The Sun.
London, England, 1852-02-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE. MORNING PAPERS OF TIIIS DAY.

HERALD.—We attempted yesterday to prove—and
there are not wanting those, composed of men of all
parties, who think that we succeeded in proving—that
in exchanging Lord Truro for Sir Edward Sugden the
country and the profession will gain enormously. In-
stead of a man proverbially slow, undecided, and igno-
rant of the first principles as well as the practice of
equity—the profession and the public have acquired a
lawyer of the quickest and the promptest faculties—a
profound master of his art, active, energetic, and capa-
ble in the highest degree. At once subtle, agile, and
quick-witted, Sir Edward Sugden possesses the legal
coup d'ccil which enables him to tee the salient points of
a case at a glance. It is not necessary for him to labour
every petty fact with sesquipedalian ponderosity—to look
over every document, worrying himself and others to no I
purpose. This drudgery must be left to meaner minds, I
to men of the slow apprehension and torpid facul-
ties of a Truro. There is scarcely a gentleman of
real estate or of large personal property in the coun-
try, that is not obliged to go to Chancery for some
purpose or other, and these suitors, whether as
privateindividuals, or members of trading, bank-
ing, or joint-stock companies, must all feel that their,
interests are safe in the keeping of the author of the
book on " Powers,"and on " Vendors and Purchasers."
To clearness and quickness of apprehension, Sir Edward
Sugden adds, in an eminent degree, decision. He will
not take three months, nor many days, so thoroughly is
he master of the subject, to make up his mind on any
suggested improvements in the common law or equity
practice. The new Chancellor will either at once op-
pose, or approve unreservedly or sub modo, any project
that comes before Parliament. He will not exhibit the
chilly-shallying—the:nihili pihili system of his prede-
cessor, moving a step onward to-day, to retreat two
backward to-morrow. In private wo wish the ex-legal
functionary health and happiness; but we trust never to
hear of the Noble Lord again in any public employment
whatever. In the present condition of Europe, probably
there is no more important appointment than that of
First Lord of the Admiralty. This office has been admi-
rably filled by a nobleman of the highest rank, a rear-
admiral by profession—and one who has an enthusiastic
love for the honour and glory of his profes-
sion. Without depreciating the fair character
of his predecessor, we think we may say
that it were impossible to hit on a more popular ap-
pointment than that of the Duke of Northumberland.
Our contemporary the Times has affected a well-feigned
surprise at the nomination of Sir John Pakington to the
colonies. Sir John Pakington, forsooth, is an active
Worcestershire magistrate. The fact is undoubtedly
true. Like most leading country gentlemen, from the
Revolution to the present day, Sir John has taken an
active part in the judicial and fiscal business of his
county, presiding for nearly twenty years, without foe or
reward, at the Worcestershire quarter sessions, and
doing the business of the country with a zeal and abi-
lity beyond all praise. We have yet to learn that this
is a disqualification for high office, or that it unfits a
country gentleman for the service of his Sovereign. Our
contemporary asks, is Sir John Pakington equal to the
task of governing fifty colonies, more or less in a state of
disaffection? It is no doubt a difficult and arduous task;
but all that the new Minister asks ie a fair trial, and that
he shall only be held accountable for his own measures.
It may be asked, whose rash, intemperate, and senseless
official acts—whose insulting and arrogant dispatches
have placed the colonies in this state of disaffection?
Every voice will answer—"'Tis Earl Grey has done it
all." Yet Earl Grey was not an inexperienced man.
From the moment he attained his majority he had a seat
in Parliament, and before he was eight-and-twenty had
obtained office. Twice was this worst of Colonial Minis-
ters Under-Secretary for the Colonies, once Under-Se-
cretary for the -Home Department, once Secretary at
War, and once Principal Secretary for the Colonies.
Lord Grey's experience and official habits have then
stood him in no stead. On the contrary, the older ho
got—the more he became inured to office—the morein-
veterate and ingrained appeared his presumptuous, head-
long self-willedness, and that insolent arrogance, which
has so shocked every gentlemanlike and liberal mind.
We do not hesitate positively to aver, and we have had
abundant opportunities of observing both men, that the
abilities of Sir John Pakington are just as good as those
of Lord Grey, while his temper and judgment are far
superior. The demeanour of Sir John Paktngton is
dignified and conciliatory. He may not be able to com-
pletely retrieve the errors of his predecessor—nor do we
believe the younger Pitt, were he to rise from the grave,
could fully retrieve them, even in a five or six years te-
nure of office? but surely it ill becomes the backers-up of
the mischievous wilfulness and insolent intemperance of
Lord Grey to cry down any independent commoner who
is patriotic and courageous enough to accept the dread
responsibility of succeeding such an official firebrand at
the Colonial-office. Sir J. Pakington will do his duty,
and do it well. Mr. Henley, like Sir John Pakington
(and we may add like many of the greatest statesmen
and ministers of England), is also an independent coun-
try gentleman, and has as much distinguised himself in
Oxfordshire as Sir John Pakington in Worcestershire.
