The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-31 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 31, 185 5.

SPORTING NOTES.

THE CHESTER CUP.

The forfeits for the Chester Cup were declared yester-
day. The acceptances, however, have not yet been pub-
lished, and although it was announeed that they would
be issued in the Calendar to-day, yet it is probable they
will not be laid before the public until to-morrow at the
earliest. This Calendar is among the turfites waited for
with as much eagerness and anxiety as if it were a
Gazette Extraordinary. Speculation is now of course at
a stand still. The declarations, which were made in
London, have not yet been allowed to transpire ; but, in
addition to those forfeits received at Chester up to Fri-
day last, my letter of advice received this morning con-
tains the following "scratchings " :
Master Tom I Lerrywbeut

Amalgamation
Lough sawn

Julia
Noddy

St. Andrew

When a complete list of the acceptances reaches me
I will lose no time in placing it before my readers.

THE LIVERPOOL STEEPLECHASE.
Up to twelve o'clock last night only the following
horses bad been struck out :

Warwick I
Oscar I The ilero
British Yeoman Sir Peter Laurie I Morning Star

A FRESH MAN.

Wednesday Morning.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.-(THIS DAY).

QUEEN'S 13ENCEE.
(Sittings in Banco.)
RE CHRISTIE.

Sergeant Thomas applied to the Court for the dis-
charge of the above-named person from the Whitecross-
street prison, in which he was incarcerated by order of
the Judge of the Whitechapel County Conyt for an un-
satisfied judgment debt, on the ground that; his previous
discharge by the Insolvent Debtors' Court was a bar to
any future proceedings against hini in respect of any
matters contained in his schedule.

After hearing the arguments of the leuned sergeant
at some length on this point,

The Court were of opinion that, the case of Abney
and Payne, decided in the Courts of Common Pleas,
which bore directly on this question, was. an authority
which obliged them, under the circumstances, to refuse
the application.

TIIE MINISTERIAL CRISIS.

(From the Times of this day.)

As the House of Lords stands adjourned from Mon-
day till Thursday, in consequence of the anniversary of
the " martyrdom" of King Charles 1., and the Houses
of Commons only met last evening to adjourn for 48
hours, on the motion of Lord Palmerston, no informa-
tion whatever could be communicated to Parliament
yesterday respecting the Ministerial crisis which has
overthrown the Government of Lord Aberdeen. A
Cabinet Council was held at an earlier hour than usual
yesterday morning, at which, of course, all the Mini-
sters agreed to resign ; but it was not till two o'clock
that Lord Aberdeen started for Windsor, and no parti-
culars have yet reached us as to the results of his audience
with her Majesty. We are therefore without any au-
thentic intelligence on the formation of the new Admi-
nistration ; and, although the whole field of political
speculation is open to conjecture, we believe that no-
thing is at present known with certainty even by those
who are personally interested in the negotiations which
years whichin thebas dailybe
are about to open. It has been our fate to watch and
to survive the decline and fall of many Ministries, and
a journal
e nd
i engaged
as
ofofrpuubplilaratfflsairosf
seventy
may be permitted to regard these incidents with
something of the feeling which a pathologist bestows
upon his patients. Governments, like men, begin to
die when they begin to live, and every breath they
draw shortens the duration of their being. But we
cannot recall any case of dissolution so rapid and de-
cisive as that we have just witnessed. Three months
ago the Government was in full possession of all its in-
fluence, and, had the campaign been crowned by the
speedy capture of Sebastopol without the loss of an
army, the Ministers ;night have been carried to West-
minster-hall in triumph. They have now paid the penalty
of failure, and they fall under the indignant censure of
the House of Commons. As the responsible cause of
the miscarriage of the army in the Crimea the Govern-
ment could not but fall ; but the importance of this
event is greatly increased by the perplexed condition of
parties, by the personal differences which are known to
exist in many quarters, and by the absence of a really
commanding mind, ready and able to assume the Go-
vernment of the empire.
The combinations to which the Queen may have re-
course in this emergency seem limited to three in num-
ber. Her Majesty may send for Lord Derby, with a view
to the formation of a Tory Government, which has the ad-
vantage of a numerous and well-disciplined party in the
House of Commons, orLord Lansdowne and Lord J. Rus-
sell may be authorised to attempt the reconstruction of
the Whig Cabinet ; or, lastly, Lord Palmerston may
endeavour to retain in the service of the country
the ablest members of the late Administration, with the
addition of some fresh adherents in the place of those
who must obviously retire. To these three combinations
we shall briefly direct our attention, for beyond them
we know of none which could sufficiently command the
confidence of the nation. The chances of a Derby Ad-
ministration may at present be summarily dismissed.
The Tory party in the House of Commons is powerful,
but it has not the majority ; a dissolution of Parliament
is not likely to improve its prospects ; and the ability
of its leaders is not such as to compensate for their want
of numerical strength and popularity. Mr. Disraeli's
last appearances in the House of Commons have indi-
cated no progress in his character as a statesman or his
skill as an orator ; and Sir J. Pakington andpir Bulwer
Lytton are net the knights to hang up their shields to
be challenged a l'outrance by all comers. Lord Derby
might perhaps obtain the valuable assistance of Lord
Ellenborough in the War Department, and Lord Col-
chester has been spoken of for the Admiralty ; but we
suspect this expedient will net be tried until every other
has failed, and we can place no confidence on its dura-
tion or success.

