The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-09 00:00:00

Avmilut

_ _ _ _ -
LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 1851.

In the House of Lords yesterday,
Her MAJESTY, having delivered the Speech from the
Throne, prorogued Parliament to the 4th of September.
In the Commons,

A motion by Mr. WAKLEY for printing the evidence
taken before the Income-tax Committee was opposed by
Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and on a division rejected by 62
to 52.

The House then proceeded to ballot for a deputation
of Members to accompany the SPEAKER to the House
of Lords; and shortly afterwards, at the summons of
the Black Rod, the Right Honourable Gentleman, at-
tended by the Members on whom the lot had fallen.
quitted the House and repaired to the House of Peers,
where the ceremonial of the prorogation took place.

The Session has terminated—the Speech has been
delivered—the pageantry has passed away. The
Palace at Westminster will remain closed for some
six months, and the representativ(.s of the people,
having devoted a certain portion of •their time to the
onerous duties imposed on them, me y now enjoy the
vacation in the manner most suitable to their re-
spective tastes—in yachting, fishing, shooting, hunt-
ing, or any other of the almost endless varieties of
sports and pastimes by which ple.tsure invites and
rewards her votaries. But i f the general
body of Members feel unusual exhikiaration on their
anxiously-desired release—if those who have no sins
of omission, or commission, for whicis they may be
called to account, who are not boa nd to maintain
their position, and who have no Mi nisterial pledges
to redeem, involving the credit of de a entire Cabinet,
are carried away by the enthusias m of the mo-
ment—what must be the sena ations of the
PREMIER and his colleagues a t their eman-
cipation ? Six months of peace and tranquillity
are before them, during which Ka OGLI will be in
Ireland, REYNOLDS forgotten, and " the brigade"
transformed into a respectable body o.r country gentle-
men, during which the chief occupation of DISRAELI
will be the pouring forth the praises of fat cattle to
the delighted ears of still z [lore pinguose
agriculturists ; JOSEPH HUMEi will be
quiescent, COBDEN and BRIGHT superintend-
ing the manufacture of cottons yarn, and
CHISHOLM ANSTEY degenerated into :e mere lawyer!
Bleesed period 1 when the golden age. will be once
more restored ; when the lion may lay down with the
lamb, and even Sir CHARLES Wool) may retire to
rest without any fear of the incubi that had previously
disturbed his slumbers, when HEE.RIES, HUME,
BARING, GROSVENOR, NAAS, and a host of others
will no longer haunt the imagination of the con-
science-stricken Minister, and he will have no
" PRECIOUS BUDGET" to explain or a,2one for, before
he can again seek repose.
It will not, however, be a period of " all play and
no work" to the PREMIER and some o f his more of 1.
cient coadjutors. The financial Minister may rely
on the apophthegm, " Sufficient for the day is the
evil thereof." He may exult in his moms in pre-
venting the publication of the report of the Committee
on the Property and Income-tax ; he etiay rejoice in
the prolonged respite he has obtained ; but Lord
JOHN RUSSELL, and those who have still some shreds
of reputation remaining, must look anxiously forward
to the future, and endeavour to redeem the errors of
the past by performances more worthy of their
ancient fame. The speech which they were compelled
to put into the mouth of their Royal Mistress must
have excited the most painful sensations. They were
only enabled to refer to four measures therein, and
for none of these could they claim credit from the
nation. _ _ _

The first to which they could direct the public
attention was the Ecclesiastical Titlea Assumption
Bill, the joint production of Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Sir
FREDERICK THESIGER, and of Messrs. WALPOLE
and KEOGII. On it they sustained some of
tir3 most decisive and ignominious defeats
of the session. They were not even consistent with
themselves. The measure when first introduced to the
legislative notice was very different indeed from what
it became when the second reading was moved for,
alter it was discovered that the fusion with the
Peelite section, and the acquisition of " new blood,"
IA WS prevented by its stringency. But little re-
mained cf the original Bill when brought forward
af, `per the recess occasioned by the Ministerial crisis,
an, that little was minced to homoeopathic dimen-
sioi is when the Protectionist and Brigade amendments
we; re adopted. No less than four unequivocal defeats
wel !II sustained in the contests against the ex-AT-
ToliaiEY-GENERAL, in which the majorities varied
frond 35 to 79, averaging 56 ; and many concessions
were
tler(i made to prevent still more untoward results•
kis, then, the principal topic referred to in the
Roy' .1 Speech, it will not appear that Ministers have
had mauch cause for self-congratulation.
11.8 to the abolition of the tax on light and ail,

they had scarcely more substantial grounds on
which to rest. They certainly were not in advance
of public opinion, but had perceptibly lagged in the
rear. Lord DUNCAN had carried consternation into
the camp on more occasions than one, and convic-
tion was forced on even the obtuse intellect of Sir
CHARLES WOOD. That unfortunate financier, how-
ever, although compelled by his associates to pay at-
tention to the subject, could do nothing in a ban& fide
or straightforward manner—

" Nil tetigit, good non fceclavit."
He should spot everything with which he had
any connexion. Accordingly he endeavoured
to retain the obnoxious principle, to remit only one-
third of the impost, while bringing a new class of
sufferers within the operation of the infamous tax.
This was, of course, unanimously objected to, and
there is but little doubt that the " precious Budget"
was the cause of the Ministerial crisis that took place in
the latter end of February and beginning of March.
At all events, the principle of the measure
was completer altered, and rendered more in
accordance with the justice of the case and
the state of public opinion. Ministers could scarcely
assume any laurels for their conduct in reference
thereto, and yet it is another point prominently re-
ferred to in the valedictory speech of her MAJESTY.
The next point alluded to is " the administration
of justice in the courts of law and equity." Here
again Ministers are placed in an equally unfortunate
position, being compelled to agree to the truth of the
adage that " second thoughts are best," the enact-
ments actually carried being totally different
from those orginally brought forward. We are bound
to confess that the later edition was a very great im-
provement on the former, but for that Ministers may
thank " the pressure from without," and not the
excellenc:: of their own conceptions.
The last matter glanced at, " the administration
of the land revenues of the Crown," is one fcr which
Lord DUNCAN has long since borne away the laurels,
Ministers having followed, Longo intervallo, in the
wake of the Noble Member fur Bath.

