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Leader (1850-1860), 19th May 1855, Edition 1 of 2, Page 467, Untitled Article

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      : TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION TO «< © De JLeafcet . " JPor a Half-Tear ...: ^ . £ 0 13 0 To be remitted in advanoe . x iJST Money Orders should be drawn upon the Stbaitd Branch Office , and be made payable to Mr . Airbed E . Gali < owat , at No . 154 , Strand . NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . Eeeatxjm : in oue Last . —Page 453 , 1 st column , 2 nd line from top . for Madame JEtEzaoLiirjj nread Madame Fsezzotmx During the Session xtf Parliament it is often impossible to find room for correspondence , even the briefest . No notice can be taken of anonymous communications . "Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication , but as a guarantee of his good faith . Communications should always be legibly written , and on one side of the paper only . If long , it increases the difficulty of finding space for them . We cannot undertake to return rejected communications .

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      the . duties he had to perform . The language in which the letters -were addressed to him , demanding a contradiction , was such as to make him think that he ¦ was not hound to reply to them , especially as'they had been published in the newspapers . He could assert that he had said nothing with respect to Captain Christie which could not be morally justified . Sir J . Pakington expressed his regret at the course pursued by Mr . Layard , and at his loose mode of making icharges against public servants . He thought that that gentleman should manfully hare admitted . that he had been mistaken .

      Mr . Bright declared that he thought Mr . Layard was fully justified in stating that Captain Christie was unfit for his duty . He might easily have been mistaken in Captain Christie ' s age , and if Mr . Jjayard had formally and ceremoniously come down to the House to contradict such a statement , he would have been received with shouts of laughter . Sir Jambs Graham said that a debt of justice was due to the memory of a gallant man and to his relatives . Captain Christie was a man of high character

      whose competency was first called in question by Mr . Xayard . He feared that he himself had yielded too much to clamour in ordering a Commission of Inquiry into Captain Christie ' s conduct . He had , however , thought it better to submit his conduct to his brother officers rather than to the Sebastopol Committee . He feared that this matter had broken the heart of Captain Christie . He could not think that Mr . Layard was justified in saying that the letters contradicting his statements were offensive simply on account of such contradictions . ated

      Mr . Roebuck , could not call Mr . Layard s st ments charges against Captain Christie . Even Sir J . Graham had found it necessary to supersede that officer , and if Captain Christie had died brokenhearted it was because he was superseded and ordered to be tried by a court-martial—both the doing of Sir J . Graham , and with which Mr . ILayard had nothing to do . He did not think that Mr . Layard ' s conduct deserved the censure'Of the House Admiral Berkele y said that Captain Christie had himself demanded a court-jnartial , and his death was not caused by any steps taken by Sir J . Graham . The subject then dropped .

      THE POLISH LEGION . Mr . Otway inquired if certain Poles who had been sent to the Crimea were to be enlisted in the Foreign Legion , or to be enrolled under their national standard ? Lord Palmerston replied that they were to be enrolled in a special corps in the Turkish service . The adjourned debate on the Scottish Education Bill was then proceeded with .

      The position in which the bill stood was this . On the motion for going into committee , an amendment was made by Mr . C . Bruce on a former evening that the bill should be divided into two parts , so that the principle of throwing open the parochial schools , and taking them from under the immediate control of the Established Church , while it was applied to the towns should not be applicable to the rural districts . On this a long debate ensued , confined almost wholly tothe Scotch members . The House divided . For going into committee , 149 ; against it , 142 : majority , 7 . The other business was disposed of , and the House adjourned at one o ' clock .

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      A letter from St ' . Petersburg , dated the 10 th , from a high mercantile house , gives a deplorable account of the pressure on all classes in that capital . Business was comparatively at an end , and the continuance of the present state of things was regarded with tho greatest dread in all quarters .

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      A despatch from Lord linglan , dated tho 5 th , was published last night . Tho only news of importanco contained jn it is tho statement that " the enemy still appear to bo collecting troops upon the high ground on tho oppoaito- sido of tho Tchernaya , in tho neighbourhood of Sebastopol , and convoj's are constantly seen moving in that direction . " The ( loathe of Lieutenants Carter , Curtis , and White , arc mentioned ; and tho remainder of " tho do-Bpatch" refers to tho operations of tho French .

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      NEITHER PEACE NOE , WAR . The intrigues for peace which may be detected in the hesitations of the English Government may be explained by the fact that it has been disappointed or , more strictly , undeceived . Its alliances are still precarious ; its military operations not yet successfulr To desist from the war now would be to

      acknowledge its futility , and the improvidence of the nation which began it with defiance and exultation . Tranquillity would be restored , taxes mitigated , society cheered , and our legislators privileged to hilarity ; but the inevitable questions would be—Why did we commence the struggle ? Why have we lavished the lives of twenty thousand men ?