No great penetration is needed to perceive that
Lord John Russell's abrupt separation from the
Government in which he occupied a conspicuous
place was dictated by other motives than those
which he assigned for that desertion. Indeed, it now
distinctly appears that, in addition to the correspon-
dence quoted by Lord John on the subject of the
Ministry of War, which ended on the 3d of December,
that question was further discussed on the 16th of De-
cember, when Lord John distinctly informed Lord
Aberdeen that he had changed his mind, and desisted
from his proposal. Upon this statement being made by
Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons, with the au-
thority of Lord Aberdeen, Lord John Russell did not
deny its accuracy. We are therefore bound to say that
the suppression of this fact in a speech which was in-
tended to connect his resignation with the former dis-
cussion on the subject of the War Minister was an
equivocation to' which we might apply a still harsher
name. Nevertheless That portion of the Whigs who are
content to sacrifice to this spoilt child of party even
their consistency, their patriotism, and their honour,
exult in the division of the Liberal phalanx, and boast
that 70 of the supporters of the late Government followed
Lord John into the enemy's camp. Hence they argue
that the Government of 1846 can be reconstructed, that
the Whig houses are once more in the ascendant, and
that a Cabinet composed of Russells, Greys, and Rew-
ards is all that the country can desire. They see
Lord John Russell once more at the head of that ,
pitiable Administration under which we had the misfor-
tune to live for five long years, with what was well
termed on Monday night " a fictitious monopoly of Li-
beral policy, a genuine monopoly of lethargic Govern-
ment, in the hands of those great men who are Demo-
crats in opposition and oligarchs in office." Even the
venerable name of the Marquis of Lansdowne has been
put forward to conceal the barefaced impudence of such
pretensions, as if the present minis wcro ono to place the
affairs of the realm in the bands of a Minister of 75, who
has twice before refused the Premiership ' • and as if the
people of England could now submit to the rule of a
party which eollapsed from sheer inanition three years
ago, and has since undergone a progressive decline. Of
all the Ministerial projects
.now afloat, that of a pure
Whig Cabinet is by far the weakest and the worst ; and,
after the circumstances which have marked the resigna-
tion of Lord John Russell, we question if there are many
of his late colleagues who would consent to place their
political capital in his hands.
We revert, therefore, with increased confidence to
Lord Palmerston, as the only man who is able to give an
energetic direction to the war as head of the Government,
and at the same time to retain the services of the ablest
members of the Liberal party. Lord Aberdeen and the
Duke of Newcastle are, of course, removed by the
fall of the late Cabinet, and we fear that Sir James
G-raham'z illness is such as to give uneasiness to his
friends and to exclude him from a new ministry. Sir
George Grey and Sir Charles Wood are doubtful, for
they are said to be divided between the claims of their
country and the exigencies of the party leader who just
one week ago forsook them without notice. But the
place of the former could with advantage be filled by
Sir W. Molesworth, and there is no reason that the
country should lose Mr. Gladstone, whose eloquence
even in defending a hopeless cause has no equal in the
House of Commons. At this critical moment, too, when
negotiations of the most important and complicated cha-
racter are in progress abroad—negotiations alike impor-
tant for the furtherance of the war and for the hope of
peace, it would be a public misfortune if the seals of the
Foreign-office were transferred from Lord Clarendon to
a minister less able or less intimately acquainted with
the present state of Europe. The success of a ministry
of which Lord Palmerston would be the head depends,
however, in great measure, on his obtaining the co-ope-
ration of Lord Grey in the direction of military affairs,
and we stated yesterday reasons which appear to con-
stitute an imperative claim on a statesman who spoke
as Lord Grey did on Monday night. In the internal
administration of the country no man would fill a
higher office more ably than Mr. Baines. Of men
not previously connected with the Government
there are several whose talents and standing entitle them
to office, and, among others, Mr. Layard might with
advantage be called upon to submit his administrative
abilities to the criticism he had lavished upon others, and
to show that he is capable of better things than he has
yet given evidence of. We cannot hazard even these
faint suggestions without an increased consciousness of
the extraordinary difficulties which attend the formation
of any efficient Cabinet, chiefly from the want of orga-
nisation and discipline in the ranks of the Liberal party.
The vote of Monday night and the impending inquiry
into the state of the army have increased those difficul-
ties, for they separate men otherwise well qualified to
act together. But the substantial interests of the coun-
try urgently demand mutual forbearance and union.
The credit of constitutional governmentitself is at stake,
and the greatest of all trials and calamities for this na-

