The Sun.
London, England, 1854-06-13 00:00:00

TIIE MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS.

The vacation of his scat last night by Sir George Grey, in
consequence of his acceptance of the seals of the Colonial
office, removed all doubts that may have existed as to the
correctness of the anticipations which we placed before our
readers with regard to the new arrangements in the Cabinet.
Not a single question was asked, not a single observation was
made, when Mr. Hayter moved the new writ, notwithstand-
ing the indications that have rendered it evident that there is
within the camp of the Government a very angry and bitter
personal as well as party struggle going on, and notwith-
standing, what is a still more important circumstance, the
patent proof which the public has before its eyes, that the
professions of Lord Aberdeen and his immediate followers
about administration reform are hollow as the men who made
them, and that the real requirements of the Public Service
has been made either a sacrifice or a cloak to political in-
trigues or party jealousies. We do not complain, except on
one point, to which we refer below, of Sir George Grey being
made Secretary of State for the Colonies in such a Cabinet as
the present. Sir George Grey is a public servant of high per-
sonal character, great experience, and tried ability; and,
speaking generally, we sliould be inclined to describe him as
a Minister of a higher rather than a lower calibre than the
noble duke who preceded him, and we should have been quite
content to see him eliminate the Duke of Newcastle ; but we
object most strenuously, now that we understand how limited
the powers of the new Secretary of State for War are to be,
and how trifling his duties, to the retention of both, and to a
supplemental estimate for the maintenance of a Minister and
a Department, who is only to be, as he always has been, an
impediment.
We trust that, upon this occasion, the House of Commons
will pluck up a little heart of grace, and do something more
to the purpose than ask questions. They are always ready
enough to do that, and, indeed, half the public time is wasted
in putting questions which lead to nothing except full per-
mission to the catechised to do just as they please, even to
the length of adding another 5001. a-year to the Clerk of the
Council, convicted by his own letters of already receiving
2,0001. for doing nothing, and, in the teeth of their own re-
commendation, putting a new Commissioner into the Board
of Audit. These, however, are comparatively minor matters;
but if the House of Commons should allow so flagrant a piece
of mal-administration to be quietly carried into effect as that
which Lord Aberdeen explained in his speech of Friday night
that he had decided upon, the House, we are sure will lose,
and very deservedly lose, the confidence of the country. They
must do something more now, if they would keep it, than ask
puerile questions. They must force upon the Government
one of two alternatives—either that they should altogether
withdraw their proposition for a new and additional Secre-
tary of State ; or, that they shall present a complete and
bona fide scheme for the reorganisation of the civil service of
the army.
Why should we be encumbered with the Duke of New-
castle, with a new department attached to him, if he is only
to be still like the buoy-boat in a yacht race—a something
we are to go round before we can attain our object'? What
will be the use of him if our armies, hungry and thirsty, are
still to go for their commissariat supplies to the First Lords
of the Treasury, whose proper business is the control of pay-
ments, and not the issue of barrels of ale and porter--,-or if
every time any of the troops want new arms or fresh stable
pails, their colonel is still to have to move the Commander-
in-Chief to desire the Secretary-at-War to require the Secre-
tary of State to take the royal pleasure as to whether or no he
shall direct the Ordnance to issue them from the store-
keeper's department ? In the days of our youth, we remem-
ber to have thought the story of " The House that Jack
Built" a very complicated piece ; but what was that to this ?
Think of the extraordinary number of people who must be
put iu movement, and of the complication of diverse offices
which must be brought into concurrent action before troops
can be moved, clothed, fed, shaved, or left unshaved, lighted
or bedded, and then you will find ample matter for wonder,
not that the French landed their soldiers better, quartered
them more comfortably, and clothed them more suitably than
ours, but that ours should have got to their destination at all
with or without the ale and porter which our letters of yes-
terday describe them as painfully waiting for, and with or
without the cotton night-caps which Lord Hardinge is think-

iug. of making for their shakos.
It is very true that we have with that same organisation
of departments which we now have, and find fault with, con-
ducted great wars, and conducted them to a successful and
glorious issue : but it is in spite of them, and not by any aid
that they afforded, that those wars were so conducted. Not
a man engaged in them, from the private soldier to tho Field
Marshal, or from the commissariat clerk to the Prime Minis-
ter, but felt and acknowledged that they were an impediment
to energy, and a bar to rapidity of action and movement.
The question is, Are we to go ou with these impeding compli-
cations as we have done before, and contriving, perhaps, as
we have done before, to get through our work pretty success-
fully, though with a good deal of wasteful expenditure of
men and money, or are we to apply the experiences we have
bought practically and get rid of them ?

