The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-20 00:00:00

TILE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JULY io, 1856.

which might be effectual for the purpose, but which,
c wing to the various accidents and various fortunes
which befall warlike expeditions, was not successful fur-
ther than iu maintaining the honour of the armies of both
countries. But success may yet come, and crown our ex-

pectations, and enable us-to Fay we have defeated one
great means of Russian oppression. It has been said with
respect to the hon. and learned gentleman's charge, that
while the expedition was being sent out, the members of
Lord. Aberdeen's Government were elsewhere. The mem-

hers of Lord Aberdeen's Government had decided upon the
expedition, and had received from Lord Raglan every infer•
oration, and every measure of preparation had been made.
I know not that any other members of the Cabinet were
. .

required in order to conatuunicate with Lord Raglan
than those immediately anneeted with the War Depart-

went. If Patliament insisted on having the whole tiLe of
every member of the A(lministratioh, who are also members

of the Howe of Commons, and requiring them to remain in
London, and not to resort to other places, such a demand
will not, I think. tend to the efficiency of public business.
The work of the House of Commons is so severe—the work
of atte. ding eight or nine hours in the house Emory night

to take parr, in debate, added to the official duties, is such
that if this rule were insisted upon you might have men
broken down by their duties, and you would be obliged to
replace them by other ministers; and in doing so you
wuuld not gain the object of having an administration able
to re,uwe their duties with vigour, and with health neces-

sary to the purposes of administrative labours. What was
the period iu question ? It was the period between Aug.
and October. In that period the battle of the Alma took
piss, but the important account of commencing the siege
of Sebistopol was dated the Bth October—a period when

the cabinet were about to assemble. Everyihing that could
be con,idered by ministers was considered. So it is not
true thit any great question way neglected in cones-
queue., of the absence from town of ministers. N.thing

tint the habit of the hon. and learned gentlemen of
applying reproaches to one period that properly be-
longed to another period could afford ground for
such a charge. I have stated the question with regard to
the justice of the case; but I can show, if you enter upon
the question whether it was right to send an expedition to
the Ciime t—to send an army to act in that quarter—that
you can hai illy come to a right conclusion without inquir-
ing into all that was done by the G.ivernmeut of France.
I have toll the house that when the army was in the Cri-
mea, the army departments took care, as fast as they were
able, to desp►tch with diligence reinforcements to the
army, and to furnish that army with supplies of food,
shelter, and clothing. I will come now to the great ques-
tion of policy. Is it discreet at this moment—the 19th of
July, that we as the House of Commons should come to a
vote which will have effect, not only of casting a stigma on
those out of office, but of driving from power the head of
the adininist, atiou and other Ministers who act with him ?

That seriously is the question; it involves the question
whether the Government are carrying on the war with
sufficient vigour, or whether the house thinks, by
replacing the present Government with Lord Derby
and those joined with him, there will be a more
efficient administration of the war ? I cannot think you
will be of that opinion. I can see that great inconveni-
ence and confusion will wise from displacing those who
are engaged in sending our army to the Crimea, and in
organising the operations of our fleets. Such a change
without confusing will be impossible. And, then, when
you get through the confusion, will you have a better ad-
minist ? It is for the house to say, for this is a
question of policy as well as justice. It Lord Aberdeen's
administration could be shown to have been utterly in-
competent and hie ipable—without talent and strangers
to administrative duties—then a case would be made out

Ministerial responsibility. (Hear, hear.) We did not
now send peccant Ministers to Tower-hill, and no on,
rejoice I at the change more than he did; but when the
House of Commons found that great calamities Inv
been brought upon the country, the house was in duty
bound to express its opinion fairly and honestly,
and to bring home properly the sense of responsibility
on all who might have had the affairs of the country iu
their hands. It had been said that a portion of the late
Government had been punished. In one sense they had,
for they had been excluded from office, and were now
doing penance on the bench beside him. (Laughter.) Did
it follow, because some Ministers had been punished, that
others should escape? There was none who had more right
to escape than the noble lord the member for London, foi
when he found his confederates were captured he turned
King's evidence—(laughter)---and it was always customary
t-, allow such persons to escape punishment. (Laughter.)
The noble lord was responsible for his acts, but ho was not
punished, but rather, according to the rules of the India
service, he was promoted to a higher office- -to greater dig-
nity and power. The question was what the hon. member
could not see that it was. He regarded it as a vote of cen-
sure on the existing administration and the noble lord at
its head. That was the point of view, after all, in which
the house would be forced to regard it. It was remarkable
that the noble lord at the head of the Government had ex•

presse.l no regret at the resignation of the noble lord the
member for London, and had not shown any sympathy-
with those who had spoken favourably of the noble lord.
The noble lord at the head of the Government was intoxi-
cated—(laughter)—intoxicated with the notion of getting
rid of the noble lord, and seemed to feel as Sir Robert

