The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-15 00:00:00

RAILWAY TRAFFIC RETURNS.

.- -
GREAT NORTHERN 14ILWAY.—Traflic return for the
week ending March 4, 1555 £19,502 9 7
Corresponding week last year 18,030 3 6
&MITER AND HOLY READ RAlLWAY.—Traffic return fey
the week ending March 11, 1855 £1,163 17 5
Ctorrespoudin,g week last year 3,802 6 10
Increase in 1855

£271 10 7
LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY.--Traffic re•
turn for the week ending March 11, 1855 _218,376 1 11
Corresponding week last year 18,338 10 9
• .GLASGOW AND SOUTII-WESTERN RAlLWAY.—Traffic re-
turn for the week ending March 10, 1855 £5,210 5 5
Corresponding week last year 5,206 1. 4

Increase in 1855 £4 4 1
CORK AND BANDON BAlLWAY.—Traffie return for the
week ending March 10, 1854 £257 0 3
Corresponding week last year. „ 199 8 9

r PRICE SD.

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

ROIJTINE AND RE D-TAPISM.
(Froin, the Times of this day.)

Some of our readers may possibly have fancied that in
denouncing the pedantic system of routine observed
in the administration of our military ilepartment3 we
were rather unreasonable ; that regularity, after all,
must be a necessary element in public business, that
strict method could hardly do much mischief anywhere,
ar‘d that official forr alities of some wure absolutely
requisite, unless every office was to bec une a centre of
c:nifusion. Now, if these ideas have ever been enter-

tabled, we think we need do little more t) correct them
than simply repeat two pieces of evidence delivered be-
fore the Committee of Inquiry now sitting. His Royal
Highness the Duke of Cambridge deposed that on one
occasion, while the army was in Bulgaria, being anxious
to see that his men were properly supplied with food, he
desired an officer to get rations for them from the head-
quarter commissariat. "The first day be sent,".con-
tinned his Royal Highness, "although the men v, ere in
want of their daily ration?, instead of (lending these ra-
tions at once, the commissariat sent a printed form tl
the officer for him to fill up. Hence there was consider-
able delay, and then, not satisfied with that, the officer
was supposed to have put down one or two more lion 63
than Le was entitled to. Instead of sending the rations
for the men and pointing out the inaccuracy in the re-
turn of horses, they would send no rations at all, be-
cause the form was wrong. Upon that the officer came
to me, and I desired him to go with his animals to get
the rations and put matters to rights, and he did then
get them that day, although •very late. •As it turned
out, the commissariat officer was wrong,, and there was
no mistake in the return at all. ' General Bentinck's
evidence is, if possible, even more stelkfng. "On the
occasion," said the gallant officer, "it voucher was sent
back to me (i.e., from the commissariat), because it was
signed half an inch too low. I then took the libertyof say-
ing that if this ever occurred again I would have that
commissary turned out of the service. The difficulty
' never did occur afterwards." Be it obierved tliar these
"difficulties" were attributable almost wholly, to the
system and traditions of " the department," insomuch
that the Duke 'of Cambridge makes an especial distinc-
tion in favour of the personal deserts of the Commissa-
riat officers attached t) his division, and stated that
when. any "difficulty of the department" occurred they
zealously carried out his instructions in endeavouring to
surmount it. The same was probably the case in other
divisions of the army also, but the system was too
strong, and so elaborately had our practice been me-
tbodised as to be found useless for the realities of
service.

But-at. least, it may be said, such a system must needs
secure economy and certainty, if it does nothing else.
Our departments, if slow, must be sure. Nothing can,
be wasted, lost sight of, or diverted from its proper des-
tination. On this bead, too, we can produce a very per-
tinent illustration, collected from the evidence of the
Duke of Cambridge before the committee and the debates
of Monday evening in the House of COmmons. Of course,
it will be very .well recollected that when about this
time twelvemonth our expeditionary army was on its
way to the East, a scheme was conceived of supplying
• the troops with malt liquor. This was not an ordinary
practice, but it was very reasonably argued that what
conduced to the health and strength of the soldier at
home would do so abroad ; that, if rum was not the
most wholesome beverage in London or Dublin, it was
not likely to be so in Turkey, where the heat would be
Mich greater and the service more exhausting, and
if our troops were to be supplied With liquor imported
from home they might as well have some of ' the
best. If our recollections do not mislead us, cer-
tain eminent brewing firms offered to facilitate the
exertions of Government in this matter by deliver-
ing sound beer or porter at Constantinople or Varna
with very reduced profit to themselves ; but, at all
Events, malt liquor was to go out, and people here
comforted themselves with the reflection that our sol-
diers, sweltering under an eastern sue, would get their
draughts of the national beverage almost as regularly as
at home. Well, the porter was sent ; but to what pur-
pose ? Thanks t..) Colonel Boldero, we can do some-
thing towards tracking the erratic and costly course of
four of these precious cargoes, and the reader, we hope,
will be edified with the narrative.

