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    February 3,1855.] THE XEAPER. * $9

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    Imperial Parliament. Kout Of Ministers. ...

    -purcbased—a lieutenant-colonel ' s commission costing-at the fixed price 4500 / . ? " How is it possible , then , that any but a rich man can enter the army ? " [ Here a cry of "Question" arose from the Treasury bench . ] ,: I think this , is speaking . to the question , resumed Mr . Os borne , "this is going to your system , which 1 maintain is rotten . " ( Trernettdoua cheering ?) He was told it was not for a person in his situation to speak-but the safety of the whole army is at stake , and truth must be told "If you constitute another army on the same footing it will not do any better . It is . not enough that they shonld win battles , they must go through campaigns , and we have seen the lamentable and disgraceful way in which this war has been conducted . " It was -painful to him to make that statement . [ Here the House laughed . ] " I have a superior duty to perform , " retorted Mr . Osborne ; " I represent a constituency 7 " Convinced that Lord Aberdeen is not only a good Liberal ,

    but an honest and conscientious politician , he for one would not desert him . He had felt it his duty to speak unpalatable truths . ' __ . Mr . Hekley followed , and the feeling of the House subsided . The position he took tip was that ministers had not done what they ought with the means at their disposal . Why had they only a collection of regiments and not an army ? Why had they no waggon train , where they could get any amount of waggons and practised men they pleased ? Why was adifficulty made of transporting 50 , 000 men , and 2 oO , 000 tons of stores to the Crimea ? The men could not get the

    heaps of stores at Balaklava , because their ranks were thinned , and Government had neglected to reinforce them . Hundreds of men would have undertaken to transport these stores to the camp , and have laughed at it . The Government had had carte blanche as to money , and the whole people at their back ; they might have had advice , but they did not seek it ; they fail miserably , and then say that the system is a bad one . He put aside the pretexts that the motion was either inconvenient , unconstitutional , or indirect ; the Government had failed r and Parliament should mark its utter disapproval of the way they had conducted the war .

    For some time now the minor speakers had it all their own wayr Admiral Berkeley defended the , Admiralty , Mr . W . Beresfobd vindicated Lord Raglan , and urged an enquiry . Mr . Bice spoke up for reforms , but would not vote for enquiry . Mr . Miles , who was for enquiry , attributed all the evils to the War-office . Sir Francis Baring decided not to vote for enquiry , because it would paralyse those departments which should be especially active . By voting for the motion as a vote of censure , and getting rid of it afterwards , the

    House would act in an unworthy manner . At the same time , the revelations made by Lord John Russell would prevent him from voting for the motion as a vote of confidence in the Government . Lord Aberdeen had refused Lord John Russell ' s proposal on insufficient grounds ; he had listened to private affections , instead of doing a painful duty . Lord John had manfully undertaken the invidious task of making the first move to get rid of the Duke of Newcastle , and ho wished his colleagues had supported him .

    Mr . Bentinck severely cbnuehiried the conduct of the Government , and exonerated Lord Raglan . Mr . Rica sustained Lord John ' s position , said he should vote for enquiry , and condemned the mode of conducting the

    war . . . Sir Bulwer Lyttox put the case of the Opposition . If the House acquiesced in the continuance in power of the present Ministers , they would be servile -accomplices in the sacrifice of a noble army . Lord John Russell had resigned rather than resist inquiry , and would the House be more complaisant than the noble lord ? Should they reject the motion because it is a motion for inquiry when it should be a vote of censure ? Take it , then , as a vote of censure , and let it so stand as a precedent to other times , if other times should be as grievously afflicted under a similar administration !

