The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-24 00:00:00

TWE PRESS; OCTOBER 24,1857.

THE WEEK.

THE week has on the whole been unusually fruitful in events. At home,
we have had the speech of the Duke of CAMBRIDGE at Sheffield, the letter
of Lord ELLENBOROUGU, the addresses of the Duke of RUTLAND and
Sir EDWARD Lvrros, and the Reformatory Meeting at Birmingham.
The reception the Duke of CAMBRIDGE met with at
Sheffield must have been eminently gratifying to his Royal Highness.
The high spirit and frank manly nature of the Duke render him
popular with the army, endear him to the English people, and
the hearty welcome he met with at Sheffield is a greeting his Royal
Highness may fairly anticipate on every public occasion. We have
alluded at length elsewhere to those portions of the speech of his
Royal Highness relating to the recruitment for the army.
But there was another portion of the Duke's speech
worthy of note. We refer to that paragraph expressing
his sentiments upon the treatment of the rebels. Some of our
contemporaries adroitly use the expressions of the Duke eo as
to lead a hasty reader to believe that the Duke recommended measures
simply severe. His Royal Highness said :—" Let us have justice, not
" undue, indiscriminate vengeance ; but justice, and stern justice.
" We have a right to expect that these men shall be brought before
" proper tribunals and duly punished for the atrocious deeds they
" have committed." The paragraph of the speech, it will be seen, is
not perfect without the last sentence.
With regard to affairs abroad, the great event of the week is the
declaration of the Divans in Moldavia and Wallachia in favour
of the union of the Principalities. At first sight this may not
appear a question to interest us much, but in those Danubian
provinces it is probable we may find the finest European
opening for our commerce. The trade of the Danube is worthy of our
consideration. The union of the provinces appears to be accepted as
settled. The protest of the Porte against the recent elections
has fallen dead to the ground. The silence of our Government is
remarkable, when we recall the vigour with which they maintained the
status quo in August. The Congress, we believe, will assemble shortly
at Paris, where the question of the union will be definitively discussed
and then settled according to the provisions of the Treaty of 1856. But
with the settlement of the union, if it so happen, the labours of the
Congress will not cease. There remains the selection of a prince
from one of the reigniag families of Europe. The names of many can-
didates are mentioned, but it is altogether premature to discuss a
question so delicate in its nature and so important in its conse-
quences.
Another change has taken place in the Spanish Ministry—Nan
VAEZ, who about this time last year ejected O'DONNELL, has succumbed
to ARMKRO. Meantime, the usual amount of speculation upon the
tendencies of the new Ministry occupy the continental journalists, as
if it really mattered, under the present dynasty, whether this or that
sot of corrupt incapables held office at Madrid. It is sufficient that
they be Spaniards, in whom principles have nothing to do with place.
In Spain, a fresh struggle for place is chronic ; it is an event to be
looked for whenever the existing Ministry have become entitled to
their pensions, or their Sovereign feels herself at liberty to dispense
with their services. It is not easy to account for the pacific nature of
the recent change. It is clear that NARVAEZ has dissembled his rage,
and yielded quietly, if ungraciously ; but then he found 100,000,000 fr.
last year in the Treasury, and this year he leaves empty coffers to his
successors. The changes which of late have so frequently oc-
curred in Spain offer a curious commentary upon those Liberal insti-
tutions which Lord PALMERSTON took such credit to himself for having
secured to that country by the alteration of the Law of Succession.
Every change so far has been in favour of that Absolutism which the
Noble Lord boasted he had abolished. One Minister rapidly succeeds
another, and corruption is found to be a convenient aid to the designs
,of the Absolutist party. Meanwhile, there are indications of a change
jail the ideas of the people of Spain ; and a real revolution, which will
,emanate from the people, is not so far distant. What will be the
policy of France when that inevitable event' occurs is a question which
concerns us closely. There is much French capital investing in Spain;
the French Government regards events with a watchful eye ; perhaps
an early opportunity may be afforded the Emperor NAPOLEON for the
full development of his policy.
0,04.

The subject of Local Self-Government has arisen this week in
„I •
emequenee of a paper read by Mr. Tom TAYLOR at the late meeting
at Birmingham, and some comments passed thereon by Mr. TouutiN
&tau. The Times is rather inclined to side with the former gentle-
man, who maintains the necessity of Government interference with
provincial Boards in questions of a sanitary nature. It is very easy
to see what is to be said in favour of such interference, and the Times
has accordingly sad it. Everything in nature is checked by some-
thing else. No men are perfect, much less country churchwardens
Advice is useful. And—and therefore, in short, Mr. TAYLOR'S recommen•
dation is a good one. We should be foolish indeed to demur to any one
of this string of platitudes. We are aware, as it happens, that human
nature and all its devices are full of imperfections, and that nothing is
scarcely ever done which could not under some conceivable circus-

