The Sun.
London, England, 1870-01-03 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, JAN. 1, 1870.

TitE New Year sees our contemporaries greatly
exercised about the leadership of the Conservative
Peers. Independent, Liberal, and ecclesiastical journals
alike make it the theme of discussion, prophecy, or
counsel. The Daily Telegraph has guessed that the
Duke of MARLBOROUGH will be the new leader ; and
the John Bull has urged his claim as the chief
most likely to suit both sections of the party.
The Pall Mal Gazette advises Lord CAIRNS to retain
the leadership for a while. The Globe alone gives a
certain sound, and speaks of Lord DERBY as already
virtually leader, and as in perfect accord with Mr.
DISRAELI. We believe that our last-named contem-
porary has announced the true solution of what has
been a very perplexing problem. It is necessary
that the Conservative party, if it is to exist
at all, must renounce the Conservatism of
the past. When Mr. DISRAELI declared for
'iousehold suffrage be made the policy of mere ob-
itruction thenceforward impossible. Lord Salisbury
and the Quarterly Review may think it better to
submit to permanent exclusion from office than to
abandon the old lines behind which the party used
to entrench themselves. Yet the marquis himself
abandoned them when he voted for the second read-
ing of the Irish Church Bill, and admitted that the
House of Lords could not venture to set aside the
decision of the Commons when it.was supported by the
nation : admitted, that is, that the Upper House
no longer had co-ordinate and coequal power with
the Lower. Whether the Conservative leap in the
dark was wise or foolish, we are not now discussing.
All that we have to bear in mind is that the leap has
been taken, and that there is no retracing it.
Thereby an impetus was given to democracy
whose force we cannot measure yet. It
may prove dangerously great, and if it
should, then will come the time for the
Conservative party under wise leadership to do signal
service to the country. We are as yet only at the
beginning of a new epoch. We do not know whither
it will lead us, but we can quite imagine that it may
lead us farther than we wish to go. Under such cir-
cumstances who will be the most useful statesman ;
he who denounces all change, or he who, having
yielded when to do so was wise and safe, can resist
when resistance is needed for the salvation of the
country ? There cannot be a doubt as to the
answer.

At the same time we are bound to admit that Lord
DERBY'S leadership will not satisfy all the Conserva-
tive party. Ire is too Liberal for many of them.
His chief fault, in the eyes of some of them, is that
he is liberal even to indifferentism with regard to
religious matters. Little can be expected from
him in the way of supporting religious
tests. Nor is he likely to feel very strongly
on the matter of education, except that ho will ear-
nestly desire a thorough and complete system.
The question now remains to be answered, Will
the Conservatives sink their differences and unite
under Lord DERBY ? If they will they may yet
do good service to the State. If they will not, then
the State will suffer by the disorganisation of a party
whose well-being is essential to the good government
of the country.