The Express.
London, England, 1855-02-20 00:00:00

of the world, make me feel proud of its position. Tell me
of the aristocrecyof England I Look at that glorious charge
of the cavalry at Balaklav•—look at that charge, where the
trebled and wealthiest of the land, followed by heroic men
of the lowest classes of the community, rivalling each
other, and where neither the officer who led nor the trooper
who followed could be distinguished the one from the
other. In that glorious band there were the sons of the
Gentry of England ; at its head were nobles, and the fol-
lowers were the representatives of the people of this country.
I say, if any instance could be required to show that all
the classes of this country, from the highest to the lowest,
enjoy in oommen those noble qualities which elevate man-
kiad, It is to be found in that charge which is the gloty of
this country. Well, air, the hon. gentleman has certainly
followed a line of argument which is exceedingly strange.
The hon. gentleman ins consented to be a member of the
committee proposed by my hon. and learned friend. He
will, of course, vote for the appointment of that committee,
but what was tke line of his argument? Why, that we are
trifling with the feeling of the country—that we are trifling
with the safety and lives of the army, by sending out com-
missions with full power to set right the organisation. What
is it he proposes ? Why, the appointment of a committee
which is to examine witnesses and report in a blue book.
This is better in hie opinion than commissions, which are
now some of them acting, and some going out immediately
to apply a remedy to that which has been wrong. The hon.
gentleman proposes, u an example, the committee of safety
of the French revolution. (" Hear, hear," and laughter.)
Hs would have commissioners sent out with powers to execute
summary justice on those they thought were acting wrongly.
Why I would take the hon. gentleman at his word, and ad-
mit that the members of the committee should repair to the
Crimea and remain there for the rest of the session.
(Laughter.) Then, again, the hon. gentleman says we
have, in some instances, abstained from obtaining sup-
plies in Asia which the French have been able to get.
Why I protest against the inviduons distinctions drawn be-
tween
two portions of an allied army, but I apprehend that
Asia Minor may be tiiicovered to be sulliciently large to
furnish provisions for both. As I stated on a former occa-
sion arrangements have been made at &sops and elsewhere
to procure provisions. The hon. gentleman, therefore, I
thick, anticipating a debate which has not yet arrived,
has furnished, as far as his argument goes, strong reasons
against the conclusion to which he would wish the house to
arrive. Then, sir, the hon. gentleman says we ought to
have stated to the house what are the terms which my
noble friend the member fur the city of London will offer in
the negotiations which he is about to conduct. Sir, it is
the first time I ever heard it suggested that we should,
before entering into a negotiation, explain fully to the ad-
verse party all the conditions we may be willing to ask, and
all the conditions which, under certain circumstances, we
may be willing to accept. I think I would rather trait the
negotiations to the hands of my noble friend. But the hon.
gentleman says that between Friday night and Monday
afternoon I have lost entirely the confidence of the country.
