The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-21 00:00:00

MORNING EDITION.

LONDON, 8/17 URDAY, MAY 21, 1870.

The charming simplicity of Ministerial change 3 in
Portugal! An insurrectionary movement in the
streets of Lisbon is simply threatened. The people,

during these last tw3 or three years, never dream of
rising. They look on apathetically at the new poli
tical disturbance. There is a demonstration—no,
that is too coarse a phrase for the scientific defini-
tion of these periodical supervenings, one upon
another, of bouleverseinent upon bouleversement.
There is a pronanciamiento on the part of one of
the great Chiefs of the Opposition. It is like the
hey ! presto ! of a prestidigitateur: The Government
that is in at the moment tumbles to pieces like a
house of cards. The Sovereign accepts the worst .3d
Premier's seemingly volunteered, but, in reality, com-
pulsory resignation. His Majesty has an interview
with the Leader who has just stormed his way t 3
power, and lo ! in the twinkling of an eye, there has
been effected as brilliant a transformation as can be
witnessed on the boards of any of our London
theatres upon the arrival of Christmas. Within a
single twelvemonth there may have been, nay there
have been, as many as a go:-.4 round dozen of these
instantaneous changes of Administration. Constitu-
tionally, in one sense, Portugal has for a long while

past come to be in a chronic state of revolution. The

KING is there on the one side and the people on the
other, and both are there as mere spectators. But in
between the two extremes of the State—intermediately
between the one (nominal) ruler and the million
(nowin illy) governed, there are the political

intriguers, the administrative adventurers, the pre-
tenders to the virtue of patriotic self-sacrifice, the
professional aspirants to place, with power and with
all its perquisites, who have been dealing with the g,,od
things of the State; with the moderation of mohawks
and the audacity of highwaymen. As recently as within
these last three months wepublished the comment of an
earnest and obeservant Portuguese upon the flagrant
character of these unblushing proceedings on the part
of the leaders of the Lisbon Legislature. During
the lapse of the brief interval which has since then
run out the argument of our Correspondent has
received, one after another, a series of fresh, and
some of them very startling illustrations. Beyond
the one announced by us only yesterday in a telegram
of a most sensational kind from the capital of the
Portuguese Kingdom, beyond the new revolutionary
achievement thereby announced, it would be difficult
for even a Portuguese statesman to go under almost
any conceivable circumstances. To demonstrate
the astounding character of these proceedings,i t is only
necessary to enumerate the particulars of this last epi-
sode in the history of Lisbon. Marshal the Duke of
SALDANHA, having a hankering once more for the Pre-
miership, having an eye to the formation again of a Lew
Government, takes six battalions of the Royal troops
and, with their assistance in carrying out his object,
makes—as a matter of course he makes—a Pronun..
ciarniento I At one o'clock on Thursday afternoon he
proceeds at the head of the six battalions to the Royal
Palace. He is there confronted by the Guards, an
encounter ensues, seven of the soldiers are killed and

thirty wounded. If anything might constitute a❑ act
of laze majeste, it would surely be this course of pro-
ceeding onthe part of MarshaISALDANHA. As nothing
whateverof the kind is it so regarded at Lisbon. Mar-
shal SALDANHA having taken possession of the Fort of
St—George, at four of the clock, enters the Royal Pa-
lace, and has a long interview with the King, who there-
upon requiring the presence of the Prime Minister
to wit, the Marquis de LOULE, and receiving
fro n the latter, on behalf of himself and his
Ministerial colleagues their collective resigna-

tion—accepts it ! Obviously the result is that Mar-
sbal SALDANHA, instead of being charged with
high treason, and placed in durance as a prisoner of
State guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours,
has entrusted to him the responsibility of
forming a new Cabinet, reserving to him-
self in that Cabinet, the appropriate office and
responsibilities appertaining to and devolving upon
the MINISTER of WAR. Between Poi tugal with a
roi faineant and Spain with no king at all, there is in
point of fact but small room for making tiny choice.
As things now are, alike at Lisbon and Madrid,
the whole political fabric scents to be based upon
far rather, we should say, upon quick-
sand.
,

TEE weighty testimony from different sources in
favour of the success of the Suez Canal has now
been supplemented by an official report to Parlia-
ment. Captain Richards, R.N., the hydrographer of
the Admiralty, and Lieutenant-Colonel Clarke, R.E.
the director of that department's engineering and.
architectural works, were sent out by the Government