The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, L ONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 2, 1862

is just what was probably expected even by Lord
LYONS himself. The Government has a free course
left it by Congress. An Ohio opposition member
only obtained 16 votes against 109 for the Go-
vernment in favour of his motion to forestall its
action by engaging the house to support Captain
WILKES. Aud this was the vote of the same house
which before it knew the mind of England voted
its thanks to the Captain !
The blockade is not all gain to the North. In
The Sun of yesterday it was mentioned that several
thousand bales of cotton were actually being shipped
from Liverpool to America, some East Indian, but
the greater part what we had ourselves received
from America previously. Lowell can no more got
cotton than we can ; and the Southern expedition
instead of sending cotton to the North finds the in-
habitants readier to burn it, than to sell it to their
enemies. The whole quantity actually seized by the
expedition seems to be very small, and all the
rest within reach is destroyed. A writer
from Paris, in a contemporary, even asserts that,
however the Trent affair may be settled, France and
England have agreed to represent to the Govern-
ment at 'Washington that the blockade is not
"effective,"and that they should therefore disregard
it. This we can hardly credit, though Mr. JEFFER-
SON DAVIES said in his Message that he had pre-
pared the proofs of its ineffectiveness, ready to be
submitted to the two Governor jets. We must
repeat that we do not wish it, Our eye has
been on India ever since the war began, and still
is there. Now we have gone so far towards
creating a supply from India, we should certainly
wish the American supply to be locked up till it
rotted before it interfered with the rising industry
of our own great colony. Our Eastern Empire, des-
tined to become, as we 'believe, the home of
thousands of freehold purchasers of estates there,
is of far more coneequeuee to our trade than the
quarrelsome Yankees. If Cotton be King, and the
war goes on, his throne must be erected in India.
Indeed, as we have just seen,he has already touched
Massachusetts itself with the tip of his sceptre.
Another year might find American cotton factories
dependent on Bombay and Surat.

As we are now rapidly approaching the com-
mencement of the Parliamentary Session of. 1862,
some of our representatives are drawing forth their
oratorical weapons anew, and furbishing them up
for the coming encounter. Mr. KINGLAKE, as our
readers were made aware yesterday, has been edify-
ing his constituents again with another of his
elaborate political Bridgewater Treatises. Mr.
WHITE and Mr. CONINGHAM, the Radical and
Ultra-Liberal members for the borough of
Brightelmstone, have together made a clean breast
of it with their constituency. Others will, doubt.
less, within the next week or two, follow suit
with all befitting eagerness. There is reason
for this moreover. It is especially desirable
at the present juncture that divers matters of great
national import should be ventilated, here and there
about the United Kingdom, prior to the meeting of
the Lords and Commons down at Westminster.
This is desirable in two ways, in two distinct direc-
tions, for the People of these islands and for their
responsible Administrators. The community at
large will do well to appreciate the exact bearings
of the present political situation both Abroad and
At Home, both in regard to our Domestic Concerns
and our Foreign Relations. And there are Her
Majesty's Ministers also, who not only do look to
the course taken by the currents of Public Opinion
with a view to their guidance of the state vessel in
its Constitutional Navigation, but who frankly
avow that they do so—instance Earl RUSSELL'S
intimation, a year or two back, as to the indefinite
Astponement of Parliamentary Reform until the
walve of Public Opinion should have swelled to such
strength and such dimensions as to be enabled to
lift that Weighty question over the bar of the House
of Lords. The Ministers of the Crown, no less
than the lieges of the Crown, may turn with advan-
tage, immediately prior to the reassembling of the
Legislature, to scrutinise this intermittent but
periodical squarings of accounts between the various
constituencies and their respective representatives.

It is worthy of remark as yet that the members
who have latterly evidenced a greater readiness to
unbosom themselves upon this theme of public
import and that, have for the most part been among
those who sit below the gangway on the Govern-
ment side of the House—conspicuous representa-
tives in truth of that energetic and eminently
useful, but rather impracticable race, the
independent supporters of the Liberal Ca-
binet. Many a wholesome truth is blurted
out by them in their public " confidences" with
their sympathising constituents. Some of these
"confidences"—uttered, it may be, in Town Halls,
and forthwith spread far and wide upon the wings of
the Press, sometimes even flashed instantly in an
abbreviated form hither and thither on the thread-
like lightning conductors of the electric telegraph
—coming rather whimsically forth in this way as
Confidences, somewhat after the fashion of Stage
Whispers ! We don't know any more practically
useful survey in this manner that has been vouch-
safed to us for long, than the one recently taken
down at Bridgewater by the hon. member for that
western borough, the brilliant author of
"Eothen," himself a sort of ex-official Under-
Secretary of State for Foreign :Affairs, a keen-
eyed, sharp-toothed Cerberus to our Foreign Policy,
as Mr. ROEBUCK is its watchful and loud barking
Tear'em. It is instructive to glance down the
mere enumeration by Mr. KINGLAKE of the various
liberal measures introduced one after another last
session—one after another earnestly supported by
himself and other conscientious members of a Select
Few—one after another (lamentable to relate,
scarcely credible to remember), utterly and flag-
rantly abortive. It is precisely in what was said
by Mr. KINGLAKE in reference to the failure of
these repeated efforts with such " damnable itera-
tion," all through the session of 1861, particularly
"on Wednesdays," that we recognise the happiest
part of the hon. gentlemen's recent oration
down at Bridgewater. Referring to these
repeated failures, Mr. KINGLAKE observed :—" I
know, gentlemen, the ready answer of our oppo-
nents will be that it is as clear as possible that there
is a great Conservative reaction. But I don't be-
lieve that that is true. I don't believe that that is a
solution of the question. I believe that the reason
may be more safely sought for in this direction. I
observe that all these bills are bills which have
been introduced into the House of Commons by
private members of Parliament, and experience
teaches us that measures introduced into the House
of Commons by private members are not those which
lead to actual and practical legislation. There are
many causes which I think tend to account for
this. When a bill is introduced by a member of
the Government, then, if not the existence of the
Government, is at stake, and the very fact that
such is the case gives a practical character to
the discussion ; and this, I must take leave to
tell you, is wanting in bills introduced by pri-
vate members of Parliament. I would therefore
submit whether it would not be better that
such measures should be left to the patronage of