The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-30 00:00:00

that the proceeding had destroyed the ministry, but pro-
fessed much respect for Lord Aberdeen ; and declared that
for his own part, he could not consent to take refuge in the
captain's gig, leaving his companions to weather the storm
by themseves.
Mr. HENLEY contended that the Admiralty was
answerable for the failures in the transport service. If
there were faults in the system of officering our army,
surely that was known before war was declared. From
the despatches of Lord Raglan it might be inferred that
the Admiralty arrangements had been deficient from the
commencement. All that he had heard induced him to
think that the present motion was likely to be productive
of much benefit, and he would therefore support it. Be-
fore resuming his seat he would say that the Duke of
Newcastle was the most ill-used man in the kingdom. His
colleagues had placed him in a position for which he was
unfitted, and when he got into a fix he was abandoned.
Admiral BERKELEY challenged investigation into
the conduct of the Admiralty during the course of the war,
declaring that every service which had devolved upon that
department was performed with efficiency and despatch.
Mr. BERESFORD highly eulogised the conduct of Lord
Raglan, who had been grossly misrepresented by those who
said he was not to be seen amongst his troops, and was
careless of their comforts. If everything was fairly be-
fore the public Lord Raglan would stand out at the
bravo soldier and kind-hearted man his friends knew him
to be, and it would then be seen that he had
been from the commencement opposed to the ex-
pedition' to the Crimea. The Secretary at War
tried to throw tho blame from the Minister at War,
by seeking to fix it on the officers of brigade, but this was
a failure, for no complaint whatever had been made against
any brigadier. lie great fault was the absence of all
means of transport from Balaklava to Sebastopol, a nee.-
gence quite unpardonable, after all the despatches of the
Duke of Wellington, in which he had so repeatedly urged
the immense importance at all times to an army of the
means of transport.
Mr. RICE had heard with painful interest the speech of
Mr. Stafford, but he thought the motion of the hon. mem-
ber for Sheffield unlikely to produce benefit, and he would,
therefore, vote against it.
Mr. W. MILES, in supporting the motion, contended
that the War-office had totally neglected the commissariat
department.
Sir F. BARING opposed the motion as not being calcu-
lated to produce the immediate redress which the evil de-
manded. They should not paralyse by such a motion the
action of the War Department, nor sacrifice the army that
the Government might be destroyed. In reference to the
refusal of the Earl of Aberdeen to make the change in the
War Department required by Lord John Russell, he de-
clared his opinion to be that the reasons assigned by the
eon,. eeee rea want reimml wee., insufficient. lie thought
Lord John Russell had acted creditably, and in voting
against the motion he wished it to be understood that he
was not, therefore, voting confidence in the Government,
either as regards the past or the future.
Mr. BENTINCK, although opposed to such a motion in
the abstract, could not do otherwise than support it after
the disclosures which had been made. Inconveniences
might arise in consequence of the motion being carried,
but be felt that everything must give way to the necessity
of getting rid of the peasant incompetent Government.
While taking this course he must say that he could not
concede to Lord J.. Russell the praise of being actuated
solely by patriotism in quitting the Government as he
had done.
Mr. RICH eulogised the conduct of Lord J. Russell, and
declared that the facts which had come to light rendered
inquiry, at all hazards and any inconvenience, an absolute
duty.
Sir E. B. B. LYTTON—Sir, I shall dismiss very briefly
that part of this discussion which refers to the abstract
propriety of appointing the select committee of inquiry
proposed by the hon. member for Sheffield, I shall leave
the Government to -direct their answer upon that point not
so much to us as to their late colleague—(hear, hear)—who
resigned office rather than resist that inquiry, and who, I
conclude, would vote for it but for the natural delicacy of
his position towards the Cabinet he so lately adorned. The
right hon. gentlemen the Secretary at War and the Secre-
tary for the Colonies have dwelt on the danger of estab-
lishing such a precedent as the appointment of this com-
mittee might furnish. They may dismiss that apprehen-
sion, for nothing but the extremity of the case can justify
this motion, and I trust, for tke honour of the country
and the sake of humanity, that a case so extreme may not
occur again. (Hear.) If it does not, the motion will be
no precedent ; if it does, e similar motion will be under-
stood to bear the interpretation that the common sense of the
house puts upon this ; for I agree with Ministers that
they cannot grant this committee without a virtual trans-
fer of the power and responsibilities of the Queen's Go-
vernment, and the question therefore simply is—Has
the conduct of the Ministers in this war been such
that this house should qaietly acquiesce, not only in the
continuance of their power, but in the mode by which
their responsibilities have been discharged ? I, for
one, feel that such an acquiescence would be to make
us the servile accomplices in the sacrifice of what re-
mains of that noble army of whose deeds the country
are so proud and of whose sufferings the Government
should be so ashamed. (Hear, hear.) The noble lord the
member for London has refused to make himself that ac-
complice, although the pain of deserting his colleagues in
the hour of their imminent need must have been almost
intolerable to so gallant a spirit, and I give him the more
credit for the pain on account of the Spartan fortitude with
which he has concealed its pangs. (A laugh.) Shall this
house be more complaisant than the noble lord, although
it has not the countervailing scruples which must have
weighed upon a Cabinet Minister, the late organ and leader
of the Government in these walls, now standing alone in
his abandonment of office ? If we could not feel for the
public calamities, we must. still be reused by our own
private anxiety and sorrow. I, myself, have two near re-
lations in this war many of us have near relations among
the sufferers. It is our bosh, as a portion of the gentle-
men of England, that, wherever danger is to be braved or
honour is to be won, there some of our kindred blood is
flowing or may flow; and aeter the miseries so simply told
by the member for Northamptonshire, shall we be de-
