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    the- men o £ Preston . talked :, of . suspendingirwertt to . ¦ e 0 fo ^ ce . tbeir ., owa . ^» lW |^ th « y ^ W 1 eper . p . l * 6 f < d <>« rn by .- agreat jimoa of , naxllrdMnera . What remedy ig ,. there when . the njillr ' awaiers : suspend ; work to let the glut' that they have mada drain off ? If it were mere calamity the working -class ; would bear it . tranquilly , as . they have , before ; but it ig . ' a calamity , hrought ; about by . rapacity and reekleasnessy on the part of . men who have the means of saving themselves , - and leave the real

    pangs of . suffering to the working classes . These are sufficient ; causes for the dislike which exists , and the increased taxation brought about by the war has rendered , the burden heavier . Nevertheless , the working classes are not against the war . It has been waged against . an oppressor , and they are not unwilling to s undergo the sacrifices entailed by the outrageous-inf capacity of the governing classes ; but . they ? resent the burden , of a taxation whiek seems

    likely to be rendered vain , by a , hollow and treacherous peace . They talk of * a dissolution : it cannot * cooae too soon for . the silent people . If there were ; a general election , the Parliament elected now would be a War Parliament ; hut , not a few-seais would , have , altered occupants . There ' would be . more , men in the House impatient , of a polite war , in which soldiers slay each other by thousands while emperors pass compliments ; the stifled nationalities would not be forgotten ; and , in short , we should hear the Commons de * manding a real war , with honest officers and an honest finance .

    The disposition of the English people is seen in the colonies , where they are free to speak out : in the United States , the- anti-British element "is kept alive by the emigration ; in Canada , the people are loyal because they have their own way ; we have this week rumours of a new war bursting upon a sham peace with barbarians at the Cape ; and in Australia there 8 a working class insurrection against the foolish taxation of an incapable system of Government . Such are Englishmen when they speak out j and there are more where those came from .

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    THE BRUSSELS PAMPHLET . . ^? .. are cqndjemnjed to live in days of universal mystification . Examples abound ; let " us take the latest .. A pamphlet is published at Brussels " On the Conduct of the War in the East ; The Crimean Expedition ; Memoir addressed to the Government of H . M . the Emperor Napoleon III . By a General Officer . " * This pamphlet is attributed by the Belgian press to Prince Napoleon J £ r 6 me . It reviews the operations of the Allies in Turkey ,

    iu Bulgaria , in the Crimea , from the landing . at Gallipoli in April , 1854 , to the battle of Inkerman on the 5 th of last November . It exposes the want of unity-in council and command ; the recklessness on one side , the vacillation on the other ; the incapacity and inconsequence on both , which have marked every stage in the progress of an expedition disastrous even in its successes , since its first blind and precipitate adoption at the command of a fatalist , at the desperate instigation of a diseased and dying

    castaway . This pamphlet , quoted and commented upon in foreign journals , creates what is called a sensation . The French official organ declares that it is the work of a Russian hand , and threatens proceedings against the publisher before the Belgian tribunals . But we havo not heard of any such proceedings . Prince . Napoleon , the putative father of the pamphlet , reitiains silent , neither acknowledging nor denying 1 a connexion , to which the- features of the offspring lend at least an air of probability . After some days , M . Emile . de Giuajrdin , * London : Jeffs .

    whahad been choaeged by accredited rumour with arsorf of obstetric relation to ; the-foundlingin other wordsy withi having produced : and put in order the pamphlet *—replies with enigmatic brevity to this malignant gossip by a conspicuous -paragraph in his journal , La ' Presse , to the effect that ; "he is incapablej as his friends know , of assuming the disguise of a General Officer * even-in the . Carnival ,, and that certain positions-involve certain' responsibilities which are not to be' accepted by halves : " an

    explanation which may : mean nothing , or too much . Justrat this time , Mr . Jeffs , the active and . enterprising foreign- publisher in the ; Bur * lington-arcade , is busy getting out a translation of the pamphlet , for which he has already orders enough to exhaust an edition . Then it is , and not till then ,. that the Times , which , like other questionable potentates , is for ever ascribing its supremacy to the "' national will , " comes out with an article eagerly looked for by gaping worshippers , and made , up as usual of an equal

    tissue , of sophisms and suppressionsr admirably adapted to the intelligence of an honest , clearsighted , independent , and conscientious public . Now , what does the Times tebV us about the pamphlet ? Does itdisprove the " attributed " authorship , or refute its damaging assertions ? Nothing of the kind . After a windy and wordy flourish about the benefits of " free discussion , " and a terse sentence of- some ten lines op-so , garnished with gentilities of expression not usually heard' in polite society ,

    our greai contemporary " prefers to impute the ; composition to the persons on whom Prince Napoleon has unwisely bestowed his . confidence . " It then proceeds to "justify" the " strong expressions" to which we have alluded by detecting two grave errors in , the first pages of the pamphlet : ^ ne , a transposition of names , Delacdur for Delavalette , and vice versa?—the other , an inexactitude of dates , March where it should have been February . And thereupon mark this astonishing- deduction : ¦

