The other subject is Sir John McNeill's report,[1] which has already elicited violent articles in the papers, and will occasion hot debates in the House of Commons, perhaps in both Houses. The report furnishes a strong _primâ facie_ case against Airey and Gordon, Q.M. and A.Q.M. Generals, and _par ricochet_ against Hardinge himself, also against Lucan and Cardigan. The accused parties vehemently complain, and insist upon being allowed to vindicate themselves. Probably in the course of the discussions a good deal of the truth, but not all, will come out. It may be doubted whether there is any part of our military administration, as well as of our military operations during this war, on which it is possible to reveal and explain everything without showing up the French, and this has been the reason why all investigations and explanations have had such imperfect and unsatisfactory results. If the charges of McNeill are true, it seems to me that the man most to blame was Raglan, who was supreme, omnipotent, and responsible, and who ought not to have allowed the evils, which were notorious, to go on accumulating, without applying those effectual remedies which, according to the report, were abundantly at his disposal; but of course everybody will shrink from casting the blame posthumously upon him. The 'Times' has now found that the losses and sufferings of the army were erroneously and wrongfully attributed to the Government at home. McNeill has brought back with him notes of conversations with Raglan, in which Raglan told him that most if not all of the things he had been so bitterly reproached for were all owing to the opposition and contradiction he met with from the French, Canrobert especially. Cowley, who called on me the day before yesterday, said he should be very glad to have peace concluded, in order that our intimate connexion and dependence on each other might be at an end, for the difficulties arising therefrom, and the impossibility of placing any reliance on the French Ministers, were a perpetual source of annoyance. He thinks the Emperor honest and true, but that he is surrounded by a parcel of men every one of whom is dishonest and false. The Emperor knows this, and knows what is thought of his ministers, but he says 'What am I to do? and where can I find better men who will enter my service?' [Sidenote: THE CONFERENCE IN PARIS.]