of promotion must be devised to give the places of high command to men not in second childhood, or on its verge, and we have a rough, but perhaps a suggestive, sketch of things to be done at once if we really desire to remedy the past. The history of the engineer to whose energy the obstinate defence of Sebastopol is due, may be taken as in point. At the commencement of the struggle he was a junior officer. When Menschikoff asked how long it would take to put the town and its protective batteries in a state of defence, the commandant named two months. "I will accomplish it in two weeks," said Todleben. He was at once entrusted with the task, and we need not say how he has verified his estimate of himself. He is comparatively young-he is bold, active, earnest, and fitted for his duty. At seventy, or sixty-five, the same man will, if he live, be as unsuited for such a labour as Lord Aberdeen, or any other venerable sexagenarian, whose love of war has mellowed in the progress of years to a "general love of all."

But our Civil Administration is also in need of revisal. To this all eyes are now turned. The meeting lately held in the London Tavern inaugurated a movement, we incline to think, of no small importance, which will not rise and perish, mushroom-like, in an hour. It will go forward-whether under the form it has now given to it, or not, matters little. It is founded in justice, in experience, in knowledge of results, and in the convictions of all classes and parties. Men the most opposite in political creed have joined hands under its banner, and vowed fealty to a common cause in which their diffe rences are not included. The voice of this agitation has reached the House of Peers and the Throne in an unprece dentedly short period. In the history of political agitations there is nothing like it. The Anti-Corn Law League offers no parallel. "Administrative Reform" is the watchword of no party, and yet it has a potency to which the haughtiest of our rulers must bow. At first, it was feared that the ultrademocratic section of its supporters might succeed in making it an antiaristocratic shibboleth; but that fear has been dispelled. The common sense of the country sees the importance of the place occupied by the highest class

in the State-the sacrifices it has made for the public weal the service its noblest sons have rendered the past and present generations,-the fruitlessness of any oligarchic effort to tread down liberty in these countries-and, knowing this, however it may censure particular statesmen and coteries for their Cabinets of consanguinity, has no desire to exclude the aristocracy from the general competition for honours in the senate, the council, and the field.

The demand for administrative reform, in its widest significancy, means that all offices, from the treasury-benches to the village post-office, should be determined by merit. Favour, and sometimes a worse principle, guides patronage now. Situations are given for political service rendered or expected, to satisfy friends, to gratify associates in party efforts, often to appease dunning creditors, to procure the loan of money, or for that singular quid pro quo modestly styled in advertisements a douceur. All this is evil; but how is it to be cured? There's the

rub. Competitive examinations have been suggested, and ought to be recognised as one means of determining between applicants; but only in a certain class of cases can they avail. As they form, in fact, the only test of merit within our reach, and can, after all, accomplish very little, it has been urged, that to fill vacancies with strict regard to fitness will never be attained. The hope is considered good enough, but utopian. Yet not so much as may seem at first. The mere ventilation the matter has now received will act well, by leavening the public mind, so that any grossly unsuitable or corrupt appointment made in future will bring tenfold disgrace on the guilty dispensers of patronage. this way, the more obvious cases of malappointment will be exposed and remedied. But a great deal has yet to be done so to educate the public mind, especially in Ireland, that we may be prepared to prefer a new and better plan to the old and worse

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We have been ourselves great sinners in this matter of patronage. We have required our unfortunate representatives to hold themselves and their votes in trust for our younger sons, nephews, cousins, and relations to the fifth degree. We lately had the case brought under public atten

