THE HUDSON CORRESPONDENCE.
AN old editor once remarked in our hearing that journalists, as a class, wasted half their power because they could not comprehend the depth of the public ignorance. They always he said, gave their readers credit for knowing things they did not know, and wrote therefore much too allusively. "People can't ask a paper where Singapore is and till they know that, what use in saying that Singapore lies exposed to attack." The denverse of that blunder seems to be the especial temptation of very experienced politicians. They have detected the public ignorance so often that they fancy outsiders never can ascertain the truth. Very few things, indeed, occur in the English public world as to the truth of which the one or two thousand Peers, members, country gentlemen, barristers, club men, and publicists, who initiate English opinion, do not get some near approach to an inkling. Half of them don't know the details, and the other half get them wrong ; but the drift of the general knowledge is pretty sure to be right, and misrepresentation almost sure to be more or less clearly exposed. Nevertheless, official persons go on year after year putting out papers which they know, and hun- dreds know, and hundreds know that they know, to contain the most garbled accounts, yet which the officials conceive will set discussion at rest. " There are the papers," they say, whether the question be one of Afghan despatches, or French intrigues, or the building of " light-houses," with casemates in them, on an island like Perim. Here, this week, is Earl Russell putting out letters upon the dismissal of Sir James Hudson from the Ministry at Turin, which he knows do not tell the story one bit better than a man's wedding-cards tell the story of his engagement; yet which he still feels convinced will silence all public complaint. They contain a story, and they are official, and the confidence of practical politicians in public ignorance, when not enlight- ened by blue-books, is an immeasurable quantity. Let us examine the letters a little. On September the 10th, that is, about three weeks after the whole affair had been dis- cussed in the English papers—our own article, with the facts, appearing, for instance, on 15th August—Earl Russell ad- dressed Sir James Hudson, informing him, amidst many com- pliments, that he had, "at Sir James's own desire," sent him his letter of recall, Sir James's letter to that effect, it will be perceived, not being published at all. On October 4th the removed Minister informs the Foreign Secretary that he had taken leave of the King, that his Majesty had asked him why he was going, and that he had explained how "lie felt himself bound by an engagement with Earl Russell to do so." In other words, Sir James told his Lordship with diplomatic discretion but unmistakeable distinctness, that the story about the recall being " at his own desire " had only an apparent foundation. His correspondent did not like this, so six days after his Lordship writes to Mr. Elliot, ordering him to ex- plain to the King that there was no engagement. " I made no engagement with Sir James Hudson, and never expected that he would resign till it should suit his own convenience to do so. When, therefore, in the spring of this year lie intimated to me his intention to resign his post, I concluded that, after more than thirty years of public service, he wished to retire from an anxious and laborious post. I never supposed that Sir James Hudson was bound to me by any engagement, nor till very recently did I imagine that he conceived himself to be so bound." Upon the face of this paragraph, either Earl Russell or Sir James Hudson would seem either to have invented, or to have misunderstood the real reason for the resignation or recall, and the balance of evidence is, on the whole, with Sir James. For, if no engagement bound him to resign, why did he do it when he did not wish, and that he did not wish is now admitted by Earl Russell himself ? But by a little reading between the lines, it is possible to reconcile the official statements without examining who either blundered or fibbed. Au engagement pre-supposes two persons, and only one did anything in the matter. Earl Russell! allows that in March, 1862, he did try to kick Sir James up stairs, by offering an embassy to a man who he knew well enough would not take it. This offer was the last of more than one offer directly or indirectly conveyed, and Sir James in just annoyance wrote, as Lord Russell says, stating that he wished to remain in Turin until, at all events, his pension was due. This was not an "engagement," for the Foreign Office did not reply, and could not have held Sir James to it if he had chosen to hold on ; but it was a promise, only to be broken at the request of him to whom it was made, and as such we do not doubt it was regarded. Otherwise it is just a little odd that Mr. Elliot should have been so pleasantly ready to drop into the vacant post ; and that Lord Russell valuing Sir James so highly should have made him no request to stay ; and that Sir James, a clear-brained man of the world, should have such a bitter sense of the eagerness with which his honourable adherence to the tacit under- standing was at once seized upon for recall. Ministers every month ask men to reconsider their resignations, and as for the excuse of " long service" and " arduous toil," the Foreign Office knows quite well whether its men aro healthy or not. The "service" knows more about its own members than any caste in the kingdom, more even than the bar, and we will be bound that Earl Russell could have discovered among his own stuff men who knew the minutest tittle tattle about the diplomatic family at Turin. The truth is the post was wanted, and as the Foreign Office could not turn Sir James out, they made him put himself out, as Indian thieves do, by tickling him till he rolled out of bed. If the Foreign Secretary thinks the retirement was volun- tary his course is sufficiently clear. Let him offer the Minister his post, with the grade that the post deserves, that of full Ambassador. When that has been done, and the offer rejected, the public will believe that Earl Russell is in the right. Till then, it will, in spite of "all the papers," continue to think that had Turin been a deadly climate there would have been no vacancy.
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