Cargo No. 1 was sent to Malta, but arrived too late,
for the troops had proceeded to Varna, and to Varna
therefore it followed them. Soklr Colanel Boldero and
the Secretary of the Treasfiry are agreed as to the
(acts ; and as the Guards, according to the Duke of
Cambridge's evidence, did get porter at Scu'ari and
Varna, we may presume perhaps that this or some simi-
lar consignment was duly consumed, though Colonel
Boldero alleges that Government had to -pay no less than
,1,935/. demurrage bpon it. Cargo No. 2, however, as
the Colonel affirm, having been despatched. from this
country in March last, was lying untouched at Constai I
tinople at the beginning of last December. the vessel
having been engaged at the rate of about 4SOI. a month.
Cargo No. 3, having been loaded in June, was discharged
on the 14th of December at Scutari, and cargo No. 4
was also discharged at Scutari, demurrage having
been incurred on both. It does not appear th 4t
any portion of these consignments reached the
Crimea, but we infer from the Duke of Cambridge'r,
evidence that there did exist the means of supplying
at least a portion of the army while in Bulgaria
with this valuable ration, for his Royal Highness
states that the Guards did not get their porter
because, as the whole army could not be served
with it, it was'nut thought advisable to make exceptions
in favour of a particular regiment. Perhaps there was
good intention at the bottom of such a resolution,
though, if our stalwart Guardsmen.do really, as was al-
leged, suffer more than others from the loss of this
liquor, the men of the line might have acted like Clive's
Sepoys at Arcot, and thagnanimously surrendered their
share of sustenance to those who were even less able
than themselves to do without it. Bat what is to be
said of the management displayed in this matter—of
the system, which, though absolutely crippled with the
weight of its own formalities, cannot yet insure the ac-
complishment of so simple a matter as the proper de-
livery and distribution of a few casks of porter at ceitain
places in the Black Sea
,? The operation, one would have
fancied, was about as simple a piece of business as need
be. Parliament was ready with the funds, brewers with
the article, and ship-masters with the vessels ; whereas,
as far as we understand, not only, were the troops in
Bulgaria and the Crimea left without a drop of the be-
verage provided for them while shiploads of it were lying
at Constantinople, lAA the country has to pay heavy
charges for the loss of time and trouble incurred bysuch
proceeding. If the demurrage on one cargo alone
amounted to near 2,0001., what was it upon the whole ?
Could anything in the world be more discreditable to a
business-like , people than ouch management as this
Porter is sent out for the troops, but the troops never
get it, because it does not arrive in sufficient quantities
for general distribution, and, in the meantime, the ordi-
nary charges of the venture are multiplied by additional
costa arising out of the delay I It is little wonder that,
while the estimates are so large, the army is ill-provi-
sioned and =the country dissatisfied, for not only do we
fail in carrying out our arrangements, but we contrive
, somehow, with a singular perverseness of ingenuity, to
make this failure more expensive than success.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL AT VIENNA.
(From,the Morning Herald of this day.)

Among the various expedients adopted by Lord Pal
merston to bring the Administration and aristocracy o
this nation into contempt, he could have devised none
mere successful than that of despatching a Colonial Se-
cretary to Vienna to negotiate the basis of a peace. With
the usual flippancy which begins now to sit awkwardly
on a man of his years and position, Lord Palmerston
seemed to imagine that his reply to Sri J. Pahington's
objection was amply sufficient, when he assured the
right hon. baronet that the Government did not antici-
pate a longer stay on the part of Lord John Russell
"than was necessary to settle the general principles of a
treaty. 'The details would not detain him; they would
be left to the adjustment of another." Noweitis enough
to urge in proof of the futility of this answer, that all
things have indicated on the part of Lord John, if he be
not greatly misrepresented, an anticipation of a protract-
ed absence. He has sent for his family to follow him ;
he has made' preparations for remaining at Vienna.
Lord John is not a man to whom a stay in a foreign
capital is a novelty ; he is not so young that absence from
his family until Easter only is so unsupportable a grie-
vance.
But what a ridiculous exonse I Settle the basis of a
negotiation ! Why, has not this nation been settling
this basis already—if ever, indeed, it is to be settled—off
and on for more than the last two years I Has not the
public mind been continually amused by the four
points—by Vienna notes-by general and by special
;irrangernents,.first with one power and then with the
other—till plain men are in a maze, and neither gover-
nors nor pop], very clearly comprehend the actual con-
dition in which matters stand I Have •we not had
already a tolerable specimen of the fruits likely to result
from diplomacy in the success reaped by Lord John
at the very outset of his negotiations ? But whatever
be the result, this, at all events, is certain, that if Lord
John is not to return to this country until the basis of
a treaty he determined, the colonies are not likely t
reap the benefit of his pane services ; a, d w tether
complaints, and just grounds i,f complaints, title ails)
or shall arise hereafter, whether the condition of
ourg
csloni,:s hi each as to satisfy the nation or not, Lord
Mr.r,,bLioemwes
John is not at his post. His energy and hi's talent, how-
ilimielistialp
ever well employed, are not employed as Colonial Sii-
ruttyerw;orakncol
uthtethceiorlo,
:se
act It eft: ,r
wouldt
heri ir. el ii‘a•
as Lic•rd John is likely to assist the Let bliok
tn. us not ,
the matt r. If the Colonial Minister
Vienna, and wholly occupied in other duties those
lhaii.
which belong to his office, a Colonial Minister is a use-
less in' •
cumbra,nce. Whether any complaint has arises',
or is likely to arise, does not affect the question. It is
acknowledged by all parties that there is at this moment
much dissatisfaction in many of the colonies, insurrec-
tit,n in some, war, in others. If the Secretary for the
Home Department is sufficient for all the duties of his
own office, and for the arduous task of managing the
colonies under their present circumstances, let, us con-
solidate the two ; then Lord John may play the Pleni-
potentiary at Vienna as long as he pleases, and settle the