The Press.
London, England, 1855-05-19 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

studiously conned the way in which he might
be efficiently sarcastic in case any of the Com-
mittee should enter on a fencing match with
him. But he *4l no pacasion for discharging
that reserved tiontmumiti ou of retort which he
alirsys beeps se carefully piled. Mr. Roes's*
is initetedanalaere.d Ueutor from other ii4wy s.
There was a UMW WIMMA he would have mocke,4
at an aueounter with ate walking member for
half s 4ozen ossestoteuncies in succession; bL
Sir jA/lEs GRAH4I, like others, found that the
" Sheffield blades' is not a very formidable
weapon ; and Mr. 4vinu's celebrity arises
from winged bulls that will not fly, anct not
from winged words, which carry straight the
glancing arrows of invective. The Committee
was in one of its intermittent fits of " General
Peelism," and the descendant of " John of the
Bright Sword " had no occasion for unsheath-
ing his ponderous weapons of offence.
Yet Sir JAMES GRAHAM was far from being at
ease ; and the fact of his having been a recent
invalid is not sufficient to account for the pe-
culiarly subdued tone in which he gave his
evidence on Monday. He could not but be
conscious that he belonged to a party who
utterly failed in the management of the war.
He must have been aware that it was known
to the Committee that the Duke of NEWCASTLE
had testified to the long and frequent confe-
rences which he held with the First Lord in
the witness's chair. The recollection of such
facts, and of the little advantage that resulted
from the " administrative abilities" of this
brace of Peelites, must have exercised dis-
turbing influences on Sir JAMES GRAHAM, in
spite of his hard-browed impassibility of tem-
perament. Without being positively crest-
fallen, the Member for Carlisle on last Monday
has not been seen so subdued since the time
of his memorable " scene " with a noted Hi-
bernian representative, when the figure made
by the Right Honourable Baronet was em-
balmed by one of the wits of the day iu verse,
" which the town will not willingly let die."

Assuming the artificial blandness of manner
which he can occasionally put on with con-
siderable self-constraint, Sir JAMES GRAHAM
began his confession with au anecdote.
" What a most distinguished First Lord told
"him," was adroitly poured out at the com-
mencement. It is a pity that when Sir JAMES
communicated what the Tory Lord SPENCER
had said to him, three or four generations
since, that he did not also reveal what the
Whig Lord SPENCER said of him, after his
junction with Sir ROBERT PEEL ! Possibly,
however, the witness thought that was already
sufficiently well known to the Committee.
He then proceeded in his unpleasant task of
self-crimination, though he took uncommon
care in veiling his dilatory errors. For ex-
ample, when he had to confess about the fatal
want of organisation in the transport service,
Sir JAMES GRAHAM said :
I suggested to the Secretary for War that day by day
the requisitions should be listed and approved by him, and
that when so approved it should be the duty of the Trans-
port Board to carry them out. Thal suggestion was nut
altogether adopted when I left office. The transfer of the
Commissariat to the Secretary of State took place in
November.

Observe, here, the admirable art of his reti
cence. There was one phrase often on the
Duke of NEWCASTLE'S tongue, which Sir JAMES,
like a "canny chic!" of the north, took special
care to avoid. He did not say " grew out of
" the circumstances," but his own words fasten

that sentence on himself and his colleagues
with as much tenacity as if ho had used it
fifty times. Where was his boasted talent for
administration, when May, and June, and
July, and August, and September, and Octo-
ber, were all allowed to pass without so obvi-
ously necessary a change being made ? "It
" was not until November that the transfer of
" the Commissariat took place." In that we
confess there is an extraordinary amount of
accusation against the ex-officials. Here we
have a public man, who got a most ex-
aggerated reputation for official ability, con-
fessing, that though the transport service had
been at work for several months, no change in
its flagrant mismanagement took place until it
" grew out of the circumstances." Then what
becomes of the boasted reputation of thq Right
Hon. Baronet and his friends for energy,
knowledge, perseverance, and all the other

