The Lyttelton Times. Saturday, June 9, 1855.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 272, 9 June 1855, Page 5

The Lyttelton Times.

Saturday, June 9, 1855.

In the present state of .Europe we pre- ! sume that our readers will "take a deeper interest than usual in all that concerns English politics. The almost unprecedented crisis in the-ad ministration of,Government brought on by the war, has been very ably | and boldly commented oa by^ the-, Times. ' That journal has done what it alone could venture to do, and has fearlessly attached imbecility in high places when the mouths of ' individuals were closed through fear of giving personal offence. TheJParis " Charivari" calls^ the Times the •' sixth great power'' and ** premier autocrate' de toute l'Europei" We propose to publish the strictures of the Times, upon several events connected with the war. The two following articles are likely to have produced a won- , derful effect upon the reading public through- , out the country: — February 3rd. Great is" the anxiety, great the sensation, great \_the curiosity' in this metropolis of ours. ' Rumours ilistuib us'at the clubs, aud arrest o;:r course from sireet to stieet. The Queen has sent for Lord This, and Lord This has had a conference with Mr.'That. One parly asks too much, another does not know bis own mind a third makes too small concessions, and a fourth will'make no concessions at all. Eierybodyis thinking too much of himself and too little of his country. Everybody is holding back and striving to outwit his neighbour. The age of coalition has been succeeded by that of mutual repulsioiv nobody seems inclined to combine with anybody, trust and confidence by public men in each other have fled the earth—the last of the celestials: and intrigue, and anarchy, and selfseeking rei»n triumphant in their stead. One Government combination cannot succeed because somebody whose abilities perhaps would scarcely qualify him for the successful conduct of a grocer's shop is not offered an opportunity of ruining our army, our navy, or our trade. It ' was on Monday ni«ht that the House of .Commons* declared its want of confidence in Lord Aberdeen's ministry. Every one was aware of tue inevitable consequences of the vote, and never was it more necessary that the Ministerial interregnum should be as brief as possible. We have an army peiibhing day by day in a hopeless and unequal struggle with the elements in the Crimea. The utmost efforts of the War Department are imperatively called for, and the most energetic action is absolutely necessary, if not to save what cannot be saved, at any rate to lay the foundation of a better system, by recalling generals whose incompetence has been proved; and by substituting youug, active, and effective

men for the inefficiency and senility-which preside over so many of our departments. - But at this very moment tbe War Department, is struck with a dead palsy, and can do nothing' except await in compulsory inaction, the ap-. pointment of its ne-w head.. The, jangled state of diplomacy which we have been so long seeking, to unravel is now uearly unwound^ but just as skill and patience are leasonably hoping to obtain their, reward, the • hand that holds the thread is arrested, -and the influence of England is withdrawn from the affairs of Europe till we can settle > upon a new ministry. At tbe'time when,,if ever, the voice of the House of > Commons should be heard to,check the ; tendency- to despair, and to bid the people of England remember that they'have a country to save and a glory to reconquer, 1 the voice of the 'House of Commons is hushed, and' it cannot recover it fill it has once moi'e found a master. On Tuesday Lord Aberdeen gives in his resignation; on Wednesday Lord Derby is summoned to the presence'of the Queen. Thursday , is spent in beating up for recruits. Friday is i spent by Lord Lansdowne in a succession of similar efforts, and Saturday finds him toiling in the same task. As in 'the Iliad, each chief has his days of exploits, and as in the'lliad, each retires to his tent at, the end of the day, wearied and disheartened. How long is this to last ? jEvery factious speech, every partisan taunt which has lately been heaid, has always 'concluded with an exhortation to unity, mutual forbearance, and .patriotic disiegard of everything except-the public interest. But day after ' day steals on,' and no Cnrtius can be found to leap into the gulf that widens and widens before our feet, and threatens to swallow up all for which it*is worth'our while to live, —all for which a braie and good man should be ready to offer up,—ease, pride, position, precedence, pai ty connexion, and life itself. t ' We see in these protracted and abortive ne- j gociations,—this unceasing conflict of petty sel- ] fisbness in the midst*of vast national calamities \ —onl' another instance ot the lamentable want of sympathy which; notwithstanding our reform Bills and other advances in t\\.e popular direction, still exists between governed and governing classes. In these days, just as in the days when General Conway told George 111. that he could do nothing without consulting the Cavendishes, the Government of this country is the affair of a few aristocratical families. Instead of assisting, their paucity, of numbers actually impedes the process of arriving at a conclusion by introducing into public affairs all the narrowness of petty intrigue, and giving free scope to sel fish v ess and personal * rivalry. While I viewing the greatest "public disasters with the J tremendous calmness of patrician apathy, our j noble and right honourable rulers feel with the utmost acuteness every revolution of the game of outs and ins, and squandertbeir talents, their energies, and their interests in small intrigues and miserable paity combinations. Tbe first glance at- our columns, on thousands of break-last-tables this morning, will not be at the portion which tells of the latest intelligence from the Crimea, hut of that which informs the town what noble lord was last honoured by an interview with her Majesty, and what right honorable gentleman was favoured with a visit from a nobleman bearing with him 'some -.rays of the splendour which emanates from the presence of Royalty. Yet there is that passing now in' the Crimea, which might fix the attention of the most volatile and frivolous, and command the exclusive sympathy of the vainest and most selfish of mankind.gDo these meteors ofthe political horizon who shoot iv their warm and easy carriages from the library of one political oracle to another, spare a thought for those for whom their utmost speed would come too slow, their promptest leliet too cold and too late ? Yes, they do think of them, but it is only so far as their miserable state may influence the possibility of enlisting the services of some Parliamentary nota-, bility in the formation of a Government. "If such an one had kept out of that Crimean, i scrape he would have done well for such an office; but, of course, it would not do now, you know." This is, no doubt, one view of the Crimean oampaign; but, alas! it is not the only one. L't those cold'and heaitless reasoners, those acute speculators on the exact degree in which our misery and our disgrace bave prejudiced the prospects of this party, or injured the hopes of that individual, abstract their minds from these considerations, and reflect on that misery and that disgrace itself. On*a range of bleak cliffs,