Walpole felt when he prevailed on Mr. Pulteney to accept
peerage, saying that he had turned the key of the closet
upon him. The noble lord felt that he had got rid of his
ancient competitor, and that he stood a]one the leader of
the Whiz party. With respect to the motion before them,
he regarded it as a want of confidence in the noble 1-,rd,

and ;hould vote for it on that ground. He was afraid
Pa.liament was about to separate—he presumed only till
November -so that for the next three months the con-

duct of the war would be left in the hands of the Go.

vernment, in whom he was sure a large majority of the
house did not place that confidence which a Cabinet

ought to have who administered the affairs of the country.
(Hear, hoar.) It might be the noble lord did not shrink
from his policy, but they ought to recollect that it was
not the policy of Lord Aberdeen, of the right hon. member
for Oxford, of the right hon. member for Wilts, or of the
noble lord the member for London. It appeared to him
that the noble lord at the head of the Government did not

see that clouds were gathering in the horizon, and that his
policy was dooming to death thousands upon thousands,
and carrying desolation into the homes of millions. He had
no faith in the policy of the noble lord, and believed it to
be full of humiliation and of peril to Parliament, the
Crown, and the country. (Hear )
Sir DE LACY EVANS concurred in some of the state-
ments of the hon. member who had just orit down. He

agreed with him, that the tone and manner of the noble lord

for dismissal with disgrace. But no such case can be pro-
duced against the existing Govern sent (we understood).
The case is th it of the c_..se of a minister who hats always
turned his attention to our relations with foreign powers,
and who is desirous of having the War Departments
efficiently conducted. We know the disadvantages of
change in these departments. But will nothing else oc-
cur? Will you not affect the sprit of those who succeed
the prey Government—will you not infme into them that
caution by which the soul of enterprise is effectually damped
—and will you not damp by your vote teat vigour which
ought to animate them in their exertiousagainst tlae enemy.
I will read a quotation to the house ; it is somewhat long,
but the matter is so much better than my own, and it is
not inapplica.tde to the present time. I shall conclude
what I have to say with the quotati n, feeling that the
house will decide fairly the whole question, being ready to
accept the motion of the Lon. and gallant gentleman of the
previous question, but equally ready, if the house decides
contrariwise, to contend against the justice and policy of
the hon. and lea ni d gentLinan's re-olution, anti not being
afraid that the house, on the merits of the question, will
come to a decision a lverse to the A,lininisti stints of Lord

at the head of the Government was not satisfactory with

respect to the house. That, however, after all, was a secon-
dary question. The question was the policy of the coun-
try in the great struggle in which they were engaged. He
thought the house and the country were greatly indebted to
the hon and learned member for Sheffield for the just
and impartial manner with which he had conducted this
matter. He thought the results of the committee were of
the highest importance, but that the hon. and learned
gentleman has made a mistake in bringing forward accusa-
tions of so sweeping a character as would exclude from hold-
ing office so many eminent men in that house. He did not
altogether approve of the amendment of the previous ques-
tion, still less of the proposal of the hon. and gallan' mem-
ber for Cambridge. The shortcomings of the late Govern-
ment and the want of earn -stuess in the present Govern-
ment went far, in his opinion, to justify the vehemence
of the hon and learned member for Sheffield. He could
not agree that the country, and not the Government, were
to blame for what had occurred. The late Government
ha-i two years' notice of the impending war, for no one
who read Sir Flami.tan Seymour's letter of January, 1853,
could doubt that war would be the result. They had the
evidence of Lord Aberdeen himself that be saw no reason
to anticipate this war three months before the decla-
ration of war, and yet not an additional soldier or
sailor was added to our forces at that time. In the next

Aberdeen. This extract is from a speech ina e by Mr.
Canning on the 29;:h March, 1810, upon the Scheldt Expe-
dition, which was undertaken when he was in offieo, nut
who went out of office before the expedition cause to an
end :

