The Sun.
London, England, 1839-09-26 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN POLITICAL

SUMMARY.

The Courier of last evening, speaking of Mr. Macau-
lay's appointment to the Secretaryship at War, with a
seat in the Cabinet, observes :—" This appointment of
Mr. Macaulay to a seat in the Cabinet must be taken
as an indication of the bent of the Government. It
shows the determination of the present Ministry
to hazard all, and to rely for support on the party
of the movement.' More agitation is to be the
order of the day ; the game of delusion is again to be
attempted on the discontented population ; and the
emissaries of the Government will doubtless again pro-
claim that there can be no amelioration of the condition of
the suffering working classes except by hastening on fur-
ther changes, and more Radical reforms. A new agitation
may be expected for the furtherance of the question of
the Ballot ; for in adopting Mr. Macaulay at the pre-
sent critical juncture of affairs, it is to be presumed that
Lord Melbourne's Ministry are secretly inclined to,
though they have not openly adopted, the political
opinions which Mr. Macaulay avows as his best recom-
mendations to Parliament. In the speech which Mr. '
Macaulay delivered to the electors of Edinburgh on the
29th of May last, we find that, in his opinion, the
Ballot was the grand panacea for all the evils, political
and social, under which his auditors seemed to labour."
The Standard observes, in allusion to the state of af-
fairs in India :—" By some unhappy fatality, there is
no part whatever of the policy of her Majesty's Minis-
ters, whether at borne or abroad, which it is possible
for any unprejudiced mind to contemplate with the
smallest degree of satisfaction ; nay, even those of
their performances of which they have from time
to time vaunted as theft• chef d'oeuvres, have
eventually taken their place among the most miserable
and calamitous of their failures, There is perhaps no
one of their mistakes of which they have boasted more
loudly than of Lord Auckland's military movement in
India. The march of a large army to what, to super-
ficial observers, may appear to be almost certain success,
is rarely an unpopular measure ; and that of Lord Auck•
land's army of the Indus was, accordingly, heralded
by more than ordinary exultation on the part of
Ministers and their sycophants. The l)ukc of Wel-
lington, however, was not to be deceived by Lord
Melbourne's couleur de rose anticipations. He foresaw
from the first the danger and difficulty of the enterprise ;
and when Lord Auckland's elaborate declaration of war
was first shown to him, is said to have lilted up his
eyes and exclaimed with astonishment, " Are they
mad?" Successive accounts of the triumphant march
of this grand expedition appeared to make no impres-
sion on his mind. He foresaw the obstacles
and privations to which so large a body of troops
must of necessity be subjected on such a route. He
knew, from experience, the difficulty of subsisting an
army in such a country, and expressed his apprehensions
that it would suffer more from privation, fatigue, and
disease, than from any enemy with which it might have
to contend. No prediction could have been more com-
pletely verified."
The Globe contains the following remarks on the
Corn-laws, suggested by Sir James Graham's recent
-znstriPitat ieN.uetuhie.rby_ thase wreoro.satrdfsautlhtisvrequfiensd..
tion, is not that of " keen adatacy,
it. They are " lukewarm, neither cold nOrl—hrrlMl like
" would they were cold or hot." It is noticeable that
they none of them declare themselves champions of the
present Corn-laws. Neither Sir Robert Peel in Par-
liament, Sir George Murray at Manchester, nor
Sir James Graham at Netherby, have said a sylla-
ble in behalf of those laws. They have none of them
said a syllable, and they have taken good care not to
do so, which should stand in their way, were they in,
and the pressure from without urged them to repeal
the Corn-laws. They have confined themselves entirely
to throwing as much indirect odium as possible on
those who, with a manlier spirit, avowed their opinions
against the system. They have not one of them dared
to say, in so many words, that they would maintain the
present system against those relaxations to the advocates
of which, in the ministerial party, they would attach
odium. Now this may pass for very refined policy in
the heads of a party ; to parade themselves as the
friends of a particular interest ; to insinuate enmity to
that interest in their opponents (many of whom, no-
toriously, have as deep a stake in it as any on the oppo-
i site side), and to leave open a loophole all the while, to
escape from their own professions, by saying nothing spe-
cific of their views or intentions. This is the recent policy
of the party with regard to the Corn-laws ; and on this,
as on other points, they may possibly find that ho-
nesty is the best policy.' Sir James Graham deprecates
a rash and sudden alteration' of the Corn-laws. Who
has proposed rash and sudden proceedings? Certainly
no one in Parliament. Who will be principally blame-
able, if, in stress of popular wants and passions, rash
and sudden proceedings should, one day, be adopted ?
Certainly not those who have in vain invited de-
-1 liberation."