tion, in which a keen-witted Whig, and quondam member of the "Irish Independent" party - by which egotistic distinction they style themselves-gave away, or procured for, his constituents, above one hundred situations in the customs, coasts - guard, constabulary, revenue police in every grade from the distinguished castle-clerk to the petty village post- wife. The same clever and successful aspirant to the ermine is, we happen to know, as busy in his promises and efforts now as then, the declamation of Mr. Morley and his confreres notwithstanding. Neither the sledge-hammer of Mr. Layard, nor the polished oratory of Lord Ellenborough, has inspired him and his genus with fear. To abolish this abuse of patronage two things must be effected: the people must be instructed to look less to "Government situations," which are too much regarded as the elysium of idleness and sure pay-and more to personal effort in trading enterprise and the exercise of unfettered intelligence. In England and Scotland there is not so great a desire for "appointments" as here, for a berth of £80 or £100 per annum, with the certainty (be it) of an increase in twenty years to £800 or £1,000, is not very tempting to the young man of energy, whose father, or brother, or uncle, or neighbour-as a herring-merchant, or manufacturer of spool-thread, or potato-dealer, or softgoods-man has amassed £20,000 or £30,000 in that time, and is about to retire a Cræsus. Less value will be set upon Government situations, even in Ireland, in a few years, as our trade improves, and the country finds itself side by side with its leviathan sister in the career of manufacturing and mercantile prosperity. To cure the present evil, also, the individual meniber of parliament or the Cabinet convicted of bartering posts in her Majesty's service for hard cash, or political purposes, or any unwarrantable end, must be visited with contempt, and, perhaps, penalty. These two things accomplished, we shall hear less of abuses in our civil administration, and shall find more "practical ability" in the management of our national affairs.

We may here, parenthetically, add, that the present agitation for reform, although it has been growing for above two years, was precipitated by the

scandalous manner in which Lord Palmerston formed his Government. The Whigs are proverbially a Family Party. They came into power in a batch, and at their every accession the names only were changed, as if they had been put into a bag and shaken out for their places. Yet, if any man was bound by the peculiar circumstances of the time to break through this often-complained-of abuse, it was Lord. Palmerston. He took office to reformand so he began; he took office to place "practical ability" in the room of ignorance and feebleness, and in face of a demand that new blood should be added to the cabinets which rule us, he named on his Ministry a more closely interconnected coterie, perhaps, than ever occupied the Treasurybenches. If, therefore, he has raised a nest of hornets about his ears, no one but himself is to blame. The country would have sustained him through good report and bad report in taking an opposite course; but he lacked the moral courage necessary to throw off his friends, or was so trammelled that he had lost freedom of action. We see the result.

We revert to the men. No "coming man" ever disappointed the public more than the noble viscount. His ready eloquence, his keensightedness, his vigour as foreign secretary for years, his reputation for thorough political honesty, and his boldness in following out his convictions, induced all to point him out as Premier some time ago. He accepted the post, fully informed of the great things expected of him. We are not unreasonable in aflirming, that he has done little more than nothing. So soon as his budget of reform was opened, in his first speech, it appeared that the mountain had produced a mouse. cure the evils existing in the Crimea, and to prosecute the war with vigour, more was wanting than sanitary commissioners, good though they be, and a new governor at Balaklava, in the room of the Admiral, who has been named, in memory of his late career, Old Chaos. Something more satisfactory was effected at a later period, in the raising of a Turkish contingent, officered by Indian leaders; but still Lord Palmerston has accomplished less -far less than he might. He is now without the means to go forward. Money enough he has nearly ninety

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millions have been furnished his Finance Minister, the product of an objectionable loan, still more objectionable duties on articles of consumption, and an increased income-tax. But in many other things he comes short. Delay has occurred in sending out troops; mismanagement has been apparent in preparing unarchitectural, and some even say useless, machines as gunboats for the Baltic; by a blunder, the Militia has been all but disbanded in many places: add to all this, the exceedingly flippant and unbecoming tone of banter indulged in by the Premier in answering questions respecting the war, and we find many of the causes of that general dissatisfaction and unpopularity the Government have recklessly brought upon themselves. But, more than their positive errors, in what they have done badly, are they to be blamed for not undertaking their proper task of remodelling the military departments, and putting the system of government on a better footing. They were demanded to advance, but retrograded. It is obvious neither Lord Palmerston nor his followers are the men for the time.

We want an honest and firm Government, ready to carry on the war with energy, avoiding the tricks of diplomacy, which have been all exposed, and preferring a peace earned by victory to tarrying at the door of Francis Joseph's palace, or elsewhere. We want a Ministry prepared to reform abuses, to raise the military character of the country, to recover the ground we have lost. We want in the premiership a leader having the nation at his back, and a compact party to sustain him; we want in the waroffice a man of experience in the conducting of war, of vigour of mind, of independent force of character, and comprehensive genius. Such a statesman has been pointed out in Lord Ellenborough. His late efforts towards the more active and efficient conduct of the war seem to mark him the successor of Lord Panmure. We have great trust in the high honour, the fine chivalric spirit, and thoroughly British feeling which animate him and his political chief.

