The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

SATURDAY REVIEW.—The material of the present
Ministry excites in the beholder something of the
interest and admiration which is produced in the
mind by the contemplation of some remnant of
Cyclopean architecture that has endured from prime-
val times. It has no particular beauty, and no
great suitability for the purpose to which it is ap-
plied. But it is impossible to think of the difficul-
ties with which the buildier had to contend, and
which he overcame, without heartfelt wonder. To

have so adjusted rough angular blocks of stone, not
fitting into each other, without cement or mortar
of any kind, as to form a stable and lasting edifice,
must have required almost superhuman ingenuity.
And that is the impression produced oil a bystander
who contemplates the task which Lord Palmerston

has achieved in composing his present Ministry
into a structure that has endured so lang. Men
more opposed in character, more antipathetic in

sentiment, than some of those whom he selected

tor colleagues it would have been difficult to find.

Aod there were no external circumstances to cement

them together.

There was no principle they held

in common, no danger they equally feared, no poli-
tical object they combined to pursue. Nothing but
the dexterity of a cunning architect could have
fitted them so ingeniously together. But occasion-
ally the cleverest architect in this style will be
puzzled by some stone of a shipe so rugged and
angles so abnormal that it will fit in nowhere, and
only perils the edifice of which it is made to form a
part. If current rumour may be trusted, this is
much the position which is at this moment filled by
Mr. Stansfeld in the eyes of his disquieted leaders.
A Ministry representing the Liberal party as it now
is,is necessarilyconstructed upon peculiar principles.
The natural leadership of course belongs, by Divine
right,lo the Whigs. It is necessary that they should
form a decided majority in the Cabinet, and that the
more important offices should be in their hands. Bat
though strong in statesmen,or at least in veteran poli-
ticians, this historic party is lamentably weak in fol-
lowers. Those numbers which, mean and prosaic

as the consider4tion may be, are necessary to give
practical effect to adroit partisanship are unhap-
pily not to be supplied by the Whig party( itself.
Like the American militia before the civil war, this

gallant force consists mainly of generals and colonels.
The consequence is that they are compelled to look
. . .

around them for alliances by which this vulgar con-
dition of victory may be supplied. The Radicals
are prepared to furnish an adequate contingent, for
a consideration. A concession or two in matters of

principles would do, but, in these days of resting
and being thankful, such concessions are a hard
matter to furnish. Yet this difficulty is easily
overcome, for concessions in matters of place are
more acceptable still. Accordingly the arrange,•
meat has been that while, in deference to their in-
alienable rights, the official drawing-room is
occupied by the Whig 6, the official steward's-room
is generously abandoned to the Radicals. In
accordance with this understanding, one of the
ablest members of the Radical party, Mr. Stansfeld,
was selected for preferment, and the important post

of Junior Lord of the Admiralty was offered for
his acceptance. Under such circumstances, he
evidently finds inexpressible consolation in calling
himself, " however unworthy, yet a Minister of the
Crown." It might be imagined that this curious
arrangement, by which Whig peers and sons of
peers get the good places, and Radical talents get
the bad ones,. was eminently favourable to the