ion would be to fail in establishing a united and power-
Administration at this crisis in public affairs.

(From the Daily News of this day.)

The division of last Monday night is without a
parallel in our Parliamentary annals. Former adminis-
trations have been driven from power by adverse votes
of the House of Commons ; and the majorities on some
of these occasions have been considerable. But never
was a Government, after due notice given and full debate
held, condemned for incapacity by such a verdict as that
pronounced on the Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen.
Not to go further back than the memory of most of
our readers may enable them to verify—the Whig Ad-
ministration of Lord Melbourne was displaced in 1841
by a majority of 91. In 1846 the Tory Administration
of Sir Robert Peel was ousted from office by a majority
of 73. But the fate of the Coalition under Lord Aber-
deen has been appropriately determined by a prepon-
derance of votes almost as great as the majorities of
1841 and 1846 put together. There is something in
this of poetic justice. The Whigs of 1841 fell victims
to the avowal of their conversion to Free Trade. The
Conservatives, in 1846, in like manner sacrificed power
when they yielded candidly to the force of similar con-
viction. Both knew what they were doing and unhesi-
tatingly incurred the honourable penalty that was ex-
acted from them, with the proud consciousness that they
had thereby raised their character as public men higher
in the estimation of the wise and good. than it had ever
stood before. They relinquished official rank and emolu-
ment to assume the foremost station in dignified and in-
fluential opposition ; and the surrender of executive
power was but the enhancement of legislative influence.
But the disruption of the heterogeneous combination by
which we Lave been governed fur the last two years is
marked by devotion to no great principle, and its
defeat celebrates the triumph of no great measure.
It is the mere collapse of incapacity—the mere dis-
location of an ill-contrived machine—the mere rele-
gation to their original ranks of a handful of Tory
and a handful of Whig notables, who dreamed that be-
cause they had individually agreed to coalesce, the world
in general had agreed to approve and follow them. It
is utterly absurd to treat the overwhelming majority of
157 as a mere vote of censure on the Duke of Newcastle
and Lord Aberdeen. It is E:otnethiug far more serious
and important. It is the deliberate and emphatic con-
demnation, by more than a, clear moiety of the House of

