The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-10 00:00:00

111 itlt

LONDON. FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1846.

Although it is impossible to prognosticate, with
any degree of certainty, upon the various borough
elections now pending in many widely scattered
provinces, it is easy enough to conjecture the conse-
quences of those elections. From the enthusiasm
displayed so universally by the population in favour
of the recent achievements and fluctuations of the
Parliamentary and Ministerial circles, it cannot re-
main matter of much uncertainty whether the candi-
dates particularly identified with the policy of the
RUSSELL Administration will be accepted or re-
jected. It cannot, we repeat, remain matter
of much uncertainty whether those who have
been especially instrumental in erasing a
monstrous and ruinous statute, and in substi-
tuting one in every way consonant with nature,
reason, civilisation, and common honesty, will be
spurned or welcomed by the population of Great
Britain. As Mr. COBDEN beautifully observed in the
final meeting of the League, the spirit of that extra-
ordinary association will pervade the earth, though
the body be deceased; and that potent spirit,
living as it does in the hearts of our population, im-
buing their whole political sentiments, and predomi-
nating at this moment over every other exciting
cause in the popular mind, renders it infinitely
more than probable that the various electioneer- I
ing scenes, throughout the United Kingdom, will
form one emphatic evidence of the satisfac-
tion of the British people. A. testimonial is at pre-
sent being collected for presentation to Mr. COBDEN ;
another is being actively procured as a tribute of
gratitude and admiration to Sir ROBERT PEEL; ten
thousand pounds are tendered to GEORGE WILSON,
the patriotic Chairman of the League. How much
nobler, how immeasurably more gratifying to such
characters, would be the unanimous approval of the
enfranchised men of England! To recognise in the
unanimous result of so many borough and county
elections the voice of a whole nation according its
sanction to their recent proceedings, and according
that sanction more unmistakeably than any vestry
votes or corporation addresses, would, we are
assured, afford more solid gratification to those
champions of social freedom than cheques upon a
banker or marble effigies in a market-place. By the
triumphal return of liberal and free-trade candidates
throughout the country, the most brilliant testimonial
that inventiveness could devise would be simul-

taneously accorded to RICHARD COBDEN, CHARLES

VILLIERS, PEYRONNET THOMPSON, JOHN BRIGHT,
and their renowned colleagues ; and in that testi-
monial would be embodied an expression of grateful
approbation to Sir ROBERT PEEL. All this would be
iceomplished by an unanimity in the selection of
representatives—and shall we not afford this tribute
to our benefactors by the realisation of this unanimity ?

We hope so ; and, heartily, we think so. If we might
calculate results by what has already transpired among
our metropolitan and provincial electors, we should at
once pronounce our conviction that the candidates
whom we have already specified will be alone wel-
comed in the vacant boroughs and counties. The ac-
ceptation of Lord J. RUSSELL, and Sir J. C. HOB..
HOUSE, and Sir D. LE MARCHANT, at London, Not-

tir.gham, and Worcester; and since then the return
of Mr. C. WOOD, the new Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, as the representative for Halifax, have given
a propitious character to the vista of remaining elec-
tions and a genial colouring to the perspective
of the Ministry. ithtuubx.,....., cfni
memberless districts we perceive, moreover,
every indication of the most complete success to the
Ministerial candidates. One circumstance should

never be forgotten during the course of these pro-
ceedings, namely, that whatever may have been the
conventional designation of the aspirants for the suf-
frages of the people—no matter whether they have
been hitherto classed among Conservatives, Whigs,
Tories, Liberals, or Radicals—they are now in every
way eligible as popular representatives to the Com-
mons House of Parliament, providing they recognise
and identify themselves with those principles
which have recently won their way among our
legislators, and which constitutes the chief cha-
racteristic of the RUSSELL Cabinet. Parties, we
would fain have our countrymen believe and
remember, wer€ virtually abolished by the very con-
solidation of the League ; placemen found their final
reproof in the ready retirement of Sir ROBERT PEEL,
when that illustrious man might, by tenacity of
tenure, have continued in office many addi-
tional months ; and the present Premier has sig-
nalised to mankind the extinction of all party
distinctions by tendering to Lords DALHOUSIE and
LuicoLN a continuance in office under his Adminis-
tration. The House of Commons has, during this
session, afforded itself a lesson which can never be

overlooked—a lesson so salutary as to demonstrate to
all future statesmen that their allegiance is not in-
dissolubly bound up with any political clique what-
ever; but that upon principles, and upon principles
alone, they are to base their notions of legislation. "With
this great and indisputable fact before them, the pro-
vincial electors of Great Britain will unanimously
accord their suffrages to the Ministerial candidates.

We published yesterday a letter from the Earl of
MiLvrowsz to Mr. O'CONNELL, suggesting the policy
of his postponing his exertions in favour of repeal for
a season, in order to give time to form an Irish party
to assist the Ministry, if willing—to urge them on,
if lagging—in procuring justice for Ireland. His Lord-
shi p pledges himself, that if twelve months should
pass without the words of Sir ROBERT PEEL being
carried into effect, and perfect equality in civil, muni-
cipal, and political rights with England being ac-
corded to Ireland, that he will join in the efforts for
the repeal of the union, and relax his exertions for
the attainment of that object only with his life.
His Lordship has long been favourably known to
the people of Ireland as a politician of the
most liberal class—an ardent and enthusiastic advo-
vote of the rights of his native land, and for the re-
moval of the weighty and grievous wrongs under
which she has hitherto laboured. As such he is ex-
ceedingly popular amongst that warm-hearted and
grateful people, and much weight is necessarily
attachable to any recommendation coming from so
influential a person. IVithout joining in the pledge
with which he concludes, inasmuch as we are
thoroughly convinced that the object is unattainable,
and that were it otherwise, it would in its operation
be most injurious to both countries, we strongly urge
the adoption of the course proposed by his Lordship.
Mr. O'CoNNELLhas proved himself too sincere a patriot,
too honest a politician, to permit a doubt that he '
would hesitate for a moment, on any personal consi-
deration, to forego his agitation, to use all his powers
to induce his folkwers to suspend the question of re-
peal, if he thought it for the benefit of his country
that he should d) so. He has long declared that all
he sought for or desired was perfect and entire
equality in every respect, that Ireland should form an
integral portion of the British empire, and that no in-
sulting distinctior's should be permitted to exist. He
has declared that his object was equality, and not
separation, and that he was only induced to press on
the question of repeal from a feeling of certainty that
he could not obtain that justice which he required for
his country at the hands of a British Parliament. He
has repeatedly declared his willingness to give a trial
when any well-grounded hope presented itself of ob-
taining that justice even by instalments, and he has
acted up to that declaration under less favourable
circumstances and less propitious omens than those
which now exist. Everything at present appears in
the most cheering aspect for our sister kingdom;
bigotry and intolerance is now happily the exception,
and not the rule in our Legislature; every liberal
sentiment uttered on her behalf is received with the.