The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-04 00:00:00

Elitning

LONDON, SATURDAY: JULY 4, 1846.

THE NEW MINISTRY.
The following appointments have been made since
our last announcement :
Master of the Mint Right Hon. R. L. SHELL.
Secretary of the Board
of Admiralty H. G. WARD, Esq.
Attorney-General
One of the Lords of the
Treasury
Under Secretary for the
Home Department .. Sir WM. SOMERVILLE.
Under Secretary for Fo- The Right Hon. E. J.
reign Affairs STANLEY.
Lord Advocate A. RUTHERFORD, Esq.
The Duchess of SUTHERLAND Will be Mistress of
the Robes.
We understand that either Mr. C. BULLBR or Mr.
liswzs will be Under-Secretary for the Colonies.

LORD JOHN RussELL.—his Lordship received
visits this morning, at his residence in Chesham-
place, from several of his political friends. The new
Ministerial arrangements, it is understood, are nearly
completed, and Lord JOHN RUSSELL is expected
to leave town this afternoon for Wimble-
don. His Lordship will remain at Wimble-
don, with Lady Jour.; RUSSELL, until Monday,
on which day it is confidently expected that a Privy
Council will be held at Buckingham Palace, when
the members of the new Administratien will be sworn
into office, and will receive their respective seals.

The magnificent banquet given last night, at the
Reform Club, to his Highness IBRAHI3I PACHA, pre-
sents many circumstances of an extraordinary
character, the effect of which will not be lost on the
illustrious Prince in whose honour the entertain-
ment was provided.
The heir-apparent of one of our firmest allies, the
future Sovereign of a great and important terri-
tory, in war the gallant and victorious General, in
peace the eminent agriculturist and zealous
cultivator of all the arts and sciences,
by which the social relations, the tastes, and habits of
civilised life, are ameliorated and improved; he had
not rested in the enjoyment of luxurious ease, but
had determined to visit other nations, to become an
eye-witness of their institutions and manners, their
manufactures and commercial arrangements,
not for the gratification of an idle curiosity,
but in the same spirit by which PETER, the
GREAT was animated to investigate fully
the causes by which national prosperity was attained,
and, as far as practicable, to introduce into his own
country the improvements he saw practised in other
nations, to effect extensive and valuable reforms in
the civil and political institutions of his people.
Such were the objects of his journey ; and it is little
to be wondered at that the first public entertain-
ment should be given to him by the Reform Club—a
body of gentlemen associated together in honour
and commemoration of the triumph of the great na-
tional reform by which our Legislature was purified,
and the popular branch of the Senate practically
made, what in theory it purported to be, a real
representation of the people, from which have sprung
the vast benefits of later days—the removal of the
taxes on a nation's food, the triumph of free trade,
and the abolition of all commercial restrictions.

The Chairman, who ably presided over the banquet,
and who proposed the health of the illustrious guest,
was the hero by whom his progress had been
checked, and his triumphant career arrested,
and his victories turned into defeat; but not the less
cordial was the feeling that subsisted between these
gallant men because they had been arrayed against
each other in hostile ranks—each recognised in the
other an opponent worthy of his arms—and such men
must ever entertain the most profound respect and
esteem for each other.

The nobleman by whom the health of his royal
father was proposed had formerly, when filling a
high and important public situation, to which he has
just been restored, after a secession from office of
nearly five years, felt it to be his painful duty, in the
conscientious discharge of the functions of his office,
and in the maintenance of the balance of power,
to oppose that father in his most cherished
plans, and to interpose the arms of Great
Britain between him and the accomplishment
of his most ardent wishes. To this nobleman
was entrusted the more pleasing task of bearing his
testimony to the honourable course pursued by
MenemeT Ant, under such irritating circumstances,
towards the British subjects and British interests,
placed within his power for a time, which, as he truly
said, was that of a most generous foe.
The occasion, too, was an auspicious one : that very
evening the acceptance of office by a new Ad-
ministration was announced to the country
by their seats being vacated and new writs moved
for in the House of Commons, pursuant to the con-
stitutional principle, which declares that on a repre-
sentative of the people being appointed to a situation
of emolument under the Crown, he must resign into
the hands of the people by whom he was elected the
trust reposed in him, and receive their sanction as to
the propriety of his conduct before he can again sit
or vote in Parliament. The late Ministry had been
singularly successful during their term:of office ; the
nation had enjoyed a long period of commercial activity
and prosperity, almost without precedent; the finan-
cial
affairs of the country had been placed on a firm
basis ; and, notwithstanding the reduction of many
taxes, by which the industry of the working classes
had become oppressed, an increased and increasing
revenue bore the strongest testimony to the soundness
of the principle acted on. The wars in which
this country had been unhappily engaged were
brought to a peaceful and happy termination, and
the honour of the British name and the British arms
had passed untarnished through the ordeals by which
it had been tested ; but, far beyond all, the force
of public opinion had achieved a peaceful victory by
the force of reason and argument only. Monopolies
were extinguished, the glorious principles of free
trade had triumphed to the utmost extent, and mea-
sures giving full effect to the earnest
wishes of the nation had just received the
royal assent, and yet the Minister by
whom all this was effected, and who had
gained for himself the greatest popularity, had
fallen in the moment of his most brilliant triumph.
And why ? Because he had, although conscientiously,
yet, as it was conceived, unnecessarily, or at least
after the great and pressing necessity had ceased,
attempted to carry measures of coercion by which the
liberties of a portion of our fellow-countrymen
would be interfered with and abridged. This
is a lesson which cannot be thrown away on
a Prince of so much intelligence and judgment
as IBRAHIM Piths. We trust that he will take it
deeply to heart; and be guided thereby in his
future career, arid that he may thence discover that
the true interests of a Government are best promoted
by insuring the constitutional freedom of the go-
vereed, by obeying the voice of the people, and keep-
ing up in the most liberal and enlightened manner
to the spirit of the times. That he will be inclined
to act in this manner we firmly believe, and we sin-
cerely trust that Egypt may have just cause to
rejoice at the visit of this Prince to the British nation.