When the Poetic party assumed to be the de facto Govern-
ment in a mixed Cabinet, they asked us to have patience—
they asked us not, at the outset of their career, to expect or
to press for political measures. It was a reasonable request.
Till "of more familiarity had come contempt" it was not
likely that a Government so peculiarly constructed could
frame harmoniously measures involving great political prin-
ciples. The public assented, exhibited the greatest patience,
and showed the greatest indulgence to an unusual combina-
tion of political men engaged in a great experiment. The pub-
lic were assured in return that they should have a much bet-
ter thing than political measures—they should have great ad-
ministrative reforms. The Peelite party embraced, so them-
selves and their organs said, the ablest and most experienced
administrators in the kingdom, and in their hands public
departments would become so changed, that old worn-out
Whigs and Tories, and blundering Derbyites would not know
them again. Lord Aberdeen has been some time at the head
of affairs, aided by the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Gladstone,
and Mr. Cardwell, and yet we see none of these reforms or
improvements in administration. Mr. Gladstone can't manage
the money market, Mr. Cardwell can't manage the railway
department of the Board of Trade, the Duke of Newcastle has
had his knuckles rapped by the House of Commons for mal-
administration of his patronage ; and the utmost that the
party united can think of, by way of making provision for
the vigorous and rapid conduct of a great war, is to create a
new Secretary of State, whose exclusive duty it is to be to
make memoranda of all the hitches that occur. Truly, if
this be the administrative wisdom of the Peelites, we would
rather go back to the folly of our ancestors.—Morning Post.

~;~_'; ~~9.'1~i.

I 7.17
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-

instant suppose that direct contradictions of this nature would t
be allowed in a journal which ought to have a character to • -
lose, without there were some cogent reason lying behlnd-r.... I it
some party to servo—some intrigue to carry on—some con•
tributor who wanted to work out a private grudge. It i$ S
quite clear that the intention of the article on Monday was to
excite, if possible, disunion and discontent amongst the Minis-
ters. A general scuffle is desired, in order that some party,
who is kept out of the way at present, may sneak in during
the confusion. What aro we to think of the character of a man
or a party of men, who adopt such measures ? What are we
to think of a public journal which lends its aid to such miser-
able intrigues, and does not hesitate to call that black to-day
which it named white the day before, and, notwithstanding,
finds its malice useless by the establishment of order amongst
men between whom it sought to sow beart-burnings and dis.
trust I—Daily News.

THE EASTERN QUESTION.

A weekly contemporary, whose sources of information on
foreign matters, appear to be of a very exclusive and trust-
worthy character, has for some weeks past affirmed, in the
most explicit terms, that the noble lord at the head of the
Government has entered into an engagement with the Courts
of Vienna and Berlin to conclude an armistice with Russia.
preparatory to the establishment of a peace—based on the
state of matters which existed before--the moment that the
Czar consents to evacuate the Principalities.

The Press not only communicates this intelligence, but
pledges its character for the accuracy of it. And one f our
morning contemporaries not only transfers the article into his
columns, but indorses its truth, on the authority of sources
of information peculiar to himself. Our weekly contempo-
rary, moreover, challenges the noble lord whose name it im-
plicated, to contradict his statements, if he can. That chal-
lenge has been before the public for ten days ; it was repeated
on Saturday last ; and yet it has not been accepted. Th•
statement has not been contradicted. The truth of the alle-
gation has not been denied.
The matter is one of too grave a character to be permitted
to rest where it is. Why does not some of the noble lord's
peers put the question to him, whether there be any truth in
the statement ? Why does not the Marquis of Clanricards
put such questions as may elicit information as to the red
state of the case ? The public are vitally interested in the
question. It deeply affects the national honour, as well as
the material interests of the country. The future well-being,
and even the peace of Europe, depend upon it., and therefore
the matter should not be suffered to remain in a state of un•
certainty.