In all points, therefore, that have been brought under
public notice, the Cabinet have been in the position
of the jay attiring itself in peacock's feathers.
Let those who have some confidence in
themselves, who believe that they can retrieve
their ancient reputation, labour strenuously and
indefatigably during the vacation to mature good
measures, and to emancipate themselves from the
evil influences which have during the past year pro-
duced such untoward results.

In the month of July, 1849, a debate took place in
the House of Peers on the subject of the affairs of
Italy, and in the course of the debate the Earl of
ABERDEEN took occasion to, insinuate (his Lordship
would not have been cet excellent ABERDEEN of Louis
PHILIPPE, had he ever ventured beyond insinuations),
that,it was unjustifiable on the part of Lord PALIIERS•

TON to state in a dispatch to her MAJESTY'S Ambas-
sador at Vienna, that the system of government in
the kingdom of Naples " was teeming with abuses of
all kinds," and he made it a subject of reproach to the
English Government in general, and to Lord PAL•
MERSTON in particular, " that we had made ourselves
an;object of aversion to the Bourbon King of NAPLES.'
We will not go at length into the subject-matter of
the debate; the double-dealing of Lord HETTESBURY,
with regard to the Sicilians and their constitution,
has already been sufficiently exposed ; but we must be
permitted to observe, en passant, that whilst my Lord

STANLEY states that he has no doubt but that
the King of NAPLES will exercise the rights of a
conqueror with generosity, my Lord BROUGHAM
designates as " foul slander" any attempt to bring any-
thing like a charge of cruelty against the King of
NAPLES or his satraps, and all the partisans of
reaction in the House of Peers unite in, lauding the
Government of the King of NAPLES as one of the
most enlightened and merciful in Christendom, and in
stigmatising those who ventured to maintain the con-
trary as foul slanderers. Now, it was perfectly evi-
dent, that of the supporters of the King of NAPLES
none, with the exception of Lord HEITESBURY, who
first studied the principles of humanity and civil
liberty in the congenial atmosphere of Tunis, and
the Earl of ANBRDEEN, l' excellent ABERDEEN, of the
foreign absolutists, had any personal knowledge on
the subject. But it so happens, that we are now in a
position to prove the truth of all that my Lord

Buovanam then designated as " foul slanders," and

the absolute falsehood of the assertion of the Neapo-
litan Minister, FORTUNATO (in his reply to the note of
Mr. TEMrLE, of the 16th September, 1849), "that
the Government of his Sicilian MAJESTY is
actuated by no desire of vengeance." The testimony
which we have to offer is that of a witness who is no
unknown or obscure individual—of one who has ever
been an upholder of the " right divine of Kings"—
of one who is not unacquainted with affairs—of one
in whom the Earl of ABERDEEN and my Lord STAN-
LEY each reposed such confidence that during the
late Ministerial crisis they would neither of them
give their final answer to her INlAJasrr until they
should have consulted him. Our witness is Mr.
GLADSTONE, who was Colonial Secretary during the
time that, under the Premiership of Sir ROBERT
PEEL, the Earl of ABERDEEN was dozing in the Fo-
reign Office, and who was sought for by Lord STANLEY
as a colleague no longer ago than the month of Fe-
bruary last. Mr. GLADSTONE returned to this
country at the latter end of February, after a resi-
dence of between three and four months at Naples,
and as he informs us in his first letter to the Earl of
ABERDEEN,* " he came home with a deep sense of
the duty incumbent upon him to make some attempts
towards mitigating the horrors (' I can use no weaker
word,' says Mr. GLADSTONE) amidst which the govern-
ment of that country is now carried on." Mr. GLAD-
STONE then enters into details regarding the atrocities
committed by the "generous Monarch" of Lord
STANLEY, the " victim of foul slanders," according
to Lord BROUGHAM, the "faithful Sovereign" of
the Earl of ABERDEEN, which more than prove the
truth of every word of accusation that has ever been
uttered against the King of NAPLES and his Govern-
ment. In proof of this assertion we will give an ex-
tract or two from his pamphlet. First, as to the
number of the prisoners of this " generous" Monarch—
" The general belief is, that the prisoners for political
offences in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, are between
fifteen or twenty and thirty thousand. The Government
withholds all means of accurate information, and accord-
ingly there can be no certainty on the point. I have,
however, found that this belief is shared by persons the
most intelligent, considerate, and well-informed. It is
also supported by what is known of the astonishing
crowds confined in particular prisons; and especially by
what is accurately known in particular provincial locali-
ties, as to the numbers of individuals missing from
among the community. I have heard these numbers for
example at Reggio, and at Salerno; tied from an effort
to estimate them in reference to population, I do believe
that twenty thousand is no unreasonable estimate. In
Naples alone, some hundreds are at this moment under
indictment capitally; and when I quitted it, a trial was
expected to come on immediately (called that of the
15th of May), in which the number charged was between
four and five hundred; including (though this is a di-
gression) at least one or more persons of high station,
whose opinions would in this country be considered
more Conservative than your own. The Neapolitan
Government, indeed, appears to have something of the
art, which Mr. Burke deelarod to be beyond him; he
did not know how to frame an indictment against a
people.' "