It is gratifying to observe the entire absence of party
prepossession and factitious rivalry in the selection
which Lord JouN RussEx.L has made of his col-
leagues. This peculiarity of his Mini3terial arrange-
ments itsi lased beau curial to az ezem—but

excess which; while it is in accordance with the liberal
tendencies of the age, does not deteriorate from his
character as a sagacious and discriminating leader.
Whatever ill-success may have attended his en-
deavours to break down still further the barriers of
political partizanship, by the amalgamation of the
retiring and the approaching Cabinet, his proposi-
tion to retain Lord DALHOUSIE at the head of the
Board of Trade, and Lord Luscout in the Secretary-
ship for Ireland, was worthy of this ever-memorable
crisis ; it was worthy of the catastrophe of
parties ; it was peculiarly rind eminently
worthy of so illustrious a Reformer as the now Prime
Minister of England, Lord JOHN RUSSELL. A more
signal method could scarcely have been adopted to
proclaim that the policies of the new Administration
would be based upon the most comprehensive and en-
larged principles—that the RUSSELL Cabinet would
not be conventional but cosmopolitan. These most
gratifying announcements were virtually made on the
noble Premier's visit to the residence of the ex-First
Lord of the Treasury, at Whitehall-gardens. The
announcement was thereby made implicitly, but it
was yesterday delivered explicitly through the ad-
dress issued by Lord JOHN RUSSELL to the
electors of the City of London. From the
tenor of that remarkable letter it is easy
to perceive the scope of the reformatory
intentions which his Ministry is determined to
fulfil—a scope of conspicuous breadth and generosity.
Satisfied, however, as every rational man must be
with the certainty of future improvement to Great
Britain, through the instrumentality of those Minis-
terial measures which will proceed from a Cabinet
guided by such a statesman as Lord JOHN RUSSELL,
it becomes a matter of no inconsiderable importance
to remark in the expressions of his Lordship's address,
the germs of those constitutional reforms which it
will be his particular pleasure to advance. Far from
considering that commercial freedom has been
altogether realised by the extraordinary achieve-
ments of his predecessor, and far from indo-
lently abandoning himself to quietude in regard
to the removal of still existing restrictions, Lord
JOHN at once proclaims his determination to con-
summate what has been so gloriously commenced,
and not to abandon such matters until free trade is
universally applied throughout this country. In
proof of this resolution he observes, " I trust that
the measures of commercial freedom which still re-
main to be accomplished will not occasion the renewal
of angry conflict." It is not difficult to perceive that
the sugar duties are implicated in this sentence,
Having thus guaranteed the realisation of the most
cherished hopes of the multitude, the Noble Lord
assumes to himself a still bolder and loftier position by
the declaration of the abstract truth, that " Great
social improvements are required !" He thereby
kindles up the expectations of the people, nor are
these expectations quenched by any mincing pro-
gramme of the improvements which he conceives to
be so requisite, and for the attainment of which it will
be the purpose of his Administration to struggle.
Foremost among what Lord JOHN considers to be
the national grievances, we perceive that of the in-
sufficiency of popular instruction :—" Public educa-
tion," says he, "is lamentably imperfect." Next in
importance, according to the Noble Lord, is the re-
organisation of the criminal code ; or, as he happily
expresses it, " the treatment of criminals is a pro-
blem yet undecided." Again, the diffusion of
health among the population of the empire appears
to be a subject calling loudly for the interposition of
both Parliament and Ministers. Lord J. RUSSELL
acknowledges the necessity of some immediate atten-
tion to that demand, where he says, " The sana-
tory condition of our towns and villages has
been grossly neglected." So much for the
especial improvements proposed by the new Ad-
ministration with regard to Great Britain in a gene-
ralised point of view, and with reference to which
many especial circumstances are, as a matter of
course, understood ; in other words, there are the
" ablative absolutes" of local reform. For example,
the entire system of model prisons and solitary
confinement, and the proportions of punishment to
proportionate crimes, and the establishment at Pen-
tonville, are all to be comprehended in the simple
