The Sun.
London, England, 1834-07-15 00:00:00

friends ; we readily recognise the deference which is
due- to the wishes or the necessities of the Sovereign.
Nevertheless we are unwilling, most unwilling, to be-
lieve that Lord Althorp is again the C),;lneellOr of the
Exchequer. We expect in ea:::„ individual member
of a Cabinet some little acr_itraintanee with the business
of the department o';er which he presides. A Lord
of the 'Admiralty ought to be able to distinguish a
three-decker from the city barge. A Foreign Secre-
tary should not look for seaports in Bohemia. A
Chancellor of the Exchequer must be familiar at least
with-the multiplication table. But to each and to all
there is one thing needful above all science, above all ge-
nius, above all industry. We mean honour. And we are
sure, whatever may be the language of complacent col-
kapes and zealous partisans, that if Lord Althorp
shall return to his office, he will return to it without
honour. He will be from that time forth utterly des-
picable and universally despised. Lord Althorp has
created the difficulties under which for the last week
the country has struggled : Earl Grey is wholly guilt-
less'of any the least participation in the fault. Lord
Althorp has authorised secret communications to men
whose disloyalty is almost rebellion : Earl Grey has met
with a dignified defiance their turbulence and hate.
Lord Althorp has plotted for the mutilation of the
measures which, as a minister, he was about to bring
forward : Earl Grey has been consistent, manly, and
intelligible. These two Noble Lords have resigned
their offices ; and will it not make the gravest of us
laugh to see the one who has done all the mischief re-
turning quietly to his place and power,--the other,
who is innocent of all the blame, remaining in his re-
tirement ? Why did Lord Althorp, and why did Earl
Grey, resign ? Lord Althorp resigned because by his
indiscretion and imbecility he had made the task of
the Government difficult, and the character of the Go-
vernment contemptible. Earl Grey resigned because
Lord Althorp resigned. It will surely be odd to see
Lord Althnrp going back to the Exchequer, his
twenty reasons for leaving it remaining unimpaired ;
and Earl Grey excluded from the Treasury, his single
motive for quitting it being atlogether removed I With
respect to the other arrangements to be made by the
new Premier, there were many reports yesterday, which
it is scarcely worth while to particularize. Mr. Aber-
cromby was mentioned for the Home Office, and for
the Mint. Lord Durham was talked of for the Mint,
for the Home Office, and for the Lord Lieutenancy of
Ireland I That his Lordship, " the Hunt of the
Peerage," will hold a conspicuous position in the new
Administration we readily believe, but we cannot for
a moment credit this last conjecture. The Earl of Dur-
ham Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ! I I—Morning Post.
In the present interregnum of the Ministry, report
presents three persons as Premier, each of whom, we
had almost said, was equally objectionable. These
three persons are the Duke of 'Wellington, Lord
Brougham, and the Earl of Durham. Some of our
readers may, perhaps, be surprised that we place the
Duke of Wellington at the head of this list of ob-
jectionables. We certainly do so with regret ; but at
the same time we do so advisedly and sincerely. With
all our respect, adminition, and gratitude towards the
Duke of Wellington—feelings in which we would not
yield to the wannest and most obsequious of his ad-
mirers--we yet feel that the Duke, to use a military
expression, is pleped hors de combat upon the present
occasion. And we feel, moreover, that the Duke has
so placed himself. To use a late expression of Earl
Grey's, the Duke of Wellington's Flaws are not in ac-
cordance with " the spirit of the age." In short,
-unless the country were prepared to retrace all its steps,
arid to adopt an anti-reform policy at home, and that
of the Holy Alliance abroad, the Duke of Wellington,
-unhappily and indiscreetly pledged as he is to those
principles, could not with any hope of success re-assume
the mantle which the possession and avowal of those very
prcinciples compelled him so lately to throw off. Though
the country, then, may still owe fresh gratitude to the
. Duke of Wellington as a Senator, as her leading
Statesman he can do her no service but at the ex-
pense of a retraction of principles, alike impossible, or
if possible, ruinous to the character of the first man
of the age. To the two other Noble Lords we have
mentioned objections similar in their nature pre-
sent themselves, but differing only in degree.
