The Sun.
London, England, 1855-05-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC (TOURNALS.

MR. DISRAELI'S MOTION.
(From the Times of this day. )
What bas happened to the House of Commons ? To
what purpose were all its faculties given to it ? It has
power which it uses to do nothing, speech which it
-em-
ploys to perplex, counsel and influence which it seems
determined to throw into no scale and to devote to no
practical purpose. We are living in no ordinary times,
we are pressed by great emergencies, we are terrified by
impending dangers, we have nobody to trust, nobody to
look up to, nothing but the palladium of our liberties,
the glory of our land, the cynosure of our institutions
this very same incomprehensible House of Commons.
Out of the immediate sphere of government and legisla-
tion people seem to understand themselves and eachof
other, and to be tolerably unanimous on the questions
the day. Once within those walls nobody seems to be
able to make up his mind to do anything, or to say any-
thing distinctly and to the purpose.
Nothing can exceed the degree in which the Legisla-
ture and the people are at cross-purposes, or the amount
of contradiction bet ween us and our representatives.
Everybody out of doors seems to have made up his mini
that the pcssibility of peace with Russia is, for the pre-
sent, and until the fortune of war has decided !ire
clearly on one side or the other, absolutely impossible ;
Ilat Russia merely appeared at the Conferences of Vienna
for the purpose of o-tentatiously agreeing
to conditions
which might secure to her the neutrality of Germany ;
and that,
having done so, she was careless as to the pre-
cise form or method in which she put an end to a Con-
ference which had sufficiently answered the purpose for
which she entered into it. This being the opinion of
people in general, Mr. Milner Gibson considers it to af-
ford a suitable opportunity for moving an address to the
Crown, stating that there was a reasonable expectation
that the negotiations would have had a successful issue,
characterisingthe cause of their ill-success as nothing but a
difference between the Allied Powers and Russia as to the
precise mode of practically applying the principles agreed
upon, and expressing an opinion that an honourable and
satisfactory peace can be made out of the propositions
put forward by Russia at the Congress of Vienna. In
no other assembly but a meeting of the Peace Society
should such a proposition have been put forward ; but
Mr. Gibson thought the House of Commons suitable for
such a purpose, and so he made his proposal there. The
proposal being made, everybody felt glad that the long
silence of the Legislature on the proper conditions 'of
peace was at length about to be broken, and that Go-
vernment and the country would have in the ensuing
debate something which might serve for a guide to their
future conduct. Never was a debate more looked for
by the public; never, we suppose, was one more eagerly
desired by the House of Commons. But the same in-
scrutable perversity prevailed. The house met, and,
after a discussion of a highly histrionic character, in
which almost every speaker, though apparently from
motives the most diverse, urged that the motion should
not come on, the motion was dropt, and the house and
the audience went away like Naaman, the Syrian, in a
rage.
The next act is similar to the two which preceded it.
Mr. Disraeli, seeing the disgust with which the house
viewed the withdrawal of Mr. Gibson's motion, promised
to give its feelings free expression, and to let loose the
pent-up floodgates of its displeasure. The house received
the proposal with manifest favour, for the house wished
for the opportunity, of which the withdrawal of Mr.
Gibson's motion had deprived it, to express its opinion
on the negotiations of Vienna and the terms on which
alone peace should be granted. But Mr. Disraeli's ob-
ject was evidently not to express the feelings of the
house, but rather to frame something calculated to da-
mage his political antagonists, and, if possible, to bring
him and his party into office totally unpiedged, and at
full liberty to imitate the conduct he condemns. So Mr.
Disraeli proposes to censure the Government for its am-
biguous and uncertain conduct, and to assure her
Majesty that, under these circumstances—that is, the
ambiguous and uncertain conduct, we suppose—Parlia-
ment is ready to give her Majesty every assistance to-
wards the vigorous prosecution of the war. Never was
an important opportunity marked by a more inadequate
an 1 unfortunate conclusion. One might suppose, to
borrow Mr. Disraeli's own allusion the other day, that
these halting and ill-connected sentences had been con-
structed by him purposely to show that he was acting
under the dictation of a party, and not undnr the
promptings of his own judgment.
If the declarations of the Ministry with regard t the
war are ambiguous or uncertain, that is a reason for de-
manding from them plain and unambiguous declarations.
The House has a right to know the opinions and inten-
tions of our Ministers ; and whoever substitutes empty
professions of our intention vigorously to prosecute the
war—declarations which cost nothing and mean nothing
—is merely misleading the House, and turning it aside
from the true merits of the question. So we suppc.-e the
House of Commons will be engaged to-day in considering
whether the language of Ministers has or has not been
uncertain or ambiguous, in weighing the periods of Lord
Palmerston, and ascertaining whether they are suscep-
tible of more meanings than oiie, instead of looking to
the real and only question at issue—whether the House
of Commons is satisfied to trust the conduct of the war,
without further explanation, in the hands in which it is
at present reposed. It would almost seem as if Mr.
Disraeli shrank from the possibility of his own success,
and was afraid to put his motion, as we think he
easily might, in a form which would have conciiiated
the support of the House of Commons. It was easy
for him to frame it in a shape which would have
secured to him the support of a large majority of L'beral
members, but then he could have only done this by
marking out a definite line of policy fur himself on the
subject of peace and war, and thus hampering his ecces•
sion to office by pledges materially fettering his freedom
of action. Rather than do this Mr. Disraeli has pre-
ferred to leave Parliament to decide on a compari-on of
his personal merits and those of his party wit:i the
merits of the present Government, and thus to narrow
down the question of national policy to the dimensions
of a struggle between two rival factions. Never
was a purely personal and partisan movement
more ill-timed ; never was the conflict between the
Legislature and the people more manifest and more
injudicious. The nation is intent on the choice between
Peace and War, and Parliament, it seems, can think of
nothing but the division between Whigs and Tories. The
nation believes that it has a Cabinet in which the advo-
cates
of national disgrace outnumber the champions of
national hones:. Parliament is not called upon to put
an end to this dangerous state of things, but only to
censure proceedings not more than usually uncertain,
and language not more than ordinarily ambiguous.
Nothing would become the House of Commons better
than to lay down fixed and certain principles for its
own guidance and that of the Government ; but, at
the present time, nothing would become it less than to
turn out one set of men with whose opinions it is not
satisfied, in order to admit another as little disposed to
give information about theirs. It became the House of
Commons, in this emergency, to vindicate for itself a
higher part than that of serving as an instrument of con-
tending factions. In the present state of men's minds,
it matters comparatively little under what name time go-
vernment of the nation is carried on, but it is of un-
speakable importance t avoid an ignominious peac3, or
negotiations founded on derogatory conditions, o:hicli
serve only to give confidence to our enemies, and to
shake the spirits of our friend., and allies.

