
were first publicly proclaimed in the House of Commons,
by Mr. Hayter, in moving for the new writs. Thus was it
announced on Monday that Sir G. C. Lewis had become
Chancellor of the Exchequer; Mr. Vernon Smith, President
of the Board of Control; and Sir C. Wood, First Lord of
the Admiralty. In the same way, official intelligence was
on following days conveyed to the public of the appoint.
ment of Lord Duncan as Scotch Lord of the Treasury, of
Mr. Horaman as Chief Secretary to the Irish Viceroy, and
of Messrs. Keogh and Fitzgerald to be respectively Attorney
and Solicitor General for Ireland. On Wednesday there
was a Privy Council, at which the late Colonial Secretary,
First Lord, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, formally re.
signed the seals of office, and their successors kissed hands
on appointment. At the same time, a royal deelaraion
was made, announcing that the Earl of Carlisle was north-
I Dated Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The reconstructed
Ministry is accordingly composed as follows :
Lord Palmerston, First Lord of the Treasury.
• Lord Cranworth, Lord Chancellor.
Lord Clarendon, Foreign Affairs.
Lord Panmure, War Department.
Sir George Grey, Home Department.
Lord John Russell, Colonial Office.
Marquis of Lansdowne, without office.
Sir U. C. Lewis, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Sir Charles Wood, First Lord of the Admiralty.
Sir \V. Molesworth, Chief Commissioner of Woods and
Works.
Lord Granville, President of the Council.
Lord Canning, Postmaster-General.
Duke of Argyll, Lord Privy Seal.
Lord of the Treasury, in the room of Lord Elcho,
retired, Lord Duncan.
Lord Stanley of Alderley, President of the Board of
Trade.
Mr. Vernon Smith, President, and Mr. Danby Seymour,
Secretary to the Board of Control.
The Earl of Carlisle, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.
Mr. liorsmen, Chief Secretary
Mr. Keogh, Attorney-General
Mr. Fitzgerald, Solicitor-Uener_ ,
Respecting some minor appointments, nothing more is
known than that they have been offered to certain persons,
were refused, and are stall vacant. Thus, it is stated that
Sir Robert Peel was offered the situation of Clerk of the
Ordnance in the place of Mr. Monsen, but he declined to
accept it. Mr. Monckton Milnes has declined the office of
Lord of the Treasury, Mr. Laing the situation of Vino-
President of the Board of Trade. It is however asserted
that Sir R. Peel has accepted the office of Under-Secretary
to the Colonies, lately held by his brother, and refused by
Mr. Layard.

for lreland.

VISCOUNT PONSONBY, the veteran statesman and
diplomatist, died on Thursday, last week, at
Brighton, at the advanced age of eighty-four. The
deceased peer was the son of the first Baron
Ponsonby, by the fourth daughter of the third
Viscount Molesworth. From an early period of his
career he was connected with the diplomatic service
of his country, and for many years represented the
Court of St. James's at the Porte, from whence he
returned in 1841, two years previously to which he
had been advanced to the dignity of viscount. He
had previously been accredited at. Vienna and other
Courts. In politics the deceased nobleman was a
Whig, and the intimate friend of all leaders of that
party. He is succeeded in the barony only by his
nephew, William, son of the late Hon. Sir William
Ponsonby, K.C.B.
LORD KENYON expired at his seat, Gredington-
hall, Flintshire, on Sunday, at the advanced age of
seventy-eight. The deceased, who was the son of
the eminent judge, was born on the 22nd of July,
1776, succeeded to the title on the sth of April, 1802,
and married, on the Ist of April, 1803, Mary Enuna,
only daughter of Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart. He was
a Conservative, but took no very active part in publio
affairs, an F.S.A. and Custos Brevium of the Court
of Queen's Bench.
Sul B. Rent's bill for the Better Local Manage-
ment of the Metropolis, which was to have been in-
troduced by the right honourable baronet to the
House of Commons oniTuesday, has been postponed
till Monday next, in consequence of the unsettled
state of public affairs. Great anxiety is manifested
in every district of the metropolis to know the bear-
ings of this important measure.
Tun discovery of new gold-fields is announced by a
vessel lately arrived at Lisbon from Rio de Janeiro.
Gold has been found in, it is said, " immense quan-
ties," at Tury Assu, province of Maranham, which
exceeds in richness either the Australian or Califor-
nian mines. The Rio Journal de Commercio of the
18th January contains full particulars of the discovery.

'`~. l

U

a

IMP

N

MARCH 3,1855.

Vrocabings i arliamott.

MANAGEMENT OF THE WAR.
A debate in the Lower House took place on Monday
on the motion for going into a committee of supply.
It was of a desultory kind, and brought out no new
fact. It was commenced by Mr. LINDSAY, who de-
tailed the arrangements by which the French
Minister of War made himself acquainted with the
minutest circumstance of the position, requirements,
and state of his army. He thought that seven mil-
lions was an enormous sum to be asked for the
transport service, in which he criticised; many of
the existing arrangements.
Mr. ALcocx wanted an appeal to nationalities.
We had done nothing in Asia Minor, in Persia, in
Sweden, in Poland, or even in Austria.
Mr. BAILLIE, referring to the confusion in the
transport and clothing services, thought that it was
not to be corrected unless the civilian Secretary for
War was assisted by a board of military men.
These and some further statements on the same
subject brought from Mr. PEEL an account of the
measures the Government were now taking to or-
ganise the transport and clothing services, in which
he stated his belief that the soldiers would be well
provided. He added, in reply to an allusion to the
medicine stores, that he believed the quantity in
store to be most ample.
The conversation then continued on the subject of
the staff appointments and the reduction in the army
of late years, without which, Mr. WILLIAMS argued,
we should not now have been in the position of bear-
ing the expense of a war at all.
This subject was turned by Lord HOTRAM to that
of promotion of seniority in the higher grades of the
a-my. It WAS understood, he said, that the principle
o!' merit was to be allowed to prevail to some extent,
and last year a royal commission advised her
Majesty to accelerate the promotion of officers who
in the then state of things would never arrive at
command. In consequence, a warrant was issued,
but it was of a very limited kind, providing a certain
length of service before the rank of general was at
tained. Nothing was done to amend the qualifica-
tions for staff appointments, which should be re-
garded as a reward for superior talent.
Mr. PEEL explained that the warrant went further,
and allowed lieutenant-colonels to become colonels
without a brevet, and to have charge of a di
vision.
Mr. G. DuNnss detailed his own experience of the
confusion in the Crimea, especially in the matter of
forage, a subject which Mr. Layard had broached be-
fore him. Ample supplies were lying on the shore
while the horses were starving a mile off. Large
supplies of vegetables were on board, and only ob-
tained when the men got leave to go and fetch them.
He gave a long list of the shortcomings of the officials
on the spot, and the many items of their mismanage-
ment, stating that whatever blame might attach to
the authorities at home, very much was due to those
in the Crimea.
The rest of the debate turned on small facts, only
enlivened by Mr. A. STAFFORD, who offered to take
Mr. Sidney Herbert, now he was released from the
duties of office, with him to the Crimea, to see and
judge for himself.