lam sorry if that has been the case. My hon. friend says
that arises from the fact that I have not recommended to
the Queen a cabinet of a particular complexion. He
omitted to state exactly how the cabinet should have been
formed. (A. laugh.) Perhaps he would have added the
members of the proposed committee to the proposed
cabinet. I am net to blame for the denun-
ciation thus made. I am satisfied that the people
of this country look far more deeply into things than to be
swayed in that manner. lam satisfied when they see a
government that has been constituted in consequence of
the failure of two other attempts to make a government,
that they will feel that those who have undertaken the
conduct of affairs have done so because they felt the country
ought not to be left without a government, that they have
done so under a sense of public duty. They believe the
country will give credit to them for a desire to perform
their duties in a to promote the beat interests of the
country, and that the country are not likely from Friday
evening to Monday evening to undergo such a change of
opinion as the hon. gentleman says. Sir, we presented
ourselves to the country with an t and honest inten-
tion to avail ourselves of the opportunity, if the opportunity
be real, which has presented itself, to determine the war
by fair and honourable conditions. We will not present to
the country a peace which we do not think to be safe and
honourable—which we do not think will secure this coun-
try against the return of events which have compelled us to
draw the sword, for that is what the country will not accept
from any administration. It is not that which we intend to
present to the country. If we should be able to accom-
plish a treaty which is fitting for the honcar and interests
of thecountry,weshallrejoice at having been the instruments
of saving this country from these efforts and those further
sacrifices which the interest of the country requires, should
the war be continued. But if, on the other hand, the
adversary with whom we are contending is not brought to
that temper of mind that he will accept those conditions on
which we think peace can be founded, then we shall appeal
with confidence to the country fur these resources which
the continuance of the contest will render necessary. And
whatever may be said by the hon. gentleman—whatever
mey be said by other gentlemen who may rise after me in
this debate, I feel confident that the country will give its
support to a government which stands forward to
do its duty in an emergency—(cbeen)—• govern-
meat which has not forced itself on the coun-
try
by any efforts in this house—a government which
has arisen in consequence of the failure of others who might,
if they had chosen, have undertaken the task, but who
shrank from doing it when the offer was made to them. I
do not mention that as blame to any one, but I say two en-
deavours having been made to form a government, and
those two endeavours having failed, I should not have felt
I had done my duty if I had not undertaken the Mgt. I
throw myself with confidence on the generosity of the
public and of parliament. I feel confident that as long as
we do our duty, and we will do our duty as long as we
have the support of the country to enable us to
do it—l feel satisfied, as long as we are able by the support
of the country to do that which we think is our duty to the
country, I am satisfied that, in spite of temporary reverses,
in spite of a gloomy aspect of affairs, we shall succeed in
bringicg matters to a successful issue; and that whether we
have peace now or peace hereafter, whether by negotiation
now or by force of arms afterwards, we shall be able to place
the country on that footing of security which the power of
the country entitles it to. (Cheers.)
Some remarks upon the expediency of a committee of
inquiry, and the necessity of retOrrn in mime departments
of the military system, were offered by Mr. J. G. Philli-
more, Mr. E. V' artier, Major Reid, and Mr. Murrough.
• THE ARMY ESTIMATES.

The house then went into committee of supply, and the
various votes for the army service were brought forward,
and accompanied by some explanatory statements by Mr.
F. l'sxx. _ .

Upon the first vote (authorising the engagement of
193,695 men for the land forces), a prolonged discussion
took place, in which a great number of hon. members took
part, suggesting reforms or pronouncing censures upon a
multitude of points of detail ranging over the whole mili-
tary system of the country, u exhibited in work at home
or in the Crimea.

Sir B. PERRY said that although this was a subject
upon which military men were more fitted to enter
than himself, there were one or two mitten in-
cident to the subjects under discussion to which
he wished to mill the attention of the committee.
In his opinion the manner in which the various estimates
were prepared rendered it difficult for any ordinary man to
understand their amount, and therefore some alteration
would be desirable in the mode of prepsratioa. There were
one or two smaller points to which he wished to call atten-
tion. He. learned with satisfaction that about siaty ser-
geants had received commissions ; but he wished further to
learn whether any provision had been made to enable them
' to enter upon their new position in • manner that became
officers and gentlemen. (Hear.) A grave question had been
most ably raised by the speech of tho hon. member for
Aylesbury tweeting the system of promotion in the army ;
and that question must be entertained, notwithstanding the
manner in which it bad been received by an aristocratic
House et Commons. Not only the courage, but the moral
conduct of our soldiers in the Crimea entitled them to oar
best consideration ; and he felt that the time had come
when such men must receive • treatment commensurate to

their deserts. It was in no Taigar spirit of hostility to the
aristocracy that the hon. member for Aylesbury had
brought their services under the notice of the house ; but the
feeling that was abroad must not be overlooked, and the
statesman who expected to role must guide, not attempt to
reptile the onward movement. He must say that he came
down to the house on Monday night expecting to hear a
bold and spirited programme of reforms from the noble lord
at the head of the government, but be was sorry to add that
be had felt a chill of disappointment on hearing the state-
ment of that noble lord. (Cheers.) With respect to the
Commander-in• Chief, he did not mean to say anything
against his skill or judgment in the field, but one
of two courses should be taken with respect to
him. If disapproved of, he should be removed; if
approved of, retained; but his position could hardly be
satisfactory with two commissioner attached to the staff' to
watch and control all his movements. (Hear, hear.) He
had every confidence in the power and genius of the First
Lord of the Treasury to achieve whatever he undertook,
and he called on him to mould the national doctrines in a
way suited to the advancing opinions and increasing Intel-
vnof the country.
