The Sun.
London, England, 1852-05-26 00:00:00

enTrlnibla xr_3l:l-2u
LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 1852.

The Olympiad of England—the great race for the
Deiby—reminds one to-day, by a natural association
of ideas, of the most important political question of
the hour, the stability or instability of the existing
Government. Before another month has elapsed, the
Parliament will, in all likelihood, have been dissolved.
Such at least is the most generally received opinion,
consequent upon the estimate that by the 20th of
June the whole of the more imperative business of
the session will have been accomplished. It behoves
the various constituencies throughout the country,
therefore, to bestir themselves betimes; and to the
-Liberal electors in particular we would suggest the
propriety of being more than ever cautious in the se-
lection of their respective candidates. There is some•
thing more required from the Reformers of England,
for example, than the adoption of the query sug-
gested by Sir JAMES GRAHAM, namely, " I 3 sucheati-
one a supporter or an opponent of Lord
Denent's Cabinet ?" There is something more.
than Party to be taken into account—there
is Principle It would be as well, moreover, '
surely it would be as well to inquire not merely into
the colour of the ribbons of a candidate, but also, and
in an especial manner, into the pervading hue of his
different prejudices and predilections. There is such
a thing; for instance, as the Ballot—in regard to
which it :night be advisable to, be a little more inqui-
sitive at the hinting!. Again there are topics no leis
important than Retrenchments in the National Ex-
penditure, and arrangements :or a system of National
Education, and alterations in the National Currency,
and reforms, sanitary, fiscal, financial, colonial, elec-
toral, and of a variety of other descriptions upon
which it would be judicious to be prepared as with
an inexorable kind of portable catechism. Without
some precautionary efforts hevirg this tendency to
vigilance, the holders of the franchise ma 7 be in
terfering, unintentionally, perhaps, but only too
effectually, through mere indolence, with that great
advance movement' which, during the last
quarter of a century, has , been stabi-
litating the institutions and developing the
, energies of the population by a wise and beneficent
succession of strictly constitutional innovations.
Among the reflections which should be uppermost in
the mind of every Liberal elector, is that fruitful
theme of meditation, that his vote will aid in the
regulation for goad or for evil of the complicated and
delicately organized machinery ,of the State---a
reflection which should incite the possessor of the
franchise to vote not according to caprice, 'or obe •
dience to faction, but in rigid compliance with the
sedate and unimpassioned- dictates of conscience. The
duty devolvingcpon the peOple of the United King-
dom at those momentous epochs, the general elections,
is one not to be lightlidischarged, as you would toss
a halfpenny into the cap of a mountebank. It should
rather be with the cautious premeditation of a man
who has to deposit his scruple in one or other of the
scales of justice, upon the poising of which the desti-
nies of an entire race may be said to be in a great
measure dependent.
A glance at the result of the last general electior,
the general election of 1847, will be suggestive, we
feel assured, of opinions calculated to prove not alto-
gether fruitless—acting, as the recollection of that
result must do with the Liberal electors of England,
as a direct and immediate incentive. It cannot be
forgotten that when the Parliament now on the eve
of dissolution first assembled, the two great parties
into which the House of Commons was (through the
lack of some more subtle and yet equally corn pre.
hensive distinction) divided, were almost exactly
balanced, numerically speaking, against each other.
The Liberals numbered almost 327, and the Conser-
vatives about 324. This was immediately after the
dissolution of a Parliament which had been returned
in 1841, with a sweeping majority rigidly Conserva-
tive. If such was the consequence of the appeal to
the country in 1847, when free trade, as a complete
system, was still undeniably crude, what may we
not reasonably anticipate in 1852, when free trade
has ripened into a lasting policy, into a recog-
nised principle, the operation of which during the
last ten, but more especially during the lest
four years, has proved eminently beneficial ? True
that, now-a-days, the Protectionists are in office
under the leadership of the Earl of DERRY, whereas
on the previous occasion the Free-traders held the
reins of power under the guidance of Lord Jonte
RUSSELL. Bat then—it must be borne, moreover,
scrupulously in recollection, that though the Protece
tionists ere in office they have formally abandoned
Protection ! The CHANCELLOR of the Excemeuen
took that course long ago, acting with the sagacity
that might only be expected from a man of the people,
whose abilities as a statesman had raised him to one
of the most difficult and responsible posts of adminis-
' tration. Even Mr. G. F. YOUNG allowed the folly of
stillinsisting, in spite of all hazards, upon the renewal
of imposts to the abolition of which the industrious
inhabitants of these islands had at length become ac-
customed. Sir FITZROY KELLY alone had the hardi-
hood to insist upon the renewal of that accursed tax
upon the food of the people which had been remitted
by the generous hand of Sir ROBERT PEEL,
in defiance of all the taunts of party, and
in obedience to the heroic and self-sacrificing
dictates of a patriotism based upon a spotless con-
science, and upon the noblest principles. The So-
LICITOR-GENERAL was noisy, it is true, in insisting
upon the necessity of reverting to the old corn•laws
repealed in 1846, but Sir FITZROY KELLY has found
his vapid declamation about the rival merits of Free
Trade and Protection reduced to insignificance by
the memorable avowal made only the evening before
last, in the House ofLords, by the PRIME MINISTER of
England—the avowal that the position of the Pro-
tectionists is as hopeless as that of the Free-traders
is unassailable ! Therefore, the probability of suc-
cess to the Liberals throughout the majority of the
constituencies is enhanced by the very circumstance
of the agricultural party being in power at the mo-
ment of the Parliamentary dissolution, because that
circumstance has elicited from the leaders of the Pro-
tectionists auguries of the triumph of their antagoe
nists—drawing forth the already well-known state-
ment of the First Lord of the Treasury, and extort-
ing a panegyric on the system of commercial compe-
tition in the celebrated Free-trade Budget of the
present CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.

_
Everything, indeed, looks encouraging to the
Liberals and Free-traders of the United Kingdom,
now that we are standing as it were on the verge of
the electioneering revelation. Common sense answers
us that there is no mere claptrap or exaggera-
lihotalt has taken teak
asserting that the general election
is likely to be more
of 1852
namely,
in •
rwa
el
n t
y momentouselectionyears
of the four.
its oh s. i
aen'ac Ire e than
ning a nthye pagsetnet
Since the general election of 1832. Not one
interveninga general elections, important
though they have each been in their consequences,
can be regarded
as ascomparable in interest, or in in-
fluence, with that which
tiien must be completed before
the arrival of
ening autumn. The general
election of 1835,
that of 1837, that of 1841, and that
gg.
of 1847, potent though
tI2Q were in chan in the
in Y
legislation, must yield in impor-
tance to that appeal to the country
the nineteenth century, will decide by the
of
voicethe p'
prof ImPlu, not ,
so much whether
freetrade
shall be hence-
forth triumphant (that question
to
resolved even according the showing being already
resolved the
. existing
Cabinet), but whether the administrative policy of this
contirUl
country shall be one of _ Progression or of
revived Retrogression. Liberalism, with c •
onservatism
as to all that is worth conserving) offers
itself on the
one hand to the suffrgges of the Population. Coaser
vatism without Liberalism, Conservatism of
everything
good, bad, or indifferent—Conservatism calling _
Free.
dom "Anarchy," and Reform " Democracy in its
most dangerous attitude, that of wholesale and retail
innovation"—will on the other, possibly, attempt to
lure the electors by the promise of peace, such as
must ultimately prove to be °ply the paralysis of

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