    He next arraigned Ministers for having gone to war without sufficient information , ignorant of the power and resources of the enemy , of the nature of the climate , of the supplies the army should receive . Entering into a military criticism on the faith of letters from a young officer who had died in the Crimea , ho condemned the Government for not buying mules at Gallipoli (! ); for having encamped the troopB at Varna ; for having spared Odessa . If Odessa spared for motives of humanity ? Why , to spare Odessa—that nuTscry , granary , market , feeder of Sebastopol—was . the grossest inhumanity to the army that moulders piecemeal under tho walls of Sebastopol . Had Odessa boon taken—it need not have been destroyed—our troops could have wintered there . Tho

    first proof of feeble incapacity links itself with the last . Ho charged tho Govcmmont with taking the troops to the Crimea at a season of tho year especially unhealthy . Even a common book like Mr . M'Culloch ' s Dictionary would have told them that the climate was unhealthy in tho autumn . Yet they lauded tho army without transport , and twice in one campaign exposed it in unhealthy situations . They ought to have foreseen the hurricanes , the rains , tho mud-, they ought to have anticipated Mr . Peto , and have constructed a road when the Kussiuna took their only rood from them , Ho rated Ministers for calling Parliament together to pass two bills , one of which remained a dead letter . Tho country looked to tho Parliament , aud would they doaert tho country ?

    Men said , " What is to be done ? " Lord John Russell is a shrewd man ; bis resignation i » significant of what should be done . Sir Bulwer perorated thus : — " There is one indispensable element of a Coalition , and that is , that its members should coalesce . QLqud cheers and laughter . } It is that element which seems to me . wanting , in the present Cabinet . It" has been a union of party interests , but not a Coalition of barty sentiment and feeling , { Cheers It was a jest of Lord Chesterfield ' s , when a man of very obscure family married the daughter of a lady to whom scandal ascribed a large number of successful admirers , that nobody ' s son had just married everybody ' s daughter . ' { Great laughter . ) If 1 may parody that jest , I would say of this Government , that everybody ' s principles had united with nobodv ' s opinions . ( Laughter . ') It is dimly intimated that

    the noble lord—now in a state of transition—bat after all he is equally MJusrrioBB as the member for Tiverton- —it is intimated that the noble lord the member for Tiverton is intended for an appointment that some months ago would have satisfied the eountry and saved the Government . I fear now that it may be too late , and among his greatest dangers will be the armed neutrality of his unsuccessful advocate and noble friend . [ Laughter . ) That noble lord , the member for London , on Friday last , attempted , not triumphantly , to vindicate the Whigs from the charge of being an exclusive party that required all power for itself { "Hear , hear , from Lord J . RusstU ); and he found a solitary instance for the refutation of that charge m the magnanimity with which th « Whigs had consented to that division of power which his desertion now recants and

    condemns . But in plain words his vindication only Amounts to this , that where the Whigs could-not get all the power , they reluctantly consented to accept half . { Muclilaughter . ) Now , gentlemen opposite will * perhaps , pardon me if I say , that I think the secret of Whig exclusiveness and Whig ascendency has been mainly this : —You , the large body of independent liberal politicians , the advocates for progress , have supposed , from the memory of former contests now ended , that , while England is advancing , a large section -of yonr countrymen , with no visible interest in existing abuses , k > for standing still ; and thus you have given , not to yourselves , not to the creed and leaders of the vast popular party , but to a small hereditary combination of great families —( " // ear , hear , "from Mr . BriglW)—afictitious monopoly of liberal policy—a genuine monopoly of lethargic

    Government : It is my firm belief that any Administration , formed from either side of the House , should we be so unfortunate as to lose the present , would be as fully alive to the necessity of popular measures , of steady progress —(" . Hear , hear " from Lord J . Russell)—of sympathy with the free and enlightened people they might aspire to govern , as any of those great men who are democrats , in opposition and oligarchs in office . ( Jx > ud cheers . ) But to me individually and to the pu ») lic it is a matter of comparative indifference from what section of men a Government at this moment shall be formed , so long as it manfully represents the great cause to which the honour and safety of England are committed , and carries into practical execution the spirit that animates the humblest tradesman , the poorest artisan who has sent his scantv earnings to the relief of our suffering army . ( Cheers . )

