The Sun.
London, England, 1855-06-06 00:00:00

direction that he might lead. But his career has
furnished another illustration of the accuracy of
the adage, " _We sutor ultra crepidam." He
speedily got out of his depth, and floundered
heavily in the sea of casuistry in which he em-
barked. He has totally mistaken his province.
Though unsurpassed when propounding and sup-
porting the truth, he has many superiors in the
art of " making the worse appear the better rea-
son," of "playing on words," and disappointing
the general expectation. In such respects he can
bear no comparision with his new Allies—the
Peelites ; he is not merely inferior to the great
artist Mr. GLADSTONE, but to almost any of those
trained in his school.

Sir JAMES GRAHAM also damaged him-
self to no trifling extent by his pro-Russian
arguments. New light was thrown on the
causes of our earlier failures during the War.
It was owing to the divisions in the Cabinet—
to the determination of those entrusted with the
control of several departments more immediately
connected with the management of hostilities.
We have heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer
and the First Lord of the Admiralty, and, we
suppose, the Secretary at War, will still be forth-
coming. But all the poison they have instilled,
or may i.nsi 1, will be neutralised by a powerful
antidote in the shape of an earnest expression of
opinion by independent members, which will not,
and cannot be mistaken by other nations—by
faithful friends—by avowed enemies—or by con-
temptible neutrals !

Entirely as our views are opposed to those of
Mr. M. GIBSON on the great question of the re-
sumed debate, we must confess our agreement
with him on one constitutional and practical
point of the highest importance. Mr. GIBSON
maintained, citing names as authorities, of quite
equal weight at least to those of our present Mi-
nisters, or all who differed from him, the con sti-
tutional power of the House of Commons to advise
the Crown. The authority of Fox and SHERIDAN
cannot well be sneered at by a pure Whig Cabi-
net. They must pardon all whose opinions are
more swayed by names than by arguments
for thinking these mighty dead as likely
to be right as their living representatives. Lord
PALMERSTON will surely not be remembered so
long as " SHERRY," nor Lord JOHN RUSSELL as-
pire to equality with Fox.
Let, however, the question be settled by rea-
son, especially as enlightened by recent facts.
Mr. BAXTER, the new man of the people from the
far north, and Sir E. L. BuLwER, the intellectual
and elegant Conservative of the south, both ob-
jected to the House of Commons prescribing any
line of policy for her MAJESTY'S Government.
The arguments appear to resolve themselves into
two. One is that, by so doing, the House would
entrench on the prerogatives of the Crown ;
the other, that by detracting from the
responsibility of Ministers, it would relax their
diligence and caution in the discharge of their
duty.

In regard to the first, it is, if honestly exa-
mined, a fiction and nothing better. The prero-
gative of the Crown is to act as advised by its
Ministers. Those Ministers are responsible to
the House of Commons for the advice they give
her MAJESTY. Now, as a person must be the
servant chiefly and principally of those who can
call him to account, and who can even compel his
dismissal, or if he be dismissed in opposition to
their will can compel his reinstatement, it
seems clear that in a constitutional sense
our Ministers are servants of the House
as well as of the Crown. If it be techni-
cally true that to make war and peace are
prerogatives of tie Crown, it is yet true that the
Crown must be advised to one or the other, by
those whom the House tacitly or avowedly confides
in. Such being the relation between these estates
of the realm, why should it be thought invading
the prerogative of the Crown for the House to
declare the advice which it requires those whom
it holds responsible to offer to her MAJESTY ?
They can resign if opposed to the advice, and
her MAJESTY can dissolve Parliament if she
does not relish it, or thinks the nation differs
from the House of Commons. Thii Crown is
now, in truth, but the head of an Executive for
carrying out government by the nation. The Crown
only reigns, the nation governs ; and it seems
mere red-tapery, and routine, and system run to
seed, to deny to the House of the governing
people, the right, on important occasions at least,
to advise the Crown directly, and thus to pre-
clude the possibility of the QUEEN'S responsible
advisers injuring, it may be irremediably, those
to whom they are responsible. If Ministers or
the QUEEN do not like the advice, they have, as
we have already observed, their constitutional re-
medy. No occupation, for instance, would be so
superlatively delightful to Lord JOHN RUSSELL as
to return an answer, contained in a single line, to
an unwelcome address to the Throne, and to an-
nounce immediately after that her MAJESTY
awaited the attendance of Honourable Members
in another place to be forthwith sent back to the
places whence they came.

The other objection, of diminishing too much
the sense of responsibility under which Ministers
act, is a question purely of fact. We of the
Press have just experienced that Ministers held
themselves responsible for giving effect, not to au
address to the Crown, but to a mere resolution
of the House. They pleaded their responsibility
for doing it ; they showed themselves, however,
in no way hampered by it. They appeared to
think the task of carrying out their directions
quite responsibility enough. In the same way it
would be surely a task sufficient for any set of
men to carry out in details the general duty pre-
scribed to them by the House. Into what are
properly details no popular assembly would
ever venture. We have, indeed, a modern ex-
ample to our hand in the Senate of America,
which more nearly answers to our House of Com-
mons than the House of Representatives does.
No treaty can be ratified without its approbation,
and it does not hesitate to indicate its views of
foreign and general policy, yet it never foolishly
descends to the subordinate matters which pro-
perly belong to the Executive ; nor have des-
potic States been backward to maintain diploma-
tic relations with the free-speaking Republic.
We must think, however, that the late crisis
goes far to settle the whole question. The Houses
of Parliament (Earl GREY, with the Manchester
and GLADSTONE school, excepted) seem no w
to participate in the amazement and thank-

fulness with which we look back to our
escape from the infamous Vienna Confer-
ences and the Four Points. Russia, not our
Ministry, has saved us from a humiliation we re-
volt from contemplating, and from an armed peace
whose cost and dangers we shudder to think of.

All our waste of blood and treasure were to have

been really thrown away ; not one word was
spoken of pecuniary indemnity, a thing Russia
herself never forgot to exact from Turkey or from
Austria in her unrighteous wars ; not a word of
the brave Circassians, or even of the unfortunate
Alanders, some of whom Russia, this very winter,
has dragged across the Baltic ice to Siberia !
I Not a word, of course, of
the destruction of the