oveilooking tbe black cliffs of the Euxine, are encamped the last remains of what was once the noblest, and most gallant .army whose, deeds ever adorned the page of history. Sharp misery has,worn them to the bone. Tbey bave lost all the bravery, and flaunting outside of war; ,the,y r are ragged, shoeless, besmeared with mud,infested by .vermin, and tortured by scorbutic disease. ,From the 14th of September till now, their life has been one long, troubled, miserable dream. —battle andiamine, and rotting wet, and icy cold, increasing labour and diminishing strength, viewing day by day their comrades * falling beside them, .and awaiting the only too certainly approaching .period when they shall join their brave companions in thegrave,and escape bythat dajk portal through which all human misery must pass and end at last. Yet, among these men there is no shrinking, no holding back, no self-seeking, no desparing; they aie penetraited now, as ever, with an ineffaceable certainty of success, and tbe hope of treading on .the ashes ,of Sebastopol only parts from them with parting life. But their aristocratic general, and, his equally aristocratic staff,.view this scene of wreck and destruction with a , gentleman-Jike tranquillity. Indeed, until stung into something like activity by the .reflections of the press T the personage ,on whom.,the highest.responsibility for this situation devolves had hardly condescended to make himself even superficially acquainted with its horrors. The aristocracy are trifling with the safety of the army in the Crimea just as here tbey aTe dawdling over that periodical luxury, the formation of a Government. Hitherto" it has been their exclusive privilege to do these things. We are a nation of tuft-hunter-*, and are well used to see public trust and employment converted from a nation- , al concern into the appanage of a few great families. Let it by all means continue so • but in order that il may continue so, let those to whom birth and Tank have conceded the privilege of mismanaging human affairs on a larger scale and with, more fatal results than is granted to other men, at least spare us the indecent spectacle of a nation the .most powerful and most civilized in tbe, world waiting, in the very crisis of its fate, for a Government till it shall please a few gieat families in the fullness of time to bestow one upon it.— Times.

