The Sun.
London, England, 1852-05-17 00:00:00

in forming ready for the advance is to be made to the 1
Admiralty.

T 11.571
'; '4"

1?,)

don. 90, Captaia G. It ; M,,naren, 81, Cap,,in,
C. Hope, guardship of ordinary; Horatio, 22, screw
steara•frigate, Captain the Hon. S. T. Camegie; Am-
phion, Cyclops, Barracouta, Ltz-.lrd, Myrtle, and Wildfire
steamers.

I❑ th© Basin—Achille, 76; Ru3iell, 72; and Gossamer
cutter.

In Dock—Howe, 120; Ganges, 84; and Tribune surly
steam-frigate, building.

APPOINTMENTS.
WOOLWICH, MAY 15. Master Robrfrt C. Allen
(1841), to the Exc,l:ent gunnery-ship at Portsmouth,
for service in the Edinburgh, 58, steam screw guard-
ship at Portsmouth.

Paymaster and Purser Charles Lyne (1819), to tho
Buzzard steam-sloop at Devonport.
The Lightning steam-vessel, Master Commander
Henry W. Allen, left Woolwich to-day for Chatham, as
tho Hercules troop-ship is to be takcn round from
Greenhitho to that port, and the Lit,htning and Adder
steam-vessels will take the officers and men of the
Queen, at present serving in the Hercules, to Ports-
mouth to join their ship.

LORD DERBY'S ADMINISTRATION.
It must be coutessud that thew is a great diffieuhy in
dealing with Lord Derby's Administration. As far as
we are concerned, it is some comfort to know, in the
first place, that we had no hand in creating the difficulty,
and, in the second place, that it is universal. Lord John,
his auxiliaries, his supporters, and his very colleagues,
chose to quarrel amorg themselves, and, like a mutinous
crow, surrender the ship to a foe of inferior Lumbers,
metal, and weight. That was the disagreeable and un-
leeked-for incident to which the
present Ministry owes
its accession to power, and which is not very unlike
the circumstances of Lord John Russell's own acces-
sion to power six years since. But the minority
once admitted into offiee with due constitutional
solemnity, how was it to be treated? From the
first wo saw one thing which appeared to be gene-
rally overlooked, and which diminished the diffi
culty, so far as it reduced the number of possible
alternatives. We saw that Lord De: by and his friends
were in, and could no longer be treated as out. So little
was this fact realised that wo remember seeing in a
clever contemporary in March an application of the
well-known stanza on the comparative advantages of
shutting the door against a lion, or letting him in and
then turning him out. Our contemporary recommended
without hesitation the former of these two courses,
wholly forgetting that the opportunity had passed, and
the latter alone was possible. What we have now to
deal with is a lion in actual possession, the old British
liun. Now, naturalists tell 1,3 that it is a popular error
to suppose the lion the noblest and bravest of animals.
He has not a spark of generosity in his nature. He is
a ferocious, cowardly, sneaking brute, with all the vices
of the whole feline family, but as much without either
the desperate courage of the tigsr or the gentleness and
docility of the smaller cat species. Such, then, being
by hypothesis the animal in possession of our house, the
question is, how are we to deal with him?
We recommended fair play, for the obvious reason
that fair play was the constitutional basis on which the
Ministry rested. Parliament, having admitted it to
power, could not with decency, or even self-respect,
stultify itself by immediately reversing its own act. It
remained, also, to be seen how the new Government
would act, and what colours it would show. Here
again, however, we were met by the cry that fair play
did not apply to the like of these men. Fair play was
for those for whom we had sympathies, and who could
feel sympathies for us. It was insisted that we should
treat them as vermin, pirates, and other hostes humani
generir; that we ehould stop their supplies, starve them,
poison them, or knock them on the head with the first
stick or stone that came in our way. But unless we
were to act from mere antipathy, the supposition of the
new Ministers being vermin did not materially
affect the practical difficulty. Suppose them to be
vermin. li there is no such thing as a moral
law with vermin, there is yet a law of expediency. It is
true that we eo more thick of the sixth commandment
when we order a battue of rats than we do of the eighth
when we rob a hive of its honey; but it may be inexpe-
dient to destroy even rats without due consideration.
For example, it we poison them, they will die in their
holes, and leave ex ossibus ultor in the shape of an in-
tolerable stench. It is a question whether rooks, spar-
rows, and other destructive birds can be wholly destroyed
without increasing some still more destructive insect
tribes. The children of Israel, having received a
general commission to Extirpate all the Canaanites, were,
nevertheless, forbid to do so all at eve° lest the beasts of
prey should multiply upon them, This club law, then,
this argument a beicuto, did not really apply, for it
might he expedient to give not only fair play,
but a considerable degree of tether, or " a length
of rope," it is sometimes called, to Lord Derby's
Administration. We believed, and we still believe, it
expedient to allow them every opportunity of clearing
and declaring themselves, and of reaffirming or repu-
diating their errors. They had been on the waver for
" a long time, and latterly had been shifting" their
ground quite as fast as the intelligence or the forbear-
ance of their supporters would allow. It was no new
thing, too, in the history of British politics that a party
in power should repudiate or forget the extreme opi-
nions and the plausible intentions it had professed in
Opposition. Indeed all parties do that, and it is sup-
posed to be one of the peculiar advantages of our con-
stitutional system, that it gives our legislators the alter-
nate opportunities of learning the abstract principles of
political science on one side of the House, and their
practical application on the other.
But if there was no antipathy of nature, no moral
vengeance to be immediately put in force ugainat these
men, and if expediency suggested that we should wait,
self-preservation requires tbat we should not allow our-
selves to fall into the power of those whom we have
merely admitted on trial. It is very true that we shall
never be really in the power either of Protectionists or
of a Protectionist policy, for unquestionably the country
at large would soon take that question out of the hands
of any Parliament; but it is not the less improper to
recommend a course eo dangerous as to involve the pos-
sibility of a violent remedy. It is clear that unless we
have very good reason to trast her Majesty's present
advisers, we cannot contemplate with pleasure the
prospect of having them as our absolute masters.
If Lord Derby should find .himself in a decided
majority next session, with his supporters un-
fettered and obedient, and should he in the
intoxication of power attempt the grand project of
reversing our free-trade policy, that would be about as
great a national calamity and as dangerous a crisis to
cur institutions as the most disappointed Chartist could
possibly desire. But the truth must be spoken. Wo
cannot trust Lord Derby's disuse:ion not te make this
attempt. We ought nor to trust any man, or put our-
selves in the power of any men. England ought not to
be placed at the mercy of any dozen gentlemen what-
ever; but if any dozen gentlemen are to be trusted, it is
too clear that these dozen gentlemen are not. They are
at variance with one another, and with themselves; they
confe,s wishes at variance with their intentions; they
hare one language for the rational part of the house of
Commons, and another for the irrational part of the
constituency; they can hardly be made to feel that they
are in a minority. Are such men to be trusted? Cer-
tainly not.

