The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-18 00:00:00

they have got up sham works in imitation of those
they have to attack, and here the battalions des-
tined for the assault are practised in getting over
palisades, in using scaling ladders, and in surmount-
ing chevauux de frise and other impediments usual
in the defence of forts.

The Rolf Krake yesterday was again prowling
about in the direction of the Gammehmark batter
ries, keeping, however, at a respectful, distance from
the muzzles of the rifled guns. She seems studying
the land and water, perhaps against the day, now
not far off, when she may be ordered, at all risks,
to coma in near enough to bring her fire to bear on
the Prussians advancing to the assault.

Conservative Leader of the House of
Commons,

(From the Sunday Times.)

A report has been diligently circulated during the last
week or two to the effect that the leadership of the Con-
servative party in the House of Commons had been resigned
by Mr. Disraeli, and that General Peel had been appointed
to the important office thus rendered vacant. This rumour
first gained public attention through the columns of a
Scotch journal. We gave it our most unqualified contra-
diction. It has been revived in more influential, though
not more scrupulous circles. The Globe has alluded to the
"new or temporary" leader of the opposition; and the
Times, in a leading article, has adopted phraseology more
definite and positive still. The only actual reason for this
method of expression, so far as our imagination can guide
us, is to be found in the simple circumstance that the gal-
lant general, on Friday night last week, made a short
speech in which he casually indicated his belief that the
foreign policy of the Government would be brought under
solemn discussion at an early period. An inference so
momentous was never drawn from a circumstance so insig-
nificant. General Peel had a perfect right, on his own re-
sponsibility as a highly influential member of the House,
to throw down the challenge he did ; but that organs like
the ("lobe and Times should be so childish as to build, on a
sentence delivered in the course of a short speech on a
question of the highest public interest, an assumption that
a vital change had been made in the organisation and ad-
ministration of the Conservative party, is altogether beyond
credulity. The mistake must have had an inspiration less
imbecile, if more malignant.

Mr. Disraeli is the natural—he is the inevitable chief of
the Conservative party in the House of Commons. The
party is his own creation. He has brought it into existence.
He has formed and fashioned it. He became its centre and
its head, not by subtle contrivance or desperate aggression,
but the most legitimate and the most irresistible of all laws
—the law of gravitation. Its elements were drawn to him
by the force of the attraction of cohesion. The party has
accomplished and honourable men in its ranks—men to
whom the highest offices of state might be safely entrusted.
But, so far as the Lower House is concerned, Mr. Disraeli's
name stands for the Conservative party in the instinctive
judgment of the nation. Its brain, its discipline, its dignity,
its robust and healthful patience, and above all its restless
and weariless activity have been his. To depose him would
be an insanity as well as a gigantic crime of ingratitude.
Nobody thinks of deposing him. The idea is to absurd. To
d;splace Mr. Disraeli would be to throw back the chances
of party success for years and years. It would be disruption.
A chaos of demoralisation would ensue. There are not ten
members of the party who do not know and feel this, snd
who do not acquiesce in the conviction with the most cor-
dial loyalty and pride. The notion promulgated by the
Globe and the Times is as destitute of the sanction of reason
as it is of the sanction of fact.
The political effect of the absurd rumour under notice is
not likely to be very mischievous. Its moral import, how-
ever, is, to our mind, somewhat distressing. It seems to
be a part of that inveterate prejudice with which the right
hon. gentleman has been pursued from the very commence-
ment of his extraordinary career. For that prejudice we
cannot account on any of the principles which ordinarily
influence the the habits of mankind. What hag Mr. Dis-
raeli done, or what is he, that he should be thus systemati-
cally and unreservedly abused ? Is he a dolt who owes his
position to the mere accident of his birth or his fortune ?
Is he a blockhead whose only credit is his title, or whose
only power is in his gold ? Is he a lazy dullard who has
managed to lounge his say into a position to which his
lethargy indissolubly binds him ? Is he en empty- pated
quack, who has succeeded by spells of personal beauty, or
airs of audacious snobbery ? Is this man not, rather one of
the wonders of his generation ? Has he not sprung from
the people ? Has he not won his way by unceasing indus-
tries, by pre-eminent talent, by unconquerable resolution,
without any aid whatever from court favour, family in-
fluence, or popular fanaticism ? From being a celebrated
author, Mr. Disraeli has become an illustrious statesman.
In all his successes we can find no trace of the accidental, the
adventitious, or the corruptly artful. He has had no paid
organs. He has paid no hack trumpeters. He has been the
sycophant of no self-cantained and egotistical imparialisms.
These may be the reasons why he stands not well in the esti-
mation of the Globe; and the limes is a paper which never
recognises a success on which it has any chance of imposing
a limit. Sa it is possible that in recounting Mr Disraeli's
claims to the confidence and respect of h's country, we
have explained the reasons why our contemporaries are so
impatient for his overthrow.

