The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-08 00:00:00

tralVallit

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1846.

TRIUMPH OF FREE TRADE

RE-ELECTION

LORD JOHN RUSSELL

LONDON HAS DONE ITS DUTY

London has proved itself worthy of being the
metropolis of this great empire. It has accorded
nobly with the lofty and benign spirit of the
age—with that spirit of freedom and liberality
which has so recently destroyed the bulwarks
of monopoly. London has this day elected as its
representative the Prime Minister of Great Britain ;
the constituents of this gigantic city have shown
themselves ready to co-operate in the struggle for
freedom—not only in commerce, but in all
our social relations—now engaging the ener-
gies and abilities of our wisest statesman.
It is something altogether without precedent,
and hence the more in accordance with these me-
morable times, to behold the First Minister of this
country on the hustings of the capital of England,
calling upon the citizen-electors to return him to the
British Parliament as their representative. It is
something, we repeat it, peculiarly worthy of this re-
markable juncture in the legislative system, and
aware of this fact, and conscious that the eyes of their
countrymen were concentrated upon their behaviour
under these circumstances, the enfranchised
inhabitants of our good city have responded
to the call of Lord Joux RUSSELL in the manner
which was alone suitable to the occasion. The Prime
Minister of England has been returned, not by
a majority, but by an unanimity, as the repre-
sentative of the free electors of London in the
English House of Commons. Much, however,
as we are rejoiced at this circumstance,
regarding it as a propitious augury of the new Ad-
ministration, we cannot induce ourselves to regard it
as anything more than the commencement of a series
of similar triumphs in the various boroughs vacated
by the change of Ministry. It is a glorious
commencement without question, but no
less a commencement. 'We feel assured the Premier's
return as the Member for the City of London, and
from the jubilation of whiCh the walls of Guild-
hall have scarcely ceased vibrating, is little
than the ovation of one of the victors
of the free-trade conquest. It cannot be forgotten
that in the Quixotic crusade against Sir ROBERT'S
last glorious measure, the Protectionist party insisted
that the population of England regarded that question
only with a feeling of indifference and apathy.
Here is the first indication of the popular
sentiments in regard to that wonderful achiev
ment ; and what is the nature of that indi-
cation ? Is the triumphant return of the Free-
trade Premier by the citizens of the English metro-
polis a specimen of popular apathy, forsooth? It is,
on the contrary, the most emphatic acquiescence
which a single constituency could have pronounced
in those measures which the manifesto of
Lord JOHN RUSSELL towards the 'close of 1845
tended so materially to assure. Let the other
boroughs throughout the kingdom emulate the
behaviour of the London electors, let them prove
themselves suitable respondents to the centre
of the social and commercial system of these
islands. The first incident in the RUSSELL Adminis-
tration has been the return of the Prime
Minister as the representative of the greatest cit.)
in the world. This, we take it, is something more
than auspicious—it is the first of a procession of
Ministerial triumphs.