The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-26 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE RUif.

SlR,—Nothing can be more, essential to the success of
naval operations than that officers conducting them
should have a perfect knowledge of the coast, set of the
currents, prevailing winds, &c., in the sphere on which
their services are required; as, without such local know-
ledge, an enemy, inferior in force, and all other profes-
sional acquirements, may evade our squadrons, harass
our allies, and do incalculable mischief, by sudden in-
cursions on their coast with comparative impunity. It
therefore, to me, appears most unaccountable that all
our squadron should be detained off Constantinople, with
the almost certain prospect of being speedily called on to
act in the Black Sea, without availing themselves of the
present favourable opportunity of becoming acquainted
with the navigation of that sea. That such knowledge
is fully appreciate(' 'by the Admiralty is evident, from
Sir E. Lyons having been selected as second in com-
mand of our Mediterranean fleet, from having had the
rare advantage, of a cruise in the Black Sea, when in
command of the Blonde. It would, therefore, be unjust
to consider the Admiralty the cause of the present aus-
picious opening being lost to the .service. Nor con I
conceive it possible that it arises out of deference or
fear of giving umbrage to the Czar, as the Black Sea
cannot be considered as Russian (seeing that the larger
portion of its coasts belong to Turkey) ; and, even were
it so deemed, surely while Russian ships of war are
receiving refits occupying months in our naval arsenals,
with the means of becoming acquainted with our re-
sources, fortifications, &c., it would, indeed, be false
delicacy to hesitate in giving our officers an opportunity
of gaining such essential professional knowledge as cited
by me. I can, therefore, only account for the absence
of all our vessels, not only from the Russian, but Turkish
harbours and coast, from the Commander-in-Chief's feel-
ing that he cannot, without instructions, send our
cruisers there ; and his not having received such instruc-
tions to an oversight on the part of our Prime Mi-
nister.

I would therefore suggest that a number of active,
intelligent officers, of different ranks, be selected from
the Mediterranean fleet, by the Admiral, and sent in
several of our steamers and smaller sailing ships to visit
the entire coasts of the Black Sea', with a view to gain-
ing every information with regard to the strength of
both Turkish and Russian fortifications, and security of
harbours, as well as the navigation of the coasts.
I am, Sir, your very obedient servant,
A NAVAL OFFICER.
Dec. 14, 1853.

LORD PALMERSTON- LORD JOHN
RUSSELL-SIR JAMES GRAHAM.

(From the Morning Advertiser.)

We believe we are correct in stating that Lord
Palmerston has returned •to the Home Secretary-
ship. The matter was finally arranged on Satur-
day evening. We could have wished, for his own
sake, that Lord Palmerston had never again crossed
the threshold of any office in DOwning-street, ex-
cept that of the First Lord of the Treasury. But
it is due to his lordship to say, that, though still
in name only the Home Secretary, he is, to all
intents and purposes, the Premier of England ;.for,
before he would listen to the entreaties made to
him to return, he made conditions which xirtually
make him the head of the Cabinet. Lord John
Russell, who has hitherto been something in the
Cabinet, will hereafter be nothing ; while Lord
Aberdeen will be no better than the effigy of a
Premier.

Never was man so besieged as Lord Palmerston
has been, both by written and verbal solicitations,
to return to arroffice he had quitted. The greater
part of his (the Noble Lord's) time last week was
occupied in reading letters, imploring him to return
to the Home-office, and in receiving visits paid to
him solely with the same view. But neither Lord
John Russell nor Sir James Graham ventured, after
their conduct to Lord Palmerston, to pay him a
visit. We are assured, however—and yet knowing
what we do, we can hardly believe it possible--
that Lord John actually wrote to the noble lord a
letter, beseeching him to rejoin the Coalition Cabi-
net, and promising, as an inducement, that if he
would do so, he would abandon those parts of the
Reform Bill to which Lord Palmerston objected.
For the sake of the character of our public men,
we trust the latter statement, though so confi-
dently made, will be found to be without founda-
tion ; for Lord John Russell, we are informed on
undoubted authority, behaved of late towards Lord
Palmerston with something approaching to rude-
ness. In fact, his conduct to the latter Noble
Lord has been represented to us as a repetition,
under different circumstances, of that of Decem-
ber, 1851, when he ignominiously expelled him
from the Whig Ministry. Sir James Graham, we
are told, /was an aiding and abetting party in this
matter ; but it is said that, considerini, the politi-
cal character of the Netherby Baronet,° Lord Pal-
merston did not care about his rudeness. Not so
with regard to the demeanour of Lord John. It
was the immediate cause, as we stated on Thurs-
day last, of Lord Palmerston's retirement from
office ; and, in sending in his resignation to
Lord Aberdeen, he expressed himself in terms of
becoming indignation at the conduct of Lord John.
Had lord Palmerston not returned to office, this
letter, which would have excited great attention,
would have been read to the House of Commons,
immediately upon the re assembling of Parliament ;
but it is presumed the public will not, after the
patch-up which has taken place, have their
curiosity to see it, gratified.

