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

ThE MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS.

The vacation of his seat 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 should 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 'I
Think of the extraordinary number of people who must be
put in 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-
ing 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 the 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 on 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 Peelite 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 fur 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.