The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-12 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 12, 1855.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(Prong the Times of this day.)
There are some subjects on which susceptibility
is a virtue, or, at any rate, the absence of suscep-
tibility an offence. The man who is not jealous of
his character, the woman who is not eager to vin-
dicate her good name, the merchant Who does not
hasten to wipe off any stain upon his credit, all
lose caste and commence a downward career, the
course of which there is afterwards no possibility
of arresting. We have done away with the ancient
pra3ties of duels, not, we trust, because wo are
les3 jealous for our honour than our ancestors, but
because we believe that honour to be better secured
by an appeal to appeal to reason and good sense
than to' the sword or pistol. The code of honour
remains the same, the means of santioning, it alone
are altered. When a Ministry has been threatened
with a vote of censure, it has in like manner always
been considered its duty to bring that vote at once
to a decisive issue, not because Ministries are
bound to furnish their antagonists with weapons
for their own destruction, but because so long as
they lie under accusation their functions are virtu-
ally paralyzed, and the power of rendering good
service to the public is suspended. It is the fate
of our Government at the present moment to lie
under a double charge of this kind. Mr. Roebuck
seeks to censure the great majority of its members
as guilty of the reverses before Sebastopol, and Sir
Edward Bulwer Lytton, by affixing a stigma to
the character of Lord John Russell, seeks to im-
plicate in the same censure the rest of his col-
leagues.

The first of these motions stands for next
Tuesday ; the second is left to find a place where
it can in the crowded paper of the second
half of July. The firsk motion is now of lite.°
importance, while the second treats undoubtedly
of the gravest passible matters matters on
which explanation is imperatively called for, and
on which the public mind must soon be definitively
made up. By the motion of Sir E. B. Lytton
Parliament is to be asked whether it will tolerate,
at a period of so much difficulty and dan,er, the
conduct of a Minister who, like Lord John Russell,
engaged as plenipotentiary to an European Con-
gress, and being also a Cabinet Minister, trans-
cends his instructions, forgets his duty of secrecy,
and makes known to the doubtful friends and de-
clared enemies of his country views and opinions
of his own, which it subsequently turns out are not
entertained by the remainder of his colleagues.
Parliament is to decide whether it will tolerate
that this same Minister, coming home with peace-
ful propositions, shall conceal that fact from the
House of Commons under the mist of speeches
which, if not categorically denying such opinions
as those he privately expresses, are, at any rate,
wholly inconsistent with them. Parliament has
to decide whether it will tolerate that these
opinions in favour of an ignominious peace shall
be kept secret so long as success waits upon our
arms, to be brought forward with the most circum-
stantial minuteness as soon as diaster and disap-
pointment give a chance of their favourable accep-
tation—whether, in fact, we are to tolerate a
Miniter who has two sets of opinions, one for
private, the other for public use—the warlike for
success, and the peaceful for failure. Lord John
Russell has to extricate himself from this dilemma.

If, as ho told us the other night, he holds the
same opinion now that he did at Vienna with re-
ference to the terms of peace, he is unworthy to be
trusted with the conduct of the war ; and if, on
the other hand, he has changed the views which
he promised the Minister of the half-friendly
Court of Austria to press upon the acceptance of
his colleagues in the Cabinet, such levity and in-
constancy unfit him for any trust whatever. This
motion, then, is no small thing. It nearly touches
the reputation of a very eminent man ; it is brought
forward by a gentleman of great talent and influ-
ence on the Opposition side of the house ; and it
involves, if carried, the very existence of the pre-
sent Government.

This being so, we confess we are surprised to
find that, instead of offering every facility for the
determination of this question, Lord Palmerston
seems inclined to interpose every obstacle that the
forms of the house will allow to its decision. We
believe this to be new in Ministerial tactics, and
it is a novelty not to be encouraged. We have
heard much of late years of Governments existing
on sufferance, but we never before heard of a Go.
vernment that lived upon the forms of the House
of Commons, and protracted its existence not by
conciliating the majority of that house, but by pre-
venting ,the majority by teChnical means from* arriv-
ing at any decision at all. Official life, like natural
life, may be bought too dear, and we confess that
we think this an unconscionably heavy price to pay
for it. So, we presume, thinks Mr. Disraeli, for
we observe that he has given notice of a motion for
this day, the object of which is to secure to the
motion of Sir E. B. Lytton next Friday that pre-
cedence which Lord Palmerston has hitherto denied
him. We cannot doubt that in the house of Com-
mons, as in any other assembly of British gentle-
men, such a motion must be successful, and that
the Government will have to accept, however re-
luctantly, the conflict which they ought to have
shown the utmost eagerness to commence.
If we be right in this conjecture, the decision of
the main question is very near at hand, and the
week will probably not terminate without an ex-
pression of opinion one way or the other. As the
matter comes somewhat suddenly on the house of
Commons, we venture to offer to them a single
suggestion. The house is no debating society,
bound to vote a proposition because it is true,
however inconvenient the time and conjuncture at
wh ch it is laid before it. But neither, on the other
hand, ought the House to exhibit itself to the
country as compromising great principles and de-
nying obvious truths in order to serve the purpose
of one party or another. Now, if there be an im-
portant subject in the range of political discussion
it is the momentous question of peace and war,
and the opinions of those to whom we intrust the
choice between one and the other. Parliament is
about to separate for some months, and, if it sin-
cerely desires a vigorous prosecution of the war and
an honourable peace, it should intrust the destinies
of the country to no jarring counsels and no divided
opinions. There is a class of politicians who are ever
ready to assert that it is not the words of the mo-

