The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-05 00:00:00

CONCERTS

CANTERBURY HALL
THIS EVENING.
C. H. GOITNOD'S OPERA,
FA UST.
first Time in this Country.
Mr. Henry Herbert.
Mephistopheles Mr. C. Bernard.
Siobel Mrs. Anderson.
Marguerite
Conductor Mr. Jonghmans.
And selections from
Dinorah, Trovatore, Macbeth, and numerous other
Entertainments.
Balcony, is, Ball. 3d.
Comic Vocalists—Messrs. George Hodson (the Irish Come
dian and Mimic), and W.'l'. Critchfield.
The AFRICAN OPERA T ItOUPE, their first appearance
since 1852, consisting of ELEVEN STAR PERFOrtMERS,
who will give the whole of their inimitable entertainment
every evening.
The gallery is open from 5 till 11 on Sunday Evening.

THE WEATHER.-SUN OFFICE, JUNE 5, MO,

THERMOMETER, IN THE suADB.
65—highest since noon yesterday.
49—lowest this morning and during the night.
61—this day at noon.
BAROMETER-29.88.
WIND—W .-S.-Westerly; rather fresh, with fine weather

mall WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Trus DAY.—Morning, 2h. 41m.—Afternoon, 3h. 2m.
To-MORROW.-Morning, 3h. 21m.—Afternoon, 3h. 45m.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 1860.

If there be "reason in madness," there surely
ought to be reason in Parliamentary opposition.
The country will not, however, think there is even
the shadow of reason for the wanton waste of time
of which the Opposition are guilty in regard to the
Reform Bill ; and it is the more to be regretted, there-
fore, that some Liberals should needlessly, by their
own crotchets, aid them in the discreditable course
which is now pursued. The country began to be
utterly disgusted with the six days' debate, by
which the time of its Parliament was frittered
away by third and fourth•rate talkers on the
motion for the second reading, on which there was
to be, no division. We do not remember that any
speech added one idea or one fact worth preserving
to all we knew before ; it was, as the talkers well
knew, merely wasting time to get rid of the bill,
if possible, by a side wind. And now the same
unmanly tactics are renewed on the proposal to go
into committee. A score nearly of instructions
and other proposals are moved, not for their own
sake, but to delay business. We must denounce
such a proceeding as undignified and un-English.
The bill ought at once to go into committee, and the
combatants to fight a manly straightforward battle
against the clauses they object to, and for those
which they wish to insert. That we could-respect.
This factious prating against time is really
intolerable.
We adverted to the formidable list of motions,
obstructive of going into committee, on Saturday,
and need not repeat what we then said. Four of
them went off on the ground of form, but Mr.
BENTINCK, who seemed to threaten the Speaker
with an appeal to the House on his decision, was
permitted to instruct the committee to make better
provision for the prevention of bribery. We should
have given Mr. BENTINCK credit for sincerity,
but for his gross mis-statement as to the
relative corruption of counties and boroughs. We
quite agree with him that the addition of numerous
and poorer voters will increase the field for bribery,
and we have always demanded that the only known
remedy should form part of any bill which ex
tended largely the franchise among the working
classes. But we deny entirely that the boroughs
arc the more corrupt of the two. The corrup
flea is different, but incomparably greater in
the counties. We speak what we know
when we say that the constituency of West Nor-
folk is one of the most corrupt in the United King-
dom. Very probably not half a dozen voters, if so
many, -would, in case of a contest, there get any-
thing beyond their travelling expenses, and not
many would need even those. But will even the
member for West Norfolk pretend that votes are
bought with sovereigns and beer only ? We beg
to ask him one plain question—How many of the
farmers, and even of the tradesmen, who have votes
in any part of the county dare vote against their

landlords or the landlords of those who employ them:
Bribery in the towns is carried on by the hope of
getting money—in the counties by the fear of losing
it. The bribee in the borough wants to get more
than his right ; the bribee in the county fears to
lose his right. In the borough the briber makes
some sacrifice ; in the county the briber sacrifices
the man he bribes. The bribers in West Norfolk
are infinitely meaner men than the CHARLES-
WORTHS and the LEATHAMS. The latter put gold
into the bribee's hand. The landlords of West
Norfolk elect Mr. BENTINCK by driving the iron
into the voter's soul.

