The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF T

MR. _ROEBUCK'S COMMITTEE.
(From the News of this day'.-)
Mr. Roebuck's Committee is not regarded with very
friendly sentiments in high: quarters. Nothing would
afford greater pleasure to influential 4Nersoes who have
lately held, cr who still continue to hold office, than a
plausible pretext for interrupting its inquiries. And, it
common fame say true, there lack not among its mem-
bers some who are by no means indisposed to lend their
assistance towards furnishing such a pretext. It., there-
fore, behoves the members who are honestly anxious to
push on the inquiry till some practically useful result is
obtained, to be wary in their proceedings. •
The people of England have demanded the inquiry,
not for the purposesof exposing the folly orCulpability
of individuals, and inflicting an unprofitable vengeance
upon them, but for the pUrpose of ascertaining the causes
of the suffering to which our • soldiers have been sub-
jected, with a view to devise means for averting the re-
elm-mice of similar calamities. Perhops it was scarcely
necessary to this end to waste ,three whole days in try-
ing to establish the fact that the troops have suffered
very much, and suffered mainly from defective arrange-
meats. So much has been admitted even by that favou-
rite of fortune (or of the Horse Guards), General
Bentinck, who yesterday endeavoured to paint
everything en beam, and at last contrived to wriggle
for the time out of the embarrassing cross-examination
of Mr. Layard on the courtly plea that he wished to
attend the Queen's levee. Geoerel Bentinek admitted
that typhus and fever prevailed among his men ; mud
they were too weak to carry their own, knapsacks ; that
only half the number of medical- officers were attached
to his brigade that ought t haveibeen ; that the troops
were not properly supplied' with medicines ; that he lest
the Crimea before the bad weather set in, but. that even
by that time the clothing of the men was worn out, and
no fr;sh supplies had . been received ; that the winter
clothing for the soldieti" was it; Constantinople .by-
the end of August, but did not reach Balaklava till
December ; and so forth. The accounts of the suffer-
ings of the troops, ao.l of the inaffequate provisions
made for their sustenance, comfort, and health, given by
Mr. Dundas, General Evans, Captain Wriotesley, and
others, are still stronger. It is established—indeed, it
has never been denied—that our troops have been sub-
jected to great and unnecessary suffering, and that the
system, more than any individual's, is.to blame; For this
the history of the Peninsular campaigns ought to have
prepared us. During the last two or three years Wel-
lington took the control of the entire commisasriat and
conveyance arrangements into his own heeds. This could
only be because be found the homeadministeation ineom
petent to the charge, although the country had then
been twenty years at war. There NA as no inconvenient
Parliament in those days, and yet the administrative Go-
vernment was as inefficient as now. Forty years have
made no change in its inefficiency. It is the 83 stem that
is to blame, and if Mr.. Roebuck's committee really de-
sires to make itself of any use—the only way in which
it can conciliate that popular support which is required
to uphold it against the and inachinatious of men
in office and their tools—it will,' without further loss of
time, set to work in a business-like manner to trace the
,evils in the Crimea to the fauntainhead in the home ad-
sainistration.
The valuable practical speech delivered Ly Sir Joseph
Paxton, on Monday last, in the Committee on the Ord
nance Estimates, may indicate to the committee the
manner in which they ought to go to work. Mr. Mon-
sell had claimed great credit fur Government, on account
of the energy with which they have set about the con-
struction of the camp at Aldershot. Sir Joseph, by a
simple business estithate of the time and labour that will
be required to complete the works, and of the time al-
lowed in the Government tenders, demonstrated that
Government really does not understand the business it
has taken in hand, and is consequently incompetent to
execute it. Now, with regard to the Crimea, it is clear
that the troops have been decimated by disease ; it is
clear that food, medicine, clothing, shelter from the
weather, were not supplied to- them, and hence the dis-
ease. Government will, of course, make an ostentatious
parade of the items of food, medicine, clothing, comforts,
and huts, which they have collected and transmitted to
the East. But let each of their spacious vague state-
ments be examined in detail after the Paxton fashion.
Let the committee begin, for example, with the huts,
and inquire when they were ordered ?—when they were
shipped is to whom were the manifests of the ships in
which they were embarked transmitted with orders to
receive and forward them ?—who was charged with the
land transport and the erection of the huts ?—and so on.
Let a similar course of inquiry be instituted with regard
to the winter clothing of the troops, the medical stoles,
the proviiions, the "green coffee" and other "comforts."
Let the time when each article was ordered be ascer-
tained, sad what care was taken to insure its timely
arrival at its proper destination. • Let the pro,4-ress of
each article be traced from the warehouses of the con-
tractors to its ultimate destination—or to Varna or the
bottom of the Black Sea, let-wherever it was last heard
of. If a close, searching, well-directed, minute inquiry
of this kind is instituted with regard to every article for
which the country has paid, and for want of which our
soldiers have perished, a ease of gross ignorance, care-
lessness, or jobbing, will be established against every de-
ea, tment of the home administration, for which the coun-
try, after all that has been .said on the subject, is not pre-
pared. If the committee honestly take up this line, they
cannot fail to prove the deficiencies of the home depart-
ments—where the real source of all the evils complained of
isto be sought--and to indicate measures for their anaer.d-
mint. If they institute such an inquiry as is her.; re-
corninended, confine themselves strictly to it, and follow
it up from day to day,' they will, on the one hand,
escape all danger of exciting the susceptibilities of our
Allies—the buggaboo with which Government seeks to
scare them from inquiry—and will enlist all the business
feeling of the country on their side. They will thus
strengthen themselves for promoting useful and neces-
sary reforms of our administrative system in a tempe-
rate spirit, and with perfect safety. If they do not
honestly and steadily follow out this course, they will
furnish a pretext for their own dissolution ; will help. to
conceal, not to expose, abuses ; and will leave the
people no alternative but to seek for redress by more
rough and more dangerous means.