The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-23 00:00:00

(Prom the Daily News.)

The efforts which ought to be made in Parliament to
elicit full and clear explanations from Ministers with re-
ferenoa to the progress and prospects of the war will be
much facilitated by something of previous concert among
those who intend to question them. The ends of inquiry
cannot be more effectively defeated than by a simultaneous
burst of a multitude of questions, suggested by the pecu-
liar views which every individual' member takes of the
position of affairs, or the suspicions he may, as an iadi-
vidnal, entertain. Ministers, if disposed to be reserved,
and to withhold full elucidations, may find, in the very
multiplicity of questions, an excuse for objecting to one
and another of them, and thus raising secondary irrelevant
discussions, in which time must necessarily be wasted,
and really important inquiries evaded. A few well-weighed
interrogatories, going right to the root of the evil, will
render all such bush-fighting impossible, and compel
Ministers either to answer directly, explicitly, and fully ;
or, by refusing to answer, to condemn themselves.
Perhaps the best way of opening the campaign would be
to revert to the position in which Parliamentary action was
left at theclose of the short session before Christmas. Minis-
ters then asked and obtained the sanction of Parliament
to the measures which they represented as the most ur-
gently necessary—as indispensable to enable them to carry
on the war with promptitude and vigour. One was the
Act by which they have been empowered to send Militia
regiments to undertake garrison duty in our dependencies
abroad ; the other was the Act empowering thorn to raise
foreign levies, and bring a limited number of these re-
cruits to England to be organised and trained. What pro-
gress have they made, since Parliament adjourned, in avail-
ing themselves of the powers vested in them by these Acts ?
A considerable number of Militia regiments have been em-
bodied for permanent daty, and several, it has been
principles have Ministers proceeded in selecting the
an-
nounced, are tcebe sent forthwith to the colonies. Upon
regiments to be embodied ? On looking over the list, we
see regiments enumerated which have not, up to the pre-
sent time, been once assembled for drill and training; and
we see some left unembodied which have been repeatedly
assembled for these purposes, and have been reported in
an admirable state of efficiency. To the former class be-
long the far greater part of the Scotch and Irish Militia
regiments. As a specimen of the latter, we may select the
Middlesex Rifles. This regiment consists, we believe, of
ten companies, in a high state of training; its arm is that
which is the most efficient and most needed in the present
war. How comes it, then, that a regiment so well quali-
fied to render effective service i 3 left unembodied, while
others numerically weaker, and whose men have yet to be
made soldiers, are embodied ? Has there been favouritism
in play ? Have the eager wishes of by far the greater part
of the officers and man been disregarded—as is whispered
in some quarters—to consult the convenience of the colo-
nel ? or to enable him to retain certain officers whose
wealth and status are supposed to give an eclat to the
corps, but whose business avocations would ronder
active service inconvenient to them ? Again, with
regard to the Foreign Enlistment Act, what steps
have been taken to give effect to it? Our Ger-
man correspondents. write us, that the business
has been so utterly mismanaged that nothing can come of
it in that country, where numerous respectable and zealous
recruits could at one time have been obtained with ease.
' And it is confidently affirmed that little more than a week
ago parties applying for information at the War-office were
informed that it had not yet boon decided upon which see-