LORD CARDIGAN.
TUB Times yesterday published an "authorized statement of facts" counected with Lord CARDIGAN'S discharge of his military functions. It does not appear from the Times whether the statement is "authorized" by Lord CARDIGAN or the Horse Guards. The purport of this " authorized statement" is to show, that in the cases of Captain J. W. REYNosns and Lieutenant FORREST, " the decision of the Commander-in-Chief has been explicitly and for- mally signified in Lord CARDIGAN'S favour ; " and that in the case of Captain R. A. REYNOLDS, "after the recent sentence of the Court- martial, any notice would be superfluous and ill-judged." This is not all : the " authorized statement" proceeds- 4, Unless we are much misinformed, there is at present in existence at the Horse Guards an official document, drawn up for the inffirmation of the Prime Blinister, which entirely acquits Lord. Cardigan of any impropriety of conduct
the difference which had arisen between him and some of those under his command, and which distinctly attributes these differences not to him, but to a cabal of four or five officers in the regiment, who were resolved. to contest, and if possible to control the authority of their Commanding-officer."
Who are "WE" ? Not Lord CARDIGAN, fbr he is singular : not the Horse Guards, for they could not be "much misinformed" regarding a document in their own possession. " WE," however, may rest assured, that in common justice the " official document drawn up for the information of the Prime Alinister" must be pub- lished along with its paw justificatires. If Lord CARDIGAN have been ill-used by a "cabal of four or five officers," it is necessary to his vindication that the diet be proved; and the Subordinate officers are entitled to an opportunity of freeing themselves from such an aspersion.
The " authorized statement" concludes thus-
" Discerning and impartial men will judge for themselves, how far they [the facts connected with the differences in the Eleventh Hussars] warrant the cen- SUMS which have been so unsparingly directed against Lord Cardigan ; still more, how improbable it is, under such circumstances, that those military authorities who had throughout approved every portion of Lord Cardigan's conduct in detail, could have intended to convey even the most distant insinu- ation of blame against that same conduct in the aggregate, by those passages of the memorandum lately read to the officers of the regiment, to which such an interpretation has been confidently though erroneously attached."
No doubt, " discerning and impartial men " will do all this, when they are furnished with such evidence regarding these "facts" as will enable them to "judge for themselves." But here again the question recurs—who are Cl WE'? or what weight attaches to oust assertion ? The question, however, between Lord CARDIGAN and Captain REYNOLDS has ceased to interest the public. It is now pretty generally admitted that Captain REYNOLDS'S independ- ence may pair off with Lord CARDIGAN'S amenity. But the ques- tions still remain to be answered—What has brought the Eleventh
Hussars into such a condition in regard to discipline as to deserve the rebuke lately administered to it by the Horse Guards ? Is the administration of justice in the British Army such as to insure fair play alike to subaltern and superior ? Are show regiments, like the Eleventh and Fifteenth Hussars, either usefhl or ornamental in an army ? These are questions which it is necessary to have solved, and which can only be solved through the instrumentality of a Parliamentary inquiry.
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