The Press.
London, England, 1854-08-12 00:00:00

No. 67.—VoL. 11.

(Cle V ress.

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 1854.

THE Queen will this day prorogue Parliament
after a six months' session. It separates in
the same state of public feeling in which it
assembled,—distrust and dissatisfaction. In
the few imperfect or provisional measures
which have become law, scarcely a trace is to
be found of the large and comprehensive
legislation which was promised in the Minis-
terial programme. The session is mainly dis-
tinguished by this,—that it found the country
at peace, and has left it at war. Its real busi-
ness has been to increase taxes and vote sup-
plies.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER estimates
that our increased expenditure is at the rate of
eleven or twelve minions annually. The
papers of the tax-collector are the only war
trophies which Lord ABERDEEN'S Government
allows the country to display.
It is now evident that when the Ministry
met Parliament, at, Ake oonameneement -of .the
• year, they had no intention of declaring war
against Russia. They had not made up their
minds to a policy. The disgrace and disaster
of the autumn had failed to convince them of
the imminence of the danger. Neither the
failure of the Vienna Conference, which was
an error ab initio, as it had no power to enforce
its decisions, nor the fatal catastrophe of
Sinope, could convince them of the necessity
fa prompt and decisive action. Their blind-
ness or disunion prevented them from adopt-
ing those measures by which war could have
been prevented.
Lord ABERDEEN, seeing further than his col-
leagues, and understanding better the designs
of the Court of St Petersburg, carefully pre-
vented that joint action of France and England
which the Czar alone feared, as likely to oppose
an insuperable barrier to his ambition.. Had
the English and French fleets acted together
in the spring of 1853, the Russians would
never have crossed the Fruth ; but, when the
French fleet quitted Toulon for Samos, the
English fleet remained at Malta. The Emperor
of RUSSIA complimented Lord ABERDEEN on
his docility, and a Russian army entered the
Principalities.
On a later occasion, had our fleet entered
the Black Sea, the disaster of Sinope would
never have occurred, and the Russians might
have found some pretext for recrossing the
Pruth, and for avoiding a. contest which they
were then unprepared to prosecute, Our
timid and uncertain policy drew together
those elements of strife it should have been
our object to disperse; and when at last, urged
forward by public opinion, our Government
ventured on a decision, it seemed adopted
merely as a device to satisfy the impatience of
the public. There is decisive evidence that
. even after war had been proclainied there was
no real intention'of prosecuting it.' When Mr.
GLADSTONE moved his first war estimate of

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 1854.

three millions and a half, he described it as
an estimate for the conveyance of our troops
to Malta and back again ; and on a subsequent
occasion, when he had to propose another and
much-increased estimate, he admitted that
when troops were first despatched to Malta he
had not anticipated that this country would
really be engaged in active hostilities.
To this fundamental misconception must
be attributed the failure of the whole cam
paign, after the enormous expenses incurred.
Our troops were sent out for show, not
for active service. The camp at Chobham was
to be repeated at Malta or at Gallipoli at
farthest. No plan of operations was formed ;
no care was taken to render the force effective
by adequate complements of cavalry and
artillery ; no commissariat was prepared ; no
animals were purchased for conveyance ; and
even after the troops had reached Varna they
were at no time 'in a position to advance on

