The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(Prom the Times of this day.)
Thera are some subjects on which susceptibility
is a virtue, or, at any rate, the absence of suscep-
tibility an offence. The man who is not jealous of
his character, the woman who is not eager to vin-
dicate her good name, the merchant who does not
hasten to wipe off any stain upon his credit, all
lose caste and commence a downward career, the
course of which there is afterwards no possibility
of arresting. We have done away with the ancient
pra tice of duels, not, we trust, because wo are
less jealous for our honour than our ancestors, but
because we believe that honour to be better secured
by an appeal to appeal to reason and good sense
than to the sword or pistol. The code of honour
remains the same, the means of santioning it alone
are altered. When a Ministry has been threatened
with a vote of censure, it has in like manner always
been considered its duty to bring that vote at once
to a decisive issue, not because Ministries are
bound to furnish their antagonists with weapons
for their own destruction, but because so long as
they lie under accusation their functions are virtu-
ally paralyzed, and the power of rendering good
service to the public is suspended. It is the fate
of our Government at the present moment to lie
under a double charge of this kind. Mr. Roebuck
seeks to censure the great majority of its members
as guilty of the reverses before Sebastopol, and Sir
Edward Bulwer Lytton, by affixing a stigma to
the character of Lord John Russell, seeks to im-
plicate in the same censure the rest of his col-
leagues. _ _

The first of these motions stands for next
Tuesday ; the second is left to find a place where
it can in the crowded paper of the second
half of July. The first motion is now of little
importance, while the second treats undoubtedly
of the gravest possible matters matters on
which explanation is imperatively called for, and
on which the public mind must soon be definitively
made up. By the motion of Sir E. B. Lytton
Parliament is to be asked whether it will tolerate,
at a period of so much difficulty and danger, the
conduct of a Minister who, like Lord John Russell,
engaged as plenipotentiary to an European Con-
gross, and being also a Cabinet Minister, trans-
cends his instructions, forgets his duty of secrecy,
and makes known to the doubtful friends and de-
clared enemies of his country views and opinions
of his own, which it subsequently turns out are not
entertained by the remainder of his colleagues.
Parliament is to decide whether it will tolerate
that this same Minister, coming home with peace-
ful propositions, shall conceal that fact from the
House of Commons under the mist of speeches
which, if not categorically denying such opinions
as those he privately expresses, are, at any rate,
wholly incqnsistent with them. Parliament has
to decide :Whether it will tolerate that these
opinions in favour of an ignominious peace shall
be kept secret so long as success waits upon our
arms, to be brought forward with the most circum-
stantial minuteness as soon as diaster and disap-
pointment give a chance of their favourable accep-
tation—whether, in fact, we are to tolerate a
Minister who has two sets of opinions, one for
private, the other for public use—the warlike for
success, and the peaceful for failure. Lord John
Russell has to extricate himself from this dilemma.
If, as he told us the other night, he holds the
same opinion now that he did at Vienna with re-
ference to the terms of peace, lie is unworthy to be
trusted with the conduct of the war ; and if, on
the other hand, he has changed the views which
he promised the Minister of the half-friendly
Court of Austria to press upon the acceptance of
his colleagues in the Cabinet, such levity and in-
constancy unfit him for any trust whatever. This
motion, then, is no small thing. It nearly touches
the reputation of a very eminent man ; it is brought
forward by a gentleman of great talent and influ-
ence on the Opposition side of the house ; and it
involves, if carried, the very existence of the pre-
sent Government.
This being so, we confess we are surprised to
find that, instead of offering every facility for the
determination of this question, Lord Palmerston
seems inclined to interpose every obstacle that the
forms of the house will allow to its decision. We
believe this to be new in Ministerial tactics, and
it is a novelty not to be encouraged. We have
heard much of late years of Governments existing
on sufferance, but we never before heard of a Go-
vernment that lived upon the forms of the House
of Commons, and protracted its existence not by
conciliating the majority of that house, but by pre-
venting the majority by technical means from arriv-
ing at any decision at all. Official life, like natural
life, may bo bought too dear, and we confess that
we think this an unconscionably heavy price to pay
for it. So, we presume, thinks Mr. Disraeli, for
we observe that he has given notice of a motion for
this day, the object of which is to secure to the
motion of Sir E. B. Lytton next Friday that pre-
cedence which Lord Palmerston has hitherto denied
him. We cannot doubt that in the house of Com-
mons, as in any other assembly of British gentle-
men, such a motion must be successful, and that
the Government will have to accept, however re-
luctantly, the conflict which they ought to have
shown the utmost eagerness to commence.
If we be right in this conjecture, tho decision of
the main question is very near at hand, and the
week will probably not terminate without an ex-
pression of opinion one way or the other. As the
matter comes somewhat suddenly on the house of
Commons, we venture to offer to them a single
suggestion. The house is no debating society,
bound to vote a proposition because it is true,
however inconvenient the time and conjuncture at
wh eh it is laid before it. But neither, on the other
hand, ought the House to exhibit itself to the
country as compromising groat principles and de-
nying obvious truths in order to servo the purpose
of one party or another. Now, if there be an im-
portant subject in the range of political discussion
it is the momentous question of peace and war,
and the opinions of those to whom we intrust the
choice between one and the other. Parliament is
about to separate for some months, and, if it sin-
cerely desires a vigorous prosecution of the war and
an honourable peace, it should intrust the destinies
of the country to no jarring counsels and no divided
opinions. There is a class of politicians who are ever
ready to assert that it is not the words of the mo•
tion, but the effect on party prospects, that is alone
to be regarded, and that to keep in their friends and
to keep out their enemies any principle may be
violated, any enormity may be sanctioned. We
think we have, in the enfeebled state of political
parties and the gradual loss of credit with the public
which all sides of the House are alike undergoing,
a very significant protest against this lax political
morality. The country is weary of this endless
compromise between truth and expediency, honest
conviction andparty spirit. However this question
be decided, we earnestly trust it will be decided on
its merits, in au impartial, even in a judicial, spirit.
Whatever ill effects may result from an adverse
-vote, we are fully persuaded they are as nothing
compared to the injury done to the character of pub-
lic men and to representative institutions them-
selves by any attempt to slur over gross and mani-
fest delinquency, or to seek a party triumph at the
expense of those principles of honour and justice
without which parties lose their coherence, senates
their dignity, and Governments their power.

