The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-08 00:00:00

lIIGII WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

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the desire to drown the cry for Reform at home, I :
were the motives of our governors.
Yes, and let Englishmen beware that the de-
mand for national defences be not used for the
same purpose as the old war-cry. Reform is as
obnoxious now to the same class as it was in
1793. Whig organs are, as we have already shown,
wanting to procrastinate the evil day, and national
defences are the pretext. Now, the Manchester
folk will do good service if they drive the " Com-
bination." Ministry from that shuffle, if they
show that what with our own pacific disposition,
and the reciprocal feeling across the Channel,
there really is no need to be in an indecent and
wasteful hurry at least about the matter. Our
present naval and military strength cannot be
Played with by any madman, were there any
madman disposed to try it on ; it is conceded on
all bands that our 16,000,0001. a-year voted for
military purposes has been sadly misapplied, in
the navy especially ; and the demand of the
country undoubtedly will be, that the most effi-
cient use be made of that money, before we are
called upon to vote thousands or millions more.
If we have a surplus we are not to be cheated of
the repeal of Excise Duties, to waste the money
on ships that will not sail, or on cutting
new ships to pieces and putting them to-
gether again ; on lumbering, fatiguing,
hap - hazard shooting, old-fashioned muskets ;
no, nor on old admirals and generals, sacrificing
our troops by cholera, and our money by
lying still and eating it. We have no fear that
Manchester Iv ill ever persuade this country to live
by the sufferance of Europe ; no place, indeed, in
England might sooner have to repent of doing so,
even should no Frenchman ever breathe a whiff of
the smoke of its steam-engines ; no place would
sooner feel the effect of war both on its Money
Market and its Cotton Market, and with all defe-
rence to Mr. COBDEN, and his authorities, PEEL
and ABERDEEN, we must think that impregnability
has a good deal to do with being let alone. We
hope, moreover, that they will insist upon a most
thorough reform of our colonial military ex-
penses. Sir Wm. MOLESWORTH must not forget
his out-of-office Colonial Budget, and the people
must not neglect to press it home to him. If
England herself be invulnerable, her Colonies
are safe enough. Let our Dockyard; Ports, and
Arsenals be secure, and with our vast mechanical
resources we could in a few months launch an
additional Navy which would sweep the seas of
every hostile vessel, and blockade every hostile
port in Europe.

How is this ? Our noble old family mansion
which we repaired so thoroughly 20 years ago
(RussELL and Co., Architects), is sadly out of re-
pair. The wing at least where all the business is
done, and where most of the family live, quite
threatens to fall of itself ; it is neither weather-
tight nor water-tight, besides being such an odious
patching together of old and new in no sort of
symmetry, that it looks as if nothing could cure
it but pulling that part down, and making it
habitable and sightly once for all. Something
like this must have been the exclamation of
hundreds in looking over the newspaper lists of
the last elections, if they included the number of
voters and inhabitants for each borough and
county ; not only those
." destructives"—Humn,
COBDEN, BRIGHT, BERKELEY, and the like—but
thousands, by no means Radicals, as they have
glanced at Thetford, with 200 voters, and return-
ing two members ; Manchester, with 14,000, or
Liverpool, with 17,000 voters, also returning two
members, have been ready to throw the paper
into the fire, and execrate the injustice in terms
prohibited to parsons at least. And if the list
has been given in " orte of those vile radical
things " which many, naso suspendunt adunco, and
" never read," and a few calculations have been
added, such as that 66 small boroughs, with a.
population under half a million, return 99 mem-
bers ; and 51 large boroughs, with a population
of more than five-and-a-half millions, also return
99 members, the choler of most of the junior and
middle-aged members of Mr. BuLL's family has
been irresistibly set in motion by the discovery.
" Come, come ; this will never do—we can't go
on in this way," they have angrily muttered to
themselves. Thereupon certain recollections of a
" Cabinet of first-rate men," of "a strong Govern-
ment," and an "All-Talents Ministry" have imme-
diately recurred ; and certain recollections also of a
"real measure of Reform," promised by the said
Government, have somewhat soothed the impatient
indignation, and, with a wistful glance towards
February, the matter has been dismissed for the
present.

Present appearances, however, do not betoken
very vigorous measures. Symmetrical and sound
enough no doubt, is the literal stone and
mortar work of Mr. BA.RRY, and St. Stephen's
itself will be censured only by a few connoisseurs ;
but as to the mansion of the Constitution, that
may well be left for a time. Cracks, bulgings,
and broken slates are of no urgent consequence
there. 'Whitewash the outside a little—plaster
up the roof and the crevices of the walls—paper
and paint the rooms afresh; and it will be tenant-
able enough for many a session, it may be, for the
present one at least ; and if we do but tide over
that, who can tell but some lucky word-fight may
turn up year after year—lreland or Europe—the
Church or the Militia—which may take up our
time and save us from Reform.