Lion, but the effect on party prospects, that is alone
to be regarded, and that to keep in their friends and
to keep out their enemies any principle may be
violated, any enormity may be sanctioned. We
think we have, in the enfeebled state of political
parties andthe gradual loss of credit with the public
which all sides of the House are alike undergoing,
a very significant protest against this lax political
morality. The country is weary of this endless
compromise between truth and expediency, honest
conviction and party spirit. However this question
be decided, we earnestly trust it will be decided on
its merits, in an impartial, even in a judicial, spirit.
Whatever ill effects may result from an adverse
vote, we are fully persuaded they are as nothing
compared to the injury done to the character of pub-
lic men and to representative institutions them-
selves by any attempt to slur over gross and mani-
fest delinquency, or to seek a party triumph at the
expense of those principles of honour and justice
without which parties lose their coherence, senates
their dignity, and Governments their power.

(Prom the Times of this day.)
The inteliigence from the Crimea, though not
announcing any decisive operations, contains satis-
factory evidence that the general ascendancy ac-
quired of late by the allies has not been damaged
by the check of the 18th. General Simpson an-
nounces that on the day after his despatch (i. e.,
on the 10th) it was his intention to open a heavy
fire on the Redan—a notification which proves both
that we are in a position to resume the offensive,
and that this advantage would be improved without
delay. We collect, indeed, from the letter of our
own correspondent that the suspension of opera-
tions since the last assault may have been owing
as much to the derangement of the railway as to
any other cause ; but, as those impediments to ac-
tion have now probably been removed, and as
General Simpson makes direct allusion to the
weight of artillery which lie will bring into play,
we hope that our superiority in this powerful arm
may be effectually exerted, and that the blood of
our troops may be economised through the agency
of our guns. Some months ago it was observed
with regret, that of the 3,000 miles intervening
between England and Sebastopol, the last six or
seven were so obstructed as to neutralise the faci-
lities commanded through the rest of the voyage ;
but these obstacles exist no longer. There is now
an uninterrupted steam-track from Woolwich to
Sebastopol, and all the superiority of mechanical
resources which we possess as a nation may be em-
ployed without hindrance or waste for the advan.
tago of our arms.
It is satisfactory to observe that in this respect
the progress of the allies is steady and divided.
We may not, indeed, be able to annihilate the vast
earthworks of the enemy with as much certainty as
if they were constructions of masonry, In!.
*the aid
. of Leavy shells, pitched vertverticallyasp their

