The Sun.
London, England, 1852-07-02 00:00:00

[PRICE SD.

railways and the closing of their accounts ; and by
several railway audit Bills, ending in a 114-11-
way Audit Board, the only fruit of which was a
very long speech one afternoon, concluding with
the announcement that nothing was to be done. To
• this day nothing has been done, and, excepting a certain
wholesome dread of large dividends, derived from bitter
experience, there is little now to prevent dividends being
paid out of,capital, as in the palmy days of Hudson and
Waddington. Another material question was forced
upon Parliament by the cholera, during the ravages of
which at .one time there were deposited round our habi-
tations, and in grounds already teeming with corruption,
three thousand bodies a-week. The Legislature met the
evil by permitting some volunteers to bring in a measure,
by requiring that its administration should be left to a
Board already overworked, by leaving it without pecu-
niary means, and by suffering it to become wholly in-
operative. The place of that Bill has now been supplied
by another of a less daring character, the success of
which has yet to be seen. Some other questions of the
same sort have been left in the same unsatisfactory state.
But this Parliament will be memorable, not only for
the greatness of the contemporaneous events and the
strange position of parties, but even for a certain in-
glorious usefulness. A Parliament will always be re-
membered with gratitude that removed the window-tax,
though with a substitute. Of that Act, however, it
might be said that it was the result of the sanitary agi-
tation, the cholera, and the glass house in Hyde-park.
The vast number, and the improved scale of the build-
ings rising in all directions round the metropolis and cur
manufacturing towns, testify to some other beneficial le-
gislation in the repeal of the duty on bricks, and the
great reduction of that on foreign timber. The new
scale of stamp duties is certainly the work of this Par-
liament, but of what section or statesmen in it cannot be
se easily stated. Alpine-4ln) Ittegettaltifornee of this Parlia-
ment will procure it fisting- and honourable mention in
the books of lawyers and the mouths of suitors. It has ex-
tended the operation of the County Courts;---it could
hardly do otherwise when the public had pronounced so
loudly in their favour; at, the powerful instigation of
Mr. Jacob Omnium, it has abolished the Palace Court;
it has made that alteration in the law of evidence which
enabled Dr. Achilli to oppose his single testimony to
that of a host of witnesses; it has relieved the Court of
Chancery by the appointment of two Lords Justicas; it
has abolished the office of Masters in Chancery; and has
ration of Law
tmade variet; other exteueive reforms in the adminis-
. alone, can show, In these,
time
into the shade the
and EtlaitY, the true value of which
reforms, a, perverse f
appropriated. as in some other
fate has spared the work, but throten
meritorious authors; and the closing
honours of this
hardly be Parliament, such as they are, can
of long Whig ineubationSome measures, the results
maturity by Lord John tßuasuscill tenderly-watched to
into the world by his oppenenetz: have been ushered
put it into their power to y,tinas he has hastily
position. The Irish franchise ltis reformedbeenste s op-
rating qualification, end though an adversenboy a
of Lords modified the measure, it will douhtlues4es
increase the weight of the people in tie ensuing election.
If, as we have intimated, this Parliament has been toe
much occupied with meeting emergencies to venture
on any original path of legislation, that will not rot, it
of all merit. The Papal Aggressions provoked the .Act
against the Assumption of Ecclesiastical Titles. To the
possibility of a more material aggression we owe a 110 w
Militia Act. Earlier in this Parliament the reviving
animosities of Irish zealots compelled a new Act agahnst
religious processions. The glaring scandal of a vest
Crown property that, so far from yielding an inceene,
was an expense to the nation, haft compelled the eratlo-
sure of Ilainault and the New Forest, and the better
management of all the Crown lands. The crowding of
our towns necessiteted the supervision of common ledg-
irg•houses, and the crowding of our emigrant thips
fresh rules for the safety of passengers. It will pessi Lly
be remembered for some years that we owe to this Par-
liament what is to be Battersea Park, and the tram ela-
tion of Smithfield-market to Copenhagen-fields ; the
latter change at least not before it was waneed.
When measures of this sort occupy a prominent
place in the annals of a session, it certainly does sug-
gest that Parliaments have not so grand and spon-
taneous a part to nerform as we have learnt from
our school-books. In fact, the moving forces of legisla-
tion are the course of events, the natural changes of so-
ciety, the growth of public opinion, the elements of
nature, popular passion, and the merest accidents. 3tt is
cue short lustrum since the mandate went forth to re-
turn the now expiring Parliament; and the most saga-
cious statesman in the world could not possibly have
foreseen any one of the extraordinary events which liave
occasioned at least the most prominent features of the
subsequent legislation. Some of the more useful fea-
tures he might have anticipated, simply because they
could not be avoided.

