The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-05 00:00:00

than his deeds, either then or last night. His
opinion, his wishes, his language were all right
enough ; but everyone felt that, to conclude with
an amendment merely, saving the rights of the
public, and referring it to a future session to assert
that these rights should be used, was not quite
worthy of the Premier. He has just had a lesson,
even at his advanced age, on the favour fortune
proverbially shows to the bold. He did not meet
the six resolutions debate, and the WALPOLE
amendment in the spirit he showed last evening.
Then his boldness in holding up at once a penal
dissolution as the due reward of a successful "no
confidence " resolution, at once scattered all his
enemies. In the now celebrated BUCCLEIICH case he
tried the trimming, the procrastinating policy—the
consequence was, that, while his own real opinion
gained the day, the laurels belong to another.
He shrank from facing, directly, the front of battle
—and " the LORD sold Sisera into the hands of a
woman." The member for a Metropolitan borough
carried off the honours which he would willingly
have left with the Premier. We believe Lord
PALMERSTON meant well, he really feared endan-
gering the passage of the bill by a conflict with
private interest ; but in a case of such outrageous
wrong it was a grave mistake to hesitate for an
hour, not to say for a session—to do simple

justice.
Probably there has not been within the recollec-
tion of any of us a case of Legislative misdemeanour
so gross as that which the majority of this com-
mittee had the audacity, first to commit, and then
the greater audacity to defend. They seem to have
been what Divines term "judicially blended "
their moral perceptions utterly reversed—as a
punishment for toadyism and fiunkeyism to Dukes
and influential members. They almost forced
themselves, superfluously into notice, perhaps, how-
ever, in the hope of putting the public off the scent
by the trumpiest of trumpery attacks on Mr.
CowpEß—whose firmness in the public interests
against the over-eager selfishness of some of his order
deserves all commendation. They shut out evidence,
as Sir JOSEPH PAXTON reminded the House last
night, when it would be contrary to their wishes,
though as judges between the public and indivi-
duals, they were bound in honour to have no wishes
at all. They put leading questions, even to the
Duke of BuccLEuen himself, who, to do him jus.
tice, did seem personally to have so much sense of
decency, as not to ask openly what the committee
were so eager to give. They did not hesitate to
present a report, consisting of two parts, an ob-
viously self-contradictory resolution—indeed, it
practically asserted that two sides of a triangle are
less than a third ; the other part, being the evidence,
studiously thrown into the most confused form, and
when, by great labour and trouble, understood, in
clear opposition to the report founded on it. How
could men, in such a position so commit them.
selves ? The result of their perversity could
not be concealed. Had the plan (wan been carried
out hundreds of daily oaths and curses at White-
hall-stairs would have kept their memory unenvi-
ably alive. " The Duke's flunkies" would have
been denounced with execration till they would
have been ready to go down on their knees to the
Duke, begging him to save them from Metropolitan
indignation. A petty jury gives often a monstrous
verdict, but it melts out of sight immediately like the
"snowflake on the river—a moment here then gone
for ever"—but no such happy oblivion could bury
the memory of the members of Parliament, some
of them "noble lords" who voted that all London
must be sacrificed to a Duke—and, to a Duke's
mere fancy too—for even his fawning and favour-
ing committee-men could allege nothing worse
than that at the distance of his garden the noise of
a public road might reach his ducal ears, and the
sight of an omnibus driver, might cross his eyes.
And for this minimum of what was objectionable
to a Duke, the public was to lose its road over the
embankment constructed with its own money! We
should think when the honourable members for the
city of London and for Westminster present them-
selves for re-election, the electors in each case will
not fail to remind them that they want represents-
tatives for themselves, not for Dukes. As to Sir
JOHN SHELLEY, we must think that he has
a kind of special hostility to pleasant traffic for the
public. He it was who commenced the too success-
ful opposition to the admirable tramways and
omnibuses constructed by Mr. TRAIN.
We hope we have heard the last of this dis-
creditable job—the legislative last, we mean, for the
perpetrators of it have raised :for themselves a
monument, we were going to say, "more durable
than brass"—only we recollect that there must be a
great deal of brass in the gentlemen who could pre-
sent such a report. The Commons and the Lords,
too, will, however, we hope, do the rest of their
work in becoming silence, for, assuredly, the less
they say the better. The Duke himself cannot
open his mouth, but to protest, like Mr. HoRSMAN,
his next door neighbour, his entire disinterested-
ness. And so we may expect lithe matter will be
dropped as quietly as possible. But forgotten
it cannot be for yet awhile. All the
numerous visitors who are thronging to London
will have a look at the beautiful bridge at West-
minster, and will eagerly look from it at
the line it was proposed by a committee of the
House of Commons to sacrifice to a duke and an
M.P. The names of the minority will be recalled
with pleasure—those of the majority with feelings
very much akin to contempt, if nothing worse. But
it will also be remembered t'iat it was the voice of
the public press, the unanimous, the decided voice
of the press, which really stopped this intolerable
job. We may hope, indeed, that some member of
the House would have noticed the committee's
report, and called attention to it ; but we see
what stress was laid on the fact of the
House not usually interfering with the report of a
committee upstairs. We fear a Duke, and the
custom of the House, would have been too strong,
together, for the public ; but the press compelled
every Member of Parliament to open his eyes, com-
pelled him to understand public opinion, and corn-
gelled him to feel its weight. One hundred and
nine could be found, indeed, sufficiently hardened
against common sense to vote for a plan, which, if
carried out, would have been, as Sir J. PAXTON
said, "the •
augillug stock of Europe ;" but a hun-
dred and forty-ninerefusedrialtvobe dragged through
thea ducal
aedbut for there being, unfortu-
nately for
mirehis ;
Lordship, a motion of the Pre-
m doubtless, a yet
mioers
nmajority. It is a
majority created
by the fourth estate.
re' crushing

powerless has become the sa-
llow completely
disant cause of " all Legitimacy' F.
Europe has very
recently had an opportunity of recognising. It is
what is powerless. And
renders it
respectable, of course, but it
peculiarly so, is that it has long
since lost altogether the old, almost forgotten, gla-
mour of romance that used to hang about in past
times. Monseigneur the Count DE CLUMBORD, his
Majesty HENRY V., call him what you will, can no
doubt when he lists assemble around him about
four thousand of his personal followers and political
adherents, as he did in point of fact only the other
day at Lucerne. But they went, they conversed,
[they separated, without the exchange of one single