redoubts, we can search their detences that no
troops can live in them. The workS of the oppoE-
ing armies are now pushed close to each ether, the
range is known to au inch, and, under such cir-
cumstances, the ascendancy in artillery must he
nearly equivalent to the ascendancy altogether. It
is plain that the Russians see their danger, and
that they are exerting all their ingenuity to avert
it. Our correspondent states that in the Mamelon,
which is a good specimen of the works to be en-
countered, there were found funnel-shaped pits,
into which shells might roll and brst,ii together
with bomb-proof excavations, into which the men
' could retire. Although, however, the enemy will
no doubt avail themselves of all such expedients
with the skill which they ha-;re hitherto displayed,
the means of attack, under present conditions,
must exceed those 'of defence. The Allies, in fact,
have advanced closer and closer to the works of
the place, their artillery has opened on successive
occasions with greater and greater power, and the
Russians, who at first asserted something like an
equality in this respect, and long maintained the
contest, are now fain to withdraw their guns under
our fire, and to confess or pretend themselves si-
lenced. It is scarcely possible, indeed, that the
resources of Sebastopol, however vast they may
have been, should not be exhausted by exertions
so prodigious and so protracted ; and, while the
Allies are constantly receiving accessions of
strength, and improving their communications in
all directions, the Russians are becoming more
effectually isolated day after day.
While we reflect, however, with satisfaction on
these undeniable grounds of encouragement, we
do not attempt to disguise either from ourselves or
the public the difficulties still presented by this un-
exampled siege. In strict truth, it is' no siege at
all—it .is a campaign against w pii-werful army
acting on its own territory, protected by a chain
of strong intrenchments, resting upon an enor-
mous arsenal, and, what is still more extraordinary
assisted by the guns of a fleet. It is scarcely cor-
rect to speak of Sebastopol as a single town, so
various are its divisions and so diversified the de-
fences they include. In the siege of an ordinary
place, however strong, there is usually but one
enceinte or chain of protecting works to be .pone-
trated, and when an entrance is effected at any
point of this fortified circumference the town is
taken. Engineers select the weakest or most pro-
mising point of the works for their attack ; they
make an opening with battering guns, " the as-
sault"is then delivered, and, if successful there is

an end of the affair. But at Sebastopol we may
succeed in effecting an entrance or lodgment with-
out accomplishing the whole work in hand, for
there are forts and batteries of all kinds, divided
from each other by creeks and ravines, and ad-
mitting of separate and independent defence.
Thus, in the late attack General Eyre and his bri.
gade actually got through the outer line of works,
carried the batteries first opposed to them, and
fairly entered the town. About the gallantry of
this most creditable action there can be no question,
but the extent to which the success admitted of
improvement was unfortunately not put to the
test of trial. On the other hand, works so dis-
posed as those at Sebastopol are liable to be com-
manded one by the other, so that the capture of
one may facilitate, if not insure, the capture of
more. The Malakhoff Tower, for instance, com-
mands the Redan, and probably other works in its
vicinity ; indeed, it is regarded by our engineers
as the key of the whole position in that quarter.
But the most singular feature in thii siege con-
sists, as we have already remarked, in the part
played by the Russian fleet, which from first to
last has contributed most essentially to the strength
and defence of the town. Its guns supplied the
works of the enemy as they were successively
thrown up with armaments of extraordinary power;
its crews reinforced the garrison with a numerous
body of practical artillerymen. Many vessels were
destroyed, but others remained, and their broad-
sides have been brought into play, to the serious
cost of the allies. The harbour of Sebastopol and
its creeks offer every facility for these naval ma-
noeuvres, and General Palissier relates in his report
of the last assault that a crushing fire was poured
upon the storming columns, not only from the
works against which they were advancing, but also
" from the enemy's steamers, which came up at
full steam, and manoeuvred with great skill and
effect,"—an incident, we should think, hitherto
unprecedented in the defence of a fortified town.
It is possible, too, that as our works are advanced,
or, in other words, as we approach near the har-
bour, we may find these ships still more trouble-
some, though we hove that the same circumstances
may also serve to bring them within reach of our
own mortars. Upon the whole, in spite of the
obstacles and checks which the fortune of war de-
-1 velopes, the prospects of the allies have steadily
improved. Their position is unassailable, and, if
their advance has not been rapid, they have never
lost ground. Their communications are good, their
supplies abundant, and their means of offence in-
creasing, while the health of the troops, as General
Simpson's last despatch states, " is satisfactory,"
notwithstanding that the heats of summer have
now arrived. Under such circumstances, we may
fairly regard the prospect as encouraging, and we
trust that the indomitable valour of the allied
armies may be speedily crowned with the success
for which they have so ardently toiled.

(From the Daily Netcs of this day.)

