The Press.
London, England, 1857-02-07 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

portion of his speech as regarded our foreign policy was a
pure and entire romance.
The noble lord then at some length entered into the
I3olgrad question, contending that tho misunder.
standing as to this line had originated in no want of
geographical kEowledge on the part of the British
Plenipotentiaries. It was not desirable, he thought,
that the papers relating to these differences, which
had been arranged, should be laid before Parliament.
He vindicated the course pursued by the Government
regarding the Neufchatel question, denying that they
Lad given the advice to the Swiss alleged by Mr.
Disraeli; and then, coming back to the Austrian
secret treaty, made the following admission :

I believe in the early part of the war with Russia, when
it was a question what line Austria should take, commit-
nications passed between the Austrian and French Go-
vernments ; and I believe the French Government at that
fiat agreed that they would take no part hostile to
Aus.ria.

With regard to the operations against Persia, they
were undoubtedly taken on the responsibility of her
Majesty's Government, the circumstances of the
case, in their opinion, calling for and justifying them,
in conformity with a policy founded upon a right
conception of the interests of our Indian empire.
Within the last few days he had been informed that
the Persian Ambassador at Paris had solicited an
interview with Lord Cowley, and had expressed his
readiness to enter into negotiations for the settle-
ment of the question. It would not, therefore,
pending this negotiation, be expedient to produce
the papers. The operations against China had been
the result of a violation by the Chinese of the
Treaty of Nankin. He hoped that this dispute, too,
would be speedily adjusted. He expressed his
concurrence in the principles laid down by Mr.
Gladstone, that the scale of public expenditure
should be first fixed, and then the means should
be provided for denying it. To discuss this
question, therefore, before the estimates were pre-
pared was premature. The Government had no
interest in proposing establishments greater than
the public service required, thereby creating parlia-
mentary difficulties ; but the country must not be
left without the means of defence :

That is why it is important to utilise the experience which
we have gained in the last war, to maintain the scientific
establishments, and to keep up those portions of the army
which cannot be so easily raised as the recruits who per.
form the ordinary operations of a campaign. I say, then, I
trust the house will suspend its judgment on these matters
of estimates and finance until they have before them the
elements upon which their judgment may he formed.
Mr. 13tILLIE strongly candemned the expedition to
the Persian Gulf, which, he observed, had been de-
termined upon while Parliament was sitting. The
present double Government of India was open to
many objections :
The Affghan war was one of the results of this system,
and that war was in many respects a parallel to the present,
the object in both being to counteract the influence of
Russia in Central Asia. The Affghan war was the most
expensive and disastrous in which the Indian Government
were ever engaged. It cost 16,000,0001. sterling; it in-
volved the destruction of • large army, and it failed to
attain its object. Indeed, it was now admitted, he be.
lieved, that the Affghan war was a gross and wanton act of
aggression. For that war the East India Directors were
not responsible. They protested against the war, and the
President of the Board of Control was compelled to threaten
the secret committee with a mandamus from the Court of
Queens Bench before they would send oat that order.
That order was issued by Sir J. Hobhouse, and it was done
at the instigation of the then Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs (Lord Palmerston 1. The noble lord was, therefore,
mainly responsible for the Affghan war, and for the great
debt that it entailed upon the resources of India.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL regretted that so much as-
perity should have been shown towards Russia upon
the Bolgrad question. Russia unquestionably had
the letter of the treaty upon her side, though we had
the spirit upon ours, but it was extraordinary iu the
discussion which followed so much asperity should
have been displayed, that it should have been thought
necessary to rouse this country almost to fever heat,
and that there should have been so much intem-
perance and feeling in respect to a point in itself so
simple :
I thought it necessary ( observed the noble lord) to say
these few words because some persons have assume.l—and
no doubt falsely assumed—that those who express the
views of her Majesty's Government still speak of Russia as
if she were a power with which we were at war. Now that
the purposes of Russia have been defeated and the objects
of the war fully attained, 1 hope that we shall not only have
a termination of the war but a prevaler oe of the spirit of
peace.
• • -

With respect to the Persian expedition, he r:.
gar Jed it with some concern :
An expedition into the heart of the country is one of the
utmost importance, because it must have one of two oh.
jests,—either you must be going to fight Persia alone, and
if you are, that country is so real:, so disorganiird, so
reduced by the vices of its Court and the character of its
people, that you run the danger of altogether destroying
its independence; or you must be going to fight Persia

SATURDAY,

supported by Russia; and in that case, you have a formid•
able contest before you—a contest which can only result in
doing what I should think most dangerous to our empire
in India,—namely, in approaching closely the real frontier
of our Indian empire and the real frontier of the Russiat.
empire.