prived of a remedy for the evils you admit, of an inquiry
into the abuses you deplore, because of some paltry tech-
nical objections to the words of the only motion that pro-
mises relief—because it is a vote for inquiry, when it
ought to be a vote of censure ? Take it, then, as a vote
of censure, and let it so stand as a precedent for other
times, if other times should be as grievously affected
under a similar Administration. (Cheers.) I shall not
enter into all the details on which the Secretary at
War always tries to rest the case of the Government,
partly because I have been here anticipated by those who
so ably preceded me, partly because I wish to lay clearly
before the house the broad principles of the charge which
we make against the Ministers. And first, we accuse you
of this—That you entered, not indeed hastily, but with long
deliberation, with ample time for forethought, if not for
preparation, into the most arduous enterprise this genera-
tion has witnessed, in the most utter ignorance of the
power and resources of the enemy you were to encounter,
the nature of the climate yon were to brave, of the country
you were to enter, of the supplies which your army sheuld
receive. This ignorance is the more inexcusable because
you disdain the available sources of information. This is
the fundamental cause of our disaster, and not the com-
paratively petty and collateral causes to which the Secre-
tary at War would assign them. The ignorance, indeed,
on a former occasion, the Government confessed; and
when we were convened on the 12th of December, we
heard that synod of veteran statesmen—those analecta
majors of the wisdom and genius of Parliament—actually
make their ignorance the excuse for their incapacity. We
might accept that excuse for the sake of its candour ;
but the Government have asked more, for, as I will
undertake to show, they have asked us to acquit thorn
of disasters, when they took no pains to acquire the
information that was necessary for success. It has, in-
deed, been said that the public were no wiser than the
Government that the public underrated the power
of Russia, and demanded the premature siege of Sebas-
topol ? If this were true, what then ? Why do we
choose Ministers—why do we give them salaries, patronage,
honours—if it is not to have some men wiser than the
public, at least in all that relates to the offices they hold ?
(Hear, hear.) It may be a noble fault in a people to dis-
regard the strength of an enemy when a cause is just.
Who, does not love and admire this English people more
when they rose as one man to cry, "No matter what the
cost or hazard, let us defend the weak against the strong !"
But if to underrate the power of an enemy was almost a
merit in the people, it was a grave dereliction of duty in a
Minister of War. But I deny that the public, fairly con-
sidered, were not wiser than the Government, and there is
scarcely a point which you have covered with a blunderon
which some one or other of the public did not try to pre-
pare and warn you. I shall first notice a subject hitherto
little touched on in this house, but which seems to me in-
timately connected with the condition of oar troops in
the Crimea. (Hear, hear.) The war had begun—
onr fleets were en the seas—the noblest fleets that ever
left these shores, and it was on those fleets, much
more than our land force, that the public relied for
any advantage over Russia. Well, the ships were on the
sea, and Odessa lay before them, surprised and almost de-
fenceless—Odessa, the great depot of the Russian enemy,
the depot of ammunition, provisions, troops for that Crimea
which you had already resolved to invade, and you con-
tent yourself with the holiday bombardment of a single
fort. (Cheers.) Lad we may judge of your private instruc-
tions to your naval commanders when for the audacity
of that notable achievemeut your admiral makes an
apology. (Hear, hear.) Is Odessa spared for the sake of
humanity? Humanity ! Why, you were told that Odessa
was the feeder of Sebastopol. You have found it to be so,
The Secretary at War expressed big amazement at the celerity
with which Russian troops were moved from Odessa to
Sebastopol, and to spare the arsenals, the granary, the
market, the nursery ground of an hostile fortress was the
grossest inhumanity to the army that now rots before the
walla which your own lashes has manned and supplied
against it. (Hear, hear.) If you were influenced by care
for the British trade connected with Odessa, you knew
little indeed of your countrymen if you did not feel that
you might have come to Parliament with confidence for
the most liberal compensation to all British subjects whom
the occupation of Odessa—there was no occasion to destroy
it—might have injured. This first proof of feeble incapa-
city links itself with all that has followed. Yon thus
forbear the easiest and the wealthiest conquest of all,
in order afterwards, in the very worst time, to attempt
an achievement the most difficult in itself, and which
that forbearance to Odessa rendered more difficult
if when youanfdonnrodofiyeosus
still. Why, sir, the whole fortunes of the campaign
would have changed if Odessa had been your depot
instead of the Russian—nay,
could not invade the Crimea before the end of Septem-
ber, you had postponed that expedition till the spring,
and your troops were now happily wintered in Odessa,
instead of mouldering Piecemeal, ragged,
before Sebastopol. But if you had some reason we
cannot divine for not prosecuting the attack at that
time, why did you not later effectively blockade
Odessa and the Sea of Azoff—(hear, hear)-30 ships of
the line, 40 steamers on the Euxine, and yen do not
blockade the !great magazine of the enemy. Well, your
troops went to Gallipoli. I must here contradict the
statements both of the Minister and of the Secretary at
the
provisionsthere,the willfailed simplest
the Secretary of War has se vainly boasted. I have hero
some short extracts from the letters of an officer, written
state his name to any member
because I can, if necessary,
üblication. I read them
to his father, not intended for p
of the Government, without, alas I the fear of injuring
him in his profession. He is now no more. His father
came to me and said, through his tears, " I would proudly
have given my son's life to the service of his country, but
be was murdered by' the neglect of the Government, and
without any real aid to his country. (Cheers.) This
young man had
was full of life, health, and arJour ; athletic in his habits,
just bought a step in his profession ; he
no raw recruit but accustomed to military hardship, the
last man to murmur without a cause. Ho belonged to
that band of heroes, famous oven in the ranks of English
valour, the Welsh Freshen. gin first letter in from Galli- '