Tuesday evening's debate in the House of Com-
mons, on Mr. Scully's motion, is a fair sample of
the manner in which Administrative Reform is
likely to be discussed by the existing race of public
men. Mr. Scully's ostensible object was to urge the
Government to confer appointments in the public
service withan exclusive regard to merit ascertained
by public competitive examinations. But the real
drift of the honourable member peeped out in the
reply with which he wound up the debate,
as the
real object of ladies' epistles is alleged always to be
found in their postscripts. Mr. Scully read two
letters—one which he had addressed to a noble lord
on his accession to office; the other, also from himself,
addressed to a friend of Lord Palmerston s, in
February last. The purport of both was a re-
monstrance against the non-appointment of Irish.
members to places in the recently constructed Cabi-
nets. Now, with a view to the practical efficiency
of Government, we are quite prepared to assert that
the most capable men ought to be selected, irre-
spective of the part of the kingdom from which they
come. But it does not necessarily follow that every
Administration should be composed of certain fixed
proportions of Englishmen, Scotchmen, Welchmen,
and Irishmen. If there have been few or no Irish-
men in late Cabinets, the cause must be sought
elsewhere than in any obstruction to the promotion
of our countrymen from the " green isle, attri-
butable to the want of Administrative Reform.
Ever since the Union, when there have been Irish
members in Parliament gifted with official apti-
tude, Ireland has had her fair share of Ministerial
patronage at the least. Under the Tories we had the
Castlereaghs and Crokers ,• under the Whigs the
Tierneys, Besboroughs, Clanricardes, and Sheils.
Nay, before the Union, we had from Ire-
land greater names than any of these—Burke
and Sheridan. At no time have our Irish
friends been entirely excluded from office by
impracticable public virtue ; nor, to judge from Mr.
Scully's urgent petitions for place for his friends
does that appear to be the cause of the exclusion be
now complains of. All Governments have been but
too glad to enrol Irish talent under their banners,
when Irish talent was to be had. If the doors of
Downing-street are kept close shut against the
Irish Brigade, notwithstanding their loud and per-
tinaciousknocking, it is simply because there are
no Burkes, Castlereaghs, or Shells among them.
Mr. Vincent Scully may take .our word for it that
Administrative Reform would do little to promote
the ambitious views of the coterie to which he be-
longs ; that Administrative Reform means some-
thing very different from snug places for men who
have no other recommendation than that they re-
present Irish constituencies. Let Ireland send us
once more such Irish members as we have formerly
seen in Parliament, and their claims to office will
be irresistible.
The debate inaugurated by Mr. Scully
was car-
ried on in a manner quite worthy of its originator.
We will not waste time or comment on the attempt
to harp on that already forgotten theme, the per-
sonal squabble between Mr. Lindsay and Sir Chas.
Wood. We confine ourselves, as illustrative of
the character of the debate, to the orations of Sir
G. Cornewall Lewis and Mr. Gladstone. The one
opposed Sir Charles Trevelyan's nostrum for in-
suring
,administrative efficiency ; the other gave it
a qualified support. The actual Chancellor of the
Exchequer edified his hearers with a display of his
recondite lore, expatiating on the antiquities of
Roman history. The ex-Chancellor showed up
this pedantry with delicate persiflage.
Both ex.
erted themselves in a manner to deserve the repu-
tation of elegant and accomplished scholars ; but
neither evinced anything of breadth of comprehen-
sion or robust manliness of character. Both aro
. admirable examples of the deteriorating influ-
ence of the exclusive system of appointment to

office
upon the Engish statesmen of our age. At
no period of our history, perhaps, have we had
more accomplished men—men who have read more,
or who have more cultivated tastes—than are to be
found among our leaders of every party. But one
and all of them are destitute of that strength of
character, and of that intuitive insight intu men
and social circumstances which constitute the real
statesman. The cause is obvious. Office can only
be attained and retained by combinations of a few
possessed of hereditary influence. It is this influence
that all parties rely upon to place and keep them
in power. The able men among them are regarded
more as ornaments than as essentials ; and are
consequently selected, not from the really power-
ful minds, who would insist upon having their own
way, but from the elegant minds, who, provided
they are allowed a fair modicum Of flattering
admiration, are contented to do the bidding
of their patrons. It is the effeminacy of our
public men that .is the great source of national
weakness and embarrassment at present. They
lack courage and strength to adopt a bold and de-
cided policy, such as the existing emergency calls
for. Were the competition for office extended to
greater numbers, robust and vigorous intellects
would have some chance in the rivalry for political
distinction, and even those who now rule us would
be strengthened by the more rude contests to which
they would be subjected.
The one-sided discussion raised by Lord Clanri-
cardo in the House of Lords on Tuesday evening
was a mereappendix to the debate that was going on
in the Commons. One noble lord rose after another
to pronounce fulsome eulogiums on things as they are,
and to bespatter with indiscriminate praise every liv-
ing official from the highest to the lowest:- Afterthis
monotonous interchange of lordly civilitie49,,Lord
Hardwicke's honest burst of impatience was 'quite
refreshing." He bluntly told the assembled peers
that " there had been a great deal of what out of
doors was called butter' on both sides." The
whole nation will echo Lord Hardwicke's emi-
nently sailor-like rebuke of the complimentary
platitudes in which Lord Clanricarde, Clarendon,
and Granville so complacently indulged.

