The Press.
London, England, 1854-12-09 00:00:00

privilege and duty of canvassing (more espe-
cially at a period of peculiar anxiety like the
present) the conduct of tho Ministers en-
trusted with the management of public affairs.
They are not now called on to discuss theo-
ries of Government or personal pretensions.
Weightier matters demand their care. The
parliamentary contests of years past sink
into insignificance compared with the mo-
mentous facts of the last four months.
Twenty thousand of our soldiers, at the lowest
estimate, have perished in an expedition now
confessed to have been undertaken without
knowledge or foresight. Does not this one
broad fact demand inquiry ? If the expedi-
tion was equal to its object, who is responsible
for its failure? If inadequate to the work it
was commissioned to perform, ou whom does
the blame of that inadequacy rest? These
are questions to which some explicit answer
must be given before the country can feel
satisfied that the second act of the war will
not prove equally as disastrous as the first.
Whatever powei. the Ministers may de-
mand now, they might certainly have had six
months ago. The public expectation outran
their demands ; they were pressed to accept
more money to raise more troops, and to elevate
their minds to a juster view of the magnitude
of the contest in which they had embarked
the nation. But, even after the expedition
had landed in the Crimea, they were so far
from recognising the necessity of further
supplies, that they boasted of the efforts made
as exceeding the requirements of the occa-
sion, and, in the words of their chief, con-
ceived that to land from twenty-five to thirty
thousand men on the shores of the Crimea
was to mako war with all the vigour of which
" human nature is capable." In the pre-
sence of deplorable consequences, which it
would be futile to deny or to palliate, we may
expect that a candid confession of mistake
will be made ; but at the same time there
will probably be an attempt to shield Minis-
terial incapacity by garbled extracts from
despatches, and by impugning the judment
of the allied commanders. But we aro at a loss
toconceive what excusethere can be for delay-
ing to supply the expedition with those winter
necessaries, the want of which is now severely
felt, long after it was evident that, even in the
event of success against Sebastopol, it would
be impossible for the troops to leave the
Crimea this year.
If Parliament on its assembling discusses
any subject, it must be this one, on which
public attention is undividedly fixed, of the
conduct of the war. Much conjecture is
afloat as to the course which the Opposition
will take; and our readers may possibly
expect some information from us on that
head. But any conjecture that might be
formed on it would assuredly be premature.
Each House of Parliament, though ordinarily
split up into parties, is, or should be, one
body in all that nearly concerns the honour
and safety of the nation. It is impossible to
predict beforehand what may be the pre-
valent tone in a body of upwards of
six hundred gentlemen, all assumed to
be deeply interested in the welfare of their
country. In supposing that a very large ma
jority of them will concur in demanding an
explanation of the causes which have neu-
tralised the valour of our troops, and have en-
tailed essential failure on our arms notwith-
standing a succession of brilliant victories,
we give them credit only for reflecting the