Possibly, the burst of sunshine, by the force of variety,'
may begin to dispel the darkening clouds at home. There has been a great change since the -triumphant "taking of Sebaitopol change from brilliant confidence to gloomy dissatisfaction; as if we had sustained defeat and dishonour, although there has been no such thing. Whether, indeed, the countenance of the public is so gloomy as it appears in its mirror—the public journals—we are not quite so sure. It is a MS§Ri mirror, Which' has elands of its own, vitality of its own, purposes of its own. ' The public, as an organized body, can only act and express itself at • the time of a 'general election : the journals in the interval Speak for it--and they use their authority with no little licence. Something, however, has happened, not only to account for.the gloom upon the printed public, but also to 'account for the sys- tematic agitation which exists in print. Arraigned before that tribunal which we are assured is' the moat independent and the wisest, " the Coalition Government". has been tried, condemned, and sentenced to be broken up. The bill of indictment is heavy, and it is .established upon presumptive evidence. Sebastopol, which had "fallen" in September,' is not taken in December, but the besiegers are besieged! The army, which went to see and conquer, is entrapped in a slough of , despond ; its officers de- siring to come beak by hundreds.; its toil-worn soldiers, tattered, shoeless, sometimes foodless ; its sick hindered even on the road to the hospitals : and all this although we possess wealth, arts, undisputed command of the sea, and mechanical appliances able to convert the muddiest camp, within twen.ty-four hours, into a well-appointed factory. For even in the use of purely mechanical appliances we fail. We bragged of an immense superiority in mi- litary engines—of outnumbering the enemy in cannon of "long range": we knew, indeed, that the officer of artillery on the French throne—our ally—had been making vast exertions in that depart- ment : but we talked of confronting; Sveaborg, and we did confront Sebastopol—to find the Russians beat us in number and calibre ef guns! Our War Department, which was to have been con- solidated and rendered efficient through all its branches, still pleads weakness as the excuse for non-performance. Our trans- port service is indifferent; Our commissariat ' cannot always find food for the animals that are required ; our Quartermaster- 'General's department leaves the men . to the inclement sky, or the device of burro wing in the ground like rabbits ; in a Word; many of our secondary appointments stand condemned by the imper- fect execution of the work intrusted 'to them. This is a heavy bill against any Government, but levelled most especially at par- ticular members of the present Cabinet. For the Cabinet is not one and indivisible, but a federation of sections. Some of its members were hardly expected to join it. Lord. Pahnersten, for in- stance, surprised his friends by his good grace in resigning himself
to the. paramount duty of the day and joining the Coalition. But Palnie'raton • has been nincli gistinguis for " resignation." He resigned his post in a previous Ministry, out of a special affection for the Militia: Ile resigned his post in the present Ministry, not out of special affection for Reform. Thin we learn to parceiVe'eertain dii-
..tuictions. Other distinetions have been observed even in the late Short sitting of Parliament. While the aevernineht ai a whole,
in harmony with.tho Queen's Speech, was exulting in the COmple- tion Of the .A.usteien treaty, Lord John Russell spoke of that treaty with indifference if not with disrespect; and a more remarkable
leaning' towards easy terms with Russia seemed • to be shown in the Mild tones of the Duke of Argyll and of Ete Whig. Lord Carlisle- As there are differences within the Cabinet, se there aro differences of preference :outside; and the journals, which usurp the past of public just now, take up their favouritessonie coa- lescing in support of one particular favourite. As the smallest 'fissure between rocks, admitting. water, may become the means of dividing-mountains, So there is hope of dividing the Coalition Min- istry by pouring the tears of a prophetic patriotism into the in- terstices between' its parts. The hopes of :faction rise with the prospect of division. Peace Men emno forth once more,; Whigs resume theirVinik-capaCity ; and Russian: _possibilities reaRpear upon the face of journalism. . There is a " Ministerial crisis, not within the Ministry, but outside, amongst those who are specu- lating upon succession to the vacant posts if they can anis out those parts of the Government which are not their own; and the opportunity afforded by the tedium and reaction of tu protracted siege ha a been used. It happens to fit very well with the more .manifest objects of the outside- intriguers. When the War Secretaryship was divided from the Colonial, it was hoped that the Duke of N.eivenstie- Would. retein.. the latter, , as other .parties had destined the newly-erected office for another statesman. The present juncture is favourable to the mancenierers hostile to the Coalition. There has been a reaction on the boastful feeling about the war; the Duke is War Minister, and the defects of the system can be turned itgabist-lithr:' Ft lie can be ejected, the "Peelite " section is weakened ; Palmerston can be elevated; and, under 'cover of whatsoever out-door Coalition the 'Whig section might resume independence of its Peelite Is it, then, through intriguingspeculations On tho chances of a Ministerial break-up that the proceedings of the war are to be embarrassed, possibly arrested ? The necessary measures for its letter prosecution are, in their general nature, sufficiently obvious. Of course Ministers have a plan for the Purpose, and that plan they must carry forward without respect for obstructers or ob- structive, friends. A revision of appointments is absOlutely re-
quired, to render the service effici . ent , all its parts ; and no
unhappy mistakes in making past appointments, or the mauvaise hunts which mistakes engender, should cause (kilt/soy or timidity in the execution of this manifest duty.; As the .master-key to all the rest, the consolidation of the -War Department demands to . be expedited at the very earliest days of therregtilar Parlia- mentary session. It is indeed reported, upon probable authority, that the first and foremost-thing for Which the agitators clamoured, the consolidation reform,. is- hindered, by their own friends, under the influence of intrigue and rivalry. la it ? , . . . .
Previous page