Whatever objections present themselves to Lord
Brougham, the same exist towards Lord Dur-
ham in a greatly aggravated ratio. Taking the
expression in its literal, not in its party sense, these
objections may be summed up as resolving themselves
into this, that neither of the Noble Lords is sufficiently
" Conservative" to meet the wishes of the great majo-
rity of the prudent, right-judging part of the people.
In common with that majority we are reformers our-
selves, and have shown too undeviating an attachment
to that cause to render, we trust, that attachment, now
at the eleventh hour, at all suspicious. But we know
that mere reform, in a technical sense, Is not all that
the country wants, while what she wants of that she
wishes to see effected more in the nature of re-
pair than in the more novel, hazardous, and ex-
pensive form of pulling down, though under a
promise of rebuilding. Without enlarging upon to-
pics which might be irksome and offensive, we
have in thus generalising said enough to draw our
readers' minds to the objections we feel, and which we
apprehend a great proportion at least of the country
would feel, to the existence of an Administration over
which either of the Noble Lords in question should
preside. We do not believe that the spirit of reform
is at all likely to die away in the country. On the con-
trary, we believe that were what is called in party lan-
guage a Conservative Administration to come into
office to-morrow, it could not exist but by adopting that
spirit, and honestly infusing it into every department
and all.our concerns. But, on the other hand, the coun-
try does not wis.h.to see either at the head of its Govern-
ment, or in any of its influential departments, men who
on the one hand have been either too lax or too destruc-
tive in their notions ; or, on the other, persons who are
slaves to theories, which lead to no useful practical re-
sult. The crisis is one of great interest, not to say of
some peril. We feel the difficulties in which the King
is placed, and, relying upon his Majesty's honesty of
purpose, we trust he will emerge from them honourably
to himself and advantageously to the country. Since
writing the above we learn from our Parliamentary
report that Lord Melbourne has been autho-
rised by his Majesty to form an administration. His
Lordship may therefore be considered as having re-
ceived conditionally the appointment of First Minis-
ter of the crown, for should he succeed in forming the
administration, he will, according to all precedent in
such cases, be the head of it himself. It will be ob-
served that in our preceding speculation we have not
alluded to his lordship as one of those who were likely
at the present crisis to be selected for so prominent a
part. In fact the selection has not a little surprised
us, and we believe that the public in general will be as
much surprised as we were when the appointment is
authoritatively announced to them. Lord Melbourne
has never had the confidence of the people of this
country ; he has never been a popular, he has scarcely
been a public, man. The circle of fashion in which
he moves may regard him as a political wonder, but the
plain people, who have only known him through his
acts, see nothing of that decisive business-like cha-
racter in his lordship which they naturally look for in
the man who should hold the helm in times like these.
Still we hope that as his lordship has obtained the con-
fidence of his Sovereign, whose patriotism cannot be
questioned by any person of common candour and ve-
if he succeed in forming an adminis-
racity, he will,
tration, conduct it upon those principles which can
alone satisfy the country,—we mean principles of mo-
derate but progressive and effectual reform. The an-
nouncement of Lord Melbourne's undertaking, which
was made in both houses of parliament yesterday, was
followed by a motion of adjournment till Thursday
next, in order to give time for the necessary arrange-
ments. Lord Althorp, it will be seen, has acceded to
the request that he should return to office, and Earl
Grey is said to lend his sanction to the new ministry,
which is to be as Whiggish as ever. Thus matters
stand at present. Our parliamentary report contains a
more detailed account of the particulars to which we
have briefly alluded.—Morning Herald.
Lord Melbourne is to be the Prime Minister, but it
is understood that the Government will be conducted
on the principles- of Lords Grey, Holland, Althorp,
and Russell, all of whom will render their hest sup-
port to his Lordship, and all but Lord Grey con-