The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-10 00:00:00

, -
conference, that he should be known to havb fifty coke»
nies on his hands. On this view it would be as well that
the titles of the colonies eheu4l be tacked*, his name'rn
all the documents connected with the negotiation. What
an imposing title is that which one comes upon in Por-
tuguese affairs—" the Patriarch of the Indies !" There
. are no Indies, at least no Portuguese Indies, for the rnart
to be Patiiarch of; so "Minii,t..-r of the Colon.iee" would
be a vastly superier,,end "pore substantial title. We
read that when Antony with-the Queen of Egypt went
a progress through the Best there were al ways a
dozen kings in his train, and as many more waiting
his arrival at the end of the day's journey. It
would conduce vastly to the prestige of our plenipo.
tentiary if the deputies of Victoria, - the - Council of
New Zealand, the members of the' Jamaica Assembly,
Canadian agents, or Ceylon, proprietors, were always
dogging his steps, crowding his ante-roome, thrusting
constitutions into his hands; or throwing them into
his carriage windowe. How the natives would stare
at the man who could -fill up theli interstices of a
difficult negotiation with the cares of half the world !
It is true that, apart from the ceheideration of
our colonies, the Congress itself would have .an odd
look. One of the Empf rers concerned in Its institution
has quitted the scene; if another should ge to'the Crimea,
e bile the reprqseritative of another pciwer should hare
his Mind in fifty other places all over the world, there
would at least be an equality of ill conditionslaveurahle
t) the balance of power. - But the speciT.4tiqn of a good
end by bad means ,is 14weyti bezarstows,.anfit4t the risk
means; is

of making one leg of the tale stronger t,!an the rest, we

would rather Lord John Russell had only the affairs of
Europe on his hands. ' But, then, .Miat is to be done
with the colonies, especially thenkere livefv eed growing
Mies ? They are fikelleyseleooting tip into young men,
ins-rat—Vie "time when the fattier" yes money to send
them to school, or to do anything.else'sta them. The
young Titans are frightfully precociousd aggressive.
You cannot put them to bed,_ae...eursenne44 do little
children when they, want to go out for tßt.esevening.
When gentleinen arrive iu Loudon ,brimful of Oelonial
izepertauce, and ask for the Colonial Secretary, what a
thing that they, should be told, he is it Vienna, waitibg,
fill'Eniiipe is pacified ! 'Homer _tells: us that _when the
Greeks had made a great. eracr:fiCe, .and offered up a mut.
titude of prayeri, nothing could hedsoue just then, be-
caUse the gods 'had gone ; and we rears
somewhere .aISO-Of a deity who could not hear prayers
because he was on a, journey. But Of "all persons to be
_
on a journey the. entre of the colonial system was about
tleeeitat tifepnyenient. How would the planets be off it
the sun Wto abscend, nobody RAW wheia, for an me-
keeWe yiAod of tithe ? Had Lord John RusseTf held
Cie office when he started we -should-have advised the
colonic to apply for a writ sze-e:ssext ieyol'• but-Lord Pal-
a:et-Bton has sent the Colonies after Lord John, and t4ese
,great communities find themselves conferred tin coin.
liz.,3ndant on an absent Plenipotentiary.
'But there is an expiation. There always-is an expla•
doe, and the explanation is always satistactory. Lord
jelie Russell 13 not expected to be long aWaY: He has
only just to settle the basis of a treaty, and When he has
laid the foundation an inferior artist ls to proceed with
ovesuperstructure, and wozkbasox,,thtiele dneetgaoiltsiati Should
he i o
will
he not succeed as to the
be soon broketkoff, and in that case, also, 'welsball bare
Lord John among us, or rather among -the
All this is, the language of hope, or of despair. We
should be. very sorry to charge ourselves with the pay.
:vent of a considerable annuity till the declaration of
Peace, or even till the breaking off of the negotiation.
Everybody seems to think it his interest to fight and to
-n-:gotiate at the sane time—to wield the sword in the
right hand, and the pen in the left. Meanwhile; we rue
told Sir George Grey can do the Home-office and the
Colonies together, as he is at.bome in both departments.
Yet he is but an invalid, and his predecessor in the
Home-office did not find it too little to occupy his time.
-He notoriously concentrated his attention on one or

two more inapprtant and interesting topics, and left the
rost-tn get on as it could. But this explanation only
excuses- one Ministerial plurality by another, and sub-
stitutes a private arrangement for a public absur-
dity. The Colonies, just detached from the War
Minister, baile been given ostensibly to a diploma-
ti..4 to be governed really by the Secretary of State
for the Home Department. There is a fated want
of Simplicity in these arrangements-,
,that rather
looks like taking liberties with the' constitution and
tr fi ng with the people. Indeed, it is only waother
illustration of the process which Mt. Cobden calls-fizAding
a horse too weak to draw a cart, and putting anofter
horse to draw both. In this instance there is something
more, -lair the new horse has his own work. - Lord J.

tvsell must draw the colonies, so the whole team is to
be fed behind Sir G. Grey in the shafts of the Home-
office, and the two Ministers, the Home-office, the
fifty colonies, and the congress of Vienna, art, all' to
draggle on in one tangle. This explanation may, or may
not satisfy Par:iament, but we feel sure it will not satisfy
the colonies. If they find that their Government is a
sinecure, a mere Duchy of Lancaster, a light appendage
to arrother office, they will consider what they gain by
such a connexion. They have had King Stork in the
shape of some arbitrary secretaries and worrying subor-
dinates. They will now think they have King Log,
after all the least respectable of the two. The only proper
explanation is to remove the scandal at once, by giving
each man his own work, in deed as well as in name, and
keeping him to it, so that we may know who is answer-
able for it.