The Express.
London, England, 1853-07-01 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, JULY 1, 1853.

Viscount PALMERSTON said, meting that the commit-
tee distinctly recommended t►e Issuing of the Writs he
should not press for postponement. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. HINDLEY withdrew his amendment.
The gallery was cleared for a division, but none took
place; and on oar count we found that it had been agres.,d
that the writ should be issued.
The house adjourned at 3 o'cicck.

Eitie •ErpreOP.

TO CORHASYONDENTE.

A eirond &titian .f " Fa.irewa," containing -he note evenir C.
"flasette."ie pioltabed onty Tocaday and Friday I.igut, sn tiwe
lar post.
hutionneats intended :Am "The Enron," Lawton reet;:ny porn,
tout Mat the bilk.), 10, Bouveria.atract, by Two o'iloch on the
11/4 of publication.

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LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 1.

Or debates on India, "another and 'seam still
succeeds". On each recent night dim 'seems

to have been two forces very thoroughly in opera-
tion in the House of Commons; the one impelling

many members to speak, and the other inducing
very many more not to listen. Last night there

. -
was for some time scarcely thirty members present,
and any one of them with sufficient love of mischief
on hand, might, at once, have upset the coach by in•

ducing a " count out." If Parliament has not said all
that it ought to say on the subject of India, it was
tolerably clear during all the earlier portion of last
night's proceedings that the audience in St.
Stephen's had given up all inclination for more
listening. It was understood that the " book" of the
whippers-in had been made up. It was calculated

that each man with a vote had been made safe on
one side or the other, and such being the case, it
was useless to spend time over the reiteration of

statements which had already enjoyed all tho in-
fluence they were likely to exercise. The conclud-
ing speeches of Mr. DISRAELI and Lord .f. RUSSELL
however gave the signal that the wished-for division
was at hand. The empty benches rapidly filled on
both sides, and two o'clock in the morning hiving
come at last, the often-adjourned debate was closed
by a muster of 322 members in favour of the

Coalition scheme for the government of India, and

140 against it. The Ministry have therefore carried

the second reading of their bill by a majority of 182.
What will Lord STANLEY and his friends say after

this P

The public, who by no means admire Sir CUU►RLES
WooD's Bill, will still see in it the recognition

of one principle which they look upon u a valuable
concession to public opinion. This is contained in
the provision which opens appointments to certain
branches of service in India to the competition of the
best men. But issue is raised upon the question—
who are the best men ? Under the provisions of the
measure proposed by Sir CHARLES Noon, the best
I men are to be discovered and determined by a system
of examinations. How do you know that there are

not plenty of the most qualified persons who will
refuse to submit to your examination, it is asked.
How do you know that even those who are
really the best qualified for the situations to
be filled, will not at the moment be disqualified by
temporary idleness, or youthful folly, or disinclina-
tion ? The great services rendered to the world have
often been done by those who have not been ori-
ginally subjected to the rigid discipline of the schools.
If every access to public life is closed to all except
those who enter it by examinations, you may exclude
the most brilliant genius, while you may open wide
the entrance to the most complete mediocrity.
The crushing answer to this objection is that,
every great man who has achieved greatness without
the help of early training, has always regretted the
want of it. It may be taken as a rule that all great
men are educational reformers. There is ad a
single exception. If there is any one department of
the public service, which may be supposed to be
sere than any other independent of "book learning,"
it is the army. Nevertheless, the late Duke o
WILLINGTON introduced a system of education
initial' has now been extended to every de-
' portant of the military service. He wielded
the forces :of the Empire at a time when
patronage was omnipotent, when the entrance to the
army depended not upon intellectual or professional
qualification, but bars interest. He was eminently
encteraful in his employment of those resources, and
yet he showed his dissatisfaction with the existing
State of things, by providing a means of testing the
qualification of all aspirants for commissions. It is
also well known in the army, that one of the tra-
ditions that the Horse Guards inherits from
the Duke is, that the examinations, at present
necessarily rather easy, must be gradually
" screwed up," as it is techniCally termed, to
the highest possible point. The fact is, that the
practical mind of the Duke came naturally enough
to the conclusion, that in a service which
employed a large number of persons, there was every
charms that one or more of these would poses dis-
tinguished talents for the profession, whether pre-
viously well-trained or not. If the principle of no
training were adopted, the one genius would have in
actual service to carry out his ends by the means of
a legion of incompetent servants, Whereas, if all were
subject to a certain degree of training, the genius
would have half his work done for him by means of
the competency of his servants.
The great argument against the competitive sys-
tem resolves itself to this. There are numerous
examples in history of men without any previous
training arriving at the highest position in depart-
!Dents of action, where those who had been pre-
viously prepared achieved no distinction. Crave,
it may be said, is an example in the India
service. He went out as a civilian, but
proved himself in the end a great general.
Are you going to close the door upon cases of this
kind? Will you shut out a great general in
embryo from the opportunity of distinguishing him-
self and serving you because be cannot or will not
pus through your examinations? Some of your
road men have been dunces in early life, and di-
vested their energies to nothing but ericketing, or
heating, or hunting. These men would have been
lost under a system of strict examinations. Will you
run the risk of losing the services of men like these?
The answer made by the Duke of WELLINGTON and the
directors of the military service in every country in
Europe is, that they are perfectly willing to run the
risk. And there is no doubt they are right. A MA-
ItOMET, or a CROMWELL, Ora NAPOLEON—Men who
tower high above all reach of their associates—
!
may find genius a match for all the efforts of mere
talent or industry. But characters like these are
mere exceptions to the rule, and a strict investiga-
tion into the sources of their superiority might show
that mere ordinary means bad much more to do
with their success than is commonly supposed.
Are we then to adopt the principle of training no-
body because some great men have achieved glory
without training? Because SHERIDAN never dis-
tingaished himself at school, aro we to look far
orators in the dunces, and nowhere else ? Because
some of NAPOLEON'S generals were men of no educa-
tion, are we to look for good generals nowhere but
amongst the ignorant men? NAPOLEON himself,
who was one of the most scientific of generals, is
the best answer to the question.