(From, the Merwing Advertiser of this day.)
The result of Mr. Roebuck's motion for a call of
the house to determine the most important question
that!has arisen in half a century, affords ample proof
that the country is a very secondary consideration
in the deliberations of that assembly. It represents
Ministers, government boards, monopolists in the
army ad navy, peers, landowners, lawyers, capi-
talists, railway and other great companies, class in-
terests of all kinds, but not the people ; nor can
any person point out a time since the repeal of the
Septennial Act when the representation was other-
wise than a visible sham. Mr. Roebuck was op-
posed by only two orators, but both of them are
examples of the improper personages who are ad-
mitted into the representation ; for both are lords.
Though these two honourable members, against
whom as individuals we have no objection to offer,
are only lords by courtesy, yet their claim to that
courtesy proves them to belong to a body possessed
of higher privileges than any other in the realm, and,
therefore, already amply provided with the means of
protecting their own interests. Considering the ori-
gin and intention of erecting a House of Commons,
a man is easily satisfied that it was never contem-
plated that the sons of peers should sit among the
representatives of the people. They may, it is true,
be called commoners, inasmuch as they are not
peers—that is, parliamentary barons ; but the title
prefixed to their names is an abundant proof that
they are not looked upon as commoners by them-
selves, their connexions, or the people. In fact,
they are interlopers in a House of Commons ; and
the great number of such interlopers helps largely.
to increase the undue influence which the lords ex-
ercise in a place intended for the people.
It is not at all likely that, had there been a
representation in accordance with the British con-
stitution, the last Administration would have
escaped impeachment for high crimes and misde-
meanours ; in the sifting of the evidence for which
it is possible proofs of treason might have been. de-
veloped ; and it is just as little likely that the pre-
sent Administration would ever have been formed,
for there is scarcely one among them who does not
seem to be in fear of Russia, or does not succumb
to some unconstitutional influence that disposes
him to favour Russia, in preference to England
and the safety of Europe.
In such
_limp as wield our military resources,
and with a representation of any interests but those
of the people, we cannot but feel apprehensive of
the result of the war. There is cause for despon-
dency, but none for hope, except what must be
placed in the indomitable spirit of our soldiers and
sailors ; but these may be wasted in useless toils
and sufferings, or misdirected to their total destruc-
tion. We see one part of the Cabinet making a
show of war, and sending a fleet of ships to the
Baltic too large to be able to operate with effect
against the fortresses which it is indispensable to
destroy, and this, too, with the knowledge a year
beforehand of the only kind of armament which can
operate in the Russian seas. Is there not a cause
for arrangements so innocuous and satisfactory to
the enemy ? We see another part of the Cabinet
apparently eager to give any price for a dishonour-
able peace, and assuring Austria that England has
no desire to weaken Russia, or do anything detri-
mental to her honour—the honour of a gang of
robbers and treacherous cut-throats. The language
of this section of the Ministry passes all common
understanding. If we have really enaged in war
with Russia, it is to weaken her as much as pos-
sible, and also, if possible, to put her so far hors
de combat as never again to have the means of in-
vading Turkey, or disturbing the peace of Europe.
Indeed, the common weal of Europe demands the
dispersion of the vast confederacy of innumerable
hordes of Tartars who make up the Russian
Empire. But there is yet another object of the
war, without which terms of peace will have no
meaning, and peace itself will be disgraceful.
Both France and England must have satisfactory
guarantees for the reimbursement of all' the costs
to which they have already been put, and may
hereafter incur, through the aggression of Russia
on Turkey.
We have thus a Ministry, apparently at variance
among themselves on the two extremes of peace
and war—the section in favour of peace eager to
sacrifice the honour of England and the interests of
Europe, and the section which will carry on the war
without adopting the means of bringing it to a
satisfactory conclusion. Were the latter sincere
they would embarrass Russia by encouraging the
Poles to assert their independence, and punish
Austria for her worse than duplicity, by proclaim-
ing the independence of Hungary and Italy. Had
this been done at first it is very probable the con-
test would have been nearly over at this time.
No one will say that such administrations as the
last and present are suited to a great empire like
this, which particularly requires men with intel-
lects that can embrace affairs on the largest scale,
and not men who are incompetent to go through
the details of the ordinary business of the nation.
We have had men of a different stamp, but it was
before the House of Commons became the mass of
servility and corruption which it now is. With a
representation such as it was intended by the Con-
stitution we should have had Ministers in the con-
fidence of the people, and none of that secret and
dark influence which is felt but not seen in so many
departments—an influence which is daily assimilat-
ing us to the miserable condition of a petty German
despotism—could have had existence.