The Express.
London, England, 1855-04-27 00:00:00

LORD JOHN RUSSELL

TO-DAY Lord JOHN RUSSELL re-assumes, after

interval of fourteen years, the poet he formerly held
u Secretary of State for the Colonies. The tra-
ditions of the department still preserve the memory
of the manner in which he discharged its duties from
1839 to 1841. The same characteristics which have
distinctively marked his administration of other
branches of the public service, were observable during
that period of his official life; and we have little doubt
that should he again devote his Imitate and energies
continuously to the same labours, the affairs of the
Colonies will again manifest the same traces of a
vigorous hand and discriminating head.
But at the present gloomy crisis of national affairs
there are considerations whose gravity renders them

paramount to those connected with the well-ordering
of any single department of the state, how important
soever it may be. There is no use in disguising from
ourselves the fact, that the prestige and power of the
empire abroad is in jeopardy. In concert with the
only nation in Europe whom we own as a rival in arts
and arms, we have engaged in war with a power
hitherto regarded only as the first of semi-barbarous
despotisms; after a sanguinary campaign fought
without results, we have negotiated for peace on
terms remarkable only for their excessive moderation ;
' and our offers have been spurned. The civilisation of
the West stands at bay. With all its high preten-
sions to superiority it is alike unable to disperse it.
enemies or to disentangle itself with safety or honour
from their oat-numbering strength. It fed harm-
lessly in peaceful pastures until suddenly beset and
challenged; and for a time its high and haughty heart
cherished the illusion that it could frown back the
assailants to their lair. We are ,told upon high
authority that when the Anglo-French expedition
first went forth, the universal belief of officers and
men at Varna was that they would never come to
blows with the enemy. When that hallucination
was dispelled the real struggle began—a struggle
which terminated in undying glory to our soldiery,
but in yet unredeemed ignominy to the civil
and military authorities under whom it was impro-
vidently undertaken. The Russians, undismayed by
defeats which cost us so dear. subsequently became
confident and encouraged by the slow suicide of our

army in its winter santOOments ; and now, at the
end of the second spring, we have to contemplate the
necessity of another sanguinary campaign as the
only means left us for the retrieval of our national
honour. To provide the means for this new

effort the inooine and the credit of the nation
must be made available, end extraordinary burthens
and liabilities must be submitted to. We don't ob-
ject to either; bat we do object plainly and peremp-
torily to the evident disposition to avoid giving guaran-
tees for a thorough and complete reform of oar adminia.
trative system. We oannot afford to have the millions
wrung from a tax-paying community squandered in
jobs and malvereations ; we cannot afford to have
another army wantonly and cruelly thrown away.

Before Lord Joan Roseau. takes his seat in the
cabinet of Lord Taxonomic we have a right to ex-
pect that he will come to some understanding with
his colleagues as to the principles upon which the
Government is to be carried on. For the last two
months be has seminally indeed been s mem-
ber of the administration ; but that member-

ship was so universally understood to be
but nominal, that Lord JOHN RussELL's name has
never ones been mentioned throughout all the die.
maniocs which have occurred duriog his absence
abroad, regarding the exclusive composition of the
Government, and the lamentable inaptitude it has
betrayed for repairing the faults of that which
preceded It. Public justice exoesrated him from all
practical complicity in that curious concatenation of
arietocratio folly and cupidity, which is by courtesy
called "Her Maitirree present Government." No-
body held him sommateble, while engrossed with

-~1

concerns at Vienna, for the intrigue and

'bassetlity displayed at home. Nobody pretends that
it Was his that the whole of February, March,
and we mast now add April, have been suffered to pass
away without one single measure of civil or military
reform having been carried, or attempted to be oar-
lied, through Parliament; and no one has ever said,
es far as we know, that the deliberate refusal to Betels
to any proposal coming from an independent source
for Army Reform, is in any degree attributable to the
=pine occupancy of the Colonial-office by Lord
Joss. But, on the other hand, the season of irre-
sponsibility for him is' peat. He is member for the
City of London ; and his constituents, who gene-
rously re-elected him while absent from the realm,
have a right to look to him now as the defender of
those principles for adherence to which they have
heretofore given him credit. What is far more to
the purpose, and whit we trust will weigh tar more
with the noble lord—he is a statesman whose reputa-
tion has already become historical, and whose promi-
nent position in actual political life gives to his acts
and words no ordinary importance in the eyes of the
nation. The community have a right to ask Lord
JOHN RUSSELL to consider well what he is about
to do, and to declare plainly what his intentions
are. Upon the system of rule that now exists
abroad and at home, and upon the exclusive
composition of the Government, they have made up
their minds. It cannot and it shall not last; but it
may be re-modelled and purified and made consistent
with the rights and interests of the people, by the
wise cooperation of patrician statesmen, or, if not
with them, then in spite of them. On the question of
the first Reform Mal in 1830, as well as upon the ques-
tion of the total repeal of the Corn-laws in 111411,
Lord Joan Himeji., and other shrewd and sagacious
members of his class, declared for the cause of right,
and against the cam of monopoly. We trust that
he will do so now; and that he will, by appeasing
the gathering storm of just discontent, give another
proof of his capacity and courage in difficult affairs.
Since last the seals of the Colonial-office were held by
Lord JOHN, he has occupied many distinguished poi
Lions. He has been President of the Coun-
cil, Leader of the House of Commons wit►-
out office, First Lord of the Treasury, and
Plenipotentiary Extraordinary at Vienne. Bat
whether in or out of office, there is one character
which he has uniformly borne, and of which he is
probably still more proud—that, namely, of Leader of
the Whig party. And never assuredly did party stand
more in need of wise and energetic leadership. Since
the fall of Lord ABERDEEN, the Whigs, forgetful of
past professions and heedless of future policy, seem
for the moat part to have given themselves up to a
mere scramble for official profits and distinctions, like
the chance passengers who meet at a wayside inn,
and scuffle and wrangle for the best seat or a share
in the best dish with all the reckless indifference to
the appearance of the thing which selfish people be-
tray, when tbey think that these who look reprov-
ingly at them are never likely to see them again.
Lord Pet MERSTON'S Administration is not indeed
altogether Whig, but the Whig element predo-
minates in it ; and if Lord lons RUSSELL,
the acknowledged chief of that party, should be
induced to join it without some broad and pal-
pable concession, both of measures and of men, to
the public opinion by which it has been condemned,
he must not wonder if in the angry sentence of popu-
lar reprobation the name which he traditionally
reveres, as a symbol of constitutional principles, is
rudely but righteously associated with less historic
epithets.—Daily News.