The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-21 00:00:00

I:1 E SUN LONDON SATtit,DAY EVtilNiN6 JULY 21 1855

LINES LK.ASED FIXED ItMNTALR.

P the guarantee, but Wished it should be several instead of
joint, while others thought We aught to have made Turkey
d -,,tesent of the money altogether. '',#)mo feared we should
embroil ouilelves with Turkey about the pribeipal ; others
that we should quarra wish France about the interest.
We do not pretend to undervalue these objections and
opinions of men versed in finance, atid though they could not
all be right, their schemes had quite as mtieh plausibility as
that which Ministers adopted. But we must express our un-
feigned astonishment at the conclusion which the authors of
these appeals drew from the several financial formula; they
adopted,—that the convention With France was to be an-
nulled, the guarantee refused, and the Emperor of the
French lowered in the eyes of his Legislature and his sub-
jects by having been made to propose to them the perform-
ance of a treaty which the Parliament of his ally subsequently
refused to ratify. We wish to believe that men are some-
thing better than mere arguing machines, and that there does
reside somewhere in the human mind the power of comparing
and weighing objections, and giving effect to thosewhich carry
with them the greatest weight. What but the pedantry of
finance or the madness of faction could induce any man to
consider that any number of objections of detail were to be
weighed for an instant against the awful responsibility
of interposing just and serious causes of disagreement
between the two great allied Powers of the West ? If the de-
liberation had been on what should be the manner in which
the pecuniary necessities of Turkey should be relieved, such
arguments would have been extremely proper and revelant,
but they became mischievous to the last degree when the
question was not upon the terms on which a treaty should be
made, but whether or no a treaty already existing should be
carried out. It was nobody's fault that the question came be-
fore the house in this shape. Ministers could not consult
Parliament befere the treaty was concluded, and afterwards
they could only ask Parliament for its ratification. The real
question was whether it should go forth to Franco and to the
world that this country, with all its pretence to good govern-
ment, had really no Executive at all, so far as foreign affairs
were concerned, and that a friendly power which dealt with
either of the factions into which we are divided must do so at
the risk of finding the agreement which it had entered into
with one party disowned and repudiated by the other ; whe-
ther we should solemnly proclaim to Europe that we are a
people with whom no terms should be made, because by us,
at least, none would be kept. There was great danger, it
would be said, that popular government was as impotent in
diplomacy as in war, and there was danger that the Emperor
of the French, finding himself thus slighted and deceived,
should withdraw from an alliance in which the loyalty was all
on his side and the levity and vacillation all on ours.
And this frightful risk was run at the suggestion of men
considered prudent and cautious—men for ever divid-
ing and distinguishing, and regarded, not without rea-
son, as holding a high place in the list of our states-
men. The danger is past for the moment, but it may
recur any day, and must return often. Those who levelled
this blow at the French alliance were themselves leading
members of the Government which contracted that alliance ;
those who thus seek to ruin the prospects of the war ware
among the foremost to involve us in it. We respectfully sub-
mit to the House of Commons that it is high time it should
make up its mind definitely on the subject. If we mean to
succeed in war, we must make up our mind to support our
Executive in its transactions with foreign countries, be they
ever so erroneous, not out of regard to any party or body of
men, but because, if we do not do so we must inevitably
strip this country of her allies ; fortunate, indeed, if we do
not convert them into enemies, and oblige her to maintain an
isolated struggle in exchange for the advantages of combined
and harmonious action. If Government loses our confidence
we can remove and replace it by another, but in our dealings
with foreign States we should respect it to the very last, be-
cause by repudiating its acts we cast dishonour and discredit
upon ourselves. Our foreign policy should know no party.
If we cannot obtain for ourselves this sacrifice, we are unfit
to enter into the community of nations, and unworthy either
of their confidence or our own. We feel quite satisfied that
had some unlucky chance turned this slender majority the
other way, or should it happen that iu the passage of the bill
through Parliament a coalition between the Peace Party, the
seceders from Lord Palmerston's Government, and the more
unscrupulous portion of the Opposition attempt to renew a
manoeuvre so nearly successful, the country might safely be
appealed to to express its opinion on this attempt to strip it
of its allies, to lower it in the estimation of Europe, and drive
it into an ignominious peace by repudiating the acts of its
Government, and offendinq rashly and wantonly the just sus-
ceptibility of a faithful and honourable ally.