With regard to Russian influence in driving Persia
into the present war, he disbelieved it:—

I cannot believe that any Russian statesman would be
blind enough to the interests of his country to engage in a
distant support of the Shah, instead of, for at least the
next five years, taking every possible means to increase the
resources of Russia. I believe, therefore, that unless your
terms were destructive of the independence of Persia, the
Russian Government would be happy to aid you in obt&gn•
ing them and in terminating the war.

The noble lord then, insisting upon its having been
the duty of the Government to have called Parliament
together when the expedition to Bushire was deter.
mined on, passed on to the Italian question. In
reply to Mr. Disraeli, he was by no means satisfied
with what had taken place. Of all the courses open
to the Government to adopt towards Naples, Lord
Clarendon bad chosen the least effectual. The noble
lord then described the deplorable condition of
Naples, which he believed to be " the consequence,
and the natural consequence," of our interference.
The state of Italy was lamentable :

Tt may be possible, by means of Swiss soldiers, to put
down any insurrection in blood; it may be possible, also,
in the Roman Legations, by means of the foreign garrisons
there, to suppress any revolt ; but if we, at one time by en•
couraging them, and at another time by withholding sup-
port, drive the people of Italy into that state of desperation
which leads them to make fruitless efforts to improve their
condition, and the country thereby becomes in a worse
state than before, I think a heavy responsibility will lie
upon the Government of this country.

Lord John Russell then, recurring to questions of
home policy, referred to the estimates
I will not attempt, of course, to go into any calculation,
but 1 do hope that my right hon. friend the Chancellor of
the Exchequer will reconsider his determination, u
expressed to-night, and that he will do as Sir Robert Peel
and others have done in a similar case, that is, bring the
state of the finances before this house at a very early
period of the session. Let us know what the estimated
expenditure is, what are the ways and means to cover it,
what are the intentions of the Government with respect to
the taxes, and let this house judge of them.
Alluding to Lord Palmerston's remarks upon the
necessity of keeping up efficiently our military and
naval establishments, he observed :

All T should wish prevent, as far as my vote lies,
would be the adoption of any new system with regard to
our naval and military estimates. We have been accue.
tomed (and very great Ministers—Ministers who knew
what the country required—have sanctioned the practice)
to keep up low establishments in time of peace; and
though there has been always a complaint in the first year
of war that we have been very unprepared, and have not
made sufficient provision for a period of war, yet, somehow
or other, after a time, we have generally found ourselves
strong enough to meet our enemy with the establishment
we possessed. Moreover, though the complaint I refer to
has been made very recently, arising out of the events of
the late war, I do not think that our experience during the
last thirty years is at all adverse to the plan pur-
sued. . . . . It is by moderate establish.
ments, by rendering such establishments go‘d and
efficient, by attending to everything which cannot be easily
originated or replaced—it is by such a system, and by
relying on the greatness of the country and on the spirit of
our people, that you will be most formidable in war, anti
not by any newfangled system of increased estimates during
a time of peace.

Mr. 3ILLNER GIBSON remarked upon the question of
future finance :

If he had rightly understood the obser►ations of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer he thought that a question of
finance was a rock ahead of the present Government. The
right hon. gentleman the member for Oxford University
had predicted that from 23,000,01k1i. to 24,0041,0001. would
be asked for the army, navy, and ordnance departments as
the peace establishment for this country. If that predic-
tion should prove true the country would not support the
Government.

With respect to the marked absence of all allusions
to home policy in the Speech from the Throne, he
observed :

He had never known such a Royal Speech made to
Parliament since the reign of the four Georges. There
was scarcely a word about domestic policy—as if England
had no domestic policy. There was nothing in the Speech
bat wars and rumours of wars." Everybody was described
as contented and happy, as in the good times of George
; and " the resources of the country," it was said,
" remained unimpaired, and its productive industry con•
tinned unchecked in its course of progressive develop.
ment." This was an exaggerated statement of the
condition of the country. He denied that it could be stated
with truth that there existed general well-being anti con.
tentment. There was displayed throughout the length
and breadth of the land—not merely by the poorer classes,
but by the affluent—the utmost impatience at the amount
of the public burdens ; and were there not daily seen in
the metropolis large gstberioga of unemployed work•
men? When they regarded the amount of pauperism
and crime, how could the Ministers deliberately describe,
in the Royal Speech, the whole country as one paradise'