Common, of the attempt to govern by a coalition of
nobles and fine gentlemen, regardless of party ties and
political:sympathy. Addineeo the 305 who actually on
Monday night voted " want of confidence" in Ministers,
the 27 menlcrs who paired in favour of the motion, and
the tellers on the division, we have a total of 334, being
more than an absolute majority of the entire house. But
this is not all. To these are to be added a list of 89,
headed by Lord John Russell, whn have hitherto been
reckoned among the supporters of Government, and
who, upon this occasion, declined as one man to defend
or sustain them. 'As the dejected and deserted officials
trooped slowly back to their places on the Treasury
Bench after the division, well might one fair spectator
who looked on at the strange scene exclaim, " Where,
where are our friends ?"
Nor does the force or weight of this memorable
verdict become less, when we examine more closely
the elements of which the Ministerial minority was
composed. It can hardly fail to be observed that
among that numerically miserable section of the house
many consented to be reckoned from a sentiment
(perhaps overstrained) of personal honour. Almost
every man of the Whig party who had held distinguished
office in the Administration of Lord John Russell, and
who bad been excluded from power by the terms of the
Aberdeen compromise, generously voted with Ministers.
Among others may be mentioned the names of Sir F.
Baring, Lord Seymour, and Mr. Lebouchere ; while
several of the Tory opposition, like Mr. T. Baring, Gene-
ral Peel, and others, flung a laq vote in charity to the
destitute Treasury whippers-in. It has been said indeed
that the ingenious speech of Mr. Gladstone had effected
a sort of rally among the routed followers of the Coali:
tion ; and left without an answer as it was,' we can con-
ceive it possible that some few stupid or shuffling poli-
ticians may have been influenced thereby. But we are
much mistaken if the constituencies of these easily-
persuaded gentlemen will discover in the dexterous eva-
sions of the right hon. gentleman any sufficient reasons
for doubting that the army before Sebastopol has been
cruelly neglected, and the interests of the country la-
mentably compromised, Mr. Gladstone's plea that a
committee of inquiry must proceed to call witnesses front
the French camp, because, forsooth, the expedition has
been undertaken jointly, is an exquisite specimen of po-
lemical special pleading. What we have to do with is the
maladministration of our own Commissariat—not an in-
vidious comparison between it and the French. The com-
mittee will have to inquire into specific charges of negli-
gence and omission on the part of the War-office and of Lord
Raglan's staff of nephews at Balaklava. There need be
no waste of time in superfluous or invidious compari-
sons with the superior military administration of our
Allies ; for guilt or innocence has never, we believe,
been held to depend on comparative proof, but ors facts
and circumstances that are brought home to the door of
those who are inculpated. Mr. Roebuck, we doubt not,
will acquiesce in such instructions to the committee
being moved for in the house as will clearly limit the
scope of its investigations within practical bounds. The
hon. member for Sheffield is an old hand at devising
and directing inquiries of a delicate and difficult kind
before a tribunal similar to that which is now about to
be constituted. In 1842, if our memory serves us, a
select committee was moved for by him, to inquire into
secret and illicit compromises of election petitions,
against which were raised the same vague and menacing
objections of the unprecedented and unmanageable na-
ture of the proceeding. But the public voice sustained
Mr. Roebuck against the cavils of the culprits and
their abettors ; the committee was appointed, and the
whole tissue of iniquity was in due time laid bare.
And public feeling sustains the honourable member
now in his honest effort to obtain justice and retri-
bution for our wronged and ruined army. We dis-
card, as utterly unworthy and indefensible, the reck-
less suggestion of Mr. Layard that the motion of in-
quiry having been used as a weapon to despatch a
decrepid administration, it ought now to be laid aside
and the order of the committee discharged. We quite agree
with Mr. Gladstone that the country will not under-
stand such fast and loose play as this ; and low as our
estimate may be of the tone and temper of the present
House of Commons, we cannot believe that a course so
manifestly liable to the reproach of faction and levity
will ever be adopted.
Before taking leave of the debate and the division of
Monday night, we may be permitted to observe that the
attack made by Mr. Gladstone on the conduct of Lord
John Russell wholly fails to convince us cf any sinister
or selfish act on his part. The statements of Mr. Glad-
stone may be true, but they manifestly do not contain
the whole troth. The President of the Council was per-
haps amongst the earliest to perceive the consequences
of leaving the War Department in incompetent hands ;
but it is rather too much to argue that because the echo
of his warning voice in November became gradually
drowned in the rising clamour of the whole nation
against his inapt but impenetrable colleague, the demand
for his removal deserves to be called a " defunct proposi-
tion." Lord John may have erred on the side of excessive
forbearance because he abstained, whenever the Cabinet
met, from crying "Hark ! " to the surging and swelling
tide of popular indignation ' • but assuredly he may be
pardoned for having taken for granted that even the
Duke of Newcastle and his friends could hardly have re-
mained to the last insensible to the unanimity of their
condemnation, or the justice and wisdom of the warning
which he had given.

