The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

SATURDAY REVIEW.—A general impression pre-
vails, which may or may not be corroborated by
facts, that the Ministry is weaker than it was, that
it can less afford to stand an attack, and that the
Conservative leaders, although notoriously un-
willing to force on an issue, may be driven
by their supporters to try their strength.
The Conservatives have increased their forces
since the last election, and it is indisputable
that their forces are very,strong. We have now had
two sessions barren of interest and excitement, and
of which nothing better can be said than that, it
nothing was done in them, nothing was promised
to he done. The nation, not having any domestic
grievance of a salient kind to grumble over, end
occupied with the observation of foreign affairs,' has
been satisfied with the long period of inaction, and
has taken pleasure in finding an opportunity of pay-
ing Lord Palmerston the handsome compliment of
letting him preside in undisturbed ease over this
epocteof repose. But, in the nature of things, a
quiet and easy-going time—a time when people are
satisfied with themselves, and delight in keeping
up the military strength of the country without
any wish to make any demonstration or use of it
—must tend to throw power sooner or later into
the hands of the Conservative party. Nor is
it at all desirable that accidental causes should
long debar a party from the experience
and consistency it derives from holding office, when
the general sentiment of the nation runs in that
groove to which the party professes to adhere. The
Conservatives may be said in a general way to de-
serve their turn of power, and it would be a misfor-
tune if those who are likely to lead them hereafter
should not have their fair share of official training
before they are too old to learn. Hitherto, the Con-
servatives have been kept back by several causes of
considerable importance. They do not carry with
them the general body of educated Englishmen. In
the Houses of Parliament there are young men of
promise on their side, because family connexions
have made the profession or adoption of the Conser-
vative programme a condition and a means of their
securing their seats. But outside Parliament edu-
cated opinion is not on the side of the Conservatives.
There is no literature conceived in a spirit favourable
to their pretensions; they have no powerful organs in
the press; and the defensive, and therefore some-
what carping and narrow, position which they are
obliged to occupy alienates those who look on poli-
tics from what they couceive to be a broader point
of view. But in other respects the Conservatives
have made a real advance. For they have got rid of
some of their other shortcomings. They have, more
especially, attained a position of Parliamentary
strength which enables them to be compared not
very unfavourably with their opponents. They
could show a Ministerial front in the House of
Commons which would be by no means despicable.
Lord Malmesbury will, we presume, be got out of
the way ; and be might relieve his party at once of
the embarrassment of his presence, and of the re-
proach of not being able to find a Paris Ambassador
of their choosing, if he replaced Lord Cowley at
Paris. Even Lord Malmesbury might shine at
Paris, for Lord Cowley has worked hard to make
any successor welcome. With Mr. Disraeli as
Foreign Secretary, with Sir Stafford Northcote
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Hugh Cairns
and Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald and Lord Robert Cecil
to act as ready and powerful supporters in debate,
and with Lord Stanley to add the influence of his
name and his ponderous respectability, the Con-
servatives might fill with some credit the benches
now adorned by Sir George Grey and Sir Charles
Wood. If Lord Palmerston, once out of office, were
to find himself too old to care much more for party
struggles, there would remain on the Liberal side
in the House of Commons only Mr. Gladstone to
represent the order of statesmen which towers above
the level of the Conservative leaders. Events also
have taken a turn which gives the Conservatives a
much better chance than they have had for some
years. The old party cries are nearly worn out,
and the old watch words of the Liberals
have become empty sounds. Reform and the Ballot
and Church-rate Abolition are gone toast the Silences,
at least for the present. New qons have
come up which theraten more and more to engross
the minds of Englishmen. There is the question of
the relation of England to foreign nations; and
there is the question of the practicability or neces-
sity of changes in the construction of the Este-
blished.Church. In the discussion of both questions
the Conservatives may not unfitly sit on the official
side of the House. So long as the success of the
Italian movement could be supposed to depend on
the action of English parties, the gulf of opinion
and sentiment that lay between the mass of the
governing classes and the Conservative leaders
made their firm tenure of office almost impossible.