(Prom the Times of this day.)

The inteliigence from the Crimea, though not
announcing any decisive operations, contains satis-
factory evidence that the general ascendancy ac-
quired of late by the allies has not been damaged
by the check of the 18th. General Simpson an-
nounces that on the day after his despatch (i. e.,
on the 10th) it was his intention to open a heavy
fire on the Redan—a notification which proves both
that we are in a position to resume the offensive,
and that this advantage would be improved without
delay. We collect, indeed, from the letter of our
own correspondent that the suspension of opera-
tions since the last assault may have been owing
as much to the derangement of the railway as to
any other cause ; but, as those impediments to ac-
tion have now probably been removed, and as
General Simpson makes direct allusion to the
weight of artillery which he will bring into play,
we hope that our superiority in this powerful arm
may be effectually exerted, and that the blood of
our troops may be economised through the agency
of our guns. Some months ago it was observed
with regret, that of the 3,000 miles intervening
between England and Sebastopol, the last six or
seven were so obstructed as to neutralise the faci-
lities commanded through the rest of the voyage ;
but these obstacles exist no longer. There is now
an uninterrupted steam-track from Woolwich to
Sebastopol, and all the superiority of mechanical
resources which we possess as a nation may be em-
ployed without hindrance or waste for the advan.
tage of our arms.
It is satisfactory to observe that in this respect
the progress of the allies is steady and dicided.
We may not, indeed, be able to annihilate the vast
earthworks of the enemy with as mach eertioeinty as
if they were constructions of masonry, lout loysthe aid
of heavy shells, pitched vertically ioalt their