6 JANUARY 1855, Page 20

BENEFITS OF PUBLICITY.

2d January 1855. Sin—Upon reading your excellent article, in last Saturday's number, headed "Russian Allies in England," I was at first inclined to agree with every word of it ; but, on consideration, I was obliged to modify my opinion, and, after making all allowance for the possible evils of the publicity which might benefit an enemy, I could not avoid coming to the conclusion that, with our form of government, the greatest possible publicity is essential to our success. In war, there is no doubt that a despotic government, where all is kept secret, enjoys certain advantages over a free government, 'where all is made public; but these advantages are more than counterbalanced by the greater spirit which freedom infuses into her champions, and by the greater insight the latter acquire into their own affairs. In Russia all power is concentrated in the Emperor ; and his Ministers are responsible to him alone for their acts. In England, on the contrary, all power is supposed to be concentrated in the people ; and the Ministers are supposed to exist, as such, in consequence of being the representatives of the will of the people. If the Emperor were kept in complete ignorance of the state of affairs in Russia, all would go to ruin, because the only person with the power to apply a remedy to evils would be unaware of their existence ; and so it would be in England if the people were kept in ignorance of the state of affairs. In each case the Ministers would sacrifice the country to their own caprices and interests. Where the press is restricted in its freedom, even the govern- ments of such countries are to a great extent ignorant of what is done under their authority ; and this is the greatest weakness of all despotic govern- ments. I believe that even the Emperor of Russia would find the advantage greater than the injury to him if "our own correspondent" could tell him the actual state of affairs in the Russian camp at Sebastopol, even though his enemies might also thereby learn something. I have seen him making long journeys to learn what nobody would tell him; and, after such a waste of time and health, he never arrived at the truth he went to seek. Generals and Ministers will never announce their own misdeeds; and it is only through the press that they can become known and remedied. Every improvement that has been made in the British Army has been made, not in consequence of the representations of the military authorities, but in consequence of the pressure from without stimulated by the accounts of private correspondents in the newspapers. If the general is the brain of an army, the members of the staff are its nerves, through which all volition is communicated to the limbs ; if these are unfitted for their functions the whole body becomes paralyzed. Without saying anything to the disparagement of Lord Raglan, it must be ad- mitted that he followed the old routine of selecting his staff rather from consi- derations of favour than of competency, and hence all the confusion and suffering that have been described in the Crimea. This confusion and suffering would never have been known or believed in England were it not for the private correspondence published in the papers ; and if any remedy be applied to the defects pointed out, it wiU be entirely owing to the very correspondence which has been so very disgusting to the authorities, and so much abused by all red-tapists. Trusting, Sir, that you will give your powerful assistance to remedy the evils which render a bloody battle the least ruinous part of a British soldier's duties,