February 5. Although but forty-eight hours have elapsed since our last publication, that interval of time has seen two or three "ministerial combinations discussed, attempted, and abandoned; and'it was not till yesterday afternoon that'hbpes could be entertained of the definite solution of this crisis by placing the power "to form an administration in Lord Palmerston's hands. The'public learnt on Wednesday last that, upon'the resignation of the Aberdeen cabinet, her Majesty had immediately summoned Lord Derby to form the new Government. That scheme failed, as we had anticipated, within a few hours; and we may here remark, in passing, (that we have no reason to, credit the assertion of the Tory organs that Lord Palmerston ever gave a qualified or conditional assent to Lord Derby's propositions. _Lord Derby's negociation was chiefly important because it proved that there was no leluctance on his part to accept the co-operation, not only of Lord Palmerston, but of Mr. Gladstone and the other friends of Sir Robeit Peel, for he at once addressed himself to them, aud on their refusal he desisted altogether from the attempt. The negociations occupied the greater part of three days. On Thursday afternoon the Marquis of Lansdowne was summoned to Windsor, and on the following morning he had interviews with several members ofthe late administration, -for the purpose, as we are {told, of informing them of her Majesty's intentions. Later on Friday Lord Julin Russell had an audience of the Queen, and in the course of Saturday, it transpired that the late President of the^Couucil himself was engaged, by her Majesty s commands, in the attempt to reconstruct the Government. This intelligence was received with the -.utmost astonishment, and, we will add, dismay. No public event has occurred in our recollection by which the moral sense of the country has been more strongly excited and the indignation ofthe nation more justly aroused than it has been by Lord John Russell's deser-' tion of his colleagues in the hour of dai ger, and by his palpable intrigues to supplant ibe Government to which he himself belonged. To place Loid John Russell at the head of affairs at this moment, and to crown his manoeuvres

with success, would have been regarded throughout this country and all Europe as an outrage on political morality. Such a Government as he would form, moreover, could only consist ofthe very dregs ofthe old Whig party, and we have no reason to believe that its ability in tbe exercise of power would have exceeded its honesty in obtaining that position. Nor is this our own opinion only. Lord J. Russell boon found, on addressing himself to his former colleagues, and even,to his own personal friends that the most honourable and eminent among them were in no ways disposed to connect their names with so discreditable a transaction. It is ' almost superfluous to say that Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sydney Herbert absolutely refused to take part in the Government Lord John Russell proposed to form; and we are also informed, though we do not speak with an entire certainty of the fact, that Lord Clarendon, Lord Gran- . ville, 'Lord Cranworth, and Sir George Grey, four Whig members of the late administration, whose character is entitled to the utmost respect for their high sense of political duty and honor, declined with equal firmness to act with Lord John Russell after the circumstances which have lately taken place. It is well known that these ministers have not concealed their'unqualified disapproval of Lord John Russell's conduct, and they, would have lowered the dignity of public men in this country, and disgraced the traditions of constitutional government, if they had consented to serve under a Minister who had risen to power by such means. These' statesmen are the friends of Lord John Russell; they are all of them naturally disposed to palliate his errors rather than condemn them ; if they have formed, and on which they have acted as the severest censure it is possible" to pass on a man whom they have long regarded as their political chief; and the judgment ofthe nation will ratify that sentence. After these two abortive attempts to form an administration by Lord Derby or Lord John Russell, on a Tory or Whig basis, her Majesty confided the task to Lord Palmerston; and at the latest hour to which our intelligence extends, it was believed that he was successfully engaged in the prosecution of the task which "public, opinion had already assigned to him. The • Queen had thus exhausted the three combinations which obviously presented themselves in dealing with this arduous crisis, and tried the , two expedients which we had from the first de- I scribed as " useless and impossible," before she resorted to the final and successful measure. In taking this deliberate course, her Majesty is . understood to have followed the constitutional principles to which she has on all former occasions adhered. Lord Aberdeen's ministry "was overthrown by a large majority in the House of Commons, and the results of that division was the ostensible facts which regulate.the choice of the Crown. Taking the list of the majority, her Majesty observed, in the first place, that Lord Derby s supporters form at least two thirds ot the whole uumber. Lord Derby is therefore first summoned to the Royal closet. Upon his iailure, her Majesty, as the remainder of the adverse majority consist of some eighty-ei<riit followers, or supposed followers, of Lord John Kussell, addressed a summons to Lord John; and he too makes a vain attempt. But it is not until after both the sections composing the majority have been tried and failed, that her Majesty proceeds to call upon the leaders of the minority, who were the parties ostensibly beaten ou the division of the 22ud of January, to reconstruct the Government. The case is a curious, and perhaps a unique one, in our Parliamentary history: for, although the cabinet was beaten by a majority of twd to one on Mr. Boebucks motion, every one knows that in this minority of the sole power Government still resides. Lord Derby instantly had recourse to the principal members of it for assistance ; Lord John Russell was compelled to apply to the same persons; and the Queen has, at last pla.ced the Government in their bands. The truth is, that there is a far greater readiness in Parliament and the country to support Lord Pal.merston, who figured in that minority, than Lord John Russell, who withdrew frbm it only to receive a far heavier share of censure We trust the new Government will be strengthened by the exhaustion and acknowledged incapacity of us rivals, and that they will learn by their own failures to give a more honest support to , the administration which is to carry on tlie business of the country. Of the personal composition ot that administration, under Lord Pal-