      Did we make war on a scale so vast simply to regain the peace we had abandoned ? If it be unnecessary to force terms upon Russia , if it be wiser to content ourselves with nominal guarantees , so framed as to consult her immeasurable pride , the only human regret must be that we did not know all this before losing an army , and exposiug our military weakness .

      Unless the objects of the war be so important that they must be pursued while we have strength to contend for them , the Eastern expedition was a vanity and a crime . Even now , before an irresistible current bears the nation with it , let us manfully ask ourselves . whether wo are disdaining an ignomiuious peace to pursue an aimless war . JLet us discover whether any of ourminiateus can categorically define the purpose of the conflict , that wo may understand how by beating the Russians in the field wo can accomplish appreciable and distinct x'esults . A statesman ' s treaty might bo a farce ; but a statesman ' s war , to tear out tho bowels of the nation for the sake

      of a diplomatic punctilio , more worthless than John Zisca ' s skin , would bo a deplorable extravagance , insulting to justice , aud hateful to history . If tho war , with its nameless miseries , is to bo prolonged , let us hoar of some better objocta than a rivalry with RuBwiau famo in Asia , a dubious preptigo among the mock courts of Germany , or a Hecurity fur Napolcouism in l < Yaiico . Wo may bo suro that , unless our purposes are fixed , ten yoai'a of conflict will not be more glorious than one . It ia time ,

      therefore , sin . ee we stand on . the ^ erge pf neutral ground between an ; iacalculable > extension of the war and an ephemeral ^ paxaficatiop , to know what palpable objects we nave in viejw and whether they are worth the blood of our armies . Sooner or later . a-nation pays for its follies as well as for its crimes . We do not hesitate to say that a war with Russia , on the plea of European dangers , was just and necessary ; but we wish to know the intentions of its swaggering supporters . Is the English Government fightthe

      ing only to win ? T ! s , press blustering because to bluster is popular ? Is the nation paying , bleeding , and bottle-holding in a generous , but vague and sentimental , frenzy r Turkey trembles under every stroke of the war . Austria is importuned to render political results in Europe impossible . Prance is encouraged to make efforts inT ) ehalf of its oppressor , and "England is warned that it may lose reputation in Tartar tents and Persian villages . We would gladly see these ideas released from their confusion , that some logical sequence might be established between the deadly sufferings of the Crimean entertnat antici

      prise , and the consequences are . - pated when Sebastopol is captured and Russia coerced . Plainly , the notion is abhorrent to reason and good feeling that this nation is to grapple in savage hatred with Russia and to be agonised by war during a succession of years , if at the close it is to accept terms not more important to itself or to Europe than those it is now rejecting and deriding . To families whose hopes and affections are broken for ever , nothing can be more loathsome than the pedantic refinements of that policy for which their fathers , sons , or friends have perished in the hospital or the field .

      To check the principle of conquest which is represented by Russia — to shatter the main bulwark of despotism in Europeto disgrace absolutism by defeating itto open paths for the advance of a purer civilisation and more rational principles of society , would indeed be a result worth many sacrifices . The exhaustion of Russia in a political Avar miffht strike away the

      central pillars of that fabric of misrule which overshadows tho Old World ; and , so far as the war transcends diplomacy , it is intelligible and justifiable . We doubt not this is the spirit in which the nation acts ; but it is to be feared that the nation and its government are not at one in principles of action . Is it unreasonable to desire some explanation before we are committed to calamities without compensations ?

      The debates next week on the peace motions in the Lords and Commons , ought to elicit this explanation . Lord Geet and the Manchester party have defined their notion of a settlement with Russia . X < ord Palmeeston will tell us what he does not consider acceptable terms . But will any one set forth , courageously , the proper objects of tho war ? How long shall Austria stop tho way ?

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      THE HOUSE OF PEERESSES . By what right do the Peers interfere in the legislation of this country ? They once constituted an " order" in tho State ; they had hold of the land in their iron grawp , deriving their possession from tho divine authority ot the Xing , who transmitted his right to them upon condition that they returned the value in his chief requirement—military service . retained

      " Loii" - after that time , thoy mo umu , and with that grip they possessed tho power of leHino- out tho uae of the soil , of returning momber " of Parliament through the influence which they had over tho Commons , besides hereditary right to office , aud much accumulated wealth . Tho Reform Bill broke upon

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      Mat 19 , 1855 . J TEE & E A 3 D ER . ** $ * ^

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      We find the following in a contemporary : — " Vienna , Thursday . " Austria has Agreed ¦ with the Western Powers on an utimutisshimm to be presented to Russia . If this decidedly final attempt for peace should fail , Austria promises that aho really will assume a decided attitude . " A fresh circular from Count Neaaelrode has arrived here . It merely consists of a full narrative of the late negotiations—of course drawn up in a Russian sense . "

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      There is nothing so revolutionary , because tttereis nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law oi its creation in eternal progress . —He . Abkow ?

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      " - — ' \ / — " + — SATURDAY , MAY 19 , 1855 .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 19, 1855, page 467, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2091/page/11/