Lzasin
CompanF

Closing PrIOCF
yesteriay.

Rnsmess
this day.

MR. ROEBUCKS MOTION.
( Front the Press of this day.)
The divison on Thursday night will, of course, be treated
by the Government officials as a triumph and as a proof of
confidence; but we are persuaded that neither Lord Palmer-
ston nor any one conversant with party tactics in the House
of Commons views it really in any such light. The motion
was Mr.' Roebuck's motion ; he sustained it admirably, and
is well entitled to the thanks of the country for having
brought it forward. Still, it was Mr. Roebuck's motion ;
and it cannot be denied that there were several consider-
ations involved in it which naturally disposed some
among the Conservatives to hesitate in support-
ing it. It related to bygone transactions, and was
represented as conveying a personal censure, amount-
ing to ostracism, upon honourable men. We do not admit
the force or justice of the argument; but such as it was, it
was calculated to create a feeling, we might call it a pre-
judice, against the motion. The amendment was proposed
and seconded by an avowed members of the Opposition.
General Peel, the mover of the amendment, went the length
of declaring that he was ready to join in a direct vote of
want of confidence, and that he thought the time was come
when Lord Derby ought to be called upon to form a Govern-
'lent. The amendment itself implied a modified censure

upon the Government. We are not aware of a case until
now, in which, on a vote of censure, the Government
had recourse to the miserable expedient of supporting
the previous question—moved, not by a friend, but by an
avowed political opponent. These two considerations natu-
rally influenced many Conservatives, inducing them to pre-
fer a modified expression of disapproval as regards Govern-
ment rather than a direct censure, affecting not only Lord
Palmerston and Sir G. Grey, but extending itself to Sir J.
Graham, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. S. Herbert, who bad already
voluntarily submitted themselves to the penalty of their Mi-
nisterial delinquencies. Under this impression we find some
of the most consistent members of Lord Derby's party
voting for the previous question : Lord Barrington,
Lord Chelsea, the Egertons, Mr. Horsfall, Mr. Liddell,
Mr. Tollemache, Mr, Repton, Sir John Walsh, Lord
Robert Cecil. With such men voting against Mr. Roebuck's
motion, the division certainly cannot, under the circum-
stances we have stated, be considered either as a Ministerial
or as a party triumph.
And the debate ! We scarcely remember a debate more
damaging to a Government. Those on the Treasury bench,
from the Premier down to that wretched clique who excited
their patron, actually shrank under the indignant denunciations
of Mr. Bright. Sir Jas. Graham, too, gave expression to opi-
nions respecting his late colleagues, not, we tbink, calculated
to make them feel comfortable in their seats ; while Mr.
Disraeli and Mr. Whiteside exposed the miserable and
pitiable position in which his reckless ambition has now
placed the once popular Lord Palmerston.
There is nothing, we repeat, in the debate or division on
Mr. Roebuck's motion calculated to dishearten the Conser-
vatives, or to lead to the suppoSition that there exists among
them any division or want of unanimity, and nothing, cer-
tainly, calculated to inspirit or give permanence Co this
ricketty Government. On the contrary, the debate cannot
fail to add still more to the disgust which is becoming the
strew:, feeling of the country as regards Lord Palmerston and
his Government.
In the Lords their position was even more discreditable
and humiliating. The Scotch Education Bill, almost their
only measure for the session, carried after frequent divisions
through the House of Commons, was actually repudiated by
the Government itself. They had not courage to support it,
and were driven to the. disgraceful alternative of voting
against their own measure. Will the Lord Advocate resign?