. PERCY read some communications from officers
in the Crimea, complaining of the clothing supplied to the
hospital at Scutari, and also the imperfect state of recovery
in which convalescents were sent back to their duty.
Another just cause of complaint was the stop-
page of the men's pay, to meet hospital ex-
penses. He thought that sufficient clothing should be
provided, not only for convalescents returning to their duty,
but for those departing for England. (Hear, hear.) One
instance he wished to mention of the manner in which our
regulations harassed the poor soldiers. When some of the
wounded survivors of Inkermann arrived at Scutari, they
had no knives or forks,and the authorities refused to supply
them with any, because the regulations pi °Tided that the
soldier should find his own knife and fork. (Hear, hear.)
Others were happily found not hampered with offi-
cial regulations who supplied the want, but surely
this was a state of things that required a re.
medy. (Hear, bear.) Another point to which he wished
to call attention, was the fact that ships were lying idle at
Delco. Bay which might be employed in carrying down the
poor sick and wounded soldiers. The medical arrangements
also required revision. Our medical officers were over-
worked, having each 63 men and 9 officers to attend to,
whereas in the French army a surgeon attended but 26
serious, or 60 ordinary cues. He trusted that these points
would motive the serious attention of the government.
Mr. LAYARD wished to all attention to one or two
points which, ;in his opinion, were of great importance.
The first was the tents, (Hear, hey.) •He believed the

teats in use had been supplied Malta, had re-
mained there since the Peninsular war. (Hear, hear,)) ig
far as protection from the weather was concerned, the
soldiers might as well be under a sieve. He had received
a letter from Colonel Napier recommending a tent which
had been Invented by a private soldier, and it wee a cluirm
fact that the portable tent now so useful in the French
army was elan the invention cf a private soldier. He hoped
that the subject would receive attention fn the pro
p.
quarter, and it might also furnish a useful hint to recollect
that in the great storm, when all our tents were blown
away, not a single Turkish tent was disturbed. As w°
contemplated a summer campaign, this question of the
tents ought not to be overlooked. (Hear, hear.) Anoth
point to which be wished to alfude was the mode pro e
posed
for providing a force of irregular cavalry. He understood
that Thessaly was the place in which it was proposed to
nib./ them. In his opinion, they might as well go to h
land for the purpose. If they wanted inefficient irregular°.
cavalry, they should go to Asia Minor, where: there woald
be no difficulty in getting a most efficient force.
Mr. IM'GREGOR rose to address the committee, sad
on being met by some symptoms of internP.
tun, threatened to move that the chairman re
port progress if he were refused a hearing. He
said he had great confidence in the Prime Minister bat
none in his cabinet, composed as it was of persons who had
been condemned by the country. As to the generals who
had served in the Crimea, his countryman Sir Colin Camp.
bell was illustrious for his conduct throughout. With the
Duke of Cambridge he (Mr. hit'Gregor) happened to have
been acquainted from a very early period, cud it was, there-
fore, with special pleasure that he had read of that bravery
and military skill by which his royal highness had on -a
memorable day contributed to the saving of thousands of
lives. The Crimean war had hitherto been ona of bravery,
and not of judgment. There was not a mingle mercantile
house in London, in Liverpool, or in Glasgow that
would not hove been ashamed to send out the
supplies in the manner in which the 'govern-
ment had that theirs. Every one of the departments
wu defective, not because there were act able nun at their
bead, but because there were in them a number of subor-
dinates who went on blundering as they had been awn-
tamed to du. The holm was threatened with a dissolution
of parliament. In such an event he should not be afraid to
face hie constituents, and be believed that those who op
posed the motion of the hon. end learned member for Suf.
field would find themselves miserably deceived.