    It has been said , as the crowning excuse for the Government , that all our preceding wars have begun with blunders . Were this an arena for historical disquisition I should deny that fact , but grant it tor the sake of argument . How were those blunders repaired and converted into triumphs ? 1 know a ense in point . Once in the last century there was a Duke of Newcastle , who presided over the conduct of a war , and was supported by a powerful league of aristocratie combinations .: 'I'llat war was , - indeed r a series -of -blunders and disasters . In vain attempts were made to patch up that luckless Ministry—in vuin some drops of healthful blood were infused into its feeble and decrepit constitution—the people at last became aroused , indignant , irresistible . They applied one remedy ; that remedy is now before ourselves . They dismissed their Government and saved their army . " { Loud and prolonged cheering . ')

    Mr , Gi-Ajdstoxe elaborately insisted , with his usual force and dexterity , that the motion involved not only the fate of the Government , but the condition of tho army , and the function of the House of Commons to remedy great national evils . Sir Bulwer Lyttoh said the Government was a union of interests ; Mr . Gladstone protested against that declaration . From Lord John he had always received a cordial support in all the measures he had brought forward . Mr . Gladstone explained the position of tho Government in relation to Lord John . At the time he resigned his colleagues were not aware that any difference existed between them and him . He made a proposal last November ; it was declined ; the correspondence on the subject closed on the 3 rd of December ; on the 10 th , Lord Aberdeen asked Lord John whothor ho adhered to his proposal , and ho said he did not , hehad changed his intentions— convinced that the time was not fitting . Well , his colleagues regarded tho proposal made

    in November , not as a proposal kept alive , but as a proposal definitively abandoned . In November Lord John wrote to the Duke of Ncwcastlo , saying that tho Duke had done evorytliing in office it was possible for him to do . Even so late as Saturday week Lord John had beon a consenting party to a plan modifying the military departments . Ho had said that he thought his amendments would not bo udopted . What reason had he for thinking they would not ? Ministers had not then shown a reckless disregard of opinion in meeting Parliament . What courtio could Ministers have taken ? Had they made ail interchange of offices it would hdvo enhanced suspicion . Naithor could abandon office undor tho pressure of a hostile motion . Few Englishmen will not freely own that it was the duty of Government , having conducted affairs up to the time -when they incurred censure , not to shrink from that censure . u If wo had tthrunk from tho motion , I think I may describe tho

    terms m which I would hare wroteirtne epftsplt'on-om graves . It would be thas : ' Here 'He the 6 Mt < m < nxfed ashes of a Ministry which" found England m peace nail leftitinwar ; which was content with the emoluments of office , and wielded the sceptre of power as long -asrtto man had the courage to question their existence : ;' but ; when they bow the storm gathering over the country , and heard the accounts of the sick komI wounded in the East , these things did not morve them ; but when they were threatened with the thunderbolt launched by the hon . and learned member For Sheffield , they were glad to accept their puni » hment -by the abandonment of their duty . ' ( . Peers ' . ' ) He should not attempt to weaken the sense of interest

    felt in the condition of the army . It is the absorbing question of the time . As Mr . Stafford says , the people of England care for little else . But we most put a check on feeling and come to a fair appreciation of facts . The difficulties of the army are diminishing- ; -warm clothing has been issued ; there is less sickness ; all the railway plant has arrived out , and . three weeks after they begin the railway will be completed . By an arrangement between Lord Raglan and General Csnrobert such a French force has been supplied as diminishes , by 1500 men , the number of English

    permanently in the trenches . Then -with respect to the number of the army—excluding the sick list , there are upwards of 30 , 000 men engaged in military duties before Sebastopol . We are not yet driven to the conclusion that the finest army that ever left our shores is numbered among the things that were . What evils were unavoidable , and what might have 'been avoided , he would not say : bat some gentlemen do not take a just estimate . TVIr . Henley , for instance , thought it a matter of no difficulty to provide for an army three thousand miles off . He intimated also that the army has been

