The Press.
London, England, 1854-07-22 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1854.

the right. What chance is there of a war
being carried on with spirit and success when
the chief manager of it is acting against the
grain, and has no faith in his cause ?
The conduct of the Ministry with respect to
this affair, during the whole period they have
been in office, has been a series of blunders,
or something worse. They criminally dis-
regarded the confidential communications of
the Emperor's intentions in 1853, and then
they scandalously revealed them in 1854.
The negligence disgraced them as statesmen :
one would have thought that gentlemen would
hardly have descended to the subsequent
breach of faith. A false assumption, on the
part of Rusais,:to protect the subjects of the
Porte professing the Greek religion, was the
sole object and basis of the disturbing mission
of MENSCHISOFF, which we are now at war to
baffle, and yet that profound jurist, the Lord
President of the Council, commemorated his
brief career, as the head of our diplomacy, by
a despatch of pompous twaddle, in which he
announced the opinion of her Majesty's
Ministers that the claims of the Russian
Emperor over these Turkish subjects were not
only sanctioned by law, but prescribed by
duty!
Either the Ministers have throughout been
singularly miaknformed, or they have failed to
apprehend the communications of their 'gems.
It is now universally agreed that the Emperor
of RUSSIA never seriously intended hostilities,
and that the reports of his preparations were
hyperbolical. The Emperor of Rums watched
Lord ABERDEEN and counted on him. Bautiow
had written repeatedly to his master that the
English Minister was in the habit of reviling
the French Emperor, and sneering at the
French alliance. NICHOLAS observed that
when the French fleet reached Salamis the
English fleet, notwithstanding the appeal of
General ROSE, remained at Malta. NICHOLAS
complimented Lord ABERDEEN on the beau role
he was playing in not acting with France.
The compliment was accepted, and the Pruth
was passed. The fifty thousand men who
finally crossed that river were not only exagge-
rated by the Cabinet into a host of Attila, but
one of the cardinal principles of their policy was
that resistance of the Russians by the Turks
was hopeless. It seems now pretty clear, as
General ROSE always impressed on them, that
if the English fleet had entered the Black Sea
on the passage of the Pruth, the Russians
would have been ignominiously expelled from
the principalities by OMER PACHA, and some
twenty millions of English treasure been saved.
Instead of this, we had a Conference of Vienna,
where the arbitrators had not the power of
enforcing their award on those of whom they
were the umpires.
The autumn was passed in imbecility.
When Lord PALMERSTON left the Cabinet the
country was officially informed that his Lord-
ship was " a firebrand," which meant that he
wanted to go to war, and his colleagues did
not. Notwithstanding Sinope, it is clear that
the Cabinet had not resolved to proceed to
extremities when Parliament met. Mr. GLAD-
STONE, when he introduced the larger and
second edition of estimates, urged by way of
extenuation of his previous miscalculation,
that when the troops were first sent to Malta,
at the expense of several millions, absolute
war was not contemplated ! In the meantime
we were consoled for the delay, and even com-
pensated for it, by a gratifying assurance from

Sir JAMES GRAHAM that we had obtained by
its beneficial agency the co-operation of the
German Powers ! Repeated notes of admira
tion can alone point the exploits of our egre-
gious Ministers. We have impressed upon
our readers from the beginning not to fall
into this fool's paradise. We have apprised
them in detail for the last two months of the
continuous and secret negotiations which
were taking place, as regards the German
Powers, with very different views. The only
reply of the Government organs to our state-'
ments was that they were made under
" Russian inspiration"! If the public find
our information always authentic, they will
care little who may be the prompter ; and, on
turning to our memorandum of foreign in-
telligence to-day, they will meet a final
confirmation of all for which we had prepared
them.
Misled by their agents at Vienna, or de-
vising delay, credulous or conniving, th•
result is the same. The Coalitionists have
lost another year. NAPIER, after all his fan-
faronade, after all the " Go it Charleys !" and
the hiccupping harangues of the First Lord of
the Admiralty, must soon return from the
Baltic bootless. In the very words of its
commander, BARAOUAY d'HILLIERS himself,
" the French expedition to the north, if it
Abstit
" attempts anything this ear, will find
" another Mossese A - asmi-official
announcements of the approac *ng siege au►cd
capture of Sebastopol, this is only a variety of
that " enormous lying " which, according to
CHARLES BULLER, is a resource of a Ministry
in distress. Our southern fleet may escape
the sneers of Spithead, but it will only be by
lying tranquilly anchored in the Bosphorus,
while our magnificent troops, who left these
shores amid the enthusiasm of their country-
men at the very moment that our Ministers
had resolved they should not fight, may, we
dread to think, moulder away in regions
where their only foes will be pestilence and
famine. The military expeditions to the Eas
were undertaken against the advice, and in
the teeth of the urgent protest, of the principal
French leaders, especially Marshals Sr. Au-
NAUD and MAGNAN. These expeditions were
founded on the Aberdeen assumption that the
Turks could not fight either by sea or land.
They were objected to on the ground of the
enormous expenditure which they must occa-
sion, and the very doubtful consequences
which they might accomplish. Preliminary pre-
parations on the spot alone could justify them.
There were none. The English expedition
was despatched with a brace of commissar y
generals as precursors, who went about as if
they were purveying for a private family of
distinction. We doubt whether the French
were more prescient. So far as the present
campaign is concerned, the thirty millions
which have been expended by the two nations
might have been thrown into the Golden Horn.
After this prodigal strain on' the resources
of both countries, what is the prospect of the
third campaign? It is in the nature and
necessity of things that the understanding
which exists between the Czar and the Ger-
man Powers will mature into co-operation.
The Crimea, which, had there been any fixed
purpose in our distracted councils, might
have ere this been in the possession of tl: •
allies, will soon be occupied by the flower of
the Muscovite armies. The Cireassians, in-
stead of holding aloof, might have been
ardently co-operating with us. Tho Scandi-