former. In practice, however; this does not always
turn out to be the case. Alliances with extreme
politicians are necessarily hazardous proceedings.
W hen you take a young Whig into your ranks,
there are certain important points of which you
may be secure. Yet may be certain that he will
have scrupulously observed every conventional
decorum. He will never have displayed any
enthusiasm for any cause except at the moment
when every one else was mad about it too. He
will never have acquired equivocal friendships by
connection with those doubtful enterprises that are
ranged under the categories of treason or patriotism
according to their success. But all this safe
sobriety is lost directly you venture into a political
temperature more elevated than prevails in the
tepid climate of the great Whig houses. No doubt,
when the Ministers offered a junior lordship of
Admiralty to Mr. Stansfeld, they thought they
were buying the democracy very cheap. It never
seems to have occurred to them that they were
taking Mazzini " with all his engagements" into
the b irgain. For a Government that was already
on cold terms with the Emperor of the French, the
discoveries of the Frocurtur-Imperial, and the re-
marks which they have provoked in England, were
certainly untoward. ;le Mr. Stansfeld himself they
would have been harmless !f it had not been for
the singular want of judgment displayed in his
replies. There seems to have been ne'..?ning in his
actual conduct that any reasonable man woe:ld have
considered as evidence of more than deplorable in-
discretion. He was on terms of intimate friendship
with an exile, who of course was plotting for the
restoration of the cause in which he had suffered.
He naturally aided him to the best of his power in
those plans. The only power which a foreign
police can exercise over a refs =ee who has found
an asylum here is by tampering with the letters
addressed to him through the Post-offices over which
they have power. Nothing, therefore, was more
intelligible than that Mazzini should have his
letters sent to a false address ; and his English
friends would naturally be willing to allow him
to make use of their houses for that purpose. So
long as the correspondence was confined to political
plotting, there was nothing in the proceedings
either of Mazzini or of his English ally that was
open to reproach. Nothing criminal could be im-
puted to Mr. Stansfeld unless it was shown that,
while he gave this permission, he knew that his
friend was concerned in organizing a murder
plot. His troubles have been entirely owing to
the singular want of judgment he displayed in his
earlier answers. At first the House was very much
disinclined to enter upon the subject. Investiga-
tions into the private lives of public men are not
much to the taste of an assembly not a few of whose
members inhabit houses of the frailest glass. The
principle of taking a man to task for the friends
with whom he might choose to live was felt to be
one that might be carried very far. If Mr. Stens-
feld had availed himself of this feeling, and had
met his questioner with simple and straightforward
answers, he would have heard little more of the
matter. That he had been guilty of grave impru-
dance in continuing, after he had taken office, to
allow Mazzini to have letters sent under a feigned
name to his house, was acknowledged on Thurs-
day by his friends and in effect by himself. Had
he admitted frankly on the first night all that he
admitted on Thursday, and added a few expressions
of regret, nothing more would probably have been
heard upon the matter. But he committed an
error, very nearly fatal to the Administration to
which he belongs, in betaking himself to rhetorical
flourishes instead of straightforward answers.
People always believe there is something wrong
in the case of a defendant who runs off into vague
declamation. The Panegyric upon Mazzini was
still more unfortunate. The documents cited by
Mr. Hennessy and Sir Henry Stracey show that at
least there have been times it; his life when
Mazzini believed in the lawfulness ob' tyrannicide.
It was very difficult to persuade the House of
Commons that Mr. Stansfeld was not coga,,sant of
these writings; and yet, unless he was w
ignorant of this tendency of Mazzini's mind, it
was inexcusable in him to have become a blind
participator in schemes of whose character he was
ignorant. But these writings would never have
been dragged into the light if Mr. Stansfeld had
not provoked a scrutiny by hie injudicious pane-
gyric. The result was that Mr. Brand's nerves
were rudely shaken ; and the apparent stability
of the Government in the eyes of foreign countries
has been formidably weakened.
LONDON REVIEW.—Some months ago, when a
mysterious paragraph appeared in all the news-
papers informing us that her Majesty had posted
notices over Windsor Palace to the effect that no
smoking would be tolerated upon the Royal pre-
mises, a slight thrill of anxiety ran through the
country. The impression produced was considered
to be of sufficient importance to warrant the semi-
official communication, which followed a few days
after to assure the public, that the caution had not
figured on the walls of that portion of the Palace
which was devoted to the Prince of Wales. Fo-
reigners must have been at a loss to understand the
question from beginning to end. That Queen
Victoria should object to tobacco would be
matter, in the eyes of a philosophical Ger-
man, rather for pity than for alarm, But
a stranger would never comprehend the interest
felt everywhere when the Times announced the
Queen's views, or the relief generally experienced
when it bemuse further known that the heir to the
throne was not to be debarred the privilege of ruin-
ing his royal constitution by cigars. Foreigners as
a general rule watch the sayings and doings of their
respective courts with at least as much attention
as that which attaches amongst ourselves to the
various occupations and journeys of the Queen of
England and of her family. Even in Belgium,
where there is little of monarchy beyond the name,
the Duke of Brabant and his brothers can ecarcely
enter a shop to buy a pair of Brussels gloves, with-
out finding their adventure chronicled the next
morning in the journals of the metropolis. But the
cigars of the Prince of Wales on this occasion pro-
duced a greater sensation still. With a little more
fanning the subject might have even told upon the
funds. The two paragraphs connoted to English
ears much more than they denoted to a continental
reader. Nothing could be deemed a greater mis-
fortune by the majority of the nation tbau the