Mr. WYLD, indeed, would have added to Mr.
BENTINCK'S instruction on the prevention of bri-
bery, " and that for that purpose the votes of elec-
tors should be taken by Ballot." But the discus•
sion on that subject was shut out by the Speaker
deciding that the committee had power already to
introduce a clause to that effect. No doubt they have,
and if Mr. BENTINCK be sincere he will as certainly
support Mr. WvLD's proposal, when it is made.
We deny that even in boroughs any other means
would do half so much to check, if not almost to
extirpate bribery, especially if the constituencies
were large ; but for the county corruption it is the
cure, as much a specific, as quinine for ague. In a
very few elections, under the ballot, the counties
would become as politically alive and intelligent
as the large boroughs ; their voters as independent,
and Mr. BENTINCK and Mr. DISRAELI might then
fairly claim for them representation in propor-
tion to number of electors and the rateable
value of property. To give the counties
more members now, would simply be to give more
members to the 30,000 landlords of the kingdom ;
and we submit that between the counties and the
agricultural boroughs, they already enjoy a most
unfair monopoly of electoral power. In the slave
states the slaveholders vote for two-fifths of their
slaves ; but in the counties of England the landlords
vote for the whole of their tenants ; for, what is
the same thing, they compel them all to vote for
their candidate.
So the Scotch and Irish Bills go by the board
for the session, and the Tory press, chuckles with
the confidence that the English Bill will follow
them. It may be so. But, if it be, it will be the
disgrace equally of both the Ministry and the
Opposition. The latter must bear the opprobrium
of doing what any man" can do, of obstructing
your way when he dare not resist you. The
foruier, of not assuming a tone which should
compel Parliament to do its duty, and
save the credit of our House of Commons
in the eyes of Europe. Lord JOHN has justly
said that if Parliament has serious business to do,
there is no reason why it should not sit—Lords
and Commons, too—till the business is ended. We
hear enough declamation against Americanising
our institutions ; it would be so, indeed, if we fixed
any day for the termination of the sittings of our
Congress. We boast of greater freedom. Let
Ministers use what they boast of. We
may be quite sure that if the Cabinet
announced that both houses should sit until the
Reform Bill and the Bankruptcy Bill had both
been fully considered and decided on by them
—every man who spoke against time would be
put down as a bore, and business would move on.
The Ministry which could submit to have a money
bill thrown out by the Lords, and a Reform Bill
talked out by the vu/gus of the Commons, had
better resign at once. They would only live on
a humiliated Cabinet life.

Is the bombardment of the city of Palermo to be
tolerated by the civilised nations of Christendom ?
The question comes home even to the Neutrals !
Here is a populous town, the capital of the island
of Sicily, brutally subjected by the war ships of
the King of NAPLES to a bombardment and a re-
bombardment. And under what circumstances ?
Let the facts which have been patent to the world
but so very recently answer. Let it be borne
in remembrance that there at Palermo, there
in Sicily, is the Royal Neapolitan Army
25,000 strong—assailed by a band of nearly 2,000
volunteers, landed only the other day and marched
against them by GARIBALDI. Two thousand against
twenty-five thousand! Certainly GARIBALDI and
his followers have the nation, the people them-
selves, at his back. That is their reliance—that is
what they counted upon when setting forth upon
this apparently rasli, but, as the event is proving,
perfectly rational expedition. But equally certain
is it—that when the soldiers of GARIBALDI first put
foot upon Sicilian soil they mustered actually under
" two thousand." So formidable, however, was that
little band under the leadership of their famous
Captain, that the war ships from Naples at
their approach wisely kept aloof—allowed them
to effect a landing uninterruptedly—they, the
volunteers, together with their arms and accoutre
ments, and then—but not till then—opened fire
upon the two empty and deserted vessels that had
brought over the expedition! Precisely in the same
safe and cautious manner are they acting now, with
a view to inflict as much damage as possible upon
their antagonists, with as small danger as may be of
any injury being inflicted in return upon themselves.
The army of 25,000 men being unable to defend
Palermo against the 2,000 volunteers under GARI-
BALDI, the Neapolitan fleet begins determinedly
opening fire upon the defenceless city—an act of
desperation happily but seldom adventured
upon in modern warfare, and then only.
until now, under circumstances of the utmost ex-
tremity. Where large masses of unarmed people—
civilians—men, women, and children—arc crowded
together, there the artillery of true warriors will
be found (when looking retrospectively down the
long vista of history), but rarely, indeed, to have
directed their fire, a fire that so directed is felt in-
stinctively by brave men to be little less than
literally murderous ! The Neapolitans are open•
ing a new era in warfare. They are
giving the world a precedent, in regard to which
it will have to be remembered that a royal army
25,000 strong having been driven to an extremity
by a little band of two thousand, have conceived it
to be only reasonable, nay,the merest matter ofcourse,
that they, the vast defeated majority, should be
avenged by the brutal bombardment of adefenceless
city crowded with civilians of both sexes and of all
ages ! Again, we ask, is the continuance of this
act of unexampled brutality, of unparalleled in-
humanity, to be tolerated by the nations, even by
the neutral powers of Christendom ? The act itself
is one of such peculiar atrocity as to afford even
the most peace-loving advocates of non-interven-
tion
the opportunity, the right, (might we not
rather say, the sol€mn and imperative duty ?) of
interference. The bombardment of Palermo caps
the climax of everything that has ever been
charged against the Neapolitan Government.
Will it not serve, tos, most effectually, to brim up
the cup—there in Sicily, there also in Naples itself
—of the popular indignation ?

It is not in our own Church alone that there are
Churches within a Church, or at least great diver-
sities, doctrinal and ecclesiastical, among those who
bear, religiously, the same name. As we have our
High and Low, onr Broad and Moderate Church-
men, so the other great Christian bodies of our