The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-02 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

rins: Day.—lslorning, 7a. 21m.—Afternoon, 74. an,
ro-moßnow.-Isiorninp;, Bh. 32m.—Afternoon, 9h. 18m

The Weather--Sun Office, March 2, 1864.

THERMOMETER.

This day at Two o'clock
Barometer-29.75.
Wind—S.E.; moderate breeze, and hazy.

. .
y
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Stilt

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1864.

If Mr. DISRAELI'S speech, on Monday evening,
in the House of Commons, was, as we took occasion

to remark, incidentally, in our impression of yes-
terday, one of the most remarkable to which the
Leader of the Opposition has for some time given
utterance, the speech delivered immediately after-
wards—we can hardly say in reply—by Lord
PALMERSTON was one of the very feeblest we ever
remember to have been made by that eminent and

veteran master of debate. Contrasted with the

close reasoning applied by the member for Bucks to
the consideration, not only of the whole Foreign

Policy of the present Government, but to
the whole of the career of the Foreign

Secretary as a diplomatist, the remarks of the Prime
Minister were as little to the purpose in the way of
anything like reply as so much idle small-talk. The

coolness of Lord PALMERSTON'S objection to Mr.
DISRAELI'S predilection for attacking by prefer-
ence men who aro absent (as illustrated in the
instance then immediately under the con-

sideration of the House) amounted almost, one
might say, to the ridiculous. Tho device of Lord
PALMERSTON in relegating so many of the
chief members of his Cabinet to the House of

Peers, would, in truth, be one of consummate inge-
nuity if, by its continuance, the responsible Minis-
ters of the Crown were to obtain immunity from
all criticism, whether upon their acts or upon their
policy, within the walls of the Commons House of

Parliament. The exception taken, in this captious
and fretful manner to the remarks uttered in the
House of Commons upon the English Foreign Secre-
tary, now unfortunately removed to the Upper House
of the Legislature, was nothing less, we repeat (even
though it is an exception taken by Lord PALMERSTON
himself), than simply ridiculous. Then, again, as to
any advantage having been taken of the Prime
Minister'sabsence from the house the other evening—
the like opportunities have been so abundant during

the present session, whenever it happened that awk-
ward questions had to be put to the occupants of the
Treasury Bencb, that the objection then made in the
one isolated instance adduced by the Prime Minister
was in no way whatever either valid or admissible.
Could anything again be more entirely unworthy
of Lord PALMERSTON than the inept to pope re-
tort in reference to Mr. DisitA.ELl's allusion to
"diplomatic rubbish" (of the which, surely, we have
evidence in past years by cartloads)—" Why, sir,
there is such a thing as Parliamentary rubbish"—
mPaning obviously the speech just delivered by the
Leader of the Opposition. The Parliamentary
rubbish, making up that speech of Mr. DISRAELI'S
being, in effect, as we have said, one of the most
closely reasoned analyses of Lord RUSSELL'S foreign
policy as Secretary of State and of his career in
byegcne years as an Ambassador Extraordinary
—it may be said, even, Very Extraordinary—

every comment contained in that speech being
strictly pertinent to the occasion, the present mo•
mentous occasion, that is when War and Peace are
trembling in the balance. Later on, the Prime Minis-
ter showed in the jauntliest way imaginable that,
after all, there is really and truly nothing like
making the best of it. " What," he asks with
delightful confidence, "What are the cir-
cumstances in which we (that is her Ma-
jesty's Ministers) have placed tho country ?"
Precisely. "That is the question." What are
those circumstances ? Lord PALMERSTON answers
his own inquiry. "We ere at peace"—ho says.
Nothing whatever about its being a peace
noble or ignoble, honourable or dishonourable,
—while Poland is being ground to the dust under
the brute force of the Russian Autocracy, while the
soil of Denmark is being overrun by the troops of
Austria and Prussia. "We are at peace,"
he says—" We are prosperous [" with a
war expenditure, during this very peace over
the continuance of which we are called upon
to exult so loudly]--" we are prosperous," and, to
crown all, (this piece of information, how-
ever, being rather superfluous, as it appears
to us, it being known already only too well)
—" we have been occupied in communicat:ons
with all the Powers of Europa in endeavouring to
settle differences without war !" And—as the
French EMPEROR is said the other day to have
hinted sarcastically to Lord COWLEY when the
latter was observing that our Government had done
everything to preserve peace! And— admirably wo
have succeeded ! Why, that is precisely what we
are wanting, to learn all we possibly care about.
And when a very natural eagerness to know all
about it is expressed by the head of the Opposition,
or by any one else, all the Prime Minister has to
say in answer to this eagerness, Wait, 'Wait—and
I on vwill soon enough know all about it !

Our Government is already reaping the fruits
of their unjust and impolitic partiality which,
under the cover of loud
professions Federal s
toaf t neutrality,
er.
They
they have shown to the
have been entrapped into a regular dilemma, from
which they have extricated themselves, after a
fashion, by taking what was perhaps an un-
avoidable, but will be a decidedly unpopular
course, It seems that on Wednesday last a steamer
of 3,000 tons, and 500 horse power, plated from
stem to stern, was launched in the Clyde
from the
sard of the builders of that very ship PanTer°9
the circumstances of whose detention have been
so recently discussed. It
was natural to infer
that this new course was intended for purposes
of war, and rumour did not fail to assign her to
the little Power now So gallantly struggling for
its independence in the North of Europe. Some
curiosity has been consequently felt by the un-
initiated respected the course to be followed by her
MAJESTY'S Ministers. If they detained this vessel
they would be doubtless injuring, still more, that
Danish cause to which their lukewarm and vacil-
lating friendship has done so much mischief. On