The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS
THE FAMILY CABINET.
HERALD —The appointment of Lord Granville
to hold the seals of the Foreign Department must
have at least one good effect. It must awake the at-
tention of this free community to the gross, the scan-
&lons system of nepotism and family cliquerie under
which the affairs of this great empire are now vir-
tually administered. We have hinted, and barely
hinted, at this subject already. Venice was never
more completely or more closely in the hands of a
Patrician coterie than England is now, in the coun-
cils of its Cabinet, in the hands of a family compact.
We ask the attention of the aristocracy of this
realm—we ask the attention of its great commercial
community—of its high-minded gentry—of its in-
telligent middle-classes, to a system of administration
in the higher officeslof the State, for which no period
of the history of England—nay, not even the his-
tory of the Venetian Republic, presents any parallel.
There is at this moment in the Cabinet of Queen
Victoria scarcely an exception to the rule which
selects the constitutional advisers of the Sovereign
of a free people exclusively from those connected,
either by blood or marriage, with one or other of the
two or three families, who, themselves united in close
tics of consanguinity, seem determined to narrow the
choice of the Sovereign to their own circle. So long
as the family cabal that have usurped the name of the
Whig party are permitted to nominate the Ministers
of Queen Victoria, the choice of the sovereign in her
advisers is virtually limited to the immediate con-
nexions of some one of the noble houses to whom
belong the titles of Grey, Bedford, and Carlisle'
Of the fifteen members of whom the Cabinet now
consists, there are just six whom we du not know to
be connected with the families we have named.
Our knowledge of these relationships is, we confess,
limited to the information afforded us by Burke and
Debrett. It is very possible that even the six whom
we regard as ' exceptions are qualified by their
offices by relationships that have escaped our not
very deep research. The appointment, however, of
four out of the six is certainly to be referred to the
influences of Whig traditional or family con-
nexions. To begin with the newly-appointed
Foreign Secretary. The Earl Granville is the first
cousin of the Earl of Carlisle. He is doubly con-
nected with the Noble Chancellor of the Duchy- of
Lancaster as being also the first cousin of his Grace
the Duke of Sutherland and nephew of the Duke of
Devonshire. As one of the younger members of the
ducal house of Sutherland, he has also the good for-
tune to stand in the relationship of a kinsman to Lord
John Russell. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
cousin to the Prime Minister and to another leading
member of the Cabinet, forms in himself no slight in•
dication of the family influences that now control the
Sovereign's selection of her advisers. The system of
nominating to Cabinet offices members or connexions
of one or other of the families we have mentioned, will
only be presented to the mind by a glance at the
names of the Cabinet. We print the names of the
Cabinet as it is now constituted, distinguishing by a
star those who are connected with the family alliance.
The Cabinet Ministers are—
* Lord John Russell.
Marquis of Lansdowne.
* Lord Minto.
Lord Truro.
* Lord Granville.
* Lord Grey.
Lord Broughton.
* Sir George Grey.
* Sir Charles Wood.
* Earl of Carlisle.
* Mr. Labouchere.
* Sir Francis Baring.
Fox Maule.
Lord Seymour.
Marquis of Clanricarde.
To begin with Earl Grey, the head of the most
powerful family connexion. He is himself Secretary
for the Colonies. His brother-in-law, Sir Charles
Wood, is Chancellor of the Exchequer. His cousin,
Sir George Grey, is Secretary for the Home Depart-
ment. Sir George brings with him a followig :
Sir Francis Baring, First Lord of the Ad-
miralty, is brother-in-law of the home Se-
cretary ; Mr. Labouchere, the President of the
Board of Trade, is cousin and brother-in-law of the
First Lord of the' Admiralty. No one certainly will
deny that in the persons of these five Cabinet Minis-
ters,-the Grey connexion is very fairly represented in
the Councils of the Sovereign. The ducal house of
Bedford supplies the Prime Minister. He again is
supported by his father-in-law, the Earl of Minto,
and his cousin, the newly•appointed Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, who again conveniently supplies a
closer bond of union between his cousin the Prime
Minister, and his cousin the Earl of Carlisle. The
alliances and cross-alliances between the noble houses
we have mentioned, and those of Cavendish, Gower,
and Ponsonby, unite the nine Cabinet Ministers we
have pointed out in the closets bonds of family con-
nexion. The appointment of most of the remaining
Cabinet Ministers is easily traced to the same spirit of
aristocratic clanship which makes the great offices of
state the exclusive patrimony of a patrician coterie.