Incredible as the thing may appear, we have the
best reason for believing that, notwithstanding the
signal triumphwhich Lord Palmerston has achieved
over Lord John Russell, by being welcomed back
by Lord Aberdeen and the rest of the Ministers,
on his own terms, Lord John Russell will not re-
sign. Can this be ? Can a man occupying the
place his lordship so long did in the service of his
Sovereign, be so utterly lost to all sense of honour,
as this would imply ? As for Sir James Graham,
nobody would expect him to resign under any
amount of indignity that could be put upon him.

(From the Daisy News.)

On the tenth day after Lord Palmerston's resig-
nation, his deserted and disconsolate colleagues
were still to seek for a successor eligible in their
eyes. His vacant office had been hawked round
the narrow circle of conventional eligibilities, but
all of them had declined the offer. Sir James
Graham was of opinion that the Admiralty was a
more congenial berth for him. Lord John Russell
had no desire to encumber himself again with a
load of departmental business. Sir George Grey
had misgivings as to the reception his appoint-
ment might encounter in public. So many de-
clinatures brought the Coalition to their wits' end ;
only one other possible arrangement seemed to
remain—to coax Lord Palmerston back again.
And accordingly . his Lordship has had long
remonstrative visits inflicted upon him by
diverse members of the Cabinet, and his
and their friends out of doors have been for
the last few days busy demonstrating—to their own
conviction, if not to that of their hearers—how de-
sirable it is that the noble Viscount should quietly
return to Downing-street, and how perfectly con-
sistent such a termination of the fracas would be
with the dignity and self-respect of all parties con-
cerned. If the resignation of the ten days, and its
consequent hunt for a Home Secretary, is to end,
like the figure of a country dance, with the parties
who have been poussetting, swingingcorners, chasse-
illy down the middle and up again, resuming their
places to go through the same movements again,
we have nothing to say against it. Russell, Pal-
merston, and Gladstone, is, on the whole, a more
palatable olla-podrida, than Derby, Palmerston, and
Disraeli would have been—apparently the only alter-
native. We have nothing for it but to wait in trem-
bling but watchful hope till time shall show whe-
ther qr not the reconciliation has been purchased
by a sacrifice in whole or in part of the promised
measure of reform. The public, indeed, will make
its remarks if Lord. Palmerston resume office. A
public separation and re-union, with the causes of
both shrouded in the mysterious twilight that ever
broods over Downing-street, will give rise to as
much damaging conjecture as a similar freak
played by a married couple. Sooner or later the
Ministry will be weakened by the present escapade ;
a repetition would be fatal, for who could repose
confidence in men who, while occupying highly re-
sponsible offices, quarrel a l'outrance, then kiss
and become friends again, no one can, but by con-
jecture, imagine why or wherefore ? All this is
obvious—is, indeed, the current subject of remark
wherever two or three are gathered together. But
little is said of an anomaly in our administrative
arrangements, which ridiculous Ministerial
squabbles like these are, however, fitted to
obtrude on public notice. If Lord Palmerston
is sought and won back it will be because
a substitute has not been found for him ; and
if a substitute has notbeen foundfor him it is because
the men among whom it is deemed necessary to
pick and choose are so few in number. Now, why
is the range of choice so narrow ? Because it is
thought absolutely necessary that in order to be a
Minister a public man must belong to some one or
other of our half dozen aristocratical connexions.
He must be a son, nephew, brother of the old
revolution houses of Bedford, Cavendish, and Co. ;
or he must, by wealth or ability, and a long ap-
prenticeship of unwavering subserviency, have
merited adoption into some such clan or college.
The office of Minister in this country, like that of
Pontifex, Flamen, or Augur, in old Rome, is prac-
tically attainable only by those who by birth or
adoption belong to a narrow circle of families. It
is high time that this servile and conventional
countrysuperstitionof
thesh servicesouldbep of men wh
utd o wn. Itocould v
deprives theser e
it well ; it encourages in the privileged class a cold
and supercilious habit of discouraging and repres-
sing rising talent ; it is continually leading to
petty womanish tea-table scratchings, scoldings,
and reconciliations like that which is so confidently
anticipated in the case of Lord Palmerston. It
subjects the country to ridiculous and emasculated
Cabinets. And the most provoking part of the
affair is, that the Liberal section of the aristo-
cracy, are the greatest sinners in this respect.
From the time when " All the Talents" were
hooted out of office for inefficiency till 1830, the
°t clannishness. Cannings,orators, steady plausible
lushi g jobbers, all who
Whigs were kept under by the Tories. mainlrymied
in
eonse quence of the greater readinesso,toeuratr.i
sot
In
theenr athtiel tlattertoregao-f
to open their ranks to receive young and rising
talent. In fact, the Tory party (so,called) of the
venin Whig houses had from time to time
great
latter half of the eighteenth and the first half of
thenineteenth century, has been principally forwhommed
of theof tmh morgue r g
s
mutineers
thes till very lately retained, it was,
odn
orga-
nisation
atio nllittlo. and the younger Pitt to put down the
originally patched up by the coalition between
Georgehf
ihins
coalitionghreearetdpbi
taeartrtNyv between
InoFdpooxosni
tanditnhe n he
oNconuratthet.axiinoßend whichso
utP ietart
origi-
nated getido.
nated in the discontent of " the Cobham Cousins"
at the way in which they were snubbed and kept in
minor offices by the Whig leviathans of the day.
Every
commanding temper a Pitt 11. his alliance would
allowance being made for the daring and
have been of comparatively little value to George
111. but for his hereditary rank among the Grevilles
and their and his father's followers. The coalition
party which supported the King and Pitt has ever
since been a kind of refuge for the destitute for am-
bitious rising politicians, who were, or feared to be,
kept
,eempetleson,uctorooffkbturseeinpi
nlanoesydsb,RyWhnsi
„ use
could be useful, were received with open arms by the
Tories; while the Whig leaders kept scowling upon
every volunteer recruit as a new rival for offices in
expectancy. A deviation from the traditionary
policy of the party led to their fusion with, the
Canningite seceders from the Tory camp, and ulti-
mately to the Whig accession to office in 1830. A
repetition of this violation of the hereditary practice
of the' party has lately renewed, the lease of their
political life by the coalition with the Peelite se-
ceders from the Tory camp. But unluckily these

