The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-30 00:00:00

OFFICIAL RESPONSTEILITY.

Mr. Bright then proceeded to show the absence of
real official responsibility :
I believe there is no country in the world that
pretends to regular Government where there is
less of real responsibility among high officials than
there is in England. There is one case which I can-
not resist the temptation of citing as an illustration
of what I mean. During the Russian war there were
two points in which the interest of Europe was centred
—one was Sebastopol, the other the city of Kars. I
hope we have not forgotten all the geography we learnt
during those calamitous times, for I believe it is the only
really valuable thing we got by the war. You recollect
that the city of Kars was besieged by the Russians, and
that it was defended by Turkish troops, assisted and com-
manded, I think, by an Englishman—Colonel Williams.
You have heard—and I am not at all prepared to dispute
it—that Colonel Williams behaved, I do not say with
great bravery, for that is common to almost all Englishmen,
and, indeed, to the majority of men everywhere,—but with
great sagacity and prudence, and showed the qualities of
a commander. Eventually he was obliged to capitulate,
and those who capitulated were treated in the most
honourable manner by the Rursians who obtained posses-
sion of the town. At that time a nobleman of very high
rank—no less a personage than Lord Stratford de Red-
cliffe—was ambassador from the Queen of England at the
city of the Sultan. He had been there for nearly twenty
Years. During the siege of Kars Colonel Williams wrote
-and fcrwarded to Lord Stratford at Constantinople wore
than sixty letters or despatches with reference to his
position, stating how they were worn out with sorties and
the attacks of the enemy, how long their provision and
ammunition might last, sad urging him to take any steps
which might be possible for the purpose of making a
diversion iu his favour or of sending relief. All that was
most proper for Colonel Williams to write and communicate
to the ambassador of the Queen at Constantinople; but do
you recollect the striking fact that Lord Stratford de Red-
cliffs did not reply to—did not acknowledge or take the
smallest notice of—any one of these sixty or seventy
despatches. He treated them as waste paper. He had
been years at Constantinople, quarrelling with every Euro-
pean Minister there, and bullying the Ministers of the
Sultan ; but when his own countrymen and their allies
were shut up in the fortified town of Kars, besieged by a
powerful and overwhelming force, driven at length to star-
ration, and finally to capitulation, this great official treated
the whole thing as utterly beneath his notice. Subse-
quently, Colonel Williams came to England and was wade
a baronet ; Parliament passed an act granting him a
pension of 1,001)!. a year, and the Marquis of Lansdowne,
one of the Cabinet Ministers of the day, brought him into
the House of Commons fur his pocket borough of Caine,
in Wiltshire. Colonel Williams has never opened his mouth in
public in England on the subject of his treatment by Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe. while that nobleman, who had been
guilty of this great neglect—l say this enormous crime—
has since taken his seat in the House of Lords, has become
a great authority, and has now been sent by the Govern-
ment on a special mission to Constantinople. I need not
tell you that I was not in favour of any of that Eastern
policy, but I presume Lord Stratford was; he was one of
the great authors of it, and I say that any man who takes
office from his Sovereign end his country as he took it,
with a salary of 10,0001. a year, and expenses of almost like
amount, for the Embassy at Constantinople, is guilty of a
scandalous abandonment of the duty he owes to the
Queen and to the country if he pays no attention to such
letters as those which L.-ird Stratford received from an
officer of her Majesty shut up with our allies in Kars. If
Lord Stratford had been a Russian noble and had so be-
haved, before taking his seat in the House of Peers and
going on a special mission to Constantinople he would
have had the advantage of going on a special mission to
Siberia ; while it be had been an ambassador of the United
States of America—but I cannot follow out the illustration,
because in the United States there is no family influence,
there is uo power such as that wielded by our great pro-
vincial potentates—there is nothing in that country to
shield an officer of the State from public reprobation, and
therefore I am quite certain that no person deputed from
the United States could by any possibility be guilty of the
abandonment of duty which was manifested by Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe. Whenever you get a House of
Commons that fairly represents the nation, with a Cabinet
that fairly represents the House of Commons, if there be
any other Lord Stratford I would not like to predict
precisely what will befall him ; hut I believe that such a
man, with such a temper—for it was a question of
temper—will not receive under such circumstances high
and continuous employment from the Government of this
country. I say we have a right, be it in peace, be it in
war, when we employ men in the service of the Crown and
of the State, and pay them for their labour, to all their
energies and to all their devotion. This question of par.
liamentary reform, then, is a great and serious question.