The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-07 00:00:00

Oltrnin_ti

LONDON, TUESDAY, JULY 7, 1846.

THE NEW MINISTRY.

The members of the new Ministry are entering on

their official duties at all the Government offices.
Lord Palmerston and the Hon. E. J. Stanley have
commenced their duties at the Foreign-office, as
Secretary and Under-Secretary; Lord Auckland and
the Hon. William Cowper have assumed office at the
Admiralty, the former as First, and the latter as one
of the Junior Lords. The O'Conor Don has at-
tended at the Treasury as one of the Junior Lords.
Lord Edward Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk,
acts as Lord John Russell's Private Secretary. Mr.
Arbuthnot, Private Secretary to Sir Robert Peel, has
been appointed to the same office under Mr. Charles
Wood, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer.

To-morrow the officers of the Queen's Household
will he appointed at the Privy Council, at Bucking-
ham Palace, the present Great Officers of State con-

tinning at present to fulfil their respective duties.
Earl Fortescue, it is expected, will be the Lord
Steward of the Household, vice the Earl of Liver-
pool ; and Lord Spencer the Lord Chamberlain, in
the room of Lord Delawarr.

Not only are very excellent auguries discoverable
in the avowed principles of the RUSSELL Adminis-
tration, but the improvement and prosperity of Great
Britain is, to our thinking, assured by the aggrega-
tion of talent and the community of sympathies
which characterise the present Cabinet. Since the
publication of the Prime Minister's official address
to his constituency his colleagues have severally
proclaimed their intentions after a similar fashion :
Lord PALMERSTON with a delightfully undiplomatic
distinctness ; Lord MOEPETH with a generous and
even chivalrous enthusiasm of tone; Lord EBBING-
TON in a manner not unworthy of his progenitor;
Sir THOMAS WILDE with a presumptive allu-
sion to his Parliamentary future ; and Sir
JOHN CAM HOBHOUSE with a confident re-
ference to his Parliamentary past. Were we
indeed to conjecture the political consequences of the
new Ministry simply from the avowals and the fire-
gone behaviour of its different members, we should
unquestionably be justified in indulging in a most
propitious vaticination. Happily, however, we are
not restricted to merely hypothetical auguries like
these; our prophecies may be based upon something
infinitely more substantial; its foundations are not
theoretically auspicious—they are solid golden facts.
What, for example, can be uttered in depreciation of
the distinguished intellects who will preside over the
destinies of our beloved country ? Can the talent of
the RUSSELL Administration be carped at with even
a semblance of propriety ? Is it not singularly
prodigal both in natural and acquired abilities ?
can it not boast some of our most illustrious states-
men, many of our most astute diplomatists, several of
our brightest orators, and the most accomplished de-
bater in Parliament? Does not the catalogue of this
Administration enumerate men remarkable for forensic
genius, rhetorical energy, and deliberate judgment—
men already celebrated for their legislative achieve-
ments, or for the dignified position they have assumed
to themselves in literary or administrative depart-
ments, as historians or as members of the English
Government, as Secretaries of State or as elevated
critics ? It would be immeasurably ridiculous to
quibble at observations like these when such
authorities can be adduced as RUSSELL,
PALMERSTON, CAMPBELL, HODUOUSE, MACAULAY,
MORPETIf, COTTENHAM, SHEIL, and their colleagues!
In that galaxy of talent we possess a guarantee of
the fitness of the new Cabinet to regulate the inter-
nal and external relations of this gigantic empire,
and of the discriminating generosity which will
direct the ameliorative measures for the introduction
and accomplishment of which the whole population
are now so sanguine and so expectant. A guarantee
of the Ministerial ability and conscientiousness is af-
forded by that galaxy of talent—but not by that ga-
laxy of talent alone. A still more noble, more em-
phatic, and more encouraging assurance is given of the
wisdom and liberality which will preside over the
councils of the RUSSELL Cabinet, and that assurance
is none other than the broad and comprehensive sen-
timents which have influenced the First Lord of the
Treasury in the selection of his colleagues. As we
have already specified, Lord JOHN RUSSELL evinced
his intense aversion to anything like party aggran-
disement or the instalment of a faction (whether such
a faction might be christened Tory, Whig, Radical,
or Conservative), and that on the first moment of his
summons to form an Administration it was his am-
bition to accomplish a wholesome fusion or amalga-
mation of such political sections as had been formerly
repellant to each other. Instigated by these aspira-
tions, overtures were made to insure the official co-
operation of such Noblemen as the ex-President of
the Board of Trade and the ex-Secretary for Ireland,
the rejection of which overtures is already as familiar
to the public as, upon reflection, it appears to be judi-
cious. Nevertheless, though his admirable and general
policy Wm thwarted in that particular direction,

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