new recruits have been trained in the school of a
man as jealously bent upon being the one great
statesman of his party as Sir Robert Walpole (to
whom, by the way,' he bore some resemblance in
other points), and are of course almost as little
disposed to open their ranks to new men as the
Whigs themselves. Hence it comes that we find the.
Coalition Ministry, like the Whig Ministry, when a
'vacancy occurs, running the round of a few place-
mentwho are conventionally regarded as the only
eligible candidates for office, and if an arrangement
cannot be made with them, giving it up in despair.
And yet out-of the official circles you will not meet
. with half-a-dozen men who do not believe—who do
not know—that, to use a homely proverb, " there
are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it ;"
that take any dozen of Parliament men at random,
it is odds but you get as efficient a Cabinet as can
be manufactured out of those who are assumed to
monopolise all " official aptitude" for these high
posts. Look at the Derby Ministry. A more
hopeless collection of inexperienced men than the
party out of which its officials had to be culled
cannot well be imagined. Yet from sheer necessity,
the Aristocracy standing aloof, Lord Derby
was obliged so dispose of the greater part of
his high offices to commoners, and all the world
wondered how respectably the least promising
of them acquitted themselves. Assuredly the
groat Duke—the descendant and representative
of the illustrious family of Smithson was
the worst failure of the batch. Now, if Lord
Derby, as the legsaeedlmnyeerrse.eolofFefteilttitezhfroceoorylnalic:]lLittieioovxamrnedToryism and
narrow-mindedness of politics, gained so much by
coa
lffiicnocemed,
,pwuhhlosapoter compulsory extensionoigh effectt n o t
btyho
the leaders
voluntarily
lhleuea
ndr
tae
arn
srgileoyof of
followingtho paspirantsrty
htt
ioos
whichd example
e pu deputy
(h iipnut
purposely
pl
Wouldl
oi
working member, little, - if at naturally
steady-
goingaalleelrseyaitednn:sabove common-place), make a much lessfficiaennty'
Home Secretary than Lord Palmerston? And yet
the hereditary superstition which limits the choice
of Ministers forbids his being thought of, or
public man of his standing. And so Cabinets boggle
and boggle, as the Aberdeenites have been doing
theie ten days, only, it would seem, to get out of
a difficulty by coaxing back a man they had re-
jected. What does this prove ? Their selfishness
first, their folly next, and their weakness above all.