Mr. RICH said the Under Secretary for the War De-
partment had set down the casualties for the ensuing year
at 20,000. How could that estimate be safe when the
casualties of the past year were at least 30,000 ? (Hear,
bear.) In his opinion it ought to be doubled, and he hcpsd
the government would say something to Briny the house
that the army would be kept up to 193,003 meu.
Mr. H DRUMMOND was sure that no member of that
house would object to vote for certain things that were
asked for last year; however, the house having voted a
certain sum for clothing, the army now got the clothing;
and what had they beard that night to convince then that
the clothes for whick they were going to pay would ever
arrive in the Crimea? They were going tv vote a certain
sum for horses. The government had horses last year—
they starved the horses then, and what was there to show
that anything had been done which world prevent the
horses which were about to be sent out from being also
starved ? (Hear, hear.) He hoped the house was not going
to vote 9,000 horses for the Crimea which were to be inured
to death. What new machinery had they got ? He was
inclined to ask with the hon. gentleman behind him (Mr.
Lewd), what man had they got who would say, " finch
and each things shall be done, or I'il turn out every one of
you from first to last," a man with a will, and not a pack of
twaddling red tapists? (lieu, hear.)
Mr. NAWDEGATE regretted to say he had heard that
the :pattern of the summer clothing for the army in the
Crimea was not yet decided upon. They had no assurance
even that the ordinary clothing bad been sent out,
and it was not 'too much, he hoped, to ask whether
this clothing, which would soon be required for
fifty thousand men, was in progress ? His hon. friend the
member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Stafford) had stated,
that in the Crimea spring came on very rapidly; and if
there were such delays as had occurred hitherto, the sum-
mer might find the troops walking about in sheepskin
coats. (Hear, hear.) As regarded the horses, he did trust
that the animals which the government were hastily buying
would be put through a course of training before they were
sent out, without which, he warned them, they would
die like rotten sheep. As the government were greatly in
want of cavalry, he would observe that they could not have
a :finer or more effective body of cavalry, than the
irregular horse in the East India Company's service.
He knew they had offered their services, and, as
both men and officen would do credit to the Queen'. service,
he trusted the offer would be accepted. He denied that the
failure which had been spoken of occurred in the aristo-
cratic members of the service. It was notorious that the
failure in the Crimea was attributable to the shameful con-
duct of the commiesarlat, to the blunders of the transport
service, and to the gross inefficiency of the medical staff,
neither of which were in the hands of members of the aris-
tocracy. In whatever situation' the noblemen and gentle-
men of England had been placed they had performed their
duty ; it was in the civil departments of the army, with
which the aristocracy were unconnected, that the failures had
occurred which led to each dreadful calamities. He wished
fair play to be given to the aristocracy in reference to that
matter. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. ()TWAY said there was one portion of the arido-
crony to which the hon. gentleman had not alluded, namely,
the staff. (Hear, hear.) There was an eminent establish-
ment in this country which turned out 30 officers qualified
ter staff situations every year; but these persons were
hardly ever appointed, and consequently the staff of the
army was so inefficient as to have become the derision
of foreign officers who had come in contact with them.
He did not object to the vote now proposed ; and he was
only surprised. considering the enemy with which we were
engaged, that the number of men asked for was so small. He
was also surprised that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Peel) had
net inaugurated his advent to office by announcing en in-
teniion to modify the system of our army. There ought to
be, as in the French army, a certainty of a given number of
commissions being obtained by non-commissioned officers.
With regard to another subject, he wished to say that
some months ago he had urged on the Secre-
tary at War the advisability of employing some
of our troops now in India, a suggestion which was not
very well received by the right hon. gentleman. He was,
however, pleased to find, in a short time alter, that a tent-
, meat of cavalry was on its way from India to the Crimes.
