The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-24 00:00:00

have framed a better Budget than that which
has made his name ridiculous, ever since . its
development on Friday week. It is, therefore, no small
mercy to get for ever rid of one so utterly unfit for the
management of the financial affairs of the country. But
it is right Lord John Russell should bo reminded that
the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not the only defec-
tive stone in the Ministerial structure. The whole build-
ing was crazy; and no member of his Ministry was more
so than the Noble Lord himself. Even had Sir Charles
Wood not made so bungling en affair of his Budget, Lord
John Russell's own conduct would, ere the lapse of a
fortnight, have brought down the edifice about the ears
of himself and colleagues. The country has, therefore,
a right to insist, before he is recalled to the councils of
his Sovereign, that some security shall be given it that he
will not persist in treading in the same steps as before.
If he is allowed to come back into power without some
such guarantee, the nation may be doomed to witness a
repetition before the Easter recess, of the same state of
things as now exists—a state of things most disastrous,
socially and commercially, to the country. Let the
Noble Lord only return to office without any pledge be-
ing exacted from him, of his readiness to pursue a dif-
ferent course, and we shall see him before many weeks
resisting, as he did last year, those motions for further
retrenchment in the public expenditure, for triennial
Parliamants, and for amendments in the representation
of the country, of which notice has already been given.
We shell, in a word, see him, as much as ever, the
strenuous opponent of popular progress. This must not
he. The nation have the game in their own hands.
Now is the time for them to speak out. popular
constituencies bring the pressure from without
to bear on their representatives. Let the elec-
toral body insist, that those whom they sent into
Parliement to promote popular principles, shall exact
from Lord John Russell, before giving him the slightest
countenance, much less their votes, a distinct positive
pledge, that ho will introduce, without delay, and stake
his Ministerial existence on them, such measures of re-
presentative reform as are confessedly desired by the
country.
_ _

POST.—As we have uniformly predicted and demon-
strated, the expiry of the income-tax, conjoined with
the existence of a surplus, has brought to a crisis the
Government formed on the basis of free trade. Although
there was no vote of the House of Commons actually
passed in condemnation of the Budget produced by the
free-trade Chancellor of the Exchequer, still the feeling
shown by Members of the House on the subject of it,—
the opinions expressed by the public press of all parties,
and most of all the reception given to Sir C. Wood's pro-
positions, by the city of London, the stronghold of free-
trade—were warnings sufficient for a high-minded Minis.
ter; and Lord J. Russell, in the conviction that his
Budget was a failure,,and probably for other reasons as
cogent, though less obvious, laid at her Majesty's feet
the resignations of himself and of bis Cabinet. He ad-
vised her Majesty to send for Lord Stanley; and, although
since the boy Jones was sent to sea, we have no means
of knowing what passed between her Majesty and this
nobleman, the result is nevertheless matter of notoriety.
Lord Stanley felt that with his own party unaided, he
was not yet in the condition to undertake the for-
mation tf a Government. Were he to do so, it would
be necessary for them to carry out fully the principles
that he and his friends have been advocating; and with
a House of Commons pledged, as the present is, to the
principle of tree trade, he could have little hope of com-
manding the requisite majority. On the other hand,
the boldest Minister might well hesitate to recommend
an immediate dissolution; nor would it be constitutional
to resort to such a step until the temper of the House
now sitting should first have been tried and found irre-
concileable with the satisfactory conduct of public affairs.
We may well suppose that Lord Stanley's declining to
undertake the formation of a Government at this junc-
ture was based upon considerations such as we have thus
briefly stated; and no one can refuse to him the praise
of following, in this instance, the dictates of a sound
diocretion and a high-minded regard for the true inte-
rests of the Crown and of the nation. What, then, is to
follow? The facts, which will be found duly recorded
in another part of our paper, respecting the audiences
granted by the Queen to various statesmen, whose at•
tendance at the Palace her Majesty had been
pleased to command, do not enable us even
inferentially to afford a conclusive answer to
this question. Lord Aberdeen, it is said, has
acted only in his capacity of Privy Councillor, having
expressed a strong disinclination to take any office. On
Saturday evening, it would appear, that after Lord
Aberdeen and Sir James Graham had been in the royal
presence for a considerable time, Lord J. Russell was,
by her Majesty's command, added to the conference,
which lasted until a very late hour. If we were to draw
any conclusion from this circumstance, it would be that
some ground had been discovered on which the joint
Ministerial action of Lord J. Russell and Sir James
Graham might take place. But assuming this, it would
be unfair, and indeed impossible, to offer any opinion of
the merits of a Cabinet, the result of this combination,
until we should know something of the principles on which
it might be based. The voice, however, of Parliament, as
far as it has been heard through the medium of Mr. Dis-
mire recent motion, and that of the public, as expressed
by the press of all parties, would seem to turbid a
lengthened existence to any Cabinet which should re•
fuse to give fair consideration to the condition of the
owners or occupiers of land, or which should make
the continuance of the income-tax the basis of further
financial experiments in free-trade finaace. Another
free trade budget of this character would inlellibly share
the fate of Sir Charles Wood's. It is impossible that a
statesman of Lord John Russell's experience and saga-
city can fail to see this. A new Government, in which
Po elite Free-traders should replace the Free-traders of
Lerd Grey's school, would have to work out of port
with an adverse wind rising and daily increasing, and to
steer the vessel of the State amid shoals and breakers sur-
rounding her on every side. He must be a bold and
skilful pilot who shall attempt a task so full of fearful
hazard. Will such an enterprise be undertaken by Lord
John Russell? No one doubts the courage or the ca-
pacity of that statesman, but there are difficulties which
amount to impossibility, and these, we think, are of
them. The country will refuse the income-tax as a
permanent substitute for import duties levied for the
purposes of revenue. For the purpose of class protection,
no doubt, the country would refuse import duties too.