But now that Italy has got as good a chance of suc-
cess as she is likely to have, and that we cannot and
will not do more for her—as we have no power to
get the French out of Rome, and have no intention
of fighting Austria for the recovery of Venetia—
there is not much ground for supposing that the
bitterest Conservative could do Italy any great
harm. No injury to Italy on which a Conservative
Government could venture is likely to equal in im-
portance the blow struck by Lord Russell in remov-
ing Sir James Hudson. And, if we put Italy aside,
and look at our foreign policy as.a whole, it seems
now to consist in little more than doing very little,
and writing a great many despatches. Why should
the Conservatives be supposed incapable of doing
very little and of writing any number of
despatches ? They might, too, make their
despatches civil and conciliatoey, and although
this would be a great change, it might not be a bad
one. On some points also, their preposessions, so
far as any Ministry dares to have or avow prepos-
sessions in these days, might tend to redress the
balance of English influence a little, and to make
us fairer in some of our political dealings. No
Ministry could well leave Turkey to b 3 the prey of
France and Russia, but a new Ministry might re-
gard the struggles and hopes of the dependen-
cies of Constantinople without that jealousy and
that belief in the sacred right of Turkey to
govern which the memory of old diplomatic
contests has imprinted on the mind of Lord Palmer-
ston. So, too, no Ministry would dare to depart
from the policy of neutrality which we have laid
down for ourselves with regard to the American
Civil War. We are not going to help either side.
But the Federals have attained an influence with
the present Ministry which might be balanced ad-
vantageously by the sympathy which prevails in
the Conservative ranks for the cause of the South.
If it is fair that a Cabinet Minister should do as
Mr, Gibson has done, and issue a partisan manifesto
in favour of the North, it would not be unfair that
another Cabinet Minister should do what many Con-
servatives would be very glad to do, and explain
why the simple issue of slavery or no slavery does
not seem to them the true one. That the religious
question will also assume importance before long is
es certain as a generation which has seen the interest
in reform fade away can feel that anything is
certain in English politics. A move will be made
to do away with some of the tests by which the
English clergy are bound, and to abolish or greatly
alter the Establishment in Ireland. Whatever may
be the value of the arguments by which the attack
in either case is supported, it appears to us to be
clearly the part of the Conservatives to make the de-
fence. They have a distinct intelligible line on each
question—a line consistent with their traditions and
with the whole feelings of their party. It is a line
in which a large portion of English opinion will
support them, and by adhering to which they can
make a long, a creditable, and. possibly a successful
fight. They will have much to say which their
opponents will have to own is worth consider-
ing; and if they are defeated, they con scarcely
fail to be defeated only gradually and by a little
and to secure a handsome and respectable com-
promise, The Irish Church, for example, when
regarded in the gloss, . and from the outside,
seems to have rather a questionable case; but
when it is looked at in connection with English
history, with the conduct of public affairs in Ire-
land, with the ecclesiastical institutions of England,
and with the interests of powerful individuals, it
assumes a different shape, and it does not seem to be
quite so easy to touch it. The Conservative may
find much to urge in its favour, nor will it do them
any harm that the course thus forced on them will
probably tend to separate them from those strange
Ultramontane allies whom a dread of Lord Palmer-
ston's views about the Temporal Power has lately
arrayed on their side. The time, therefore, seems
to be near at hand when the Conservatives will, for
the first time for nearly twenty years, have an op-
portunity of holding office on something like satis-
factory terms, unless some unexpected crisis occurs
It is true that the prospect of a Conservative Go-
vernment excites no enthusiasm, for the defensive and
critical attitude of the Conservatives denies them
popularity, and the supremacy of Mr. Disraeli
would be a national event not exactly calculated to
make people enthusiastic. But a change of ministry
would be taken calmly, and, if regretted on account
of the personal eminence of Lord Palmerston, Lord
Russell, and Mr. Gladstone, would yet commend
itself as giving a fair turn to a powerful party, and
as being in substantial correspondence with a great
portion of English opinion.
EXAMINER.—Greece and England are, we are sorry
to say, arrayed in hostile position, Instead of shak-
ing hands, they have come to spar, and although no
blows have been 'struck, they have assumed an atti-
tude of combative mistrust one to the other. Eng-
land has declared that she must and will blow up
the forts in the island of Corfu. Greece ssys, ese
cannot prevent your blowing up the fortifications,
for which the lonians paid at least a part, bat we
cannot be a consenting party. We cannot disgrace