The Express.
London, England, 1852-01-08 00:00:00

The nation will be false to itself if it countenances

any new ministerial combinations in which men '
of
questionable liberalism find • place. It is indispen-
sable that ministers open their ranks to receive all
shades of rational practical liberals,—but it is equally
indispensable that none but sincere liberals be ad-
mitted into them. Ministers are called upon at once
to extend and to close up their ranks; to re-construct
the party aside practical progress, which has been
allowed to fall nearly into utter disorganisation ; to
receive all sincere and honest converts; but to make
unqualified, uncompromising liberalism the Ala.-
It tie of admission.
Is a man an admirer of the puerile reneoluanee of
medieval priestcraft ?—he is not to be trusted. Does
• man demur to • real extension of the suffrage, and
a reconstruction of our electoral system ?—hc can only
be a clog upon, or detrimental in, the cabinet. has
• man a liquorish hankering to sneak back to the
protectionist Ifesh-pots of Egypt?—he is to be
shunned as if he had the plague. Arc any disposed
to shrink from revision of taxation, from searching
inquiries into national expenditure, from such im-
provements in the mode of keeping the public ac-
counts, and making the annual statements of income
and outlay, as are required to enable the country to
know what is spent and what services got in return;
from re-construction of our judicial, adminis-
trative, and defensive establishments, with a
view to render them more efficient and less
costly ?—the cabinet in which they find places
cannot be relied upon. Immediate, thorough-going
reforms are required in all our institutions, and in
all departments of administration, and they can only
be accomplished by a ministry sincerely unanimous;
in the conviction of tutir necessity, acting in con•
cert with a reformed parliament.
In thus insisting that ascertained, uncompromis-
ing liberality or sentiment and opinion ought to bo
made an indispensable pre-requisite in any near ally ;
the Premier may be able or disposed to pick up, it is
by no means our intention to undervalue the import-
ance of looking to the personal efficiency of his col-
leagues. Sound abstract opinions are of compara-
tively little value in • minister who, from consti-
tutional indolence, or lack of intelligence. or deficient
experience in public business, or a wayward temper,
or moral cowardice, is disqualified for caws mg
his principles into effect. We have no wish to I
restrict the Premier's choice by a sere party con-
eidenitions—(in the narrower and more vulgar sense
of the phrsse),—much less by considerations of perms-
nal or family intimacy. /rut we maintain that a
statesman of illiberal or undecided principles is only
more dangerous in proportion as he is clever, active,
and courageous; and that the mere talent of meeting
the administrative exigencies of the day, unwind.- ,
Mated with sound political opinions, is not a sufficient
recommendation for • scat in the cabinet :
There can be no doubt that very extensive changes ,
in the perromel of the ailininistmt• are needed, .
in eider to regain for it the pubic confidence, and I
induce the liberal party throughout the country to
close up their ranks and rally to its rescue. it is
easy to show what mischief has been done in one.
department by peevish self-will, in another by I.
indolence, in a third by incapacity. There is
no doubt that new men must have a trial
at first, in • great measure, upon trust—that
they cannot start in office with all the experience of
old stagers. Due allowance will be mule at the out-
mot, time and opportunity will bo given to men to I I
iW what ia in thorn, provided it be made apparent

that both general principle awl pereonal efficiency
have been kept in view in the selection of them ; I
that this mnn has not been clAsou merely because ha 1
is a lord, and that man be:amee he can command a
certain number of votes, without to their opi-
nions or abilities; VAthat whilereViarrow limits
of personal or trAixty connexion have been over-
stepped. no unworthy compromise has been made for
the purpose of disarming conservative hostility, a
conellint'.og back stairs influence at court.
The country ought to tolerate no tampering or
connivance with obstructive or re-actionary politics,
under the pretext of a pseudo-liberal, eclectic selece
tion of " available talent from all parties."

EVERY new mail from the Cape places in a more
unequivocal light the incapacity of Sir
Slim. lie has been elevated into a false position.
In the war against Unapt, he displayed pers.opid
courage. activity, and promptitude—the qualities of
a subordinate dime or a partisan chief. .lt Alma
ho es inced talent as a general not in supreme com-
mand. On the strength of these displays he was
appointed governor of our South African possessions.
Ile flattered himself that his courage and alertness,
combined with a dash of melodramatic stage-trick,
would enable him to overawe the Kaffirs and guide
them as he pleased. lie negotiated with them; he
•apuurd and strutted before them ; he made• himself
a laughing-stock with some ; he provoked a war
with these daring and esufty barbarians in which he
finds himself utterly helpless. lie sits still iu King
William's Town, while the Kaffir tribes are congre-
gated in their unassnled, it not unassailable, moun-
tain fastnesses, make incessant inroads and forays
into the adj, g colony, and have stirred up to re-
volt and associated in their enterprises our good-
natured and our loyal Ilottentots.
There is little, or has, prospect of a spicily termi-
nation of the Kaffir war now than there was twelve
months ago. The circle of Kaffir depredations has
been extended. The number of their allies has been
increased, and that by men trained to European
discipline and modes of war, nod who have kinsmen
and eountrvmen in every part of the colony. Trifling
and inconclusive advantages over the enmity are pur-
chased by the lives of brave soldiers and distin-
guished or promising officers. Some of the best
blood of Britain is being spilt in an ignoble squabble,
which a very slender allowance of common sense in
the governor of the Cape colony could have pre-
vented.
Meanwhile the causer of all the mischief sits
helplessly in his headquarters, invoking the aid of
levies era 'name from the colonists, and fresh supplies
of disciplinol troops from the home government.
He cannot get on without reinforcewents, and he has
not made it by any means apparent that he knows
how to make use of th.ln when he gets them. He
has kindled a conflagration in South Africa which
defies his power to quench it.
And while ho remains thus gazing in bewildered
imbecility at the burning of the house he has set on
fire, everything in the colony is thrown into confu-
sion by his absence. The Colonial Minister has sent
out a pattern constitution for the adoption of the
colonists. The Colonial Secretary gives the utmost
latitude to his own emtchets and intriguing dispo-
sition in his arrangements for having it put into
shape and isisecill into a law. The colonists remon-
strate, but in vain. 'they appeal to the Governor ; he
is too much perplexed by his Kaffir engagements to
be able to attend to them. They appeal to
the home governinent, and are told that their
representations must be transmitted through the
Governor, who is at a distance, and too busy to mind
them. The Colonial Secretary thus left to take
his own way without superintendence or control,
laughs all opposition to scorn. The colonists protest
that they will not regard any arrangement by a
mere delegated holder of another's power as binding
upon them; and this threat is made by the same men
who successfully resisted the landing of the convicts.
Anarchy and revolt within the colony, war and
devastation on its frontiers, and over an unknown
extent of the African continent—this is the state
of atfAirs that scents likely to continue so long as Sir
litany SMITH is allowed to remain in office in South
Africa ;—until some man of average amenity, average
firmness and self-posstusion, and more than average
common sense and personal vigour, is sent to replace
him.

