The Press.
London, England, 1856-02-16 00:00:00

CIVIL SERVICE EIIPERANNUATIONS.

The CHANCELLOR Of the EXCHEQUER moved for
leave to bring in a bill to amend the act relating to
superannuations in the civil service. The right lion.
baronet entered into an historical detail of the
arrangements which had existed at different periods
within the last century for the purpose of providing
a fund out of which the employes in the civil de-
partments of the public service might receive allow.
ances when age or ill-health rendered them unfit for
their duties. He then described the provisions of
his own bill, which, he observed, was almost identical
with the measure presented but not pressed in the
last session. He denied that either Parliament or
the Government had acted unjustly towards the civil
servants of the Crown, who bad taken office with a
full knowledge of the condition and amount of their
prospective incomes. In his proposed measure, Sir
G. C. Lewis observed, he did not intend to reduce the
scale of deductions from salaries, but merely to
apportion the retiring allowance upon a more liberal
scale. The settlement of all details in the bill be
proposed to leave to the decision of a select com
mittee. _ _ _

After a few words from Mr. ETCH,
Mr. DISRAEII remarked that the proposition of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer amounted to a refer-
ence of the whole subject to a committee upstairs.
The history of superannuations in the public service
was simply one of spoliation : a fund had been pro-
mised and a tax enacted. He hoped that a suds.
factory solution of the question would be now con-
trived ; but observed that the Government seemed
very unprepared with practical plans for the accom-
plishment of their promised administrative reforms.
Mr. T. BARING tit nied that any spoliation had been
perpetrated by the Superannuation Act of 1834.
Mr. ROEBUCK referred to the injustice of granting
allowances out of the Superannuation Fund to
several classes of employes who never bad con-
tributed to it. _ .

Sir S. NORTHCOTE commented upon another in-
justice committed towards the civil servants of the
public by exacting compulsory deductions from their
incomes, while the Treasury reserved the power cf
regulating, or even refusing altogether, the allowance
they received, on retiring from active employment.
Sir J. GRAHAM believed that the only real griev
ance of the public servants arose from the pressure
of a double income tax, in addition to other deduc-
tions from small salaries.

Mr. M. CHAMBERS having briefly spoken, leave was
given to bring in the bill.

CARLISLE CANONRIES.
Mr. FERGUSON moved for leave to bring in a bill
to appropriate the income of that one of the COMOD-
ries in Carlisle Cathedral which should next fall
vacant for the augmentation of the income of certain
incumbencies in that city.
The motion was opposed by Mr. R. Phillimore
and Mr. Liddell; Mr. Ingham and Mr. Laslett sup-
ported the bill.
Mr. GLADSTONE, doubting much the expediency of
fragmentary legislation, thought that the bill should
be admitted to a first reading.
After a few words from Mr. KENNAIRD, the oppos
sition was withdrawn, and leave given to bring in the
bill.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for IRELAND obtained
leave to bring in a bill to consolidate and amend the
laws relating to bankruptcy and insolvency in Ireland
The house adjourned at a quarter to twelve o'clock'

The Earl of Clarendon leaves town this morning
for Paris. His lordsnip will be attended at Paris by
the Hon. Charles Spring Rice, Hon. Spencer Pon-
sonby ( private secretary), Mr. John Bidwell, Hon. J.
C. Vivian, Mr. Villiers Lister, and the Hon. Julian
Fane.
Mr. Hayes, of the Midland Circuit, Mr. Pigott, of
the Oxford Circuit, and Mr. Wells, of the Norfolk
Circuit, werelsworn in on Tuesday as members of the
degree of the Coif, before the Lord Chancellor, ink
his private room at the House of Lords.

FEBRUARY 16, 1856.

Yittraturt.

L'Expedititm de Crimie jusqu'd la Prise Sebas-
topol. By the Baron de Bazancourt. Vol. I.

Paris : Amyot.
TIM book, published within the last few days
at Paris, is the most important one that has
yet appeared on the Crimean campaign. For
it is neither by " Our Own Correspondent,"
nor by a " T. G.," nor by an officer, sub-
ject as such to professional prejudice, but
is by a nobleman, who was sent out with the
official authority of the French Government
expressly to write a history of the campaign,
who was formally accredited to the French
General-in-Chief by the Minister of War, who
had every facility afforded by all the French
commanders for observation and inquiry, and
who, after his return to Paris, had confiden-
tial despatches and private letters and docu-
ments of all kinds placed at his disposal. The
book, therefore, must be considered as the
formal official account of the campaign which
the French Government is anxious to have
accepted, by contemporaries and posterity, as
historically true.
As such a work necessarily possesses pecu-
liar interest to English readers, we hasten to
see what it contains.

After a brief history of the diplomatic events
which led to the declaration of war by Eng-
land and France against Russia, the author
records the despatch of English and French
troops to Gallipoli. the arrival of the respec-
tive generals-in-chief in that place, and after
about a fortnight's delay their departure for
Varna to have a conference with Omer Pacha
as to what was to be done. On arriving at
Varna—

The evident active nature of Marshal St. Arnaud, and his
high position in the army, naturally caused him to assume
the direction of the grave discussions that were to take
place. And so, at the opening of the conferences, he
called on Omer Pacha to expose clearly the situation of his
army, its strength and resources, and the projects which
he had formed for opposing the enemy—also to tell all he
knew concerning the Russian army.
Thus, from the very first, the English General-
in-Chief subsided into a secondary position.
Omer Pacha was of opinion that the allies
ought immediately to assist the Turks in
driving the Russians, who were then besieging
Silistria, from the Danubian principalities ;
but what was decided was, that a French
division should occupy a position near Varna,
and that an English one should proceed to
Devena. The advantages of this plan were,
according to Marshal St. Arnaud, to encourage
the Turks, discourage the Russians, and
force the Austrians, who were feeling their
way, to pronounce. A day or two after, infor-
mation arrived that the Russians had com-
pletely invested Silistria, and that the fall of
the place was imminent. Therefore it was
determined to concentrate all the troops in
the neighbourhood of Varna; and Omer Pacha
said that in three weeks ho could collect
70,000 men, Lord Raglan promised in the
same time 20,000 English, and Marshal St.
Arnaud " hoped to be able in the same space
"of time to have 35,000 men collected." We
quote this to show that the French at the
moment hostilities were likely to commence
had not that immense numerical superiority
over the English which it is the fashion on
the Continent to imagine. And a few pages
further on we read that when, on the 26th of
May, the Marshal returned to Gallipoli,
expecting to find his 35,000 men ready to
leave at once,—
He was plunged into consternation. He had forgotten
that for an expedition so distant he might have to en-
counter obstacles of all kinds, some of them insurmount-
able, and difficulties of navigation. Artillery, engineers,
stores, camp materiel, horses, everything had been em-
barked from France with the greatest celerity and without
any loss of time; but the Marshal had not taken into ac-
count the seas to be traversed, and the contrary winds to
be encountered. Hope is often a bad logician.
The first moment of disappointment was a cruel one.
The plan so laboriously combined fell down at once. The
flag of France could not yet be displayed ; the Imperial
eagles could not yet show their golden wings. This was the
fault of no one, but the result of the precipitation with
which everything had to be done.
There were at Gallipoli only twenty or thirty pieces of
artillery with their horses ready for use, and about 500
hones belonging to different corps.