SATURDAY,

qualities for which their panegyrists have
e+
praised them ?
Such was the enormous error, as far as large
measures fur ale ai aon were concerned
but let ua now see WA' AMR GRAHAM S unfor-
tonal& mistakes as to
.detaOla. This part de-
serves particular coestderegon.
No two officials, or subordinates (call them
as pm, please)f more 4044,0d1y were blamed
from al sides thy, kimiral BOXER and
CaptAn CeRISTIE. 14 is most important to
know 1411}t they were specially nominated by
Sir JAMES GRAHAM, and he took vast pains in
trying to excuse himself. He artfully tried to
digest himself of any blame, awl threw the
responsibility of the introduction of BOXER
and CHRISTIE upon two dead men ! Admiral
BOXER was " first made known to him in 1830,
" by Sir Toostss HA.IADY I" then CAW B praise Qt
NELSON'S captain, and BOXER got all the ad-
vantage of association with a famous name. It
appears that Sir T. HARDY said, that " BOXER
" was one of the best seamen he ever knew.s
And Sir JAMES " remembered that character
" when he returned to the Admiralty ;" and he
still continues to recollect it " until he returns
" there again." So, old BOXER was nominated
because Sir T. HARDY praised him for seaman-
ship a quarter of a century ago ! But Sir
JAMES " has such administrative abilities."
Then, as to the unfortunate Captain
CHRISTIE, another dead witness is appealed to
by Sir JAMES GRAHAM :
Captain Christie was only known to me by his naval
reputation, as having served as lieutenant under Sir G.
Collier, when that officer had command on the coast of
Africa. I had the greatest possible respect for the memory
of Sir G. Collier, whom I considered an admirable officer ;
and I found Captain Christie had been a lieutenant whom
he held in the greatest regard.

Does this style of nomination show " practical
capacity" in Sir JAMES GRAHAM? Sir GEOSOS
COLLIER and his memory is held "in the
" greatest possible respect " by the ex-First
Lord, and therefore his First Lieutenant was
appointed to a most laborious post, in which
special talents for business and collective
organisation were required.
Well, after such confessions, we can only
say, which we do now in perfect sincerity, that,
on public grounds, we are not sorry that the
Admiralty is under the care of Sir CHARLES
WOOD and not Sir JAMES GRAHAM. A twelve-
month since we could not have fancied that
the time would come when we should utter
such an opinion.

But ev-eu worse still remains. Admiral
BOXER, on September tith, pressed on the
Admiralty the want of receiving-ships at Con-
stantinople. " I regret," said Sir JAMES, " that
" steps were not taken to comply with the
" request." Then, candidly reiterating his
" regret," he made a lapsus lingua of the New-
castle kind. " Circumstances very speedily
" arose which led mo to reconsider the
" matter," and then the much•wanted receiving-
ships were ordered. "It grew out of the ch.-
" cumstances." The Coalition has spoken its

own epitaph on its reputation--" lately
" deceased."

We can now easily comprehend the exces•
sive ardour with which Sir JAMES GRAHAM
endeavoured to prevent an inquiry into the
conduct of the war. It is now plain to all the
world that he has been most egregiously over-
rated. Nothing more true, or more severe, can
be said of him than that things could not have
been worse, and might have been better, if Sir
CHARLES WOOD had been in his place. The
Sebastopol Committee has removed the gild-
ing from the showy reputation of Sir JAMES
GRAHAM. In the heated times of the Reform
Bill he was lauded for his extravagant reduc-
tion at the Admiralty ; but all know that he
has not been an able " First Lord " in time of
war. He is of the statesmen who have sur-
vived their reputations, and whose perform-
ances have rebuked their pretensions.
The general result of the whole evidence
before this important Committee we reserve
for future consideration.