(Fiom the 3loeniay Chronicle.)

The announcement of the result of the division on Mr.
Roebuck's motion was received with dead silence, end-
ing in a loud laugh. Precisely the same effect was pro-
duced at the diplomatic congress of Vienna in 1815 by
the news of Napoleon's escape from Elba. Yet that
event was the precursor of a fearful sacrifice of treasure
and of We. If Nero fiddled whilst _Rome was huruing,
this was a more harmless occupation than turning out
or snaking and unmaking Ministries when an adminis-
trative delay of a week may prove fatal to a gallant
army, or than passing resolutions which must paralyse
action instead of quickening it. If the members of the
majority laughed like the Roman augurs, they at least
manifested some self-knowledge, for we wonder they
could look each other in the face without seeing the
ridicule of their positions or feeling that they had
been running a race of short-sighted selfishness.
Their numbers are principally owing to the very circum-
stance which rendered the vote superfluous. It was
perfectly understood, before the resumption of the de-
bate on Monday,that the Cabinet was t,O be reconstructed,
in other words, broken up. Its lukewarm, place-hunting,
or time-serving supporters, therefore, naturally conceived
that the time was come for abandoning it. Indeed, some
went further, and, encouraged by Lord John Russell's
example, seemed inclined to act towards Lord
Aberdeen and the Duke of Newcastle as bees treat a
wounded comrade, whom, after finishing by an additional
sting or two, they combine to thrust out of the hive.
Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, who, as usual, delivered the
ablest speech, on his side of the question, tried to force
history into the service of his partyin a fashion that savoured
too ,much of the style of reference recommended and
pursued by Vivian Grey. " Once in the last century,"
said the accomplished orator, by way of peroration,
" there was a Duke of Newcastle, who presided over
the conduct of a war, and was supported by a powerful
league of aristocratic combinations. The war was, in-
deed, a series of blunders and disasters. In vain at-
tempts were made to patch up that luckless Ministry—
in vain some drops of healthful blood were infused into
its feeble and decrepit constitution. The people at last
became aroused, indignant, irresistible. They applied
one remedy. That remedy is now before ourselves.
They dismissed their Government, and saved their
army." Never was there a more unlucky parallel, if we
may believe Lord Mahon and Mr. Massey, the last and
best historians of the period. The Duke of Devonshire's
Ministry, which succeeded the one of which Sir E.
Bulwer Lytton speaks, speedily broke to pieces. It
was found impossible to get on without the Duke
of Newcastle, and it was under his grace's premiership
that the "great Commoner" ran the most brilliant part
of his career as War Minister. "The final arrange-
ments," says Mr. Massey, "were easily made through
the dignified agency of Lord Mansfield and Lora Hard-
wicke. The duke (of Newcastle) was reinstated at the
head of the Government. . . All real power was
centred in the hands of Pitt, and now his great genius
had, for the first time, ample scope both in the oppor-
tunity and means of action." No one knows better than
Sir E. Bulwer Lytton that, beyond the name, there is
not the smallest similarity between the late Secretary of
War and his collateral ancestor. There is a river in
Monmouth, and there is a river in Macedon. We
cannot help suspecting that so thoughtful and cul-
tivated an observer of passing events must have
agreed in his heart with Mr. Gladstone, when he
appealed from Philip drunk to Philip sober—from
the prejudiced or interested clamours of the Opposition
benches to the calm judgment of the house twelve months
hence ; or with Lord Palmerston, when the noble vis-
count emphatically said, "With regard to the Duke of
Newcastle, I must in justice say that I think public
opinion has done him great injustice. I am sure the day
will come when a more correct and a juster estimate will
be formed of the abilities and devotion of that noble
duke to the service of his country." Can any one en-
dowed with Understanding, with imagination, or with
heart, read the Duke of Newcastle's despatches, and
then talk slightingly of the writer 't
To our minds the concentrated essence of Mr. Roe-
buck's charge suggests the conclusive justification
of the War-office. We mean, when he said, " You
have sent an army to the East in numbers
and efficiency such as never before left these
shores, an army likewise unequalled in its equipments ;
but that army is nerisking for want of food, whilst,
upon the shores of the port of Balaklava there are rot-
ting stores of every possible description sufficient to pro-
vide for the wants of two such armies." What is this
but saying, in so many different words, "You have done
well all that depended on you personally, or that you
could have superintended by any stretch of vigilance ?"
All the more comprehensive or plausible charges against
that duke resolve themselves into this—that he should have
refused to concur with the French Government in order-