    " Such being the inaccuracy of this pamphlet on points which are known to everybody , we leave our readers to judge of the value of the statements which rest upon its own authority . " Now it will , we believe , occur to plain understandings , that whereas " points which are known to everybody , " are very often iuaccu " rately -known ,- statements _ of _ faot- _ by an eyewitness are commonly received as trustworthy . The article proceeds to defend , with gratuitous verbosity , the political limitations of the war ,

    and the necessity and advantage of the Austrian alliance—points noticed incidentally by the pamphlet , and certainly not constituting- its chief value to the majority of English readers . In the course of . this tirade the Times , however , contrives to insult " the next heir to the imperial throne , and a lieutenant-general lately in the command of a division of the French army , " by describing his staff as " the rabble he had thought fit to attach to his person . " But it is when the Times arrives at " the grand

    subject of attack , the Crimean expedition , " that we beg our readers to observe its characteristic veracity . Speaking , of the expedition , " We are told / ' it says ,, "it was resisted in the council of war held on the 10 th of August , by the eloquence and profound military judgment of Prince Napoleon , supported by Admirals Hamelinand Dundas , " entirely omitting to mention the emphatic resistance of Lord Raglan himself , of General Bosquet , and the Duke of Cambridge . And what

    counterevidence does the Times bring against " these writers , " as it somewhat loosely styles the author of the pamphlet ? Absolutely nothing but assertion , qualified by " we believe , " and " we have reason to doubt . " But the crowning assurance is to come :- ;—"Atany rate , enough . has been said to oxplain whoso were the timides avis alluded to on a subsequent occasion by the Emperor Napoleon , and it

    j * not . improbable ? that t&d . wbcder pamphlet ieyi / rsplfr to , tbat , e » rcasm »" Enough , has keen said I when . ia youx garbled summary ofrthe only , sigpificaatr pages , of the pamphlet , yam have omitted , the nanae » of the . British Com / nand ^ r-in-Ctee /} 1 xomt 1 ifa jixuxb ber of those who resisted the expedituw .- Referring to . the aecoun t . of . the Battle of Alma in the pamphlet * the writer in the . Times corrects the mistakes of the , "< Jeneral Officer" by his own . assertions * . That is all , and with : a few more lines of . vulgar violence ,. the article con * eludes .

    Now we ask any reader of the pamphlet , or any reader even of the brief summary we gave of its contents last week , whether the Times Iras fairly met those points which are of vital interest to English readers of all classes and opinions . In order- to put the pith of the pamphlet most clearly- and decisively , we will take the liberty to ask the following questions .

    We believe them to be questions to which the British nation would be glad of a satisfactory reply , from whatever source they may proceed . I . Is it true , or is it not j that the expedition to the Crimea was solely and secretly planned by Louis Napoleon , and by him imposed upon the British Cabinet , and through Marshal Si . Arnaud upon Lord Raglan ?

    H . Is it true that LordRagxan , Com rnander-in- Chief of the British army in the East , after expressing , in the council of war held at Varna , insuperable objections to the expedition , yielded those objections to the dis * ordered impatience of . MarshalSt ; Arnaui > , and gave an affirmative vote to what Admiral Hamemn had ^ characterisedas a " reckless adventure ?"

    It is really high time that we should be informed on these two points of the pamphlet , whoever be its author . For the rest , it' has little value in our eyes . We have no respect for its supposed author , who , we think , would do well to remember the advice of the founder of his family , and to " wash the dirty linen at home . " " But from \ rhatever quarter- evidence may

    come , whether from a Committee of Inquiry , from a General Officer , or even from a Russian spy , we take it for what it is worth , and when , as in this case , it happens to confirm with some authority all . that hasJbeen . jimttenj all that has been whispered , and all that has been hinted , the correspondence of the Times itself , the tenor of private letters from the camp ; the common report , and the official silence , we do not seek to divert attention from the real

    points at issue by insulting a personage whom nobody respects , but we fix attention , on those points , and those alone , which concern the lives of our soldiers and the honour of our country . We say that if Lord Raglan , after formally recording his apprehension of all the difficulties and disasters which have pursued our troops ever since they encamped before Sebastopol , had the inconceivable weakness to sacrifice the lives of his soldiers , his own reputation , and his country ' s prestige , to the recklessness of a

    man in the clutches of death , who sought to expiate an infamous career , no words can express too strongly his unfitness for so respon * sible a command . In sterner days , such a general would not have been simply " recalled : " in ours he is made a field-marshal . We write these words with pain , for we know the hiffh bearing , the unblemished character , the generous nature of Lord Raglan ; we only regret that a lieutenant of Wellington should have been compelled to yield Ins

    judgment to a St , Arnaud . Arc wo to pay the penalty of an alliance with the heroes of the Coup d'dtat ? Already wo know it is the common jest of the intimates of the French Emperor , that the alliance of th © Nephew has harmed England more than thte

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• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1855, page 231, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2081/page/15/