THE TURKISH QUESTION AND ITS
RELATION TO INDIA.
IN the debate in the House of Lords on Mon-
day evening, Lord GRANVILLE, in reference to
some remarks of ,Lord guEtwitouoli, informed

MAY 19, 1855.

the House that it was the most complete
fallacy that could be put forward by any one
that the Turkish question was of importance
in an Indian point of view, and that he had
great authority for saying so. Who the great
authority was his Lordship did not say; and
in the absence of any name the public may be
fairly allowed to demur to the designation.
The person may be a vary great authority on
Indian subjects in Lord GRANVILLE'S estima-
tion, and in that of his party, and at the same
time be a very contemptible one in the
opinion of the world at large; just as the
Duke of NEWCASTLE was a great authority
with them on war matters, as was shown by
their selection of him as War Minister, while
the public at the time deemed him, and
events have since proved him, the most unfit
elan in the whole of Britain for the post. In
our minds, and in the minds of most others,
be they of what party in the State they may,
there is on Indian matters no higher autho-
rity living than the authority Lord GRANVILLE
was opposing himself to, namely, the Earl of
ELLENBOROUGH.
As regards the effects of the present struggle
on India, we really cannot understand how any
one that knows anything of our position there
can for a moment doubt its importance. India is
said by some to be an empire of opinions, by
others to be an empire held by the sword—it is, in
fact, both. It is the proved might of our arms,
added to an opinion of their invincibility, that
really holds in subjection the hundred and
fifty millions of Hindoostan. As long as the
prestige of our arms shall continue, that
empire will remain ; but once let the
people there see our armies baffled and our
resources fail us, and numberless are the
rebels to our authority, and countless their
adherents, who will spring up against us on
every side. Nor is it necessary to insure
this result that our armies shall be baffled,
and our resources fail us on Indian ground.
In these days the connection between events
in the East and in the West is far better
understood than it was at the beginning of
the present century, and news travels in-
finitely faster; but even at the beginning of
the present century we may remember that it
was the superiority of the arms of France in
Europe that induced TIPPOO to rise against us,
and led to the contest with him which ended
in the taking of Seringapatam. Indeed, there
is no one who really knows India that is not
aware how greatly even the extremities of
our empire there are agitated by the slightest
appearance of a reverse in any quarter, and
how insecure is the bond in which those vast
subject populations are held. There was not
the most trifling check sustained by us in
Affghanistan which was not magnified in the
bazaars throughout India, and looked upon
as the prelude to a general rise. And nothing
but the treachery of a Seik leader prevented
the Seik armies, swelled by thousands of
volunteers from every side, from marching
over us, and thence onward to Delhi, after
the almost fatal battle of Ferozeshah. In
India the rise of an empire has always been
as rapid as is the rise of a millionaire among
speculators, but equally rapid has been the
fall. In either case credit is the only support
of it; and all will be lost when our credit, or, in
other words, the reputation of our arms is gone.
There may be dreamers in England who
think otherwise, but those who really know
India, know that our empire there is anything
but an empire of affection.
Nor must we fail to consider the effect that
failure in the war with Russia may have on
our alliances or relations with those countries
on whose conduct towards us the tranquillity
of India must always more or less depend.
If success in war be necessary to success in
diplomacy in the West, it is not less so in the
East; and we may rest assured that when
Austria and Prussia shall have ceased to fear
us neither Persia, nor Cabul, nor Herat, nor
Relat, nor Cashmere, nor Burmah, will be very
long before they indicate unmistakeably their
opinion of our altered condition. It is not in
the power of countries which have forfeited
the respect of great States still to command
that of small ones. On the contrary, the moro

THE PRESS.

petty a State is, the more despicable, whether
for friendship or for enmity, its alliance--the
more audacious and shameless is the attitude
it assumes towards the gigantic empire which
has overshadowed it when once the supremacy
of the latter is irretrievably gone. The fate of
NAPOLEON after Austerlitz, and of NAPOLEON
after Leipzic, is an apt illustration of the
course that such petty principalities inva-
riably pursue. These dangers to India, and
those greater internal dangers which we have
above depicted, may be trifling in the opinion
of Lord GRANVILLE, and of the authority he
alluded to ; but they can never be deemed
trifling by any one who really understands
India. Nor do we think thtit they will be
deemed trifling by any ono who, amid the
distractions of pleasure or the toils of money-
getting, can afford a moment for calm reflec•
tion on the present serious position of the whole
British empire.