The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-12 00:00:00

ponent. Now, it is perfectly certain that if we will I
have men of high capacity, men of genius, in the
House, we must put up with frequent crotchets, as
we are apt to term them, points in which they
differ in opinion from most of us, and yet are far
too self-reliant to tone down their opinions to what
will suit us. We must take them as they are.
The Roebucks, the Horsmans, and the Layards are
amongst the most needful elements of a free and
representative assembly. We need never fear that
there will not be abundance of the more prosaic, com-
mon-place stuff, to neutralise any possible mischief
from the flights, or aberrations, or eccentricities of
genius ; but the genius—the independent genius, is
above all price in our House of Commons. We may
well query whether without it, it might not be.
come a very Common House.

There is one feature in this election which ought
not to be overlooked—ATJSTEN HENRY LAYARD
was emphatically the working man's candidate—
they ',worked for him to the last—they proffered,
by a shilling subscription, to bear their share of the
expenses of his election ; and not only in South-
wark, but in York, the working men stood by Mr.
LAYARD, and appealed to their own class here to
do the same. We hail this as one of many similar
answers to the charge against the working classes,
that they would degrade the national assembly
by sending to it inferior men. We believe
nothing of the kind. If they did return
a NEWTON or a POTTER to advocate their
special claims, and explain their business to an
assembly which can know little practically of
them, no class of men are more ready to appreciate
public merit and to be enthusiastic in doing it
honour. We wonder whether we could find a
single borough under the influence of some edu-
cated potentate who despises working men, or a
single county over which the class who°. have
been trained at universities reign supreme, who
wouldlho.ve shown their sense of the deserts of
genius and public spirit,which has just been evinced
by the working men of Southwark. So far from
diminishing the number of our . great men in Par-
liament by a large extension of the suffrage, we
believe the effect would be just the reverse. The
well connected mediocrities would be the gentry
who would have notice to quit. Probably they
think so; they see that working men in Southwark
can prefer a Sir W. MoLEswor.nr, or a CHARLES
NAPIER, or a LAYARD—aII men who had earned in
very different ways a national reputation, to the
class whom wealth and Connection would nominate.
Mr. LAYARD has now the course of public life
opened to him afresh ; he will enter upon it with
no less independence than before, but perhaps with
a little more diseretion. Not that we could wish
him to repress, for prudence sake merely, a single
conviction, the value of such men is that they see
things strangely in a different light to most, and
that they give unflinching expression to their
views. We have little fear, however, that he will
offend his present constituents by differing from
them on some point. His sincere accordance with
them on all that is permanently important will
be quite sufficient, they will not turn him out for
having a mind of his own. Rather would they do
so, if they knew him to be guilty of it, for thinking
one way and voting another.