By that plan you would not only get a regiment at its full
complement of men, but a set of hardy horses, which, having
always been accustomed to be whetted in the open
air, were well adapted for ounce in the field. There we
other regiments in India eminently qualified for service in
, the Crimea, such as the !Rinds Horse, the Sikh and Ghous*
assiasents, the men in which were, by religion and habits,
prwalierly qualified to serve in the, East ; and he thought
that no notions of etiquette should prevent the government
using the Indian army for service in this war, by which
they could obtain the assistance of excellent officers, accus-
tomed to the duties of war, such as Colonel Outram, Major
Jacob, and Major Edward*. ; and if the directors were eti
suicidal as to oppose this employment of the Indian army in
the present temper of the nation, it would perhaps afford a
good opportunity of getting rid of the directors alto-
the:. (dear, hear.) Again, he wished to observe
that so long as the system of purchase in the army did
mist, it was of great importance that some proportionate
provision should be made for the families of those officers
who died from sickneu, and did not actually call in bstle.
Several members of that house bad fallen in the late cam-
paign ; and there was one gallant officer, a colonel in the
Guards, who died from sickness, who could not have paid
less than 8,0001. or 9,0001. for his commissions. He did
not know anything of that officer's circumstances ;
but supposing he was married and had children, and
was not richer than officers generally were, ought not
some compensation proportionate to the money with which
he had purchased his commissions to he given to his family?
Whereas the vacancy caused by his death was filled up y
the appointment of the son of a peer—one of the wealthiest
in the realm—without purchase. (Hear, hear.) Should
not that commission to have gone by purchase, and some
portion of the money given to the family of the deceased
officer, the system of purchase being still in existence ? The
subject was one worthy the attention of tke Under Secretary
for War, when he gave his attention to the sub-
ject of pensions. With regard to the foreign
legion, it would be remembered that the noble
lord (Palmerston) had urged the passing of the bill on
the ground that the troops were required to save
our army in the Crimea. Now, he wished to ask how
many, men had been obtained for the foreign legion ?
(Hear, hear.) He asked that because it had been brought
to his knowledge that a Baron Von Houdenhcim, or
Btrachenheim, or some such name, who had served in the
revolutionary army in the war in Schleswig-Holstein, bad
been sent for by telegraph from the north of Germany ; and
that gentleman, being unused to be summoned by telegraph,
rushed at once to the railroad, without changing the clothes
in which he received the message, and came over. lie was
in this country, and had been passing to and fro. between
the locality of Bt. James's and the War.office for cis weeks,
and had not yet got beyond the porter, and had never seen
aay one connected With the war department. (Heir, bear.)
Considering that the house had voted for the Foreign En-
listment Bill, on the ground of its urgency and the neces-
sity for sending troops to support Lord Raglan, these pro-
ceedings with regard to the baron were somewhat extra-
ordinary. (Hear, hear.)
Lord -PALMERSTON—The hon. and gallant officer who
brgan this discussion entered into an argument upon the
general arrangements which were made by her Majesty's
government with regard to the conduct of the war.
He stated his opinion that as this country is not, as he
thinks, a military country, we ought not, when we were
about to wage war with Rauh, to have attempted any ope-
rations by means of a military force, but to have confined
ourfelves to naval operation by means of our fleets ; and he
seemed to think it would have been sufficient if we bed
sent one fleet to blockade the Russian pore in the Baltic,
and another fleet to blockade the Russian ports in the
Black Sea, and that by that means we could have
coerced the Russian government into acceding to
what we required. I entertain an entirely different opi-
nion from that of the hon. and gallant gentleman
on that point. It seems to me obvious that the mere action
of a naval force would never have exercised such a coercion
on the government of Russia as to have produced any defi-
nite or useful results. I deny entirely, however, the asser-
tion that the operations of our navy in the war have been
attended with no results. The hon. and gallant gentleman
said that we had sent a magnificent fleet to the Baltic, end
that no result had been produced. I deny that assertion.
In the first place, that fleet destroyed the naval poor