The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-12 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1854.

The feeling explanation given to the House of
Commons last evening by Lord JOHN RUSSELL,
on the occasion of the Noble Lord's announcing,
through the House to the Country, the withdrawal
for the present session of his last new Bill for the
Reform of Parliament, will ultimately and inevi-
tably command from the people, as it at once com-
manded yesterday from their representatives, that
respect for his emotions, and sympathy for his re-
grets, which are, assuredly, the deserved meed of
his labours and the merited tribute to his reputa-
tion.

It must be recognised at once that this with-
drawal of the new Reform Bill must be to Lord
JOHN RUSSELL a source of poignant regret and
of peculiar and painful disappointment. That,
we believe, is already admitted by the vast majo-
rity even of the most determined among his poli-
tical opponents. It was last night acknowledged
with manly and becoming candour by the Right
Hon. Gentleman the Leader of her Majesty's
Opposition. Mr. DISRA.ELI justly declared that,
painful though it was in many respects, the speech
just delivered by the Noble Lord was one worthy of
him in every particular. Such, we believe, will he
the verdict of the great masses of our population.
It may be regretted by some that the measure, I
now postponed till another and more fitting oppor-
tunity, was introduced at all this session to the
notice of the Imperial Legislature, considering the
almost unexampled circumstances with which that
session must be remembered to have been inau-
gurated. But it must be acknowledged, at the
same time, that the councils of her Britannic MA.-
.rzsri were, in so doing, influenced by an anxiety
to be faithful to their promise of these innovations
in our representative system, while they were at
the same instant paralysed in the exercise of fore-
sight and judgment by the despairing tenacity
with which some of her MAJESTY'S Ministers
clung to the very last to the hope of a tardy
pacification.
Occurrences have since multiplied_ occurrences
which have tended to dissipate every visible ves-
tige of these illusory anticipations. War at length
became not only certain, not only inevitable,
not only unavoidable —it was actually de-
clared. Messages to this effect were despatched
simultaneously to the Parliaments both of France
and of England by their respective Sovereigns.
Notifications appeared immediately afterwards in
the London Gazette and in the Paris Moniteur,
officially intimating to the world at large that
there was really, after all, an end of political
correspondence, of those at one time apparently
interminable sends, notes, and ultimatums, which
gradually wove around the intricate maze of the
Russo-Turkish Difficulty, the bewildering laby-
rinth of diplomatic negotiation. By the time
this conclusion was arrived
at, however, by the
time the unwelcome truth of a war with Russia
was at last forced upon the recognition of the
Earl of ABERDEEN and his Ministerial
colleagues,
the New Reforms, to the furtherance of which
they had solemnly pledged themselves, were
already, in the form of Lord Jonx RUSSELL'S care-
fully elaborated " Bill," lying on the table of the
House of Commons, and awaiting the attention of
the Legislature. Here was a new, an unexpected,
and a rather formidable embarrassment. Pro-
mises had been made, pledges had been given—
been partially redeemed, those
those pledges had
promises partially fulfilled. However, to have
persisted in the course upon which Ministers had
mistakenly adventured would have been to have
added enormously to the difficulties of the State
by jeopardising in the crisis of a dread struggle
among the great nations of the earth the stability
of the English Executive, the very existence of
the British Government. Than which certainly—
meaning the otherwise unavoidable necessity of a
change of Administration iu the midst of a
general war—scarcely anything could be more
detrimental to the interests of the Empire, and
through those interests to the twofold cause of
Christendom and Civilisation. It became mani-
fest, therefore, during the interval secured for
reflection by the adjournment of the second
reading of the new Reform Bill to the 27th in-
stant, that every other consideration must be
sacrificed to that of the general welfare of the
State, And everything Au been so noriiced