The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-26 00:00:00

RUMOURS CONCERNING THE
MINISTRY.

Yesterday was the high festival of Rumour. In the
afternoon—some time before Mr. Ilayter made an offi-
cial announcement of the factistha Ileum of Commons

—it had become tolerably well known that Lord John
Russell no longer held office in the Cabinet of Lord
Aberdeen. The public expected to hear that Govern-
went had been defeated in an attempt to oppose Mr.
Roebuck's motion for a committee of inquiryirttolhe Con-
duct of the wair and they were obliged to be content, at
least fora few hours, with the sacrifice of one Minister.
And after all it was neither the Duke of Newcastleesor Mr.
Sidney Herbert, but Lord John Russell who had offered
himself as the victim to public indignation. Were matters ;
to remain thus the Peelites would be undisturbed in the
honours and emoluments of office, and tile Whig' section
of the Cabinet alone would be made to fe4l that " Eng-
land does not like a Coalition." But can the movement
stop here ? Or are we to hear of fresh resignations ?
Is one Minister after the other to flinch from inquiry
until Lord Aberdeen is left, in solitary and unenviable
grandeur, to look upon the desolation he has caused ?
Or is 'Lord John Russell the only one who has the
honesty to confess that, in almost every respect, the
Crimean expedition I as been shamefully mismanaged :
that the best thirr, is to make a clean breast of it, and
to give up the task° into the hands of men better (pall-
lied to meet a great emergency ? To none of these que,
tiOPS can any reliable answer be returned, beyond what
Hill be build stated in the preceding article.
While waiting till Lord John shall tell his own tale
in Parliament, it may be interesting to give, in as few
words as possible, the passing rumours of yesterday.
In some quarters it was believed, early in the forenoon,
that the whole Ministry had resolved upon resigning.
The ordeal, it was said, was too severe. Da what they
would, it was equally impossible to contradict the facts,
and to withstand the sarcasm of Mr. Roebuck. The
time had gone by for promises and equivocations. The
British nation wanted to know what had become of the
thousands of brave men who had lately left these shores
in the pride of life and strength. From every lip, in
every palace and every cottage, the stern inquiry had
come. It was a terrible thing to face the organ of a nation,
roused beyond endurance by the spectacle of calamities
which might have been avoided. It might be that
other men would have been quite as inexperienced,
quite as unprepared for war, quite as unable to over-
come the enormous difficulties of the crisis. But be
that as it might, Ministers could not but know that
they at least had failed, and the only possible course was
to resign.
Another rumour soon succeeded—that two members
only were to be sacrificed. The Duke of Newcastle
and Mr. Sidney Herbert were responsible, in the
eyes of the public, for the confessed mismanagement
of the Crimean expedition. Why should the whole
Cabinet suffer for the sins of two men ? Why not
fling away the leaven which went far to corrupt the
whole mass ? This was no time to think of private
friendship and family connexions. Public men must
rise above such petty considerations. How has that
powerful Coalition Ministry earned nothing but con-
tempt, inspiring no confidence, declining in reputation,
but because two out of the whole number had shown
themselves unequal to their task 1 There could be no
doubt about the matter. The sinning members must be
cut off. In other words, the Duke of Newcastle and
Mr. Sidney Herbert must resign.
At last these rumours evaporated, and the real truth
came out that Lord John Russell alone had resigned,
and that political oracles had been consulted in vain.
But the question remained, how the event came to pass ?
According to some accounts, the whole proceeding is a con-
spiracy, got up by Lord J. Russell and Lord Palmerston,
for the entire destruction of the Peelites. It was all
very well, so long as the Whigs were weak, to coalesce
with the followers of Sir Robert Peel, but what was the
case now ? It was the Peelites who had drawn down
upon the Cabinet the indignation of the public, and they
must perish in the storm which their own conduct had
raised. Besides, the whole force of public opinion
pointed in that direction. It was Lord Grey who had
pointed out the necessity for a War Minister, and no one
was so well fitted as he was to undertake the arduous
duties of that post. With Lord John Russell as Premier,
Lord Palmerston as leader of the House of Commons,
and Lord Grey as War Minister, the whole aspect of
affairs would presently be changed. The wand of
the magician would wave over the snow-clad steppes
of the Crimea, Sebastopol would fall, and the memory
of the dread and sorrowful past would quickly fade
away.
But this was not the only form that busy rumour
took. Lord John Russell's esoteric reasons for assum-
ing the position he did were revealed by certain mes-
meric sages. Suppose, after all, that he saw reasons to
doubt the sincerity of Austria, and, in opposition to the
other members of the Cabinet, would gladly see an end
to the conferences at Vienna. Suppose that the ex-
Minister had resolved that he, at least, would be no
party to an easy peace, and that his resignation was, in
fact, a censure on colleagues too ready to sacrifice the
honour of their country—

- around the board
Thus Lara's vassals prattled of their lord.

But, as already said, all that is really known of Lord
ohn Russell's resignation, and the reason ha has
assigned for it, will be found stated in the preceding
article. For what he himself may be disposed to tell
we must wait till this evening, In the meantime, it
seems not uninteresting to chronicle the various shapes
that rumour successively assumed in the courso of yes-
terday—to stamp on the canvas these " Cynthias of the
ininuto"--to encase in amber these flies of the order of
the epheinerce.—Dc442/ News.

TITHE COMMUTATION SEPTENNIAL

AVERAGES.

TOTIIN F.DITOIt OF TOE SUIT.

Sir,—On the Sth inet., I communicated to you the
result of the septennial averages to Christmas, 1851, ac
deduced from the return published in the London Ga:cttc
of the sth inst. :

s. d.
Wheat
Barley
Oats 2 6
and that each 100/. of the tithe rent charge for the year
1855 would amount to 89/. 15s. 81d.
Several communications baying been addressed to me
expressing surprise that the value of the rent charge
should have gradually decreased since the year 1849,
while the price of wheat has gradually increased during
the came period, in order to show that this may be ex-
plained, I must draw attention to the mode in which
the question of tithes was settled in 1838.
It was enacted, by the 57th clause of the Tithe Com-
mutation Act (6 and 7 Was. IV., c. 71), " that the
amount of the rent charge, as awarded or agreed upon,
should be divided into three portions, and that every
tithe rent charge should be deemed to be of the value of
such number of imperial bushels, aid decimal parts of an
imperial bushel of wheat, barley, and oats, as the saint
would have purchased at the average prices for seven
years ending Thusday before Christmas-day, 1835, in
cage one-third part of each rent charge had been invested
in the purchase of wheat, one third part thereof in the
purchase of barley, and the remaining one-third part in
the purchase of oats."
In conformity with the above, we find that 100/. ex-
pended in wheat, barley, and oats, would purchase the
following quantities, at the average prices for seven
years to Christmas, 1835, as fixed in the London Gazette
of Dec. 9, 16:0

Per Imp. Bushel.
e. d.
One-third, or £33 6 8 in wheat, at 7 is equivalent to 94.955489
_ _

Imp. Bushels

One-third: or 33 G Bin barley, at 3 I 1 i

One third, or 33 68 in oats, at 2 9