The natural solution of the present difficulty, as it
appears to us, is that every causzi:uency in the country,
in which Free-tra-lers aro strong enough for the pur-
pose, should exact from candidates the mast explicit re-
nunciation of Protection, in any shape whatever, direct
or indirect. That is the question to be decided by the
country; that is the object of the dissolution; and that
appears to us the proper mode of answering the appeal.
Lord Derby's friends are sedulously preaching, on the
one hand, that the question for the country is, whether
it has confidence in his Government; Sir James
Graham, on the othrx hand, is as anxious to persuade
the country to put only this question, " Are you a sup-
porter of Lord Derby's Government?" This, how-
ever, is a question, not of men, but of measures.
This grand constitutional relep,nce to the great
court of the people is not for the purpose of deciding
whether Lord Derby, or Lard John Russell, or Sir
James Graham, or somebody else shall be First Lord of
the Treasury for the three or four years to come, but to
decide whether the food-and industry of a whole people
are to be taxed for the special advantage of any one
class. Let pledges be framed to meet that question, and
let them be obtained from as many as possible of the 658
Members of the next Parliament. As to the particular
men, or the particular measures that will prevail next
year, no mortal can pretend to foretel them, and it is
vain to think of fixing theta now; but such a course as
owfephraovtee
ei
tni do
ni c a
ot erdosiialnl
y certainly
Cabinet
preclude
a b lteht o .totsssirbeisl pityc-
ration.— Times.

RAILWAY SIIARE MARKETS,
LIVERPOOL MAY 15.
STOCK EXCIIANGIE.—The business transacted in our share
market to-day was very limited, at lower prices. The trans-
actions were—Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire Junc-
tion, 10%8 dis.— Ditto (late Chester and Birkenhead), 17 53
Caledonian, 191/B—Eastern Counties. 9 1-16—Edinburgh and
Glasgow, 31 %—Lancashire and Yorkshire,
and North-Western, 123%—Ditto, New Quarters, 5% P.--
Midland, 695/B—Ditto, New Preference, 4;12 per cent., par—
North British, 7—North Staff 6 11-1 ordshire, 723/4 —London
6 dis.—Sof tn-
Eastern and Dover, 2U,vB—Yorkand North Alidland, 24 A.

NI AN CH ESTE It, MAY 15,
STOCK EXCHANGE.—The transactions to-day were as
follow :—Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire Junction, 11
dis.— Caledonian, 19 3-16—Eastern Counties, 9 n.—Edin-
burgh and Glasgow, 32—Fleetwood, Preston, and West
Riding Junction 1478. dis.—Lancashire and Yorkshire, 72%
—London and 'North-Western, New Quarters, 53/8 p.—
Manchester and Birmingham (C), Quarters, 2 1-16 p.—
Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire (101. Preference),
13 5 16—North Staffordshire, GI% dis.—South-Eastern and
Dover, 215 A.

BIEME4GEIADT, MAY 15.
STocrK EXCHANGE.-- The share market has been firm
to-day, but there was very little business doing. The only
sale reported was--Shrewsbury and Birmingham (A), 7yB:

A " FANCY" CANARY.—A g.uul isney bird must
have a clean cap ; that is, the crown of his head, defined by a
horizontal line at the level of his eyes and bask, must be of a i
clean yellow or white,-- in no reap. et broken or spatted with
though it is right to acknowledge,Wtilina wings, and
taile x-
must
foul feathers. One single foul feather renders him im-
perfect;
Ipsuoribteyeiqsuraallryelfyremeefrtewmityh'e'llollwisorbli,evkh'ite feathers. To
a
his beauty remarkable, he shouldhte be finely mottled
e back, and of a flue clear yellow all below the breast
i make
eaumkts e
on
These requirements are as essential ina hen as in
the male bird. There are two twines given, to distinguish
the colour by. The one are called." mealy ;" the others
Jonque birds. The former have their crowns, and all below
their breasts of a clean white or pale yellow; the latter of a
deep yellow. No good breeder ever pairs two . mealy and
two Jonque birds together. A skilful eye would imme-
diately detect any offsP
thig Mlliting fr9lll 411C11 A union.--"I'l Own .42urno4