    starved from motives of economy . Mr . Gladstone was afraid it would be found that they had been driven . into profusion . Taking up Sir Bulwer Lytton ' s criticisms , he showed the absurdity of talking about buying mules in the great market of that narrow strip of sand Gallipoli ; and that M'Culloch ' s Dictionary states that there is nothing in the climate of the southern part of the Crimea to prevent it becoming the scene of-military operations . Why spare Odessa ? Sir Bulwer forgot when he said Odessa ought to have been taken that it was an open town of 140 , 000 inhabitants , -and close to large ~ Russian armies . As to the war department , it is untrue to say that nothing has been done to improve it . The commissariat has been seiparated from the board of

    transit-, the Minis' rifle has been introduced ; the artillery has been freshly created ; the militia has been organised . Because there were complaints , ought Lord Raglan to have been recalled ? - Ought his officers to have been recalled without communicating with him ? Certainly not . One of Lord Raglan ' s most important duties had been the maintaining and confirming of the French alliance ; and that he had ably performed . Mr . Gladstone contended that the vote of inquiry was without a precedent ; for the Walcheren case was no precedent , for that was a completed expedition undertaken by -us single-handed , and not with allies . The motion , if carried out , would ruin the expedition . If it were not carried outfit woiild be a ^ disrtppttintm enirto - the country ^ and unworthy of the House to use a motion for the dispatch of a Government , and then to get rid of it

    afterwards . The inquiry would never take place as a real inquiry , but , if it did , it would lead to nothing but confusion , paralysis , increasing disaster , shame at home , and weakness abroad ; It would carry no consolation to those whom they sought to aid , but of this they might be sure , that it wonld carry a malignant joy to the hearts of the enemies of England ; and , for his own part , he should ever rejoice , if the motion should be carried , that his own last words , as a member of Lord Aberdeen ' s Government , wore words of earnest and solemn protest against a proceeding which had no foundation either in the constitution or in the practice of preceding Parliaments—a resolution which was useless and mischievous for the purpose which it appeared to contemplate , and which , in his judgment , was full of danger to the power , Signify , and usefulness of tho Commons of England .

    Mr . Disraeli adverted to tho statement which had been made by Lord John Russell , and remarked that , after the declaration so made , it was impossible to resist Mr . Roebuck ' s motion . It could not be denied that a gallant army had perished . The Chancellor of the Exchequer had asserted that not more than 24 , 000 or 26 , 000 men had p erished , out of a force of 54 , 000 or 56 , 000 men . Wns not that a proper subject for onquiry ( Exaggeration , too , wnfi alleged na regarded the atato ot the army in the Crimea . Was not that a worthy subject of enquiry ? Tho motion was not for an onquiry into tho war / but into the etate of the army before So-Alibi / bUU VTil * . * r \* V . »¦• .- * * ,-- — — - 1 _ i . ii . rit . i . 1 . that such enquiry

    bastopol . Mr . Disraeli maintained an was constitutional , ami , i » his opinion , wo « ld" « t bo inconvenient . Ho protested against the imputation tlmt tho supporters of tho motion werefiling thmr shafts ngahwt the Puke of Newcastle . For lumself , he would never bo a party to selecting one member oftho Govorftment and making lilm tho Hcape-goat for offences which attached to all hl « colleagues . Tho Duko of Newcastle was not tho only Minister engaged in the conduct of the wnr . There wns tho Homo Secretary , who was "entrusted with tho militia , and tho dilatory proceedings of the noblo lord in udopting mowrorw for * ead « ing that force

    February 3,1855.] The Xeaper. * $9

    February 3 , 1855 . ] THE XEAPER . * $ 9

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 3, 1855, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03021855/page/3/