The Sun.
London, England, 1852-02-11 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1852.

Satisfactory and even conclusive as the speech of the
PRIME MINISTER, in. reference to the Foreign Secre-
tary, is supposed to be by the adherents of the
former statesman, we are, nevertheless, convinced
that it will be the unguis in ulcere to his Govern-
ment. There are admissions in that speech such as
should never have fallen from the lips of the First
Lord of the Treasury—admissions degrading the
Chief Secretaries of State to the position of mere
clerks and under-writers to the SOTEREIGN. The
people of England will never listen again, with other
feelings than those of unmitigated derision, to any
reference that can be made in future to the courage
of Lord Joule RUSSELL as an administrator.
His reputation for political audacity has go e
by as irrevocably as his popularity. We
should as readily look for its revival, as we should
have expected, at any former period, to have wit-
nessed the actual realization of the celebrated witti
cism of SIDNEY SMITH—to have 'seen the PREMIER
building another St. Paul's Cathedral, operating for
the stone, or taking the command of the Channel
fleet. The blundering of the Noble Lord, as the
leader of an Administration, must assuredly have
long since dissipated any notion that might hitherto
have been entertained in regard to the successful
issue of his possible attempts as admiral, as lithoto-
mist, or as architect. Judging from his conduct as
Chief Minister of the Crown, it v could not be very
difficult to conjecture the result of his labours in any
one of those eccentric departrus:nts. Our flag
might have braved another " thousand years the battle
and the breeze," but its glory could never by any
chance have survived the influeuce of Lord JOHN
RUSSELL'S tactics. The duplicate cf St. Paul's must,
in like manner, have turned out under his hand such an
egregious architectural monstrosity els to have carried
anguish to the ghost of Sir CHRISTOPI lER WREN, and to
have endangered the life of Mr. W. ELBT PUGIN by a
paroxysm of convulsions. As for the surgical expe-
riment—GOD help the unlucky victim of calculus who
should fall under the clutches of .any such unskilful
operator ! After the last five or silx years' adminis-
tration we must never hear again of Lord JOHN'S
valour as a politician. Valour ? The valour of
PAROLLES ! Why, there has been scarcely an act of
his since the period of his entrance upon office which
has not been that of legisl at ive poltroonery,
guided by a cringing subservienoy to the popular
clamour of the hour. And the r t his "Letters
JOHN may be a dull boy, it is tru 3, but then he has
" stuck to his letters" with a tens city only equalled
by that revealed by himself and his, colleagues in ad-
hering to Place. To say nothin g of any other
document, it is only necessary to lc,ok to his famous
communication to Lord PALMERSTON, dated the 14th
of last December, to comprehend the only kind of
temerity upon which (on paper) Lord JOHN RUSSELL
has adventured. So entirely has .the PRIME MI-
NISTER acted in these matters from -pique, from pas-
sion, and from prejudice, so invariably has be set
aside considerations of principle and' proceeded only
upon considerations of precipitancy, 'that he is com•
pelled to stumble into all kinds of contradictory di-
lemmas in the course of his Parlij unentary expla-

nations.
An illustration of the inconsiste»cies into which
the PRIME MINISTER has been force rl by his avoid-
ance of any uniform policy and his, subsequent en-
deavours to clear himself Ecom responsi-
. bility, was afforded in a Ile: her remarkable
manner in the course of the discus sions of Monday
evening. In answer to an inquiry from the Hon.
Member for Macclesfield, Lord JO,EIN RUSSELL ad-
mitted that Earl GREY'S very extra• axlinary dispatch
condemnatory of Sir HARRY Smi rft was not sub-
mitted to the QUEEN prior to its beini forwarded to its
destination! Now, how in the nair f: of Heaven can
such an admission as this tally wi Oa the principles
laid down by the PRIME MINISTER cna the night of
the 3d instant, to the effect that docu merits of any im-
portance must be transmitted in the first instance to
her MAJESTY, for the purpose of f xrmally receiving
her MAJEiTT'S approval ? Can the. course pursued
with impunity by Earl GREY in 1 lie removal of s
gallant old officer like his Excea ancy Sir HARRY
SMITH, be viewed as in any way c( easistent with the
treatment experienced by Viacou e t PALMERSTON,
upon the trumpery plea of a pri v ate conversati,,,
with M. W.taewsKr, the French At a bassador ? Thy
thing is absurd and prepo-terous. !Here is a distin-
guished soldier, whose conduct du ring the late dis
turbance in lisfirland has been a of only declared
void of all cuipabilit3 , but has even been com-
mended in the strongest lan gunge by his
Grace the Duke of WELLINGTON- —(surely a much
better judge in such matters tha a Earl GREY 0
—here is this veteran commander, N re say, degraded
from his post as Governor of the Cap a Colony, and in-
suited by terms of reproach, seldo Ti if ever before
addressed to either civil or military -representative of
the SOVEREIGN, and the document in which all this
is done, is forwarded by the Colonia 1 Secretary to its
destination without its being previou sly placed under
the eyes of her Majesty the QUEEN ! Although the
PRIME MINISTER declared, only as ri ecently as the 3d
inst., that dispatches of importance ml 3 st be laid in the
first instance before the SOVEREIGN! Although Lord
PALMERiTON was actually dismissed ;i7 a December for
not having consulted her MAJESTY 1 1.-!fore presuming
to express an opinion in the course ref a private con-
versation ! Although, we repeat, ' the late Foreign
Secretary was turned out of office For daring to say
en-and-so, of his 01411 accord, to M. (!VALES SRI upon
the occasion of a private intervie w—the Colonial
Secretary may at his pleasure, and without previ-
ously submitting the document to his 'SOVEREIGN, for-
ward to Sir LARRY SMITH a disi. etch couched in
words of such unwarrantable severi t-v that it about,
discredit upon would have been si
miseras hominum
if
nothing clent to bring
her MAJESTY' vernment. 0 !
ntentes, oh ! pectorta tcBccepcoaliicy Aw lbaesn
he !
for the justice of Lord R
uss
blunders, himself, into such
rery lamentable
displays of inconsistency 1 They ca a not speedily
be
forgotten. They cannot be forgotte o, we believe,
long as the Noble Lord's name remain inscribed upon
so
its
the annals cf Parliament—those ant ads in which it is
already recorded that, when Prime i ilinister of Eng-
land, Lord JOHN RUSSELL endesvo tared to shift the
responsibilities of the Government fi s.ms his own head
to that of 7 a
woman_ womaia_a QUEEN, it s true, but still,ja order to screen himself
remember
from the odium otherwise inevital I'l`e on the dis-
missal of Lord PALMERSTON.

The SoLICITOIt-GENERAL, on Frid :a .y evening, ob-
tained leave to introduce a Bill for the 3 relief of suitors
in the Court of Chancery, the first of a series of mea-
sures for legal and equitable refor xi, which are to
be brought forward during the pres ent session. It
is founded on the reports cf the Cc 't umittee of the
House of Commons on the subject or' fees, and is in-
tended to carry
out a large proport!:t in of their re-
commendations into practical effect. although the
proposition oF the Learned Gentlem it 5 doss not in
any degree apply to the
jurisdiction CY : procedurs of
the Court, although it is restricted t, o the financial
part of the sol4-Tt, relating 1 fees, and mereiy t o
al-
though it does not strike at the root of ' the evil, we
,villingly Leknowledge that it is a st(p —and a very
important step—in the right direction, and that it is
calculated to inflict a heavy blow and
great discou-
ragement on the infamous "fee" cyst ett , which has,
in but too many instances, converted what should
be the temples of justice into so many d4A of thieves.