The Marquis of Lansdowne, with all his talents
and high character, yet represents in the Cabinet
the hereditary claims of the Earl of Shelburne
upon the Whig dynasty. Lord Seymour would
never have been in the Cabinet if he were not
the son of a Whig Duke. Even the Chancellor, the
Minister of all others whose elevation might be sup-
posed uninfluenced by aristocratic or family consi-
derations, is indebted for his scat on the woolsack
more to his alliance with the family of D'Este than
to his legal qualifications to be the Keeper of the
Great Seal. Lord Clauricarde, the newler-created
Lord Broughton, and the soli of Lord Panmure,
heftily redeem the Cebinct front the imputation of
exclusiveness. In vin do we look in the Cabinet of
Lord John Russell for any practical recognition of
the principle, that iu our free constitution the privi-
lege of serving the Sovereign is not confined to any
class or order of men. The exclusiveness of which
we complain is not an aristocratic one. It is one that
affects the great body of the aristocracy just as much
as it does the classes that are unennobled. We pre-
sume that we have written enough for to-day to con-
vince every one in the country that the system under
which our Ministers are now selected
scarcely disguised nepotism—that the principle of
Whig liberality is to monopolise the offices of state to
two or three family connexions, and convert the
Cabinet of the Sovereign into a close corporation
that only recognises two rights of admission to its
privileges —the right by marriage and that by birth.

THE FOREIGN INTRIGUE.
POST.—The Ministerial announcement that " Vis-
count Palmerston had ceased to hold the office of
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs," together with
the Ministerial explanation of the causes which "not
hastily or inconsiderately" led the Government to
make so great a " sacrifice," appeared in the leading
columns of a morning contemporary, on Wednesday
last, the 24th instant. The fact was stated with offi-
cial solemnity, and the reasons assigned for it were set
forth with great care and precision. No room was
left for misapprehension. Lord Palmerston's retire-
ment from office was characterized as an event of
which "it would not be easy to overrate the import-
ance," either as it affected " the stability of the Mi-
nistry," or—what is of infinitely higher moment—
"the foreign interest of this nation, at a time unusu-
ally critical in the affairs of Europe." It was a
" sacrifice" offered by the Government to some superior
and offended Power, and we were not left in the dark
as to .the angry deities whom it was intended
to pacify. Certain foreign Ministers of cer-
tain 'foreign States were not " allies" of - her
Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
They were not his "friends." It was doubted if
there was one of them who did not regard him with
" a degree of distrust and hostility?' To propitiate
these " elder statesmen of Europe"—these Ministers
of Courts which, one and all, were on terms of per-
fect amity with the English Government, but which,
nevertheless, could not assert sufficient influence in
the councils of Great Britain, the "sacrifice" in ques-
tion was made. The rest of the Cabinet, it appears,
were willing to let the " elder statesmen of Europe"
have their own way in matters that did not concern
them. Lord Palmerston alone regarded as of para-
mount importance the dignity, the independence, the
honour and the interests of his Sovereign and his
country ; and so, "not hastily, nor inconsiderately,"
and notwithstanding his great and acknowledged im-
portance to " the stability of the Ministry, and to the
foreign interests of this nation, at a time unusually
critical
that
ntahte
paffriaviartseof Europe," he was "sacrificed"
in order "
alliances" might be formed,
and private "friendships" established, where none
other than perfectly amicable official relations ought
ever to exist. We beg our readers to bear in mind
the distinction which we have heretofore marked as
being carefully made in the official announcement under
consideration. The " alliances" and " friendships "
whose non-existence was complained of, were not
" alliances" and " friendships" between foreign
Courts and the Court of St. James's. Lord Pal-
merston left every Court in Europe, either in close
alliance, or o n terms of perfect amity, with the Crown
of Great Britain. No, it was Lord Palmerston him-
self of whom the Times was instructed to complain
that he had not an " ally," or, perhaps, a " friend,"
amongst the " elder statesmen," the Ministers of Eu-
ropean States. Whatever Lord. John Russell and his
colleagues may think of the matter, the loyal people
of England will consider this as a proof of Lord
Palmerston's fidelity to his Sovereign and his country.
" He is too English," say those " elder statesmen of
Europe," and, with a dignity which becomes their
age and position, they are in the habit of adding,
" Ce diable de Palmerston, it fait tout pour sa pa trie."
This, we are far from denying, is all very well for the
"elder statesmen of Europe." It is natural that they
should like, in the councils of her Mojesty, a Minister