(From. tke Morning Herald of this day.)
Of course it was not to be expected that the
_l
noble and
right honourable Peelites of the last Coalition
present at the Cabinet dinner at Lord Paltners'towt,'s' on
were
present
Saturday last, would stop short in their advice and sug-
gestions with the conclusion of that somewhat remark-
able festival. Nor was it to be anticipated thilt, the
Premier, who sacrificed so much of fame—whether ill-
gotten or well ac'ile,ved matters little at the present mo-
ment—to force himself into office, would hesitate
a little deeper to retain it. Accordingly the Peelite Pal-
merston of Saturday last evening in Piccadilly, who then
and there profited by the councils of his colleagues at the
banquet table, which were carried out vigorously by them
in the House of Commons on Monday night in reference
to the motion of Mr. Milner Gibson, has now once more
become a pure Whig until Saturday nest—until Mr.
Disraeli's resolution shall have been discussed and de-
cided upon.
Lord John Russell, Fe understand, has had not a
little to do with the new pure Whig move. The noble
lord has, as advised by his old and new friends, insti-
gated Sir F. Baring to place upon the paper of the
House of Commons the following amendment to Mr.
Disraeli's resolution :
" That this house ha 7ing seen with regret that the Con-
ferences of Vienna have not led to a termination of hostili-
ties, feels it to be a duty to declare that it will cortinue
to give every support to her Majesty in the prosecution of
the war, until her Majesty shall, i_n conjunction with her
allies, obtain for this country a safe and honourable
peace."
We pity poor Sir F. Baring ! Surely he should have
bad more sense than to have permitted himself to be
made a cat's paw of in this instance, in order to afford
the noble member for London the opportunity for mag-
niloquence as to his vast efforts at Vienna, and for the
enunciation of a few well-worn whitey-brown cons'itu-
tional platitudes. Sir F. Baring has frequently enough
been need to have acquired experience from the past.
Does he not know that he is about to earn the indlgua-
two of the country by endeavouring to ward off, kir an
ill-direeted side-wind,
all expression of opinion L:,- the
representatives of the people upon that " ambi,;cous
language!.
aonfel that " uncertain conduct"
all classwhich an oogst
assembles' et men of
and at. every legally-constituted
purpose of expresol all shades of politics, met for the
their opinions passing events, ha'svuegb upon recent and
eloquent condenanatknee, o the themes for elaborate and
Is not Sir F. Baringi— .oceosnshcious of the dissatisfaction
to which we refer ?
not feel this dissatisfac-
tion himself ? And yet, weeu
he is about to
move the amendment which Nynedie,rstaed,
assertion
printed above ! If
the onntyhich for years
so, we may well reiterate the
nation--that ho a
tt hereserve
has been ringing in the ears of ; onno—t
o
in no length to which a pure Whi will
tie
family party.
what will the Peelites of the Paltnersto But
dinner of Saturday last—the Duke of Newcastle, the
Earl of Aberdeen, Mr. S. Herbert, Mr. Gladstone' the
Mr. Card well—what will they say to the new tei;uaynd
What, if they advised it, notwithstanding their coalitieo
with the Pence party ? The idea is edifying and sun:
tive. A double treachery ! The dodge is so becoming
that it is well worth half a dozen words to recornmenu
U.-to the consideration of our readers.

. ....N. ....
tri :Ft NOStalrr. ( Prom etc Morning Ch,ronicio of this .day. )
It ia b
e ho f ed that the Derby fa,vourita in the Souse
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