The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-29 00:00:00

.4„E SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 29, 1855

cargoes being those in which her subjects, or the
beloved Greeks, are is some way interested ; but

she trade is not that on which shipowners, even

of neutral nations, can venture with confidence.
Hence the abundant supplies which might be ob-
tained thence for Western Europe are in danger
of being wasted on the spot. They are at least
not available to general commerce.
This arises from the command which Russia
still retains of the mouth of the Danube. The
three principal mouths of that river are the
Kilia, most northerly ; the Sulina, of which all
heard at the beginning of the War as the chief
one for navigation ; and the St. George's, more
southerly. By the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812
Russia filched all these, with Bessarabia, from Tur-
key, and fixed her boundary along a smaller
mouth still more southerly than St. George's.
Ever since then she has been employed in ob-
structing by mudbanks and quarantine, and now,
in addition, by gun-boats, the navigation of this
noble river. She has had the double object in
vie w of driving the trade of Odessa, and of ren-
dering the navigation impracticable to the armed
vessels of Turkey or her allies. She commands
some hundred and fifty miles of this all-important
section of the river. She holds, in fact, the gates
of its trade, and always disposed to close them ;

it suits her now to bolt them. If aware that
France is needing the corn of the adjacent
countries, and that French demands raise the
price of wheat here, she will be even more strict
than hitherto. From Reni, where the Pruth de-
bouches into the Danube, and up which former
river the Russian gun-boats are said to shelter, all
along to the sea she has strand batteries, it is
said, at suitable places. While Ismail, celebrated
at once for the bravery of the Turks and the
savagery of SIIWARROW, stands not very far from
the inland commencement of the Kilia mouth,
after it has left the Salina mouth. Ismail is of
course the strength of the Bessarabian territory
on the Danube ; no other place could resist the
gun-boats of the Allies for many hours. It lies,
however, out of the present main course of the
river, and though its capture by land and water
would not probably by very difficult, the principal
mouth would be open as soon as some Lady
Nancy, or even gun-boats of six or seven feet
draught, had moved up as far as Reni and the
Pruth. When once the Wallachians saw the
Allies on the river their corn would be brought in
vast quantities to its shores. Security would
immediately create an active trade, and the
markets of London, Paris, and New York would
feel the result sensibly by the spring.
Like all other operations in the present War

its difficulty has been increased by our past mis-
management. If, instead of letting Austria take
bail of Turkey not to attack Russia on the Pruth,
we had even advanced a million of money to push
0311 M PACHA with his victorious army forward to
that river, we should not only have prevented Se-
bastopol from receiving its first and most important
reinforcements, but should have kept together the
noble and efficient army of OMER PACHA, and
have either seen him master of the Bessarabian
side of the Danube, or have rendered it very
easy for us to make him so. All our policy, alas,
at that time was to spare Russian territory 1 Our
Ministry could never conceive the simple and prac-
tical idea of opening the mouth of the Danube by
restoring it, under guarantee if it pleased them,
to the power which had always kept it open while
it was hers, and wresting it for ever from the sel-
fish barbarian who began to close it the instant
he began to possess it. Nothing was thought of
but the genuine Whig scheme of a mixed commis-
sion, with, of course, some ELLIOT, or GREY, or
RHSBELL, or some protege of the clique as one of
the commissioners. We have no doubt that the
expenses of the said commissioners would soon
amount to the interest of the money requisite to
conquer all Bessarabia from the Danube to the
Dniester, perhaps to Odessa.
When the importance of liberating the Pro-
vinces from their Russianising and oppressive
occupants is considered in connection with the
importance of a thoroughly open trade with the
Danube, it is evidently high time to take a deci-
sive step. The Provinces are now fully able to
defend themselves by their own militia. Let
Austria be told then to attend to her own busi-
ness, to disband these troops, as she did those
which ought to have confronted and detained the
Russians in Poland, and to spare her bankrupt
Exchequer. She has given us no help in the
War at all ; her professed help has only resulted
in enabling Russian regiments to quit Bessarabia
and Poland for the Crimea ; for the Provinces
she did not move a finger, but seiz3d on them as
the fruits of °MBE. PACHA'S bravery and skill.
She has no title to remain there an hour longer,
and if told so, of course in suitable style diplo-
matic, by the Allies, out she must go. In our
view there is nothing in the present state of
things so ignominious to the Allies as the reten-
tion of the Provinces by their visibly treacherous
ally Austria. It is a policy also as suicidal as it
is ignominious. For our honour's sake and our
interest equally let the Allies see to it that the
provinces are left to their own gOvernment, and
that the Danube be cleared of Russian gun-boats
and batteries to its very mouth.

