The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(Prom the Times of this day.)

A few years ago it would have been thought an
incredible thing that some hundred gentlemen and
ladies travelling over a beautiful country in the
full light of day should dash at the rate of a mile
a minute into the very bowels of the earth, and
remain for some minutes in total. darkness, with-
out the least qualm of doubt as to their speedy re-
appearance in this upper world. We are now fa-
miliar enough with the transition, and regard it as
little more than an agreeable novelty. That, how-
ever, is the change which the public will have to
undergo this day in regard to the political prospect ;
and we are not quite sure that they are prepared
for the total darkness which for the present they
will have to endure. With no news from the Black
Sea and none from the Baltic, with the negotiations
closed, there will then be no Parliament to ask
questions, and no Government in a position to an-
swer them. At every such pause of the intelli-
gence as that which has now for a week baffled
curiosity and excited the misgivings of the fearful
there will be no one to turn to, no one to favour
with suggestions, no one to ask why nothing is
heard or nothing done, excepting only that Press
which has no recess, and sits every night of the
year. Such is the tunnel we shall all be driving
through, utterly ignorant whether a bombardment,
an assault, a land or sea fight i 3 raging overhead ;
whether a negotiation is in progress, or new points
actually agreed on. There will be only the papers,
and, as everybody knows, the papers may ask
many questions without a Minister caring to
answer, or even having an opportunity to an-
swer. Should the least rumour of reverses come
from the north or the east, should there be any
suspicion of slackness, or complaining private
letters, then the annual abeyance of the Legis-
lature will be felt as a sort of night, in which
the action of the war goes on, though the powers
of control, of encouragement, and of inquiry through
the Legislature, will be wholly suspended. It will
not be thought, therefore, a very unreasonable re-
quest if we suggest that the session might be grace-
fully closed with some Ministerial declaration to
throw a gleam of light across the gloom of the ap-
proaching recess. , In the • ebbs and flows of na-
tional confidence that are sure to be felt between
this and Christmas, a simple, intelligible, and
stout-hearted speech from the Minister will be
something to look back upon, and to guide us to
our whereabouts. It is a well-known receipt for
travellers by night, or in a fog, through a moor
country, to stop before they strike into a heath,
and, while they still know their bearings, ascertain
exactly which way the wind blows. The wind
itself in that case will tell them the points of the
compass, and enable them to avoid any consider-
able wandering. So, while we are all in the beaten
track, with ruts and milestones to help us—that
is, while the House of Commons is sitting and
Ministers are face to face with the Opposition, let
us know which way the wind lies, and then we shall
feel the easier as to our emerging in due time, and
without damage, from the darksome "recess."
The Premier should be the last to complain of a
little impatience on this point, when it is con-
sidered that a vigorous prosecution of the war,
with a view to a safe and honourable peace, is now
the one article of a standing or falling Administra-
tion. The Cabinet has been gradually casting its
slough, and shedding its decayed branches, in the
shape of members who, in one way or another,
were not up to the mark—that is, to the war. A
suspicious, impatient, sensitive, and even irritable
public, has been ever waiting to denounce this
man, or that man, as unfit for the crisis ; and
some half-dozen Ministers, one after another,
have retired, as if conscious that they could not
stand the scrutiny that awaited them. It is always
so when the feelings of a free people are excited by
a great crisis of the national fortunes. At the
breaking out of the French Revolution every man
who did his work ill, every man in whose hands
the causeiont
prosper, was straightway charged
with
quickly deposed from his office, and
iuei
seemvis of h, toe people or the arms of the republic
d
sometimes came to an evil end. We are not afraid
of the comparison, for it is simply a matter of fact.
We have gone on, and we shall certainly still go
on, deposing and laying aside every public servant
who betrays
a want of zeal in the work, and who
does not respond to the hopes of the public. It is
only just to the men who left the Ministry that
they who remain should do so on intelligible
grounds. In Lord Palmerston we have the sur-
vivor of Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of Newcastle,
Sir James Graham, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr.
-Gladstone, Mr. Cardwell, and Lord John Russell,
. all of them left behind by the quiokenixig peso() of a