The Sun.
London, England, 1834-02-05 00:00:00

with the highest satisfaction the statement which his Majesty I
makes of his disposition with respect to the condition and pros.
pests of the Ottoman Empire :
" It will be my object to prevent any change in the relations
of that empire with other Powers, which might affect its future
stability and independence."
We have italicized the little pronoun to mark our sense of
the meaning of this passage. We know from it the King's
object. We cannot guess from it the object of the
King's Ministers. Why not ? Because Lord Holland
continues a Member of the Cabinet : the Lord Hol-
land who, in his place in Parliament on the 16th of
July, IS2S, trusted in God " that he never should see—for the
proposition would be scouted from one end of England to the
other—any preparation, or any proposition, or any attempt to
defend Turkey from the attacks of her enemies :" the Lord
Holland, who in the same place, and on the same night,
" hoped that England would not save the wasteful and disgust-
ing empire of the Turks from dismemberment and destruction."
Remembering these remarkable expressions, of which at the
period of their utterance we do not find that any disapprobation
was expressed by Lord Grey, by Lord Lansdowne, by Lord
Goderich, we are constrained to believe that to some Members
at least of the Cabinet the maintenance of Turkey as an inde-
pendent Power does not seem an object worth the study of an
English Statesman. We rejoice that his 3lajesty adopts the
sounder judgment given on the same evening by Lord Aberdeen,
who declared "that the existence of Turkey as an inde-
pendent Power, as a Power of weight and of considerable
influence in the affairs of Europe, was essential to the pre-
servation of that balance which it had always been the policy
of this country to preserve." There are other portions of the
language or conduct of the Administration on the opening of
the Parliamentary Session upon which we cannot express un-
qualified approbation, and some, indeed, which seem to us to
deserve the severest censure. We cannot but rejoice that his
Majesty's Ministers have no change to propose in the law for
the protection of the agriculture of the kingdom ; but we feel
that less than justice has been rendered to that important
interest when the Ministerial Leader in the House of
Commons, by the employment of doubtful and ambiguous
phrases, left it a matter of conjecture whether the Admi-
nistration as a body will resist such change if preferred
by others. We can scarcely conceive any thing more per-
, nicious to the owners and cultivators of the soil than a Mini.
sterial declaration which may be taken to imply that the
question of the corn laws is to be an open question. What-
ever may be the talent or importance of Mr. Poulett Thomson,
we cannot but think that both are vastly overrated when a
deep injury is inflicted upon the landed interest, for no ap-
parent purpose but that of enabling him to remain in office,
and at the same time preserve his personal consistency. It is
unusual for the King of England to utter such expressions of
confidence and sympathy in reference to one of his allies
as cannot but be considered in the light of an invidious
disparagement by every other. The special mention of
any single ally In the Speech from the Throne would
have been a censurable indecorum had it not been
chargeable in the present instance with the still
greater fault of prefers ing the least sincere and
the least reputable of all the alliances of which the
British Government can boast. The regret expressed by his
Majesty at the present condition of the Netherlands, of Portu-
gal, and of Spain, is just and natural, and would have been a
suitable subject of congratulation had it indicated, any purpose of
renouncing the crooked and dishonourable policy which has con-
tributed so much to the present condition of Spain, Portugal,
and the Netherlands. The allusion in the King's speech to
the Commissions for investigating the state of Corporations,
the action of the Poor Laws, and therevenues and patronage
of the Church, is merely insignificant, since it is accompanied
by no indication of the course which Ministers mean to pursue
upon any one of these important subjects. There never, in-
deed, was a King's speech, as the Duke of Wellington in one
House, and Sir Robert Peel in the other, forcibly re-
marked, which snore entirely abstained from the an-
nunciation of any definite purpose. It was a mere series
of regrets, congratulations, and negations ; and it may be truly
said that at its conclusion no man was in possession of a particle
of information upon any subject which he did not equally pos-
sess before. The debate was nearly as uninteresting as the
speech. Mr. O'Connell proclaimed war against the British
Gavernment, and professed the warmest friendship towards the
Secretary for Ireland—a pretty distinct intimation either that
Mr. O'Connell is bought off, and means to come round by de.
grecs, or that, in his judgment, the Secretary for Ireland is
a very insincere, or a very imbecile adversary. Mr. Hume
proclaimed a less ambiguous hostility to the Administration,
aspiring evidently to be considered as the leader of that revolu-
tionary faction whose favour his Majesty's Ministers once cul-
tivated with great assiduity and success, but have been unable
to retain. This gentleman moved several amendments to the
address, all of which were rejected by large majorities.—Morn-
ing Post.