SUNDAY BEER BILL.
( From the Morning Advertiser of this day. )
It is a question which it would not be very easy to decide,
whether the unanimous testimony of the metropolitan-police
magistrates to the oppressive working of the Beer Act of last
session, or the evidence of Sir Robert Carden and Mr. George
Cruikshank, given with a view to perpetuate that vexatious
measure, is most calculated to benefit the cause of the Li-
censed Victuallers. We have already exposed the utter want
of truth in the assertion of Sir Robert Carden, that not one
in eu of those who enter public-houses after ten o'clock at
night, is honest or respectable, but that such persons are
chiefly thieves and prostitutes. We have pronounced this
statement to be a slander against a most respectable body of
men, as groundless as it is injurious, and we have called on
the body so grossly and gratuitously calumniated to demand
of Sir Robert Carden that he shall withdraw his slanderous
imputation. Unless he does, and that speedily, wo repeat
what we said yesterday,—that ho is unfit to continue in the
discharge of those magisterial functions which the chapter of
accidents has confided to him. Entertaining the opinion he ex-
pressed on Tuesday respecting the character of those who enter
public-houses after ten o'clock, how could he be expected to ad-
ministerj ustice to any person who mightbe brought before him,
charged with some offence, provided that person was ascer-
tained to be one who was occasionally to be found in the par-
lour of a public-house after ten o'clock ? The very fact Would
prejudge his case. Ho might be a man of the highest respecta-
bility,
and innocent as the child unborn of the charge preferred
against him, but this "worthy" magistrate—" worthy," by
courtesy so called—regarding him as disreputable, dishonest,
and a thief, would necessarily be prepared to regard him,
presumptively, as capable of committing any other offence.
And where a case is prejudged we all know how slender is
the evidence which would be required to convict the party.
We say, therefore, that it is equally due to the licensed vic-
tuallers, so unjustly defamed ; to the impartial administraticit
of justice , and to Sir Robert Carden himself, that he should
withdraw the calumnious charge which he preferred on Tues-
day against a body of tradesmen as respectable as any in the
metropolitan community.
But Sir R. Carden was not the only witness who gave evi-
' deuce which surprised the committee, and which has filled the
public mind with amazement and indignation—amazement
because unjust, and indignation because injurious to the
characters and interests of a respectable body of men.
Mr. George Cruikshank, the caricaturist, must needs also
come forward, and make one of the most ridiculous exhibi-
tions ever made before a Committee of the House of Com-
mons. Mr. George Cruikshauk is like Sir Robert Carden, a
great advocate of the Maine Liquor Law, and would enforce
its stringent provisions on every man and woman in her Ma-
jesty's dominions. To do the artist justice, he practises what
he preaches,—which is more than can be said of the magis-
terial Knight. Mr. Cruikshank is a Teetoller ; Sir Robert
Carden is not. He is, indeed, very far removed from any-
thing of the kind. Mr. G. Cruikshank, we have said, made
a ridiculous exhibition on Tuesday. He is by profession a
caricaturist, and, certainly, in this instance, he most graphi-
cally and successfully caricatured himself. Wo will not say
what opinion the committee formed of him, though he could
hardly be ignorant of it. In his zeal for the introduction
of the Maine Liquor Law into this country, Mr. Cruikshank
insisted on showing the committee a series of drawings, illus-
trative of the evils of drunkenness, in the shape of men beat-
ing their wives until the blood streamed from their months
and noses, and little, children presenting an emaciated and
ragged appearance, enough to touch the least sensitive
heart, just as if any one ever doubted that drunken-
ness is one of the greatest evils, perhaps the greatest,
that ever found its way into the world. The committee,
however, very properly called on the caricaturist for
facts, not for fanciful figures. He professed to comply with
their requirements ; but the facts, if we must call them by
the name, were such as no Committee or anybody else ever
before had had submitted to them. The only fault which he
could find with the Beer Bill was, that it did not go far
enough. Even the Maine Liquor Law did not go far enough
for Mr. Cruikshank. There was something in his statement
which would raise the presumption in the minds of those who
knew no better, that he is a native of the Emerald Isle, A
more genuine Irishism was never perpetrated than the
avowal, that he would go beyond the Maine Liquor Law,—
that is, would have something still more stringent with the..
view of discountenancing the sale of beer, wine, or. spirits.
The Maine Liquor Law prohibits the. sale of all spirituous
liquors. What more would Mr. Crtiikshank have T Surely
that ought to satisfy- him. If he *DI have- something more
than even that, probably he will be kind enough to tell us in
what way he is to be furnished with it.
_•
But this is not all. Ur, George Cruikaank. Of
But