• Such, we confess, appears to us to be the drift
of some of the " great organs of public opinion,"
and of some lesser, but very knowing ones.
Here we all are on the tiptoe of expectation, as
much so as last November. The Ministry of
talent has succeeded the Ministry of genius, and
we are to be shown the difference between practi-
cal ability and splendid imagination. And what
is the advice ? what the suggestion ? Why, put
Reform and Education into commission ; that is,
shelve them for the session ; and absorb your-
selves in the details of the National Defences (a
matter which must be intrusted, however, to the
profession), says one. No, says a craftier Amino-
ram, rectify the coinage, and rejoice all the
clerks and schoolboys, by decimalising that plaguy
pence column ; put the Customs to rights, and
please the daily visitors of 'Change, and the
nightly residents in the suburbs ; throw the pro-
fits of the Post-office into its improvement, and
take your share of Penny Postage Reform (only
do not abolish the penny newspaper stamp, since,
though it would help the post wonderfully, we
should no longer enjoy our monopoly) ; make
good laws for the railways, and save us from being
smashed ; give us plenty of good water, for we
" cry to be washed, and should like to be clean."
And then, as we must die at last, why, see to our
funerals ; give us a good Extramural Act (if the
clergy will let you), and let us lie really under the
turf, and not hasten the death of those we leave
behind. If our gallant Government will but do
a number of substantial kindnesses like these..—if
they will but look to our money and our letters,
our water-taps and our coffins—why, then they
may defy the Arbitration men, and the Religious
Equality men, aye, and the large, well-drilled
phalanx with BENJAMIN DISRA.ELI at its head,
also. Neither POPE nor EmPEßon—neither Man-
chester nor Buckinghamshire can shake their seats.
Well, it may be so. What with commissions
and committees, with doing some much-needed
work in the House, and trade and commerce brisk
without it, they may rub through pretty well ;
Hon. Members would not like to hazard a dissolu-
tion so soon, and it would no doubt be held over
them in terrorem. Still, we are confident that
the strongest Government cannot afford to delay
a Reform measure worthy of its reputation. The
Budget will, of course, have to be settled first of
all, and. we wait with some an riety the course
which will be taken. The Income Tax is the test-
ing question ; if Mr. GLADSTONE can brook yield-
ing to the fixed determination of the public, and
if the rest of the Cabinet have to make no damag-
ing concession to his obstinacy, so far all will be
plain sailing ; but anything paltry on that ques-
tion, must end in a dissolution or a resignation.
Justice on that point will obtain toleration for an
otherwise very common-place Budget. But, then,
all the credit of Income-tax Reform, will, by every
impartial man, be set down to the late Ministry ;
and so of the Irish Law Reforms, and the National
Defences, and all the little good things from the

new tenpenny pieces to the coffins; all these it will
be said, would have been done, and as well done,
by the DERBY Ministry. The demand will be
that, that the one great thing, to oppose which
Lord DERBY has pledged himself, and to forward
which Lord Join- has pledged himself, both in
Perth and in London, that that one thing shall
be promptly and worthily brought forward. Even
if a case for a commission of inquiry after facts
could be made out, the composition of that com-
mission will soon reveal whether it be meant for
an evasion or a real help. Suppose it to consist
of two known Conservatives, two Whigs, and two
uncompromising Radicals, its labours might, no
doubt, accumulate much trustworthy information ;
it could, however, most certainly be of no further
service to the cause of Reform than that of stop-
ping the mouths of many opponents. Any honest
Minister, without waiting a day beyond the time
requisite to proportion representation by well-
known data of the census and rate-books, and
determined to protect the purity of election by
large constituencies, and secret voting, could easily
present a Bill which the country would ratify at
once. The country knows this as well as the
Cabinet, and the latter may be sure that any
symptom of vacillation on this grand question,
will be the commencement of distrust on the part
of those whose hearty support is indispensable to
its existence. They have a first-rate adversary,
and it is not by a renewal of wiggish temporising
that they can hold their ground against him.
Their course must be one either of bold measures
and reliance on the people, or of timid trimming,
with the reward of humiliations at pleasure by
the brilliant Leader of the powerful Opposition.
With such ample scope for a political, as well as
an administrative reputation, it will be suicidal
folly to ruin themselves politically, hoping to
make atonement by offerings of tenpenny pieces,
clean water, and suburban sepulchres.