It is now seen by the country, and by univer-
sities and schools, that the first instalment of Ad-
ministrative Reform, at least so far as may be
afforded by the instance of open competitive exa-
minations for the Indian writerships, have been
completely successful in their first stage—that is
to say, candidates of good general qualifications
have -00-oi. the one hand, whilst on the
other bad men have been kept out. Nepotimm
and political jobs have been excluded ; the repre-
sentative body, the East India Directors, have
been relieved from the corrupting influence of the
canvassings of between one and two hundred fami-
lies and of their constituents, and left to devote
themselves to their true duties. But it is due to
' India that care be taken that she should have
value for what she pays ; and she will not have
that value in merely general qualifications. Now,
then, comes the second stage—.that which upon
the general qualifications shall superinduce the
special administrative qualifications of which India
Mr.
m A wroughtc
is the most in need. We early pointed out what
appeared to be the obvious deficiencies of the
scheme
out as the course of instruction
for the second stage by our great word painter,
Am AZ.
he provided a scheAms emiinghwt
hhiaohve
hbieseno
own elegant
nt
accomplishments were the most prominently pro-
vided for. The Indians might well say, and it is
our duty to say it for them, "For us those qua-
lifications are of little worth in our stage of civi-
lisation ; our necessities are more stern." They
mreanthaesyatno
might poi natn tdo
athe, H.
wHhoant . Ott
seen
wtl ee
example,
England in its War Secretarial, when he himself
held the office of Secretary of War ? Of what
ursiellin, except
for the purpose, misplaced, qualifi-
cations the mere fact of a person of such
b
cations holding the office to gloss over a system of
brilliant,
oocomrrpu4 sipt
njg epics,obbery and waste I" Whilst he was
and
_ancient ballads filled with
fine sentiments of Roman soldiers, our own sol-:
diers were massed together in wretched barracks,
and vast sums were being paid away as pensions

in a manner to sustain only pauperism, wretched-
ness, and crime. Whilst he was depicting classic -
examples of heroism, and patriotism of the most
elevated character, the War Department, of which
he.was the political Secretary, was a sonrce of political
corruption and jobbery—beneath the dignity of his
refined perceptions—but of which we have now the
bitter experience in the loss of twenty thousand lives
and the waste of some thirty and forty millions of
money in a single campaign. Whilst he was study-
ing the careers of CLITE and HASTINGS for a grand
tableaux India was sustaining the disasters of
Affghanistan, and the fruits of the careers of we
know not what inferior syatem of job-appointeki
men, the bitter maladministratiorr which assumes
sufficiency of classical aczemplialiments and gene-
ral qualifications for every species of lucrative and
dignified office. The Times has done well to call
attention in detail to the provision of securities,
for the attainments of the specialities for the ser-
vice, and the necessity cf alterations in the course
of training first pointed oat. It points to the
superior importance of a knowledge of sanscrit,
the mother tongue of a hash of Hindoo dialects,
to a mastery of Greek and Latin. Looking to
the fact, that the most pressing improvements for
idle must be in the first instance, and for a time
to come physical improvements, improved means
for the collection and distribution of water, im-
provements in land culture, improvements in the
means of internal communication, and the admi-
nistration of the works of these great classes, and
the affairs connected with them, it might have
pointed out the need of a higher place being
given to the physical sciences than was assigned
to them in the curriculum first laid down.
On the general subjeat of Administrative Re-
form, it is to be observed at this time that the
constituencies will be themselves in fault, if for
the purpose they content themselves with general
qualifications and more general professions from
" walking gentlemen," or content themselves as
the people of Cheltenhani contented themselves at
the last election, with the professions of favour to
Administrative Reform, from a gentleman whose
own office—that of third, or political secretary to
the Poor-law Board—a useless office, in which no
adequate service is rendered for the salary to the
department from which he is paid--was itself a
flagrant example of the violation of every correct
principle.

As a body there is probably no class of men
engaged in commerce who display more intelli-
gence and industry in their vocation, or are of
more importance to the community than Com-
mercial Travellers. Day by day, Sundays ex-
cepted, they may be found in every nook and
corner of the kingdom, pushing with admirable
skill and perseverance the wheel of trade, and
lending to the less vigorous shopkeeper the bene-
ficial example of their business-tact and enterprise.
Of course a career of this sort involves incessant
travelling, and, consequently, much risk from
accident and exposure, in addition to a physical
and mental wear and tear inevitably tending to a
diminution of the term of existence. tinder such
circumstances we are happy to perceive that a
newly-erected asylum for the distressed orphans
of deceased members of this body, and capable o f
accommodating 300, wan opened at Pinner under ,
influential auspices on Saturday last. As the
reader will perceive, on referring to a report of
the proceedings on that interesting occasion,
which will be found in another column, the Com-
mercial Travellers' School Society was commenced
in 1845, by a few energetic commercial men,
who manifested the sincerity and earnestness of
their convictions by subscrilsing 2,0001. towards
the prosecution of the work they had in view
before they sought any aid from without. In
1847 a large mansion was rented at Wanstead,
in which 20 children were at first received, whissh
number gradually increased as the society
went on prospering until it reached 142, when
the present structure was erected at a cost of up-
wards of 20,0001., some 16,0001. towards which
have been already raised. Efforts no honourable
and in so good a cause call for encouragement and
support from the benevolent and humane, and we
siacerely trust a society which has such especial
claims on a commercial community like ours will
before long not only possess building accommoda-
tion, but also the means of provision and education
for the number of children intended, towards
which at present no fewer than 158 are wanting.
A governorship of the institution is to be had for
Eve guineas, and probably no more graceful form
of contribution could be adopted.