The Times of this morning speaks in the following
terms of the late Ministerial appointments :—" Mr.
Babington Macaulay—Mr. Babington Macaulay--
mighty in language—a deliverer of all but interminable
speeches—busy yourself with aspirations—confine your-
self to words—leave substances unmolested. Beware of

things. Touch not the world of action. You are a
machine for giving utterance to noises, not for inculcat-
ing useful thoughts, or for directing purposes, in prac-
tice wise and beneficial. You are stuck into this
vacuum to stop a leak in the ship, because no
workmanlike or well-adapted plug could be found
for it. We do fear that in your abandonment of
book-making, and mere literary exertion, you will be-
come a mere source of vexatious fretfulness to your-
self, of exultation to men of coarse and unculti-
vated, but plain and vigorous, minds, and of posi-
tive mischief to our great national establishments. As
for Lord Seymour and Mr. Clay, they will do well
enough for clerks under the India Board, after we have
lost—as people tell us we are about to do—the bulk
of our Indian possessions. The Treasury prints go on
to promise that Lord Clarendon will add his name, ta-
lents, and activity to a Government which, Heaven
knows, is in grievous want of them all. Of that Noble
Earl we are disposed to speak, as we long have felt,
with cordial respect and approbation. In Spain Lord
Clarendon has acquitted himself of an office full of per-
plexing difficulties with spirit and discretion, and with
a demeanour which we have reason to know endeared
him to many of his own countrymen, as it has demon-
strably to the bulk of the Spanish people. Should his
Lordship now become a member of the Ministry, it will
probably be more a matter of congratulation for Lord
Melbourne than for his intended colleague."
The Morning Post thus alludes to Lord Brougham's
recently published pamphlet on National Education :
" The paltry Ministerialists, who seem to have no
motive on earth in any public matter beyond that of
serving their own narrow interests, are doing all
they can by their puny ridicule to keep out of
sight the important practical views which Lord
Brougham has lately published upon the subject of
National Education. The important conclusion to
which Lord Brougham has come—and considering
the lead he has taken, and the great exertions he
has made upon the subject of national education, it
is a very important conclusion—may be briefly stated
thus—that though he thinks the Established Church
is
wrong in the objections which she takes
stillwhattethat error
called general religious education,'
is of so little importance, compared yet
th
the great gain
of having the Established Church on the side of_ those
who are labouring to promote infant education,. that he
would yield to the Church, and l%teesd.ucaltlioenis,pirionciseteed..
upon the principles which she approves.
rialists, who care no more about . education of the
people than they do about the cleaning of the streets of
Pekin, except in so far as the agitation of the ques-
tion may be made subservient to their party interests,
are exceedingly enraged and alarmed at the suggestion
of any
thing like concession to the principles of the Es-
tablished Church. It is more for their interest to con-
cede to the Itomanists and O'Connell?'
The Morning Herald thus flippantly speaks of
Mr. Macaulay, the new Secretary at War Mr.
I Macaulay is a very heavy sort of personage. He
possesses, as a speaker, no facility—no aptness at
reply. He commits a long and smartish essay to me-
mory, and he fires it off (if wind and tide prove favour-
able), in the House of Commons. Of true oratorical
power, however, he possesses not a vestige. For the
wear and tear of business, he is altogether unfitted.
Let him be brought fairly into collision with the rough
edge of public affairs, and his failure will be complete.
! Mr. Macaulay has been, through life, a creature of