The intelligence brought to us from the Cape—
mail after mail—is of nothing but disaster on
disaster. Strong bodies of ably disciplined troops
arc repulsed by a number of Hottentots and Kadin.
Yet these same troops have been most successful in
the plains of Hindostan against no mean enemies.
It is not to them therefore that we are to look for
the explanation of this riddle, but :o their chiefs.
An army without a head is worse than useless; it is
the steam engine without the steam. We wait for
some brilliant combination of the large forces at pre-
sent at the Cape—some successful result to re-
deem the British character, but we wait in vain.
I triving an enemy over rugged mountains is no easy
task. but in a war of small posts and detachments,
indecision is a death blow, and to remain on the
defensive is proclaiming one's weakness. Yet would
it perhaps be better to do that than pursue such
seemingly ridiculous attacks as the one we now
hear of at Waterkloof. A force divided into three
columns and six gun. attacked that position on
November tith,—and from the accounts we have
received -it would appear that two columns were to
seize on the height., whilst Colonel FORDYCE with
the 71th, attacked the head of tho ravine in which
the enemy were posted. But the 71th. instead of
waiting until the other columns had gained
the heights to support it, advanced reck-
lessly into the defile with its colonel at the
head. Where were the skirmishers of this latter
column? We are left in the dark as to their pro-
ceedings ;—and though attacking an enemy known to
ho concealed behind every clump of bush or rocky
eminence, nobody was sent out to reconnoitre, but
the regiment marched on much as it would do in
Hyde-park. It might be very brave to do this, but
it was evidently very injudicious. The consequence
was the unhappy loss of four officers and some twelve
men—killed on the first volley from the enemy. The
aim of the Kaffir' was accurate, and the systematic
manner in which they took off the officers—for the
proportion of this small action is enormous when we
consider there are but three officers to a company—
shows they know how to conduct their savage war
better than our troops at present do.
It seems that these fatal shots are supposed to have
been fired by some of the sixty Hottentots of the
local corps who deserted to tho enemy on the 6th
November. A painful commentary this on the fact
that the who'c of that body were disaffected from
the beginning of the war; that they were in open
communication with the enemy ; and that instead of
being disbanded, Sir HARRY Snuff merely ad-
monished them—a punishment usually. reserved for
soldiers who indulge rather freely on a holiday
night. We think we have said enough.
Were we not talking of a tragedy, we might look
upon the whole thing as a pantomime, rehearsed fur
the amusement of the Kaffir& Of our six field
pieces, not one was brought into action to drive the
enemy out of these recesses until this slaughter lead
taken place, and then it was suddenly recollected
that artillery was at hand ; and, as it is most naively
remarked, artillery carried on the firing fur tho re-
main& rof the day. The line appears to have been
regularly daunted, and to have shirked any further
intimate communication. This was not to be
, wondered at, when their officers led them into sueli
traps.
And what are these disasters to teach us. One
thing must certainly.—the necessity of giving our
officers more education, and our soldiers a better
chance of beating an enemy—is the field. A more
manly, gent Inman ly body ofotlicers thaw ours cannot be
found, but they lack judgment, and in this life, that
is a want which tells on the welfare of all elas-es—
but inure particularly un soldiers. Cool common
sense is sometimes a gift of nature, and when added
to a quick cuulpreli, nsion, it becomes almost genius,
hut, generally eyeaking, 'men are not gifted with in-
tuitive judgment, and it has to be funned as care-
folly as any other part Dia ;nail's education. Let the
effleers be better educated.

No tuition in so learned us ac arc in the shape of the
thakr or the cut of the cwt ; our troops march lust
at review order, or advance in close column at a
slow pace, like a mass of excellent machinery. And ,
in many respects they are excellent. But place the
British review" soldier in the field in action, and
his coat eats him under the arm, he can •of freely
raise his musket to hir shoulder, that musket aiii
not carry a sufficient distance, and sometimes--even
as with the 12th Lancers—the men are scut on ser-