"COMING ROITND."
WE had fallen, it seems, under the displeasure of our great con- temporary the Leading Tonrnal; and we learn the fact under the most agreeable form—the first holding out of the hand of pardon. The Times of Monday quoted from the first page of Saturday's 4pectator, that portion of our political summary in which we en- deavoured to condense the full import of the intelligence from the Crimea to the latest date : not simply quoting, but paying us the higher compliment of prefacing the extract with the following re- marks.
" COMING Itourin.—The Spectator has hitherto, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, defended every, act of the Government and of the Generals in the Crimea, and denounced in no measured language those who presumed to read in the clear evidence of facts add figures proofs of the grossest negli- gence, shiftlessness, and incapacity. It is only in rare instances, however, that blindness in mature cases becomes so complete that the patient loses all perception of light, and we are glad to see by the following extract that the Spectator has still some glimmerings of vision."
Passing the persiflage, we at once meet the substance of the statement, that we had "hitherto defended every act of the Go- vernment and of the Generals in the Crimea." We meet it by direct denial. It is a fiction—an invention—we need not use a stronger word. Our readers are the proper judges. We have indeed refused to indorse the indiscriminate accusations which have been levelled at the Government in general, and at par- ticular officers, because though the language of the charge was vehement, the evidence was onesidecl, and the accused had not yet been heard. Meanwhile, it has been our part to keep an account of the events in the Crimea, and of our administration here, so far as we had materials for doing so. We have, as the evidence ac- crued, expressed our opinion, so far as we had materials for judg- ment ; and some of our own readers spontaneously remind us of the occasions which have from time to time called forth the ex- pression of our opinion. Six weeks before the strictures which are selected to prove that we have been "coming round," we found occasion to speak of the administration of the war in these terms- " It is possible that when the case is reduced to its most accurate and moderate amount by careful correction, there still may remain a just accu- sation against Ministers. Some of the broadest facts are against them. They have attempted the coercion of Russia, and have not yet succeeded. They have in act proclaimed their purpose of taking Sebastopol, and will probably spend the winter outside. In the first stages of the war producing so little fruit, they have expended perhaps fifty per cent of their army. The public has a right to know what they have to say on these great facts—what is their justification. Instead of thinking, with many, that Ministers have rashly and arbitrarily seized the exercise of power, we are inclined to doubt whether their chief failing does not originate in the fact that they are too responsive to what is called public opinion ' ; that, to use an expressive colloquialism, Mrs. Grundy' has, even at this day, too large a share in the administration of the country. Ilypothetically, it is possible that the Cabi- net, as a whole, may be hampered in its course of action by divisions of opinion amongst its own members,—that there may be men imitating the factions outside, and desiring rather than waiting a crisis ; men also who may consciously dislike the management of war, however necessary, and whose hands may be deprived of skill by the reluctance of dislike. The hypothesis can be entertained, because the secrecy that veils all transactions in the Cabinet, forbidding us to know, permits us to conjecture. Whatever the excuse, at the present day we want a Ministry capable of comprehending the war in its whole design, its necessities, its objects, and of conducting it with an energy equal to that scope of view. If, from whatsoever cause, the present Administration does not constitute that Ministry, to ascertain that fact is to decide the Ministerial question."* Since that date, we have had further evidence; we have had the judgment of more than one military authority on the known facts, and the materials for a more distinct opinion gradually increase. We know well the natural impatience to arrive at conclusions. We know how feeling can be aroused by any such aspect of affairs as that which involves our army in the Crimea ; how publicity per- forms real service in directing publie attention to abuses and en- forcing a correction. We have before taken a calm estimate of the benefit as compared with the mischief which publicity maY effect even in the peculiar business of war, and we concluded that the. balance undoubtedly lies on the side of advantage : but there is a dis- cretion in the use of publicity itself—a fitness in the kind of appeal to be made. The Reverend Sidney Godolphin Osborne, this week, exemplifies one kind of useful reperting,--namely, the undisguised representation of a specific abuse to those who have the power of correcting it. Should such representation fail, the appeal to a more public tribunal is only strengthened. Bat even then, in such- matters as war, much will depend upon the manner of making the appeal,—in the avoidance of exaggeration, in the severance of dis- tinct statement upon existing evils.from anything resembling a sympathy with disaffection or despondency. It is possible, and we are not prepared to deny it, that painful, alarming, and even exagge- rated statements, might be requisite to arouse a supine Govern- ment to its duties, a supine public to coercion, of that Government. But it is a hazardous process to attempt, and one that will not be hastily resorted to by those who have the welfare and honour of their country at heart. For such appeals tell two ways. The Emperor Nicholas is not obliged to wait for the arrival of the Times in St. Petersburg; since we are confirmed by the Duke of Newcastle in the belief that the Czar has agents in this country ever on the watch for intelligence, with the telegraph ready for their use in his service. We can scarcely imagine such pic- tures as those which have been drawn—of a reckless perhaps treacherous Government, of inefficient commanders, of a wrecked army—to be without a mischievous influence upon the enemy ; encouraging him not only to take the field with greater con- fidence, but to be more insolent in negotiation. With an army in the state described by the correspondents of some journals,. a public opinion autheritatively represented by such men as Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, it is natural that the Emperor of Russia should mistrust the statements of diplomatists, or the re- presentations of other journals which hesitate to use such graphic forms and high colours for their soberer pictures.
And it should be remembered that this kind of publicity would be altogether on our side. Russia publishes no " sun-pictures " of the state of her camp. Russia has succeeded in intrenching her- self behind an impenetrable pale of exclusion, concealment, and disguise. Half of the difficulty at Sebastopol was due to our ignor- ance coupled with our misinformation—the comparative failure of our parade in the Baltic to the same causes. While Russia feels that we do not know her, she is taught to think that we let her • know us and that simply to persevere will lead to the inevitable conclusion, our exhaustion and her victory.
We might almost return the welcome on "coming round "; for our great contemporary, after immolating individuals, now con- • centrates his powers against "that system" which we have for • years designated as the source of abuse, and under which our con-- temporary really believes," "the ablest Minister would be lately- to find himself crashed and disabled."
• Spectator, 2d December 1834.
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