The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-02 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1853.

The present Government has had its " quar-
ter's trial." What can we divine of its future
from its brief past ? Will it be strong enough
for its place ? What truth there may be in the
occasional rumours of a split in the Cabi-

net no one can tell while the thirteen sec,

voters keep their oaths. Likelihood was, no doubt,
father sometimes to the thought, but sometimes it

might have a better foundation in the known
personal preferences of the contrasted but united
Ministers. The Puseyites stomached its they
best could the appointment of a Low Church
Bishop to Lincoln, and have consoled themselves
by compelling Lord JOHN to beat a retreat on the
Clergy Reserves Bill, and obtaining an honorarium
for Episcopacy at the cost of our Consolidated
Fund. Radicals and Tories remained faithful,
however, to their liaison. The Tories voting in
the majority to make a clean sweep of Canadian
Church matters, and even Sir Was. MOLESWORTH
complacently giving his "aye" to the expunging
of the all-important third clause. In like man-
ner, the Liberals in the Cabinet were equally
prompt to support Mr. GLADSTONE in staving off
" good resolutions." Whether Mr. Hymn
proposed to pledge the\ house to an early abolition
of all protective duties, or Mr. WILLIAMS to
the self-evident justice of subjecting all succes-
sors of property equally to Legacy and Probate
Duties—whether it was to deprive the Exchequer
of monopoly gains, or to enrich it by the most
equitable and least oppressive of taxes—it was all
one ; Radicals and Tories were equally steady un-
der the fire of Reformers. They kept an un-
broken front. Nothing would make them yield
to a " good resolution." It reminds one invo-
luntarily of Butler's satire on the Presbyterian
theologians—

"What makes morality a crime
The most notorious of the time 1
Morality—which both the saints
And sinners too, cry out against."

Attacks from the Opposition they have also got
over very well—Lord ABERDEEN, by imperturb-
able silence, and Sir CHARLES WOOD by confes-
sion of his errors. The main question, there-
fore, emerges—What have they done g Has the
amount of work been proportioned to our fair ex-
pectations from such a working Cabinet Much,
certainly, was not promised—it was only stipu-
lated that a small amount should be efficiently
completed. How has this engagement been
kept ? Three of the most important items—
India, Education, and the Budget—have all been
deferred till after Easter ; so have University

Reform, measures on Transportation Abolition
and Secondary Punishments, a prospective mea-

sure on Bribery at Elections, and the whole affair
of the Ecclesiastical Courts. Money, in the anti-
was voted, of course, as fast as it
Galilean panic,
was asked for ; indeed, like CLIVE, in the pre-
sence of vast Indian native treasure, they may
very well boast of " taking no more" when the
House was so ready to give. On this point we
thank them for doing the least they could. The
Jews' Bill they have pushed to its third reading
neariy; but for a too good-natured concession to Sir
R. H. INGLis, it might have now been in the
House of Lords. Report says it is to be treated there
as its predecessors have been. If so, we shall think
it a most discreditable piece of mismanagement.
It is acknowledged on all hands that there is no
actual legislation to exclude Jews from Parlia-
ment. The form of an oath accidentally excludes
them, and nothing but the most inveterate Red-
tapism would have gone beyond a vote of the
House of Commons to authorise Jews to take the
oath in the form most binding on their conscience.
Lord GROSVENOR'S Bill to limit the polling in
counties to one day is got clean through both
Houses ; but that was not a Government mea-
sure. The same may' be said of Mr. MILNER
GIBSON'S County-Rate Bill, which is advanced as
far as comnittee, through the, vigorous aid, how-
ever, of Lord PALNERSTON, On the subject of our

Mercantile Marine ground has been broken ;—and
this is all I all that is yet done. Two-thirds of a
Canada Bill, and a Jew Bill, with a list of mortify
ing exclusions appended, both nearly through the
Commons, is all yet done. The LORD CHANCEL-
LOR has, indeed, promised, some years hence, a
digest of our Statutes ; and has introduced a mea-
sure for the Registration of Deeds, but Lord Sr.
LEONARDS, and Lord BROUGHAM appear to more
than vie with the Woolsack in the work of Law
Reform. Indeed, it has been frequently remarked
that the House of Lords has been unusually active
this session, and that its debates, while there is so
little practical work before it, has several times
equalled in interest those of the House of Com-
mons.
If we look forward to the recommencement of
Parliamentary work, the prospect is rather dubi-
ous. On the great question of India, the Govern-
ment is evidently in a very difficult position.
There is no doubt, we think, that both Whigs
and Tories last Session intended to have made a
quiet job of it, and to have gone to sleep for an-
other twenty years. That is now impossible. Un-
less prepared to abolish the Court of Directors
and the double Government at once, it will be
impossible to meet Parliament with any measure
which will be successful. It will not be endured, now
that the Indian Committee having reported on one
point only out of eight, an act to continue substanti-
ally the present enormous abuses should be smuggled
through the House. Lord ELLENBOROUGH has told
his tale, and told it well. The natives and British
residents in India have sent their instructive pe-
titions. Mr. NORTON has unveiled the details of
unheard-of abuse of justice in the Courts, the
Press and Independent Members are getting quite
alive to the whole question, a vigilant Opposition
has given up its apathy now that the field appears
so promising, and the strong Government which
hitherto spoke most superciliously of its " pre-
paredness to legislate," plainly begins to quail.
Make-shift measures will bring down upon them a
powerful antagonism of Tories and Independent
Liberals. Strong measures, we fear, Sir CHARLES
WOOD 15 utterly unprepared for. Here is their
first great difficulty.
On Monday, Lord JOHN is to announce
his educational plans. Here, too, we have
much misgiving. The Canadian business shows
how powerful the Exeter party is in the
Cabinet, and how he should at once propitiate
that party, and the immense body of Dissenters of
every kind too, we confess we do not see. Nothing
would more rejoice us than a really unsectarian,
comprehensive measure, but we fear Lord JOHN
Russzu, especially when trammelled by a coali-
tion, is not equal to that. At the same time,
the day for revealing the mysteries of the Budget
is to be announced. That, of course, is to give
satisfaction to none. An equal Legacy and Probate
Duty would have enabled the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER to abolish protection duties, and part of
the taxes on knowledge, too ; but he refuses to tax
lords and landholders like shopkeepers and free-
holders. The Tea Duties and Income Tax he
must do something with. What the compromise
between his crotchetiness and the demands of the
public will be no one can tell. We fear Mr.
GLADSTONE will use his financial abilities to save