If more has not been done during the last five yet trs ;
if the Government which existed the greater part of lthat
time inherited its best measures or bequeathed them to
its successors ; if legislation has been unduly limited
to meeting emergencies, to abating nuisances, to
resisting aggressions, or providing against attack;
if, after all, there is little to show for the
concentrated energies of confessedly great states-
men and an industrious Legislature at a great
epoch, it is partly owing to the greatness of the eve tits
and the peremptory nature of the exigencies during
these five years. That Conservative element which
procured for the Whigs a certain degree of support horn
the so-called Conservative party at a crisis of national
danger, may be presumed also to have checked their
own more ambitious development. But the chief cause
of this apparent inaction has been, that the Ministers
who met the Parliament in the autumn of 1847 had not
emerged, and never did entirely emerge, from the diffi-
culties of their first humble position as a Government
on sufferance. They were paralyzed, not so much by
the direct blows of a 'powerful minority, though that
minority pressed them several times very near, ars by
the increasing apathy and disaffection of their own
camp, and by the want of any watchword that could
stimulate their listless and rally their wandering sup- ,
'
porters. For many of their friends they could not go
far enough, while a still larger cla.ss were never very
enthusiastic in the defence of that Free Trade by
which they conceived their own fortunes to have
been impaired. Thus
an unfriendly historian
might describe the late Whig Administration as one
series of damaging defeats. The Whrg Minister tried
every session some new device for the introduction of
the Jews into Parliament, beginning with a direct mea-
cure, and ending with a Reform Bill, but with the same
Lords ignored
invariable ill success in the Upper House. One of the
first acts of this Parliament was that for the esttehlish-
meet of diplomatic relations with Rome, for which Lord
J. Russell had ostentatiously prepared by sending his
own uncle to the Pope. The House of
the ecclesiastical character of that potentate, and
on the
that motion of the present Irish Viceroy, insisted his
ambassador should be a layman. The first session of
this Parliament summarily refused to raise the income-
tax from three to five per cent., even to
millions of now debt incurred through the pay
off the tea
It refused a Secret Committee on the Irish famine.
expenditure. Two years alter the miscellaneous
out •of the
Com-
mons took the stamp , duties entirelyßouse of
Chancellor of the Exchequer's
handsprofesses to
defeat
to be satisfied.
and imposed a
tariff with which be never
Lord Naas could at any tuna
" Honie-macle Spirits iu Boma u,se.feat Ministers with a
Lord Ashley, ou
, a4lnidll't"he Duke of Argyll
Wider interest. In the fourth
Se'bbatb
the observance of thee
110thm for a
sutn,ssitooamt ecirtidesJtioohnnii°94s,ahreaten issnominiously, tee) to
one, on Mr. Locke
chise. It May be Saidlo/. county fran•
Parliament till Lora -;hat. any day during the w hole
htaipepDeregrhini day.
John
was
not safe fi.'l:,,ulmerston's fatal motion :Lord
It -th a eurceise. Yet no one blamed
‘llA3ineot always the dinner home or
time vote with truth was, that Whigs, men
pa theall
only
returned
ed -sad
Lord Jo''asn,Wuuh•!: theyand hwandoawyeeruyldgaonoyd
onareguiar field day, went about avowing the
most most shamelessug
Either
itwont
t indifference to the stability of the Cabinet.
they"rfeit no
verosoonfaair for. them, or not far enough; and
in the hands of that cold in
nandeserving " justliial?is ean
ter.
But, besides actual defeats, there cautiouswere some
memorable debates of a rather destructive, though net
very conclusive character. Thanks to a clumsy anta-
gonist, Lord Torrington escaped through the fire. Th?
present Minister was always terrible in the Lords,
wars
his eloquence was remembered when the occat' and
forgotten. Lord Palmerston was always int_ "
wsetentorduowndneirn-
drgan ever,
though he personally emerged more epy
dpioliey which
favour ou rt denied.°g.a rao
his colleagues were engaged to a fererci
they evidently did not themselves apps
stand. Don Pacifico'a little account never
is
abseqnent ocaesion !II
err R. Peerslast earnest
tons resolution • e
this country, and though on a
raosveurnmeat, the.mosisumf::
House of Commonsppalaiscsyedoilags
fact, indeed,
Your of the foreign
. een denied, that du-
ring part of the debei
tniervention. The
all the coin
a thnel:ld-atueevrtervohlaustibonar; epoch the Bri-
espoeuelduhniout
eause4l:Clthose identical
tish Governinee tenance it dared to
principles on
ring the whole
down with a high hand and a
give to that seal it
the cohneanheinst6o-r;lanta
aParliament which is to afford some
strong hand a' _
persoLal
guide to to the next, it is needless to dwell on its numerous
g , is
questions, or its annual
petty episOdtS i
'notions. We have h A
- "ut end we shall probably long
the better government of
, annual motions about landlord and
continue to have
tenant right,
the colonies, Par-
liamentary reform,
either one or all the points, teases on
the malt-tae,
knowledge, Secularad education, hitch netional education, ,
county financial boards; to which
must be ade-ed
Anieers
of
e.h Captain Warner, the Raja of Setters, the
all
this
stanbatindgenaa,antderßiatroannddeßode. We will pass by,
lock at the peculiar cha-
racter of this individual link in the great chain of Bri-
tish ltgisletion. The Parliament that is nom passing to
its account mitt be allowed somo credit
for
preserving
the peace of the empire au3 the integrity of our
institutions in a crisis of European change and
disaster.
But its great and moth, 4
useful feature
has been transition. The Conserve • tive party has
unlearnt its long. error, and is prepared to bid for
power on the common ground of publio good. A
mysterious destiny had taken
away the two men that
most hindered its return to good temper good and sense
—the stalest:nail by whom it bad felit itself betrayed, and
the new chief who had sworn implacable enmity against i