The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-30 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 30, 1869.

The diplomatic service was yesterday under the
consideration of the House of Commons in Commit-
tee of Supply. The sum of £233,667 was, after a
lengthened and animated debate, voted for the pay-
ment of the expenses incurred under that compre-
hensive heading-Diplomatic Services. The discus-

•

sion which took place was provoked by an amend-
ment moved, in a very able speech, br the hon. gentle-
man the member for Warrington. That amendment
proposed, in simple terms, the reduction of the aggre-
gate amount by some £lO,OOO stering. It brought
under consideration, however, not merely the ques-
tion as to that ten thousand pounds, but the far larger
question of the whole scheme of our diplomatic
organization. For a considerable time past, there
has been, alike within and withcut the walls of
Parliament, a very vivid sense of the necessity that
has long existed for the introduction of a series of
bold and comprehensive reforms in the regulation of
the complicated and delicate maclinery upon which
it may be said that the whole of our Foreign
Relations are sustained. Economy is, no doubt, the
order of the day throughout the whole of the
various departments of our Administration —more
particularly at this present moment when we have,
installed in power down at Whitehall, a set of Minis-
ters especially priding themselves upon their collec-
tive reputation as an Economic Government.
Nevertheless, while this is indisputably the case,
and while, consequently, economic considerations
affect, more or less, every suggestion that has been
in that way thrown out with a view to the introduc-
tion of a series of systematic improvements into the
Diplomatic Service generally, those economic consi-
derations are not, by any means, the most prominent
or the most powerful among the incentives, here, to
innovation. As illustrative of the truth of this, in a
rather remarkable way, we would again refer to that
singularly able pamphlet to which we have already in
these columns, more than once, directed public
attention, as having been published by the Messrs.
Blackwood, of London and Edinburgh—a pam-
phlet evidently from the hand of some skilled
and experienced servant of the Crown in connec-
tion with the Foreign-office, and whose proposition,
involving within it no diminution of cost whatever,
would at the same time lead, through a series of in-
genious, and for the most part thoroughly well-con-
sidered re-arrangements to a complete and, so far
as we may be permitted to pronounce an opinion
upon the matter, an eminently judicious reorganiza-
tion of the whole system of our Diplomatic service.
The question really at issue, in this particular depart-
ment, is hardly so much a question of economy at all,
as it is a question of re-arrangement and of general re-
organization. Abortive though Mr. RYLAND'S amend-
ment yesterday proved to be in its immediate result
—having been rejected upon the casting vote of the
Chairman of Committee, by reason of a tie, sixty-
six for, as confronting sixty-six against, the proposed
reduction—the member for Warrington might well
be congratulated by the Under Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, if for nothing else, for having,
through the medium of yesterday's discussion, elicited
from Sir lIENRY BULWER the masterly speech in
which that right hon. gentleman has given the house,
and through the house the country, the benefit of the
wisdom born of his immense diplomatic experience.
Ambassador at Constantinople, Ambassador at
Madrid, Minister at 1% ashington—the member for
Tamworth has, in his day, acquired a knowledge of
our Diplomatic System, extending over the lifetime
very nearly of a whole generation. During the last
thirty years he has been associated with it, he has
been identified with it, ho has—through it—ac-
quired one of the very highest reputations in that
most eminent profession. Nevertheless, while him-
self foremost among the foremost Diplomatists of
his age, the Right Hon. gentleman could yesterday
with full justice and with full reason arrogate to
himself in the presence and hearing of the House of
Commons, the added distinction of being also,
himself, one of the earliest of our Diplomatic Re-
formers. Hitherto, however—we cannot help feeling
this,while we admit the personal claim of Sir HENRY
BULWER to popular consideration in that particular,
namely, iu his capacity as one of the earliest cf our
Diplomatic Reformers—hitherto, however,we cannot
but bear in especial remembrance the fact that the re-
forms applied to the diplom ttic service have been bit
by bit reforms, have been almost hap-hazard reforms,
have certainly been reforms intermittently intro-
duced, and of an essentially piecemeal character.
What is at last wanting in regard to the Diplomatic
Service is its careful reconsideration throughout—
is, in other words, its complete, and comprehensive,
and systematic reorganization. How far from per-
fection it is, it needs only the perusal of this admir-
able speech of Sir HENRY BULWEWS, fully and
vividly, to recognize. Nevertheless, while we would
say this, we must, perforce, add, that that speech
of Sir HENRY BULWER'S constitutes, at one and
the same time, a noble vindication of the general
character of the Diplomacy of England, even
under all its present, and past, and many of
them really enormous disadvantages. At the close
of that bold and admirable vindication—as
the peroration to that brilliant and masterly
address of Sir HENRY 13nwEit's yesterday in the
house of Commons—the Diplomatist was, by an ex-
quisitely felicitous figure of speech, thus strikingly
typefied and, while typefied, eulogised—we mean
where the right hon. gentleman--himself, as we all
know, one of the first of living diplomatists—ex-
claimed of the Diplomatist in the abstract—" For
him the trumpet of fame never sounds ; his reputa-
tion lies buried in the musty archives of some ne-
glected office, where it lies in obscurity till some
curious historian disinters the skeleton of an intellect
whose proportions were never kuown to the world
till it had long left it. Do not imagine," Sir
lIENRY BULWER here added very impressively, " Do
not imagine that because the career of
a diplomatist is noiseless it is therefore in-
significant. I may say that I have known most of
the leading men of my time, I have been acquainted
with men eminent in the forum, in the senate, in
the field. I have been acquainted also with the
leading diplomatists of England and of Europe, and
I declare, with all sincerity, that I do not think
the last aro at all inferior to the first, either in
the usefulness of the services they have to perform
or in the capacity they have shown for the per-
formances of those services. Let me, then, hope
that the position of the profession to which I have
the humble merit of belonging will not be lowered
from that station which it has hitherto occupied—
though in saying this I by no means exclude, I rather
invite, the elimination of every unnecessary expense,
and the adoption of every practicableimprove-
ment." No wonder when the member for Tamworth
added immediately after this, before resuming his seat
—"I have now only to thank the house for the patience
and attention with which:they have heard me"--ono
wonder, we say, that the right hon. gentleman closed his
speech amidst loud cheers from all parts of the house.
Very earnestly is it to be hoped that, after the
discussion which took place yesterday, but more par-
ticularly after the remarkable speech delivered in the
course of that discussion by Sir lIENRY BULWER, the
whole scheme of the English Diplomatic Service, as it
now is, may be taken very seriously into considera-
tion, with a view to its complete and comprehensive
reorganisation.