Indeed, we are disposed to regard the rumour in question
as the highest compliment which:could be paid to the cha-
racter of Mr Disraeli, and to the authority which he has
acquired in the couns;:ls of the nation. When the political
enemies of his party are in such haste to announce his de-
position, it is quite fair to imagine that they wish and hope
for what they predict; and that they know beforehand that
the step they proclaim so hurredly would be the most fatal
which that party could possibly take, The postponement
of a great political triumph they are, above all things, desir-
ous of achieving ; to depose Disraeli would tatter secure that
result than anything else in the world. So they grasp at
the notion with an impetuosity which is really amusing,
Sad as we are to disappoint them, we again declare that they
nourish their hopes on a dslusion. Disraeli is stronger to-
day than ever he was. He is more essential to the unity
and the force of the Conservative party than ever he was.
He never stood higher in the trust and gratitude of that
party than now. And the greatest tribute which its enemies
can pay to his genius and his authority is the nervous and
feverish desire that something might happen to dethrone
him.

(From the Standard.)
Not for his own sake, nor even for the sake of those great
principles of which he is the most distinguished defender,
should we think it necessary to undertake the vindication
of Mr. Disraeli. If it be true that no man was ever written
down but by himself, so it is also true that the best and only
efficient reply to imputations against the character of a
public man must be furnished by his public life. It is not
as Conservatives, but as journalists jealous of the honour of
our profession, and loth to see the press of England self-
degraded to the American level, that we feel it our duty to
enter an indignant protest against the conduct of our Liberal
contemporaries towards the great spokesman of the Oppo-
sition. lt may be needful now and then to fix upon a single
statesman that responsibility which, however divided in
theory, practically belongs to him alone. It is often a duty
to recall the past errors and inconsistencies of a Minister to
whom great powers of mischief have been unwisely en-
trusted. tut it can never be right, it an never be a legi-
timate method of political warfare, to substitute imputation
for argument; to make the character of an individual poli-
tician the mark for persevering, incessant, unscrupulous
attacks ; to speak of him on every occasion in terms of re-
proach and insult; to fix upon him accusation so vague and
general that they can neither be substantiated nor answered;
continually to reflect on his honour, sincerity, and good
faith, without ever attempting to prove against him a single
act of disloyalty or a single untruthful word.
This has been the course adopted, not by one or two, but
by all the Liberal organs, without exception, towards Mr
Disraeli. They never try to prove that he has acted dishon-
ourably; but they always speak of him as if they had
proved it. They have never alleged any
reason for sup-
posing that he is not at heart a true Churchman and a
sound Conservative ; but they always assume that his Con-
servatism is hollow and his Churchmanship a pretence.
When he brings forward a budget they do not trouble them.
selves to analyse his proposals and object to their principles
or their details; but they bear in mind the remark that no
one can refute a sneer, and make an affectation of contempt
serve the purpose and save the labour of argument. When
he introduced a Reform Bill which embodied some of the
soundest proposals of the most moderate and enlightened
Liberal writers, they raised a howl of derision at those very
proposals, and to this day they always speak of that Reform
Bill as if it had been a dishonest raanceuvre, a transparent
strategem, merely because it was introduced by a Govern-
ment of which Mr. Disraeli was the loader in the Lower
House. Their contempt, their sneers, their derision, are all
directed against the individual statesman, not against the
party chief. When it suits their purpose they can be civil
to his colleagues, But if he is severe ho is accused of
scurrility; if he speak in conciliatory tones he is plotting
some unnatural coalition. Now he saves the Govern-
ment from a defeat on a chance motion, and is told
that he dare not take office ; now he censures in strong
terms a leading Minister, whose conduct has aroused the
indignation of the country, and is reviled for attacking
an absent man. Random verses and good novels are
equally cast in his teeth. A scribe noted for his scurrility
alone is employed to write a thieg octavo libel, entitled
"The Lite of the Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli ;" and if it
were possible to prove that he bad got into a scrape at
school, or made an escapade at college, we doubt not that
every Liberal journal would make capital of the discovery.
But a day or two ago he took occasion, contrary to the
wishes of a large number of his supporters, to vindicate the
necessity of a tax most unpopular among the country gen-
tlemen, and assert the paramount claims of public policy
over class interests and party prejudice. This surely was
an act of statesmanlike honesty, and of generosity towards
the political and personal enemy at present responsible for
our finances. Yet even his defence of the malt tax was
made the ground for coarse and insolent vituperation. What
is perhaps the worst of all, not a session passes in which
our contemporaries do not set on foot some wholly untrue