merston, nothing is at present known to us, but we earnestly hope that it will introduce a younger and more efficient class of men to office! and break the spell which has been so fatal to the honor of our arms and the reputation of our Government.

The Mormon Settlement. —The following is an extract from a letter describing an overland journey from Illinois (U.S.) to the Oregon territory, made by Mr. John Beeson (brother of Mr. H. Beeson, town missionary, Leeds,) and his nephew, Mr. Wilborne Beeson. It strongly sets forth the abominations of the Mormon settlement: — "After crossing the Missouri we proceeded up the river Platte 500 miles, then through the northern portion of Mexico and the South American States. We took a new route leaving the City of the Saints 100 miles to our left. There we fell into Company with an intelligent Englishman and his wife, who had made their escape from the city, and fromjwhom, we ascertained the following particulars:—They had (been influenced 'by the preaching of the apostles and elders of the Mormon church hi their own land, had conformed to the doctrines and requirements of the church, and ultimately resolved upon emigrating to this part of the world. They carried their resolution into effect and proceeded to the City of Saints, which unhappily for them proved to be a second Sodom; President Young who is practically pvophet, priest, and king has seventy wives ; the bishops, elders, and indeed all others who choose, have as many as their means will enable them to support. Drunkenness is common, and encouragement given to theatrical performances, music, dancing, and whatever will please the senses. Much disquietude exists, particularly amongst females, many of whom are subjected to scanty means of subsistence, and at the same time have many additions to the common trials of domestic life, without its usual aids and sympathies. Some sincerely pious persons have become insane, others blasphemous, and many atheists ; this last was the case with my informant,'who was originally a member of the Baptist church. But there are multitudes to whom the .theory and practice of Mormonism is sufficiently attractive to secure their ready adherence, and these are, numerically considered, strong enough to overcome the insubordinate, and execute the will of the rulers. The officials have in their special employment an order of men called ' The tribes of Dan,' each of whom it is requisite should possess a certain temperament, have red hair aud whiskers, and swear to execute the secret councils* of the church.' These have in charge all who evince a spirit of opposition to the ruling "powers, and they are required to supervise all communications to and from abroad previously to their being handed over to their respective owners, if there be any manifestation on their part of the disposition alluded to. They are 800 miles from the nearest civilized settlements, surrounded by impassable mountains, trackless deserts, and hostile Indians ; escape is therefore impossible, except occasionally during the summer months, ' when perchance they may steal into an emigrant train to Oregon. The council, or churchrulers, require one-tenth of all the time and property that each possesses for Church purposes, and things are so managed that but few can long retain what they carry with them. Tbe city is situated on a vast plain, the soil of which is excellent for the growth of wheat and vege- | tables, although there is no timber for fuel except upon the mountains, ten miles distant; the climate is healthy, but exceedingly cold in winter.* The duties of Englishmen are excessively laborious; the trials of an emigrant are severe under the best of circumstances, but especially so to one journeying to, and sojourning at Deseret." Court-Martial in the Camp.—The outposts have sharp work every night. There is a court of inquiry now sitting on the conduct of the 50th Regiment, some of whom it appears were asleep when bayonetted on their posts of sentries at night in the batteries, and the rest of them ran away. The Rifles came up, however, killed 40 Russians, and wounded about as many more, so that the Russians did not take much-by the dashing move. The rifles are splendid fellows regular gluttons at fighting; if there is anything' to be done they are always in the thick of it.—Home News.