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navian Powers might have been our friends.
Even the kingdoms and empires of Germany,
had there been any show of firmness and sin-
cerity on the part of England at the right
season, might, to a certain extent, have been
acting with us for a common object. The op
portunity is lost for ever. The Chevalier
BUNSEN, one of the victims of our perfidious
vacillation, wrote recently, in a letter to a
friend, and in the bitterness of his heart,lhat,
" though the Russians were hated in Germany,
" no living man would trust England."
After having, solely for the sake of retaining
place, involved his country in a war which in
his heart he entirely disapproved, and after
having carried it on, for less than two years,
in a manner which excited the distrust of the
nation, Sir ROBERT WALPOLE was driven from
power amid the execration of the community !

THE CONSERVATIVES AND TILE OXFORD
UNIVERSITY BILL.
Tax alterations made by the House of Lords in
the Oxford University Bill are appointed to come
before the house of Commons on Monday. Re-
leetion on the subject has increased the strength
of our previous convictions, that the dis-
paragement of Convocation, in the undue in-
fluence given to Congregation by the bill as it
now stands, is a very great error, which we
trust will yet receive correction in the Lower
House. If it be right that the representative
principle should be introduced into the
University, why place so much power in the
narrow limits of Congregation, while there is
a body so highly educated, so essentially po-
pular, and practically conversant with affairs
as Convocation?
We can quite understand how reactionists
against Protestantism, aspiring to introduce a
theocratic element into our National Church,
should desire to have the affairs of the Univer-
sity managed by a small body. But such
a course is at variance with our constitu-
tional customs, and is antagonistic to the
progressive spirit of the last quarter of a
century. It is a great error to suppose that
academical spirit expires with non-residence,
as if in every parish in England Alma Mater
had not many worthy sons aspiring to do
honour to her teaching. Convocation connects
the University with the country, and, under pro-
per regulation, would supply Oxford with the ele-
ments of more really national opinion than can
be secured in the system as suggested by Mr.
GLADSTONE and his subtle allies. The sec-
tional plan, as proposed by Ministers, is the
more sacerdotal, while that recommended by
Lord DERBY, Oxford's chosen Chancellor, is
at once more constitutional, Protestant, and
English. To conclude on this head, Congre-
gation would have Oxford under the power of
resident coteries, while Convocation would
connect it with the clergy and Scholars of the
nation at large.
But the alterations introduced, relative to
the great public schools of England, are also
worthy the special attention of the Lower
House, as it was by its own votes that the
improvements (rejected by the Lords) were
engrafted in the bill. How stands the case
with respect to the schools ? Simply thus.
Certain individuals endowed the great schools
of Westminster, Merchants Taylor, and Win-
chester for specific ends As long as these
ends are attainable, and neither contrary to
public policy or morality, what right has the
Legislature to interfere, annul the doctrine of
prescription, and apply a principle savouring
strongly of confiscation? To throw open to all
England the endowments of these schools,
with their reserved rights of presentations to
the University, would be just the same thing
as giving the dignities of the Irish Church
to English Dissenters of the three denomina
. Lions. The cases stand in the same relation,
for, if prescription be plausibly violated in
one case, how can it be consistently asserted
in the other? On abstract rightthe alterations
. of the Lords are contrary to the first principles
• of justice, and there is not even the argument of
expediency in their favour. Forsooth, we are
told that young men admitted to endowments