reference to " the treatment of criminals." Again,
the Normal schools, the " Godless colleges," the
religious endowments, the prevailing ignorance
of \Vales, and, we heartily trust, the "ragged schools"
themselves, will all become points of inquiry when
the imperfect state of "public education " is scruti-
nised. While the demolition of rookeries in our
towns, the construction of spacious streets, the
sewerage, public baths and washhouses, proper ven-
tilation, and the removal of burying-grounds out of
our cities, will each, we are fain to believe, come
under the categorical title of improving the sanatory
condition of the population. With regard, however,
to the particular exigencies of our sister island Lord
JOHN RUSSELL speaks in definite and decisive terms ;
he conceives the position of that land to be
singularly exigent, fur he remarks—" Our recent dia •
cussions have laid bare the misery, the discontent, and
outrages of Ireland; they are too clearly authenti-
cated to be denied ; too extensive to be treated by
any but the most comprehensive measures." No-
thing, indeed, could be more glorious or propitious
than the character of the address written by
the new Premier to his metropolitan constituents,
showing us, as that letter does, the dawn of
a moral, social, political, and national ad-
vancement in Great Britain, which if the RUSSELL
Administration be aided by the approval of the
people, will insure to this country advantages almost
incalculable. With that address before them the
electors of London cannot remain indifferent as to the
triumphant return of the Prime Minister as
the representative of this great city. They must not,
if they consider the interest of themselves and of the
community at large, permit the seat, which has be-
come vacant by Lord JOHN being summoned to the
head of affairs, to remain unoccupied beyond the
time necessary for the routine of as ordinary
election. With the consistent and disinterested
conduct of Lord JOH/4 RUSSELL during the recent
discussions fresh in their recollections, with a grateful
memory of his celebrated free-trade missive addressed
to themselves, knowing the distinguished and un-
swerving character of his whole political career, and
knowing also that party distinctions are now for ever
abolished, the electors of the City of London must
assuredly return their illustrious candidate tri-
umphantly and speedily. Let the metropolis set an
example of promptitude and liberality to those
boroughs which will be rendered vacant by the
Ministerial changes, and public business msy be
commenced forthwith.

On Friday week we inserted a letter signed
" R. S. M.." and headed " What should the Allottees
do?" questioning the justice of the opinions we have
from time to time put forward respecting the legal
and moral liabilities of the allottees of railway shares.
Our correspondent manifestly sympathises with
the provisional committeemen, but he put forward
his views with so much fairness and moderation, and
at the same time with so much ability and cogency,
that, although differing from our own opinions on the
subject, we hesitated not to give insertion to his letter.

The question of the legal liability of the allottects
has been settled by a much higher authority than
that either of our correspondent or of ourselves.
The Court of Exchequer unanimously pronounced
their judgment in the case of IVALSTAB v. SPOTTIS-
WOODS, that the allottee was not liable for any portion
of the preliminary expenses, and this decision was
the more valuable, as no new principle was thereby
introduced, but one of much importance, which had
stood the test of many years' experience, and which
had never been judicially questioned or controverted,
was sanctioned and affirmed, viz., " that where persons
set a scheme on foot, and assume to be the managers
of it, all the expenses incurred before the scheme is
in actual operation must be sustained by them if that
scheme should afterwards be abandoned?' That
principle, so long as it is held to be good law, must,
as we conceive, govern the point at issue, and in the
still later case of WONTNER V. SHARP, it was recog-
nised and extended by a judge of another court.
Originally promulgated in the Queen's Bench, it was
received with unanimous approbation by the full
Court of Exchequer, who founded their decision
thereon, and was subsequently put to the jury as
undoubted law by a judge of the ( '.,mrrion Pleas. We
cannot, therefore, permit the provisional committee-
men to indulge in the pleasing but delusive hope that
there is any probability of the rule being Altered for their