stances have been done better. But that is not a practical way of
estimating national institutions. These always involve a compromise.
And the question to be answered always is, whether what we
retain is more valuable than what we lose. That wo
lose something must always be admitted. But it is madness to look
only on that side of the question. A boy lases something by being
sent to a public school. He is made acquainted with vice earlier than
he would otherwise have been. He injures his complexion and wears
out his clothes more than ho would have done at home. Nay, per-
haps he does not even learn so much Latin, Greek, and Euclid as ho
might have done in his father's study. But what then? The common
sense of the country has determined that the public-school system is
the best. If a boy gets less scholarship and more roughness, he com-
pensates for these drawbacks by something which is far more
valuable. He gains self-reliance, self control, courage, hardihood, and
a knowledge of human nature. In one word, he becomes a man.
Something very similar is the distinction between centralisation and
local government. Under the former system public works
are better performed. Under the latter the national character '
is more advantageously trained. Men accustomed to the difficulties '4'
of governing a parish can appreciate the difficulties of governing a
kingdom. They become more patient of inevitable delays. more
tolerant of human frailties. Fitter, in one word, to understand, value,
and support that system of representative government which conti-
nental nations seem powerless to imitate. This character of the Eng-
lish people, formed by long habits of self-government and provincial
jurisdictions, is to our mind, more than anything else, the cause of our
long internal tranquillity. We have been taught the vanity of theoris-
ing, and have become sufficiently moderate in our expectations not to
be too often violently disappointed. Those who would see by what
imperceptible steps bureaucracy advances, and what are its inevitable
results upon national life, would do well to consult the invaluable work
of M. DE Too:1E1E1711.LE on France before the Revolution.

There is not one person in England, we believe, who does not
now bitterly regret the refusal of the Government last July to trans-
port to India a portion of our army overland. It was alleged at the
time that the transmission of troops to India by way of the Isthmus of
Suez was surrounded by great difficulties, the principal one of which
was in obtaining the permission of the Turkish Government for the
application of the route to the transport of troops. We are glad to
have an opportunity of doing justice to the readiness of the Sultan to
aid us in every way in his power at this crisis. A correspondent,
upon whose accurate information and truthfulness we will stake the
credit of this Journal, in a letter from Constantinople, dated October 7,
1857, furnishes us with the following facts, to which we respectfully
call the attention of our readers :
Four months ago Lord Stratford had an interview with the Sultan, and obtained his
acquiescence and approval of the proposal to despatch British troops through Egypt to
India. Such a step could not, according to treaty, be taken without a special firman and
vizieral order. Lord Stratford, having obtained the Sultan's permission, telegraphed and
wrote to that effect to the Home Government. This occurred in the middle of June. No
notice whatever was taken of Lord Stratford's communication until last Saturday evening,
October 3rd, when a telegraphic despatch arrived at the Embassy, requesting Lord Strat-
ford to go at once to the Sultan, and obtain the firman he had proffered four months
before. Lord Stratford lost not a moment in following out the instructions of his Govern-
ment. H.M.S. Osprey was instantly ordered to prepare for sea ; and by Monday evening,
October sth, the Imperial firman and vizieral order were put on board, and she was de-
spatched at once to Alexandria. It is a question now which will reach there first—
the British soldiers, who cannot disembark in Egypt without the firman; or the firman,
enabling the British troops to disembark.

Two things are clear from the statement of our correspondent—first,
that no obstacles whatever were thrown in our way by the Govern•
ment of the Porte to the passage of troops across the Isthmus ; and,
secondly, that four months were allowed to elapse by our Government
between the period at which the Sultan expressed his readiness to
grant the necessary firman, and that on which his Majesty was
requested to fulfil his promise. The point is, did it require four months to
prepare for the transmission of troops? At a very early stage of the
Indian insurrection the desirability of transporting a portion at least
of the reinforcements by way of Egypt was impressed on the Govern-
ment by the Earl of HARDWICKE and other Members of both Houses.
The men, allowing a week's detention in Egypt, could have been
landed at Bombay in thirty-five days, and at Calcutta in from forty.
two to fifty. Every man who had reflected upon the subject, or enjoyed
a practical acquaintance with Indian affairs, appreciated at once the
moral effect upon the people of India of the prompt arrival of a few
hundred men, followed in a fortnight by a few hundred more, and
again by the same number each succeeding mail. It is uni-
versally admitted now that an insurrection throughout Bombay
a few weeks since was only prevented by the opportune arrival of a
single regiment (H.M.'s 33rd) from the Mauritius. The British people
in India cannot comprehend the apathy displayed by the Government
in this matter. For the last twelve years they have known and appre-
ciated the advantages of the overland route, and yet on the first occa-
sion, when its value to them was inestimable, they find the
Government declining to make use of it except for the transit of
officers, while, by a refinement of procrastination, they despatched
every musket and sabre round the Cape. We may rely upon it that
to this lamentable want of energy and promptitude on the part of the
Government we may attribute the dangers our countrymen are now
struggling against in India, and that peril to which the tranquillity of
Presidencies in a great degree loyal and faithful remains exposed.

We entirely agree with Lord STANLEY that the great difficulty to
be anticipated in the establishment of reformatories is the envy they
are likely to excite in the minds of the holiest poor. " If, however,"