ing or sanctioning the expedition to the Crimea, and
that he should have recalled Lord Raglan on the first
rumour of the alleged sufferings of his army. The
motion of which Lord Lydhurst has given notice, whe-
ther so intended or not, is an implied censure of the
strongest kind on Napoleon 111., and a justification of
les amides avis which provoked the memorable sarcasm
of our Imperial ally. What we really want to elicit
the truth, is a little more plain, downright speaking,
like Mr. Bernal Osborne's.

Rife as the debate was with historical allusion, the
most felicitous piece of improvised narration was supplied
by Mr. Gladstone, when, after asking what sort of epitaph
would have been written over the remains of the Minis-
try if they hail shrunk from meeting the threatened
impeachment, he sketched the following Here lie
the dishonoured ashes of a Ministry which found Eng-
land at peace and left her at war—which wliicL was con-
tent to take the emoluments of office and wield the
sceptre of power so long as no one had courage to ques-
' taon its existence, They saw dorm gathering over

the country—they heard grievous and afflicting news o
the state of the sick and wounded in the East. These
things did not move them ; but when the honcurable
member for Sheffield raised his hand to point the thun
der-bolt at them, then th©y wera conscience-stricken
with a sense of their guilt, and, in thinking to escape
from punishment, they abandoned duty."
The application to the ex-President of the Council was
obvious enough, and his lordship was evidently ill at
ease notwithstanding the disinterested laudations of Mr,
Rich. Nor is this at all extraordinary, for it is now
well known that, when the separation of the War de-
partment from the Colonial-office was under considera-
tion, Lord John Russell deliberately advised that the
Duke of Newcastle should retain the War-office, and
that the Colonial Secretaryship should be offered to Sir
George Grey. Somewhat to our surprise, Mr. Disraeli
also,' pronounced a severe censure on Lord John
Russell, and then did his best to impair the confidence
of the nation in Lord Palmerston, by asserting that
the noble viscount, who, as Home-Secretary, had
charge of the Militia, had been far from surpassing his
' colleagues in practical zeal for the prosecution of the
war. We allude to these crossfires and triangular or
quadrangular duels between the Parliamentary leaders,
because they throw light on the divisions in the House
of Commons, and on the differences between public men,
which may impede or prevent the formation of a strong
Administration. The only mode to neutralise them is
for the state man honoured with her Majesty's corn-
.m.ands to form a Cabinet from the best materials within
his reach, and instantly appeal to the country, if the
House of Commons, under factious guidance, should re-
fuse to carry out what are well known to be the views
and-wishes of the constituencies.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT,

HOUSE OF COMMONS—YESTERDAY.
The SPEAKER took the chair at four o'clock.
NEW MEMBER.
Capt. PAKENHAM took the oaths and his seat for
Antrim.