But does this unfit him for the Board of Trade? The
ignorant people who thus talk or write at rrndoin, forget
that George Canning—no mean statesman, and no bad
judge of men and things—selected a chairman of quarter
sessions, the late Mr. Sturges Bourne, as his Home Mi-
nister, at a period when the House of Commons was
teeming—which is not the case now—with oratorical
talent of the very highest order. A more sensible and
solid-headed man than Mr. Henley sits not in the House
of Commons, and though Mr. Labouchero may be his
superior in red-tapeism and the mere clerkship of
office, we will not insult Mr. Henley by comparing
his intellect to that of his predecessor. Sir George Grey,
the predecessor of Mr. Walpole, the new Home Secre-
tary, was, like Mr. Walpole, bred to the bar; but, un-
like Mr. Walpole, never rose to eminence, or to any
business but that to which ho was jobbed as one of the
counsel of the revenue. That Sir G. Grey is a man of
ability we willingly admit, but we maintain that the
actual occupant of the Home Office is a much riper
scholar and a much more learned lawyer than his pre-
decessor. Mr. Walpole has not been more than five
years in Parliament, but when he has bad the long ex-
perience of Sir George Grey we have no doubt he will
be as quick and keen a party debater. In speaking of a
high order—in elevation of tone and view, he now sur-
passes Sir George Grey, who is only great on personal
or party questions. Much vehement indignation has
been spent, and some silly efforts at banter have been
attempted, because of the appointment of Mr. Disraeli
to the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is a
cherished prejudice of the race of dunces all over the
world that a man of genius is unfit for business; but the
cases of Bolingbroke, Chatham, Pitt, Burke, Windham,
and of Canning may be cited against this delusion of gentle
self-satisfied dulness. No man ever accused the late Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer of being a man of genius, learning,
or eloquence. He is as self- sufficient, as presumptuous,
and dull a baronet as could be well found in all the
realms of Whigdom; yet after producing three budgets
per annum, he never succeeded in compounding one
which did not require further change and recasting. Is
it for the men who have had an Althorp, described by
Viscount Palmerston thus—
" A was an Althorp, as dull as a hog

a superficial-inch Rice, and a Wood for a Chancellor of
the Exchequer, to sneer at any man, however unknown,
as incompetent, much less at a man of the unmistakeable
and unquestioned ability and cleverness of the Member
for Bucks? There aro no details, however abstruse,
which Mr. Disraeli cannot master, as the cookers of
Whig statistics have more than a dozen times, to their
confusion, discovered. Wo freely admit that Mr.
Herries is neither so loud, so burly, ncr co boisterous
as Mr. Fox Maule; but he has five times his experience,
and fifty times his official and general knowledge. Wo
are, therefore, unreasonable enough to believe that he
may get through the Indian business as well—to say the
least—as the ex-" captain bold" of the 79th High-
landers. We fully admit that in the present state of
Europo it is an onerous responsibility, indeed, to enter
on the management of Foreign Affairs—more especially
so promptly following a statesman of the capacity and
experience of Viscount Palmerston; but even the Times
admits that Lord Malmesbury is a sensible, clear-headed
nobleman, of great good temper and judgment, and
these are qualities very much required in dealing with
foreign Governments. No one doubted the ability of
Viscount Palmerston; but withal the impetuous humour
of the Noble Lord sometimes hurried him into the writ-
ing of dispatches compromising not only his colleagues,
but the Sovereign and the country. Wo have seen the
conduct of foreign affairs subsequently transferred to a
nobleman young enough to be the son of Viscount Pal-
userston, and who, in his brief career, exhibited, we are
glad to admit, tact, temper, and discretion. We have
every reason, from his past career, to believe that Lord
Malmesbury, a few years the senior of Earl Granville,
will exhibit as conciliatory and as courteous a bearing,
and win golden opinions both at home and abroad. The
Ministry of Earl Derby requires but fair play and a fair
trial, find this will not be denied it by Englishmen, no
matter what their shade of opinion.
TIMES.—The arrangements of the Derby Adminis-
tration are now complete, and a new Household has
started into existence with the same readiness as the
Cabinet. It is difficult to be particular as to the special
aptitude of this or that minor official for his new duties,
without exaggerating the importance of the office itself.
There are figure parts in the State as well as on the
most
Stage, for which a very average amount of persona l re-
commendations- will suffice. Leaving, therefore,
of the respectable walking gentlemen in the list before
us tO speak for themselves, we will single
haveno -
which may call for a passing remark. Young
jection at all, then, that our old friend Mr. al,
and
an_
should take a few lessons at the Board of Trade,
quire in that school a better stock of commercial stens
tics, as well as a better disposition to applY them to the
general good of the public. , andg we shall
The best thin s we can
wish for Chaos are order and
not despair of seeing even the Illigohn.dtourable Member
, and sound.
for Scarborough methodical,
The Household seems very much lilkuociottheer h_ous.eholds,
and, so long as due regard is paid to h dignay end
convenience of the Crown, as well of the privileged
few that are admitted to the presence of Royalty, the
great mass of the people has little to
do
The Earl
ith the matter.
Ireland is a more important affair. of Eglin-
toun is chiefly known by his tournament, which would
have gone off admirably but for the rain. If he could
persuade the Irish to settle their quarrels in the same
will considerably eclipse the
bloodless fashion, heglories
of that mimic chivalry. Chief Justice Eilaekburee, if
probably
wabUlynder-Secre-
he accepts Lord Derby's offer, will make au excellent
Irish Chancellor. LardffaSitra;lehya,sthep
tary for Foreign Affairs, enjoyed
as much direct preparation for that office as
the distinguished excavator asator of the Assyrian
marbles. Sir Frederick Thesiger is Attorney-General,
it is said, with a view to the Speakership of the House of
the new Parliament, should
Commons in the fates be so
far propitious. Lord Lyndhurst declines office, but
remises his support, as also, it is rather superfluously