But the struggle is not between free trade and ex-
cessive, or unfair, or partial protection, but between
taxation based on injustice, and levied by a process un-
equal, inquisitorial, and intolerable, and taxation which
is collected from imports, so as not to check the pro-
gress of international commerce, nor to cause the price
of commodities to press on the means of the consumer.
Who are they who are strongest in their opposition to
the income-tax of Sir Robert Peel?—the middle classes
of England—all those who depend on their own skill,
industry, and intelligence to furnish them maintenance,
and to better their condition. All these have declared
strongly against using the income-tax for any purpose
but to meet a state xigency; they will not allow free
trade to be further carried out under cover of what was
granted for a different purpose. They will never
approve a Budget which makes the cheapening cf ar-
ticles the paramount consideration, and throws the
burthen of the public expenditure upon hard-won in-
come. A second Budget on this basis must, we repeat,
share the fate of its predecessor; or, if carried by dint
of great exertion and influence in the present House
of Commons, it will be so by such narrow majorities as
must make the Government ashamed of the measure.
And out of doors how will such a Budget be recsived ?
Those n ho vote for it will be marked men, bearing the
clamp of the odious tax against their names; their vote
in its favour will not be forgotten when they present
themselves again to their constituents to solicit a re-
placement iu the positions they occupy by the favour
of this clLnded middle class. But if a reunion of all
who have taken the free-trade pledge be not a combina-
tion of parties that will meet the crisis end satisfy the
country, what have we to look forward to? Is Lord
John Russo 11 to fl }under on through the session with an
ad interim Government? God forbid that he should be
induced to the necessity of accepting such an undignified,
degrading métier. It is the duty of Lord John Russell,
in the great position ho occupies, to cast about and watch
the signs of the times, as well as the sentiments and
feelings of parties. The great interests of his country
should be his study, not the means of satisfyi,pg this
public man or that, and carrying votes in a House of
Commons by tact, and a skilful avoidance of treacherous
ground. And what is it that a broad view of the finan-
cial crisis we have just passed, and of its antecedents,
must suggest to a reflecting mind? Is it not a warning
to halt in the headlong course of free trade? Is it not
a proof that the country will not have the income-tax
substituted for more customs duties—that it is beginning
to recognize the wisdom of the American and of the
continental policy, which uphold customs duties on im-
ports for consumption of all kinds, as the first and least
objectionable of all taxes for a commercial nation?
Flaying this warning—and witnessing at the same time
the growing strength and increasing confidence of that
party in the House and in the country which seeks openly
to promote confusion and bring about revolution—
must not a statesman in Lord John Russell's position,
and of his known moderation and good sense, see strongly
marked before him the outline of the time when the
friends of order must range on one side, to stem the tide
of revolution, and maintain the happy constitution, in
Church and State, which has given to this United King-
dom such pre-eminence amongst the nations of the
world? Is this time only approaching, or has it come?
If only the former, is it not the part of wisdom to an-
ticipate, rather than to wait until the vessel is actually
among the breakers? And does not the present crisis
both make apparent the real sources of danger and give
the opportunity of making provision against these threat-
ened consequences? A Government of due strength to
meet the exigency can only be formed by an union of the
moderate Whigs with the whole Conservative body,
whose sentiments, habits, and associations bind them
indissolubly to the came of order. The country wishes
for an association on this basis, and everybody sees and
hopes that sooner or later it must take place. What
now sands in the way of such a combination of the
friends of order? Nothing whatsoever but the single
disagreement upon the question, whether Customs
duties that bear on prices are or are not proper taxes
to levy on this commercial nation? This is purely a
question of political, economy; yet it has divided states-
men, high-minded men, whose views upuu all other ques-
tions very nearly coincide, with a bitterness equal to
that which set the red and blue factions of Constanti-
nople together by the ears in the days of Justinian.
Has the time net come when public men can view this
glevien rationally, so as to agree upon a middle course?
DA I Lle.7 NE W S.—Within the last eight-and-forty
hours the needle has gone round to all points of the_
political compass. Lord John Russell having declared
that his Cabinet could not go on, and that it was not for
him to reconstruct another, her Majesty summoned
Lord Stanley, as the chief of the most numerous party
in opposition. His Lordship, it is said, felt himself
mole Piet plexed than flattered by the offer, and de-
clared, that not having placed the Ministry in a minority,
he had not incurred the responsibility of
,providing fur