The Sun.
London, England, 1855-02-24 00:00:00

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6i i

1174 17

191 181 19

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(From the Times of this day.)

The House of Commons ought to feel very much flattered.
Never did any body hear so many compliments as were
lavished upon it by three of i.s own members last night.
Those members had to explain how it was they foiled themselves
in the singular position of quitting the public service rather
than acquiesce in the decision of the house twice in a fort-
night. Something like humility might have become the
occasion, for when the house had come to its decision by a
majority of two to oue there was some presumption, not only
that the house would stand to its own act, but also that the
act was a good one. It would appear, however, that the house
has lost character both for sense and for consistency with
its own servants, for they are surprised to find it as contuma-
cious and obstinate as ever. They tell it gravely, that its
decision, virtually unanimous, was unconstitutional; that it
was the duty of Government, not of Parliament, to inquire;
that it was playing into the hands of the enemy and damag-
ing our alliances ; that it had caused an absurd and improper
resolution avowedly only as a stalking-horse for the censure
and overthrow of the existing Administration ; that, like one
of the monsters of mythology, it was merely ravening for a
victim or two, and ought to be satisfied for the present with
the two " blameless" statesmen thrown into its maw. All
this was very delightful for the House of Commons to listen
to from its own spoilt children. A Cabinet that presented so
nearly identical a composition as that which had retreated
before the just indignation of the house stood on tender
ground. It had, indeed, to explain. Last night, how-
ever, we were told that it rested with the house of Coin-
mons to apologise and repent. It was the real offender.
Soniebely had to do penance, but it was not the Ministers
who presented themselves once more in the face of a recent
censure, but the censurers themselves. As there was no con-
siderable change in the intervals of the new Government, we
naturally concluded that it had at least renounced the worst
part of its identity—its resistance to the desire of the house,
which would have renaered it a new administration ; but
these gentlemen expected the house to change rather than
themselves ; and as they find themselves once more mistaken,
they have yielded to the rebuke which themselves have
provoked.
_

