The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-08 00:00:00

fectly certain that he will not back either the ma-

jority, or the whole of his party, in any movement,
however slight, in the direction of Parliamentary
Reform. He might not vote against them, except,
indeed, on the question of enabling every man to do
his own, instead of his landlords, voting; but all
reformers well know that he would insist on

aothing. However welcome to them might be a
teu pound franchise in counties, or a six pound one

in boroughs, or some bona Ado preventive clauses
_.....

in the " Elections Corruption Prevention Bi11"®

all who wished to do little or much in this line
knew that they were a nuisance to Lord PALMER-
STON, and that even what he could hardly disap-
prove, he would " damn by faint praise," or by
secret intimations to his friends that they would not
aLnoy him, but rather the contrary, by " making
themselves scarce" at divisions.
_ _ __

Conveniently concurrent with his hardly con-
cealed aversion to the measures he took office to
carry, were his war measures. Under the name
of Defence he adopted a thorough war policy
in time of peace. He kept the country cleverly
alive with the notion of danger, till he got it into a
position, in which it not only need fear no danger,
but one which enabled him to speak with authority
in the councils of Europe. This we believe was
his real, though not his avowed, object. We cannot
imagine that he, of all, men, was ever weak enough
to believe that France would commence a perfectly
gratuitous attack on our coasts for the very equivo-
cal honour of a temporary success in an unexpected
raid. But he, so long a foreign Minister, natu-
rally thinks it the highest honour to any nation
that all others shall regard it as the one supreme in
naval and military strength. That supremacy he
desired to confer on his country. He regarded doing
so as patriotism. He knew that we should not be
content to pay income-tax and thirty millions a
year to attain it, so he very cleverly kept up a series
of alarms, which enabled him to accomplish his pur-
pose, trusting that when he had once placed us at the
head of Europe, our pride would make us willing to
bear the cost of keeping there. Admirably has all
this seemed to divert the nation's mind from political
reforms. It had quite enough to do to raise the
money demanded by the Premier, and to keep its
eye on the French Dock-yards as a greater danger
than corrupt boroughs and servile counties.
An Ecclesiastical Liberal we believe Lord PAL-
MERSTON to be, at heart ; we question whether it
would grieve Mm to repeal the Act of Uniformity.
He does not believe in being " righteous overmuch;'
and, if it could be managed we imagine that there
is none of our prominent Whigs or Tories whose
disposition would more prompt him to accept Lord
STANLEY'S watchword " Religious Equality." We
do not believe that his backwardness to support
energetically measures of Religious Liberty arose
from personal feeling, but entirely from political
position. He would like to see Church Rates abo-
lished the Marriage Law amended in respect to the old
canon made binding by the Bishop of LONDON'S Act
on those who rej ct it, parish burial grounds open on
equal terms to allparishioners,clergymen free to give
up their profession, by giving up its emoluments
and Nonconformists held to be men sufficiently
" religious " to act as trustees of Grammar Schools,
whose trust deeds mention no special creed. We
believe Lord PALMERSTON, whatever he has been
accused of, has never been charged with bigotry,
nor has he ever been suspected even of being a High
or a stiff Churchman.
Lord PALM ERSTON is, however, no enthusiast for
his opinions on these points. He would not risk
the reputation of his Government by making any
of them a Government measure. He could, pro-
bably, have carried some of them had he done so.
He would not vote against his opinions, but he
would not hazard anything for the sake of them.
Politically, in the party view, he might be right.
Yet there are two sides to the question. We do not
believe that the "organised hypocrisy," of which
Mr. DISRAELI forms the centre, can last for long.
What Churchmen, under his pious leadership,
would insist on withholding from their fellow-
citizens, fellow-taxpayers, and fellow subjects—aye
such clear rights or grievances, as we may please
to view them, that the complainants must ulti-
mately prevail. The age is against class privileges
altogether, and most of all against privileges
founded on the assumption, that one class is holier
than another, or more in favour with its MAKER.
The time must be at hand when the universa I
opinion will be that one man's belief in the Prayer
Book should entitle him to nothing more than
another's belief in the Bible, or another's in the
Porn, or even another's in the philosophy of
COMPTE. Perhaps Lord PALMERSTON thinks that
what he believes to be the right notion of reli-
gious liberty will not be politically predominant
in his time. Which may be true. Be the reason
what it may, under Lord PALMERSTON, the reli-
gious liberty which we believe he sincerely loves,
makes no more progress than the electoral purity
and extension of the franchise which he sincerely
hates.

The ball is still rolling there in Sicily. But
which colour will gain must still be looked upon as
problematical. While it yet rolls RATAZZI stakes
everything on the game now playing—his adminis-
trative reputation, his political power, his official
portfolio, his premiership, it may be the very crown
and sceptre of his Sovereign. NAPOLEON
RATAZZI'S instigator—standing half-covertly there
in the back ground, the croupier's rake cleverly
slipped for the time into his hand ready to sweep
together (as he hopes) all the winnings—or at
any rate the very pick of them.
How will matters stand, however, when the
movement, of which we are now witnessing but
the earliest commencement, is drawing towards
its close ? What are the French EMPEROR'S
ideas in regard to the prospects of Italian
Uuity, for example ? Well, we all knew them
long ago. They were shown to be very sinister
ideas in the mere preamble of his opening mani-
festo or proclamation, when, first drawing the
sword as Emperor of FRANCE, he declared for Italy
and against Austria. True that his declaration then
He but particularly when he had celebrated the
his fatuous
of the Capital of Lombardy, by issuing
butciet m:noft deceptive Milan Proclamation
—was _
w
itaolit:lta si,i,
went beyond th at any rate, in favour of " Italy
for the
Nay, the French EMPEROR
•
magnificent, but vague, because
generalised i
announcingat (still in the Milan
render
in entering upon
proclamation), matiownlas
tho
that War ,
eya
ifotrnhe
ei rooEnfmturraotrhpyee.
Alps to the Adriatic!'
e
means of its
But --- by
ago absolutely to
knows long
He ambitioned
very wished, from the
t outsetAustrianor the
NlibAeFrOaLtiEoOnN but
hardly from the French.
of a
Italy back to the Italians, not
,yczefeadri:rt:otrigoinivt.es
" Unity," but by the device „
The Roman peninsula, as remodelled by the French
EMPEROR,was still toremaina“geographicalexpres-
sion,"according to the phrase of Prince M ETTERNICH.
Again and again the French EMPEROR in-
sisted that his HOLINESS was to
his own in Central Italy—he himself (NAPO-
LEON) reserving
in his own hands what the
Czar NicsoLAB coveted so dearly a " material
guarantee" that his Imperial will should be carried
out. The French Emnsuoß holding Rome then