If the views we have enunciated in the previous paragraph needed further proof from any late occurrence, we might refer to the debate some time since on Lord Ellenborough's resolu

tions. The discussion which took place on the motion of the noble earl was instructive in several points of view. His object was excellent. The public voice asserts that place under Government is secured by family interest and corrupt influences; that merit is wholly excluded, and that hence have arisen many of our recent disasters. "You cannot fairly charge us with the same sin in this respect as the present Cabinet," say the Conservative leaders. "We refer you to the programme of measures we brought forward shortly previous to the factious vote which dismissed us from office in 1852. Among them will be found, and in a prominent position, Administrative Reform.” On a retrospect of the parliamentary proceedings of that period, we find Mr. Disraeli announcing the intention of his government immediately to deal with that subject. Then it was scarcely before the country in such a manner as to necessitate that promptitude. The forwardness of Lord Derby and his followers to take up the matter is to be mentioned to their credit, and should not be forgotten at the present moment. The Conservative leader can further point to the principle on which his Cabinet was formed, as indicative of his honest desire to place 66 practical ability" before rank, before a name where there was nothing more. He introduced new men, and so broke the monopoly of office before enjoyed by the Whigs. When Lords Aberdeen and Palmerston came into power, however, that policy was reversed, and especially by the latter, who was the more strongly bound to carry it out. "I have given you proof,” said Lord Derby, in substance, while speaking in the Ellenborough debate, "that I am in favour of reform; and the step we now take in supporting the present motion, has mainly for its object to show the country that at least on one side of the house are statesmen to be found ready to accede to the justness of the popular wishes, and head the new movement in the legislature." In this aspect precisely was Lord Ellenborough's effort to to be regarded, and herein lay its importance. Though defeated on a division, it accomplished its greater purpose, in separating the party favourable to departmental reform from the coterie which would still retain everything within the narrow circle of a few families.

If we ask why Lord Ellenborough's motion failed to secure the approval of a majority among the peers, the answers must be various. Had the Conservative proxies been used, the ministerial majority would have been very considerably reduced; but still the mover would be far from the point of triumph. First of all, we find a reason of this in the hereditary apathy which surrounds the Whigs in the upper house. There is much more than wit in the Punch parodist's version of the Seven Ages, where he describes the last scene of their eventful history as a seat in that august assembly, when second childishness, produced more by depressing political associations than by age, has rendered noble lords slow to move with the necessities of the times.

A third reason for the defeat of the Ellenborough and other similar resolutions is the fear pervading many minds that the Conservatives could not form a ministry in the event of the resignation of Lord Palmerston. This we believe to be a delusion. Lord Derby did not fail on a late occasion. He found it then impracticable to unite the parties he considered necessary to a stable and efficient government, in the present condition of the House of Commons. He was opposed by the Peelites, between whom and a genuine Conservative there is, as it were, a gulf fixed; he was cheated by Lord Palmerston, who, to secure undisputed possession of the goal of his long ambition, rid himself of Lord Derby, and then of the dear trio, without whose aid he at first declared he could not accept office. But things are changed much, even within four months; and so disgusted are the people of every party with the "smallness" of the men now in power, that they are ready to force their representatives to give a fair trial to any cabinet which shall come forward with boldness and determination to apply strong remedies to our national diseases; and we firmly believe that, even without a dissolution, the Conservatives, by laying aside their peculiar party questions, and throwing their whole energy into the war, would command the suffrages of the country, which, in the existing position of affairs, would be to command the House.

But yet another cause of Lord Ellenborough's failure, we are ready to confess, is to be found in the manner of his advocacy of the motion he brought

before the Lords. What practical object could he have in treading over once more the beaten tracks of last year, and mapping out a new campaign? We can see none. Lord Ellenborough has been occupied with military affairs, and may be competent to conduct a great war. We have a large confidence in the man whose independent force of character was made the sub