the wealthy, to continue protective duties, and to
do his utmost for property as distinguished from
trades and professions.
The most stirring part of the business done in
the House of Commons has been quite irrespective
of the Government. The Election Committees
have been busy enough, and certainly done gene-
rally their part. They have already unseated six-
teen Members, nine Conservatives and seven Libe-
rals, and declared ten duly elected ; and, as a pen-
dant to the usual disclosures, a Select Committee on
the Norwich petitions has instructed us in the
" batch" system and other election mysteries. All
this we are, of course, to take as a substitute for a
Reform Bill. It is preliminary evidence ; and if its
impression has not vanished before 1854, we may
expect some good to come from it then. All then
that we can learn from three months' trial of our
All-Talents and strong Ministry is, that the Tories,
Liberals, and Radicals in the Cabinet vote well
together—that they have done hitherto as little as
they could ; that all the great and embarrassing
questions are yet before them ; that on one occa-
sion already, Canada, they have been saved by the
Tories from their own supporters ; that on India
they must yield or be beaten ; and that on the
Budget we have more fears than hopes.

A movement is at length being made towards
the more effectual abolition of the system of In-
tramural Interments, by the establishment of an
adequate number of extramural or suburban
Cemeteries. Sometimes, we believe, the same as-

sertion has been made before, but never we really
believe with so much reason or with such a fair
and rational prospect before us of seeing our hopes
in this matter at last (however tardily) realised.
What encourages us in this opinion is the remem-
brance that the question so long and pertinaciously
set aside as of little importance, or at any rate as
of very secondary consideration, has been reso-
lutely taken in hand by one of the most gifted
and energetic of our administrators—meaning, of
course, in this no other than the Right Hen. the
Home Secretary, Viscount PALMERSTON. Since
the Noble Lord assumed the head of that most
honourable and responsible department, under the
present 011a-podrida, or Happy Family, or Coali-
tion, or What-you-will Administration—a vigor-
ous effort, the first vigorous effort, the only
vigorous effort yet made, has carried dis-
may amongst those great public offenders, who
until now have flourished upon their evil doings
with uninterrupted impunity. An order in
Council has been selected as the only rational
weapon for the punishment of the criminal sup-
porters of a monstrous and stupendous abomina-
tion. The determination of Lord PALMERSTON to
adopt this decisive course was announced to the
House of Commons, it will be remembered, in
answer to an inquiry put to the Noble Viscount
by the humane and indefatigable Representative
of the Borough of Marylebone. Subsequently we
have had agreeable intimation that other orders
in Council will at intervals follow this preparatory
one as applied to the burial-ground in the Strand,
until gradually one by one the whole of those
odious pits of corruption are closed, and closed
permanently. Remembering how very shame-
fully all our hopes of redress have been disap-
pointed by the Sanitary Commissioners—recol-
lecting bow egregiously we have been deceived
by the Legislature when looking to it for any such
improvements—we cannot but hail with unusual
rejoicing the resolve which has now been evinced
by the Home Secretary. Without some proceed-
ing like that promised by. Viscount PALMERSTON,
we might sit down, not under our fig tree, in
peace, but under a sort of moral upas, in despair,
and in the midst of the clustered manufactories of
pestilence.
It might not unreasonably be asked by the
generality of the public interested in such mat-
ters, What, during all this time, is being done by
the originator of the whole of this terrible dead-
man's question, and, as such, of course, the vir-
tual originator of the entire sanitary movement.
We don't here allude to Dr. SOUTHWOOD SMITH.
Neither do we refer, by any means, to Mr.
EDWIN CHADWICK. Neither do we speak of any
other member of the vaunted commission estab-
lished in Gwydyr House. We mean a very dif-
ferent man from all these eminent philanthropists.
We mean a man no less benevolent, but one
rather more practical than theoretical. We
mean necessarily and obviously, Mr. G. A.
WALKER. It may be asked, we repeat, what
Mr. WALKER is doing all this while in
the prosecution of his generous and impor-
tant enterprise ? Surely the answer to any
such inquiry must to any reasonable observer be
at a glance sufficiently apparent. He has toiled
in the cause year after year—he has written book
after book, he has distributed pamphlet after
pamphlet—in fact he has exhausted the subject
and worn it threadbare. What more at his hands
can be in reason expected ? Nothing can now
enforce his arguments except—cholera or some
other dreadful visitation. Doubtless in profound
chagrin at the indifference manifested by the gene-
ral community in a matter so wonderfully affect-
ing their interest, their health their very lives, he