were suspended, Count Buol expressly stated that he
considered that the means for obtaining a peace were
not wholly exhausted, and that it would be the special
duty of Austria to endeavour to discover some mode of
attaining that end consistently with the engagements
into which she had entered with the other powers."—
Lord DERBY said, I hear almost with regret that fresh
negotiations and discussions are still in progress;
because I feel they can have no other object than that of
wasting time, and idly amusing the plenipotentiaries.
I think the proposals made by the plenipotentiaries of
the allied powers have gone beyond those which ought
to have been made under the circumstances. I am
afraid that concessions have been made to Russia which,
even if they had been accepted, would have rendered
useless, and worse than useless, the great expenditure
of blood and treasure which has been involved in the
last year's warfare.

On Friday, May 4, the motion for the third reading
of the Loan Bill gave rise to some prolonged comments,
to which Lord MONTEAGLE, Earl GREY, and other
peers contributed, respecting the principles on which
money could most economically be borrowed by the
state.—The bill was ultimately read a third time and
passed.

On Monday, May 7, the Earl of ELLENBOROUGH
gave notice that he would, on Monday following, move
the following resolution on the Conduct of the War:
"That a humble address be presented to her Majesty, to
assure her Majesty of our continued support in the
prosecution of the just and necessary war in which her
Majesty is engaged: to declare the sincere gratification
with which we have regarded the perfect community of
counsels between her Majesty and the Emperor of the
French, and have seen friendliness established and
increasing between the French people and our own,—
events full of hope for the future to other nations as well
as to ourselves: to express our admiration of the many
deeds of valour by which the allied forces in the East
have illustrated their brotherhood in arms, and our
satisfaction that the brave army of Piedmont is now
called to participate in their actions and in their fame:
to declare our persuasion that, amid all their disappointments,
the people of this country still retain the generous
feelings which led them at the commencement of the
war willingly to place all the means required from them
at her Majesty's disposal; that they will still protect the
weak against the aggression of the strong, and that they
are not prepared to consent that Russia shall, by her
increasing preponderance, so control the Turkish
government as practically to hold Constantinople within
her grasp: to acquaint her Majesty that, while we
admit and lament the privations to which war necessarily
subjects all classes of the people, we yet venture to
assure her Majesty that they would in so just a cause
hear those privations without complaint, if they could
feel that the war had been well–conducted, that the
troops had not been exposed to any hardships which
could have been avoided by forethought, and that everything
had been done to enable them to achieve decisive
success: humbly to represent to her Majesty, that her
people, suffering privations on account of this war, have
as yet had no such consolation; that on the contrary,
we cannot withhold from her Majesty the avowal of our
conviction that the conduct of the war has occasioned
general dissatisfaction, and given rise to just complaints,
and that we must humbly lay before her Majesty our
deliberate opinion that it is only through the selection of
men for public employment without regard to anything
but the public service, that the country can hope to
prosecute the war successfully, and to attain its only
legitimate object—a secure and honourable peace."

Lord PANMURE then gave notice that he would, on
Friday week, bring forward a plan for the Consolidation
of the Civil Departments of the Army.

On Tuesday, May 8, the Earl of CLARENDON laid
upon the table the Papers Relating to the Vienna
Conferences.

On Thursday, May 10, Earl GREY gave notice of
his intention, on Monday week, to move that an humble
address be presented to her Majesty, to thank her
Majesty for having ordered the protocols and other
papers connected with the recent Conferences at Vienna
to be laid before their lordships, and to inform her
Majesty that they deeply deplore the failure of the
attempt by these negotiations to bring the war to a
happy conclusion; and to express their lordships'
opinion that the proposals made on the part of Russia
were of such a nature as might have been acceeded to by
the other powers concerned, as tending to lead to the
attainment of the object for which arms were originally
taken up.

On Monday, May 14, the Earl of ELLENBOROUGH
brought forward his resolutions respecting the State of
the Country and the Conduct of the War. He said the
war had lasted a year, which was longer, he believed,
than it was expected to last by the ministry who made
it. The whole military and naval strength of the
country had been arrayed for its prosecution, and we
had no reason to complain either of our soldiers or our
seamen. There had been the most cordial union
between those nations allied against Russia; yet our
military operations had been atttended with unparalleled
sufferings, had been surrounded by many disasters, and
crowned with no substantial success. But very recently
another event had happened which gave even a graver
character to the war. The negotiations at Vienna had
failed, and in such a manner, through the production of
propositions on the part of Russia which were perfectly
inadmissible, as to afford us the apprehension of a
protracted war. Since Lord Palmerston had taken the
lead of the government, a singular torpor had seemed to
pervade both branches of the legislature, a torpor which,
if that noble lord could have realised his wish to stifle
the Sebastopol Committee of Inquiry, would have
extended itself from parliament to the nation at large.
While parliament had been in a state of torpor the
public had been thinking, and they had arrived at this
conclusion, that it was necessary, in the selection of
individuals for public employment, to regard their
fitness for office and not to act by favour. He was no
new convert to this principle, but had always acted on
it when in power, and could speak both as to its advantages
and its dangers. Confessing his apprehensions at
the swell of popular impulses without the walls of
parliament, he invited their lordships to neutralise, by
leading and guiding, the general movement of the
public, and to give a constitutional expression to the
general opinion that the public servants should be
selected with a single eye to their capacity for
performing public services. Descending to particulars, as
exemplifying the negligences and ignorances of the
ministry, the noble earl remarked that the enlistment of
16,000 militia had been lost by a parsimonious attempt
save £50,000 or £60,000; that no means of moving the
troops were provided until a few weeks ago; that the
new war ministry was organised upon a most insufficient
scale; that the active strength of the allied armies was
paralysed by the division of command; and the services
of the Baltic fleet rendered nugatory by the non–supply
of soldiers and gun–boats; that the Asiatic field for
operations against Russia had been neglected; and that
an ill–judged and ill–timed expedition was undertaken
in the Crimea, which he characterised as a blunder
alike in diplomacy and in war. The present position of
the besieging army placed it in itself in beleaguerment
between the Russian entrenchments and the sea, unable
to move in the field, hopeless of success against
Sebastopol. For the continual disasters and eventual failure
he considered the home government primarily accountable,
and described the various particulars in which
they had proved remiss and incapable. The fault, he
argued, did not lie so much with the system of
government as with the men; and he observed that the
entanglement of a bad system formed the recognised
excuse of convicted mediocrity. For his own part, he
supported administrative reform for the same reason
that he had opposed the old Reform Bill, because he
wished to see the ablest men brought into public positions.
Their lordships themselves, he remarked, enjoyed
the hereditary rank which their ancestors had won not
by favour but by fitness, and he called upon them, at a
great crisis, to acknowledge and advocate the great
principle to which they owed their own existence, and
to place themselves in the vanguard of public opinion.
The noble earl concluded by moving his resolutions.