Silistria.
The same motives which urged the Govern-
ment to issue the declaration of war now
impel them anew to make a show of activity.
The season for active operations will soon
close. The public is growing impatient ; and
orders are sent out that " something must be
done," that Ministers may shift the responsi-
bility of inaction from themselves to their
commanders. Culpable credulity, succeeded
by incapable negotiation, insincere menace,
and aimless expeditions, are at last to result
in " a good butcher's bill." But general officers
will not forfeit their military reputation nor
entail disasters on their country to help the
gambling chances of a desperate Ministry.
The grand expedition authoritatively an-
nounced as destined for the capture of
Sebastopol will prove as delusive as other
announcements of a like kind put forth
to amuse the public for some months past.
The season for operations in the Euxine closes
with September, and that month and August
are unfavourable to the commencement of a
great enterprise, from the liability of the
troops to sickness, and the shortness of the
time which remains for accomplishing any ex-
tensive military design.
The session has not only been unproduc-
tive of measures for the public benefit, but it
has proved damaging to the character of all
the leading members of Administration.
Lord ABERDEEN'S declarations have not only
been opposed to those of his colleagues, but
have been inconsistent with each other. He
has been reduced to the humiliating position
of being compelled to " explain " a premedi-
tated speech in a Retitle entirely different from
its Obvious meaning, under threat of being
called to account for his language in the Com-
mons, and of being arraigned by the City
Common Council ! He has made appeals for
character to his colleagues, who have deelined
to answer them, and he is now an object of
universal distrust through the country, justly
grounded on his antecedents, on the part he
took in urging the treaty of Adrianople on the
Porte while pretending to protest against it,
and on the publication of the secret memo-
randum of 1844.
Lord JoHN RUSSELL, with natural versatility,
has figured during the session in three capa-
cities—as a diplomatist, a statesman, and an
administrator, and been equally unfortunate
in all. • His fatal despatch when Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs—which first saw the
light in.that secret and confidential correspon-
dence with St. Petersburg which the Govern-

PRICE SIXPENCE.

ment was forced to produce—admits, without
reserve or qualification, the right and duty of
the Emperor of RUSSIA to exercise that protec-
torate which we are now at war to prevent.
When Lord Joni; introduced his last Reform
Bill, he made the threatened hostilities a
ground for proceeding with it ; and when
with hysterical adieux, he announced its with
drawal, he still made those hostilities an ex-
cuse for its abandonment. As an administrator
he disgraced the Government by a series of
changes, which had no better motive than to
discard Mr. &num and degrade Lord GRAN-
VILLE. that he might secure a post of easy di Ff-
nity for himself and a Secretaryship for Sir
GEORGE GREY, which the Right Hon. Baronet
had not the slightest pretension to fill.
The Duke of NEWCASTLE has earned a double
claim to distinction by his mismanagement of
the war, and by the exposure of his system of
organised corruption.
Mr. GLADSTONE, by the failure of his inge-
niously-contrived schemes, has thrown our
finances into utter disorder. Essentially a
schemer, he has found ample scope for the
exercise of his peculiar talent in mystifying
the public accounts, tampering with the funds
of savingsbanks, and jobbing on the Stock
Exchange. Preferring always a tortuous to a
straightforward course, and unable, from the
ambidextrous constitution of his mind, to
make a candid statement, he professes to
defray the expenditure of the year from its
revenues, while he has recourse to loans in
disguise. He squanders millions in abortive
schemes while affecting puritanical regard for
the public purse; and impairs public credit by
shaking confidence in the stability of the
unfunded debt and securities. The double-
dealer is as apparent in his political ma-
nceuvres as in his finance. He leans for
support upon High Church on one side and
on Low Radicalism on the other. He gives
one hand to the Bishop of OXYORD and the
other to his new colleague, Sir BENJAMIN HALL.
He has yet a third claim to distinction by his
" sanctimonious " co-operation witli New-
castle system of corruption.
Lord PALMERSTON has been , .by his
ffl
sudden secession from ooli ' t.
sudden return to it,—conduet
received from him a frank, par • tarp, and
constitutional explanation ; by his consenting
of
to the crude and dangerous Reform Bill
Lord Toss RUSSELL, after be had privately
repudiated it, and represented it to his friends
as the real cause of secession ; and by his
great inefficiency in his department, and the
total failure of all his measures.
It is impossible that her Majesty, while
going through the forms of the Constitution
this day, can overlook the unfortunate posh
tion of affairs, or the degradation of her
Ministers. Regarding the increasing dis-
orders of the State, the Queen must be
tempted to ask her Ministers, " How is it that
" the England I entrusted to you in profound
" peace is now involved in a vast and imps*.
" fitable war ; that my Government, which of
" found respected and efficient, is now fi
" into universal contempt; that my authority
" is insulted by the appointment to places of
" trust and honour of ruined gamesters and
" electoral jobbers ; that business essential to
" the public welfare has been uncared for,
" while the time of the Legislature has been
" occupied with sham measures and motions;
" that the Exchequer, which you found
" flourishing, is now exhausted; and that the