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ject of eulogy by one so sparing of praise, and so severely critical in his judgments, as the late Duke of Wellington; and we are not about to argue that the plan of committing the war in the Principalities to British troops, and that of Asia to our allies the Crimea meanwhile being left in repose as sketched by Lord Ellenborough, would have been worse or better than the course adopted. We believe the fault of our failure was not that we struck at the wrong place. No. We held our weapon at the heart of the monster, and, defended though it was by a triple mail, we might have reached it, and freed Turkey from her "perpetual menace" -had we struck home in the proper way, with the proper vigour, at the proper time. But whether this be so or not - whether we ought rather have gone to the Pruth, or advanced with Schamyl, in Georgia-had no practical connexion with the present question of administrative reform, which Lord Ellenborough pledged himself to bring before the House. No doubt his oration concluded with an important and vigorous reference to that subject, but its weight was lost by the opportunity his speculations on the campaign of last year gave the Ministry for turning him into quiet ridicule. He ought rather have assailed the Palmerston Government, sifting their doings, exposing their misdoings, making the country fully aware of their mistakes in diplomacy and in war, bringing home to them, so that the charges could neither be denied nor repelled, their hesitations, and vacillations, and general incapacity. Had he taken this course, his address would not have been liable to the reproach of being pointless. must be here remembered, however, that in alluding to the reforms necessary in almost every department, the speaker could not refer to particular men, saying this individual is incompetent, or that received his post by a corrupt intrigue. It is difficult to

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get at the bottom of these matters-it is all but impossible to ferret out the whole of the facts of such cases. But because no personal accusations were made, is the general statement the less true? Nay, verily. We had an example of the difliculty of finding reliable evidence in these matters in the unfortunate blunderings of Mr. Layard lately; but thinks any man that Layard is on the wrong tack? It is notorious that the Whigs have dispensed their patronage unscrupulously. They have done so in Ireland - they have done so in England they have done so invariably. They rule by patronage as well as, or more than, by measures. And, independently of their sins, is it not a fact undeniable, that the public offices are in disorder? If not, why the present agitation for reform ?

One thing, however, is to be observed, before leaving Lord Ellenborough's motion-to which we mainly allude as the first of a series of efforts identical in character and object. The defence of the Government did not contribute to its defeat. Not in the least. What was the worth of Lord Panmure's assurances, or of Lord Granville's? Nothing. Did they point to anything their Cabinet had accomplished, or did they even make a definite promise for the future? We give them all the credit justly accruing to them for the improved state of the army in the Crimea ; but that success is only a poor compensation for all they have neglected. They have attempted but one of the required reforms in the military departments. They have not encou raged the efforts of independent members to introduce further ameliorations. On the contrary, during the Ellenborough debate, Lords Panmure and Granville cast ridicule on the demand for change of systems and men as a popular delusion. The latter peer was witty in showing the greatness of his claims to hereditary statesmanship; and both contemned plainly and positively contemned, and set at nought

the declared necessity for placing the "right men in the right places.' What will the country say to the declaration of Lord Palmerston, in his defence made previous to the Ellen. borough discussion, that he could not procure practical talent for the admi. nistrative departments of his Government that, in fact, there was a la

mentable scarcity of it at present! In what aspect, then, did the Ministry place themselves before the country during the discussion to which we allude? Simply as anti-reformers, content with things as they are! If this give satisfaction, then is public courage

and determination at a sad discount.

One more example of the imbecility of the Ministry, to which Lord Ellenborough and others have recently directed attention, is their conduct with regard to Russian trade. We blockaded the Baltic last year at vast expense; and although Sir Charles Napier accomplished nothing against the enemy, save the comparatively trifling capture of Bomarsund, we would not grumble had that blockade been effectual in shutting in the trade of the foe. But, what is the fact?

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the present moment the overland carrying-trade is organised with the utmost care, under the especial supervision of the Muscovite Government; and ammunition and supplies pass along Prussian tracks to the head-quarters of the enemy's army, from which roads radiate to the southern peninsula, constantly crowded with vehicles. Repeatedly have the late and the present Governments been urged to remonstrate against this breach of neutrality on the part of Prussia, which almost amounts to hostility; but, only the other day a motion having such an object, and ably advocated, was rejected. It would seem that our purpose is to make war so as to injure the enemy as little as may be, at the greatest possible expense to ourselves. This leniency in reference to Prussian double-dealing has been one of the chief errors of our whole warpolicy.

What Lord Ellenborough attempted in the Lords Mr. Disraeli has repeated in the Commons, with the same result. The observations we have applied to the first debate on administrative reform fit the others. The Derby Chancellor of the Exchequer by his defeated motion secured the important triumph for his party of placing them before the country as not only the favourers, but the originators, of a comprehen