The assertion is not made in
isdi
smtiandeetliyn
atfuhennsm o,stthsaptetchifiecstL
ret negotiaZ
s.vagT:ur language. The charge
eoenkslywhcoicnhtehampdoberaZ
going on for some time between Austria and Prussia, with
the view of terminating the Turkish war in such a
manner
would save tho honour and spare the susceptibilities of tt
Czar, have been brought to a favourable conclusion . • and
propose
an they mean, with the concurrence of Nicholas, to
an armistice to the belligerents, as a preliminary to a general
Conference of the European Powers, which is to arrange the
terms of a permanent peace. The concessions which Russia
is willing to make, if concessions they can be called, are, that
Austria shall have a joint control over the navigation of the
mouths of the Danube,—that ships of war be permitted to
pass the Dardanelles—and that the treaty of Kainardji bo-
tweeu Russia and Turkey be subjected to the construction
which the Conference may think tit to put on its provisions.
All this Russia was ready to acquiesce in as far back as
October last, before the united squadrons had entered either
the Black Sea or the Baltic. The whole affair, therefore, is a
Muscovite dodge. The movement has been made at the insti-
gation of the Czar. And it must be admitted to be a very in-
genious expedient, for if the Western Powers should agree to
the proposals made by Austria and Prussia, Nicholas will be
able to retire from tho war, without any feeling of mortifica-
tion. He would be able to say that he had from the first ex-
pressed his willingness to accede to terms of peace on such
conditions. If, on the other hand, France and England per-
emptorily refuse to accede to any such terms, Austria and
Prussia, acting on the suggestions of the Czar, will have a
new and more plausible pretext than before for remaining
neutral in the war between Russia and Turkey, and in that
way play the game of the Autocrat.
But the matter which more immediately concerns US to
know is this—Can it be true that the head of the English Go-
vernment has become a consenting party to this new device
on the part of the Courts of Vienna and Berlin, acting under
the inspiration of the Court of St. Petersburg? That is what
our weekly contemporary affirms, and in the truth of which a
daily contemporary expresses his entire belief. The country
has a right to know whether the charge be well founded or
groundless. It is one of much too grave a character to hate
hanging over the head of a public man, without being denied,
if it has no foundation in fact.

And the noble lord himself, who cannot pretend ignorance
of it—for he reads both the journals in whose columns it has
appeared--ought to feel that he is bound alike in duty to him-
self and to the country, to meet the allegation with a direct
denial, if it is destitute of foundation. His continued silenee
will be construed into a tacit admission of its truth; and should
it unfortunately prove to be true, it will be one of the most
serious charges that ever have been established against a Mi-
nister of England in modern times. It will justify the terms,
" England's Betrayal," applied to it by our weekly contem-
porary. It is a sacrifice to the Czar of the honour and the
interests of this country. It is, besides, a betrayal of the
interests of all Europe.
And to complete the gravity of the affair, it will, if true,
be found that the noble lord, in becoming a party to such a
course of action, has done so without th knowledge or con-
currence of his colleagues in the Cabinet ; for we cannot al-
low ourselves for a moment to believe, that the question had
ever been brought before a Cabinet ouneil, much less re-
ceived its sanction. If this be so, there is not a man in the
Administration who does not owe it to himself to ascertain
whether the charge be true or not. The colleagues of the
Premier ought to remember that if the country sees so grave
an accusation in general circulation, and no contradiction
offered to it, the conclusion at which it will naturally arrive
is, not only that the charge is true as regards the noble lord,
but that they are severally implicated in it—for the country
cannot be expected to suppose that he would have taken so
important a step as virtually to concede everything to Russia,
without their knowledge and concurrence.
It is, therefore, on all accounts, desirable in the highest
degree, that the real state of matters should be ascertained.
The public have a right to know what aro the actual facts of
the case ; and were that public faithfully represented in the
House of Commons, questions would have been put before
now to the leader of the house, with the view of getting at
the real position of affairs. The country, unhappily, is not
properly represented in the Commons.
But bad as matters are in this respect, surely some one
may be found in the house who will elicit the desired infer-
, illation. What has come of Mr. Layard ? Ho used to display
independence, as well as information, on all matters bearing
on the Eastern question. But he, also, has been mute of late.
His voice is no longer heard. He not only has ceased to put
troublesome questions to Ministers, but he has ceased to
open his lips at all. Mr. Hume, Mr. Roebuck, and Mr.
Thomas Duncombc, used also to display groat independence
in the way of putting questions to the Treasury benches,
which more timid members had not the courage to ask. But
the prevailing complaint in the Commons—a loss of indepen-
dence and of patriotism in matters of this nature—has seized
them also. It is a very sad and unsatisfactory reflection that
such should be the state of matters. We have, indeed, fallen
on degenerate days. A thoroughly independent and intelli-
gent man would, in the present position of matters, raise
himself in a few weeks to the highest pinnacle of Parliamen•
tary popularity. —Morning Advertiser.

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IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT,

HOUSE OF LORDS-(YESTERDAY.)

The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the woolsack
at dive o'clock.