" Something yet remains to be said upon one topic, on
which much stress has been laid by our accusers, the policy
of marking with extraordinary severity a failure so disastrous
as this is represented to have been of au enterprise (as it is
averred) so rashly undertaken." So far the averment is not

very different to that of he hon. and learned member. " Sir,
of this policy, as a matter distinct from justice, I take the
liberty to entertain groat doubts. I doubt whether the vice
of the British constitution and Government be a too great
proueu,ss to undertake splendid and daring enterprises, or its
main perfection and uncommoa facility for conducting the ope-
rations of war. There is enough already, as it appears to me,
both of difficulty to impede and of responsibility to daunt any
admin.stratiou in this country to whom the conduct of a war
is entru ted; and when that war isto be carri,d on against such
au enemy as him with whom we have to contend at present,
it is not, in my humble opinion, politic to go ono step beyond
what justice may prescribe, to enhance that difficulty, and

place they had omitted to call out the militialaJ;lTen
the noble lord now at the heal of the Government was
taunted with the neglect by the right hon. member for
Becks, he retorted by saying that the men could be much
better employed upon the hurvest which was then about to
be got in. At last, however, when some 10,000 men ware
dispatched to Malta, and thence transferred to Gallipoli,
and afterwards to Scutari, they had in evidence before the
commi: tee, notwithstanding the assertions of Sir C. Tre-
eeles.n that even this small army had not been provided
wit.h the means of moving. Why, he himself, happening to
piss through Malta at the time the army was there, in-
quired what was the means of transport provided for the
army; and he ascertained that in order to enable it to
take the field, the commissary general had brought some
30 mules and some 30 carts. (Laughter.) And yet in the
face of this, they ha.l Sir C. Trevolyan boasting of his
great knowledge of the commissariat, of his 15 years' ex-
perience of that service, and of his having conducted two
Cape wars. But that gentleman should know that the
experience of a war against the Kafirs could not be brought
to guide him in a war like the present. Why, there all
the operations of war were conducted by columns of some
900 or 1,000 men, and in no country of the world did such
an abundant means of transport exist ; so much so, that
upon one occasion Sir Harry Smith took no less than 5)0
waggons of all sorts for the service of 960 men. (A laugh.)

Haw was it that the noble lord at the head of the Govern-

went, end the noble lord the member for the City of Lon-

don, allowed the army to stand in need of everything, and
the entire control still to remain in the bands of an indivi-

press the weight of that responsibility upon the GoTeriiinent.
Possibly I might think that even to stop something short of

thought of he recollected hearing young officers speak of
The inadequacy of our forces, and the ereatness of the ope-
•atious that were to be carried on. He said then, aerie
4aid now, that even if our present army were absolut ly
innihilated, the country would furnish a still greater army
consummate the objects of the war. The French Go-
vernment had done their duty nobly. (Cheers.) They
had sent out 200,000 men to a distant position—a doedun•
exampled iu the history of the world—and furnished with
all the materials of war. ( Hear.) But the slightest check was
magnified in this country. The attacks the other day ou the
ttedau and Malakhoff had failed ; everybody seemed to think
die army was at an end, though they did not lose one inchl3f
;round they previously possessed ; and he believed they had
'yea gained more ground since. (Hear, hoar.) This state
if the public mind ought to be corrected ; war could not
be carried on without interruption or without more or less
ilisuccess. (Hear.) Let them look back to the last war.
Lb. public attention was fixed on the termination of it,
which was most glorious, but at different periods of it how
immeasurably more disastrous were the events than any-
thing that had occurred, or was likely to occur, in the pre-
sent war. Suppose they were obliged to raise the siege, or
convert it into a blockade. He denied that they could not
withdraw their forces if they thought proper. They could
put a large part of their force on board ship, and ravage
r,erritory north and south. (Hear.) They should show,
however, that they were in earnest in carrying on the war,
i.nd if they did s he lead sanguine hopes that, in case the
war should he continued, a total break of the vast empire
of Russia might be effected,
Captai❑ GLADSTONE would state briefly the reasons
that induced him to vote against the motion of the hon.
and learned member for Sheffield. He could not now vote
for the censure that was proposed to be passed on the late
and present Administration, because after what had already
taken place it would bear the appearance of vindictive-
ness. He also could not vote for it because there was no
precedent for such a proceeding. (Hear.)