All that the public will see in this special pleading is an
elaborate attempt to make the judge change places with the
accused. If the House of Commons will only be so good as
to give up inquiry on a vague promise of amendment, that
will remove the very unpleasant stigma under which certain
gentlemen find themselves. This is worth something, so no
kind of appeal, however extravagant, is omitted. The House,
we are told, has not the right t, inquire. Who then has that
right, and why are constitutional governments to be denied
a privilege amply used by the autocratic ? But it is feared
we shall endanger our alliance with the French if we tell all.
If anything is to damage the character of the French, or to
wound their vanity, it is these dark hints that they have
somehow caused our misfortunes, and that but for them we
should have avoided the disasters hitherto ascribed to simple
bad management. • The Freud have different views on the
subject of blockade from ourselves, a different military or-
ganisation, a different staff, a different commissariat, and a
different system of siege operations from our own, but on no
point that we are aware of have these differences affected
the condition of our own forces, nor need they enter into
the inquiry. What, then, is the posit on of the House of
Commons, and what has it dwindled to, if it is not to begin
inquiry till the war is over and there is a general
oblivion of follies and crimes ? If all it has to do is to vote
away the public money, twenty or thirty millions aolay, as it
is doing just now, it may as well at once abdicate its func-
tions, and permit the tax-gatherer to be the only medium be-
tween the Government and the people. The estimates which
it is taking on trust, as well as the votes for past expendi-
ture, are something portentous, offering the most ridiculous
contrast to the work done for the money. If that money hail
been properly applied every private soldier in the Crimea
would be living at least as comfortably as a gentleman with
an independent income of 3001. a-year and a good club. Ho
ought to have at least as good a roof over his head, as good
a bed to lie on, as good a wardrobe, as good a breakfast
and dinner, with a much better amount of medical
care, in the event of anything happening to him. We
ask to inquire how is it that the man who is the
special object of this enormous expenditure and these delicate
attentions rots in a puddle or a ditch, houseless, half-naked,
famished, with the clouds for his canopy and the mud for his
bed, reckless, and almost forgotten; and the gentlemen af-
fected by the inquiry, and some who should know better than
to join them, get up and talk by the hour feeble stuff about
the British constitution, the French alliance, the secrets of
war, the interruption of public business, and the hope that
those things will not occur again !
Why, this inconvenient, dangerous, unconstitutional, trea-
sonable demand for inquiry, has already done more for the
reform of our War Administration than has been done since
the year 1815. It is very true that a Government can work
more quietly and more effectually than a committee, and, what
is more, Government, under fear of a committee, is working
more quietly and effectually. Every day is now bringing us the
gratifying announcement of some change in the right direction,
which would have cost any minister his place ten years ago.
But while there is the greatest anxiety to make the army as
efficient as possible, every day brings also to light seine blun-
der, some omission, some difficulty fatal to success. Mr.
Drummond, for example, says that in the new transport ser-
vice just organised and sent out the harness was forgotten.
Our own correspondent in the Crimea writes that the boots
lately sent out are of such bad material, so ill-made, and so
much too small as to be already useless. The other day
Lord Palmerston excused the destruction of our cavalry
by famine on the ground that twenty days' forage was
lost by the storm of the 14th of November. That
was known in this country by the 30th of that
month at the latest, and it would have been easy to
convey any quantity of forage to Balaklava by January 10,
at all events ; but Lord Raglan, writing on February 10,
that is a month after, says " Forage is our only want, and
this arises chiefly from the Commissary-General not receiving
from England the supplies of hay upon which he had
reckoned." Let it be observed who are the men who would
bribe Parliament off its old functions of inquiry witk their
own promises of reform. Sir James Graham has been a
political chief and a professed reformer, alternately in
office and opposition, for twenty-five years. Mr.
Sidney Herbert has been thirteen years in office, part of
it Secretary at War, and therefore as well acquainted with
eur military expenditure as most people. Mr. Gladstone
has also has been very long in office, and all last year,
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had under him
the Commissariat and Transport services, which last Lord Pan-
mure emphatically asserts to have been no shadow, but to
have had a substantive existence. Now, if a Government
could reform its own administration, if it could dispense with
the authority, the researches,,and the direct action of the
house, and if it had the hearty desire which these three men
claim for themselves, why have not these reforms been done
:long ago ? Why did the late Administration present itself to
Parliament last December with the reforms which their own
melancholy experience had taught them Were necessary ? But,
in fact, they have sunk under the difficulties of administra-
tive reform. They avow themselves beaten. All that they
can do is to defy the House of Commons to get to the
root of the matter, and to pronounce the inquiry " an im-
mense sham." Nay, the inquiry is not the only imposture, in
their opinion. They do not even believe the truth of our dis-
asters. They set aside the concurrent evidence of ten thou-
sand letters, and refuse to believe that of a noble British
army scarce a third remains iu the Crimea.

ixcept where. another reason was avowed, we should
certainly think it unfair to ascribe the votes of members on
the late division to any other than an earnest desire to
get at the root of this hideous mismanagement. This
is the universal feeling of the country, and when
Lord Palmerston says that the country has taken up
this aspect of the question from the house, that is only true
in so far as the country had the feeling already. In fact, the
country will know all about it, and that in time to do some
good. Its painful curiosity is best expressed in a phrase
with which Sir James Graham has supplied us. We hoar
that a British army has all but perished through want of
food, clothing, and shelter, six miles from a port filled with
our ships, and we want "to know the reason why." The
Englishwoman hears that her husband or her son has perished
from destitution, while all the wealth of England was being
poured out for his aid, and she wants " to know the reason
why." Fathers and mothers of noble or gentle birth hear
that their gallant sons, in spite of clothing and comforts sent
in vain after them, have died the death of a vagrant,
famished, diseased, frostbitten, wasted away, and they want
"to know the reason why." The House of Commons votes
away millions upon millions, and sees huge sums down in
the estimates for great-coats and other warm clothing,
food, fuel, stationery, medical stores, porter, roasted coffee,
and such comforts, of which only a few driblets have reached
our perishing countrymen, and it wants " to know the reason
why." It is too clear that the House of Commons will not
learn " the reason why" from the ex-Ministers who addressed
it last night, nor from any Government inquiry: The House
of CoMmons alone can elicit " the reason why,".and we enter-
tain no doubt that it will do so. If it fail to do se, the
country will not hesitate to ask " the reason why" from the
House of Commons itself.

Advices fromPesth announce the death of Count
Joseph Teleky, which took place on the ldth inst. A
few days before tie event he was engaged in writing his
historical worJt on the Era of the EL I/ yadao,

Amsterdam

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