The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-14 00:00:00

but there were some home thrusts nevertheless.
Mr. ROEBUCK'S remarks were in the spirit of what
is called popularly virtuous indignation. "It was
my fate," he said (fortuna felix!) " to sit on the
bench opposite (below the gangway), under the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he delivered a
speech that startled his hearers. I never listened
to a speech that more enchained my attention, or
more completely won my admiration and assent."
At any direct reference like this to the past, one
might think, Mr. GLADSTONE must wince rather
painfully—for he must conjecture pretty ac-
curately what is coming ! He has spoken
within the last few years upon such diarnetri-

tally opposite sides upon such a very large
variety of subjects! But in continuation of his
rather cruel reminiscence, ouoth Mr. ROEBUCK
yesterday : " The right hon. gentleman fulminated
[then] against the then Administration for under-
taking a Chinese war. He pointed out how vain
were the ends they sought, how mischievous the
means. But the right hon. gentleman's change of
place has been accompanied by a change of opinion,
and now we find the same right hon. gentleman sup -
porting the very vote which, on that occasion, he de-
scribed as a disgrace to the country. The words of
that speech are still ringing in my ears. I remem-
ber turning to the right hon. gentleman after he
sat down and presumptuously expressing my ad-
miration both of the sentiments he had uttered and
the manner in which he had delivered them.
Little did I think that within three years it would
be my fate to sit opposite to the right hon. gentle-
man and find him the most eloquent supporter of
this atrocious proceeding." Now, all this
sounds, of course, wonderfully well—but viewed
rationally the reasoning is alogether illogi-
cal and the deduction altogether preposterous.
" The very vote," say you; Mr. ROEBUCK ?—the
vote is wholly and entirely different. Besides which,
as the Chancellor of the Exchequer observed in his
well-tempered reply—" It may be that the war in
1857 was right and the present war is wrong ; or
it may be that the present war is right and the war
of 1857 was wrong ; or it may be that both are
right, or it nay be that both are wrong."
Laugh though the house might, and, in
fact, did " consumedly "—almost in Homeric
phrase, " inextinguishably "—the possibility is
so nevertheless throughout. " The nature
of the two wars is," as Mr. GLADSTONE
had previously said," entirely distinct—their causes
are wholly different." And in proof of the fact that
the alterations are allowable, or, at the very least,
recognisable, is it not undeniable that there are
some (like Mr. BRIGHT for example, and Mr.
ROEBUCK himself) who regard both wars as wrong
—that there are others (like the Prime
Minister, and, we believe, the country at
large) who consider both wars to be
right—while there are a sprinkling of others yet
who come under the minor categories referred to
in Mr. GLADSTONE'S suppositious alternatives?
There is Mr. GLADSTONE himself, for example, as
one who deems the last war wrong and the present
war right ! However ironical the cheers, and
however great the laughter, therefore, with which
the enumeration of those alternatives by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer was received by the
House, the fact that they are not so entirely hy-
pothetical is clearly enough demonstrated. Besides
—the actual vote then before the House in Com-
mittee of Supply was a retrospective vote, was a
vote that no party could oppose, that no
Cabinet could shirk with honour. Eng-
land has never yet, thank Heaven! sunk
to the level, or rather to the depths of repudi-
ation. And so—as a matter of course, whatever
might be said or thought by the captious or can-
tankerous—the House ended, we repeat, as a matter,
of course, by voting this additional sum of
£443,896, in respect to the past expenses of the
Chinese War, for repayment to the Indian
Government.

Our future Sovereign is on his way to America
We are all pleased, both on this side and on that
of the Atlantic. May QUEEN'S weather go with
him—not, however, leaving us, for we need it
enough—and, youthful as he is, the novelty of a
Prince of WALES crossing the Atlantic will fairly
exemplify the novel interest which, within a co
paratively short space of time, has been felt by this
country in her colonies. Within the me-
mory of all of us, colonies were regarded as the
lads in their teens of the maker country. They
were not supposed to be capable of more than
municipal government. They were the servants of
the Colonial Secretary, and a stern master he often
was, perhaps oftener an ill-informed and crotchetty
one. The juvenile Englands kicked at control, and
the pedagogue placed in charge of them adminis-
stered correction according to their self-importance,
and to their means of making their wrath and re-
sentment known to the parent country ; and every
now and then there was a scene. All knew better,
indeed, since the successful vindication of principle
by the United States than to think of taxing them
again but, short of that, there was a kind of chronic
ill-will kept up, by the pragmatical assumptions and
vexatious intermeddling of the Colonial Secretary.
Perhaps Lord GREY was the last of the pedagogue
Foreign Secretaries. Since his time the change has
been marked and rapid. Governments, -whether
Whig or Tory, seem to have vied with each other
in firmly maintaining colonial self-government in
every thing local. The Governors, of whatever
politics, have been expected to preserve, as the
representatives of royalty at home, that com-
plete neutrality between contending parties
which conciliates the cordial loyalty of all.
And the instances are becoming rare in
which Governors betray a bias. In the progress of
the change, Lord JOHN RUSSELL and other states-
men often remarked—we are so governing them,
that when able to separate from us they and we
shall part with mutual good will. It would seem,
however, that the more independeLt their action,
the stronger becomes their attachment to the old
fatherland. There can be no doubt that Cana-
dians are far more averse to separation from
the British Crown—the only link, now, of
union—than they ever were. We have not
made ABSALOMS of our colonies by indulgence,
but then it has been less indulgence than acknow-
ledgment of Rights. And at this moment they
are all excitement in North America—and talk of
spending £lOO,OOO as nothing—with the prospect
of seeing the first-born son of their Sovereign, and
therefore their future Sovereign.

..._ .• _ _
Some thoughts will float in all our minds in
recollecting the fact. We remember how the
grandfather of the young Prince drove into rebel-
iion and alienated colonies which, but for the Tory
stupidity of the day, might at this moment have
been as cordially bound to England as Canada
now is ; and we think of it all the more
when we remember that he is to visit
in person those former colonies, and to accept the
hospitality of an elective, a citizen, a temporary
'Monarch. Too young, perhaps, he is yet to feel
the " blue blood" chilled by the touch of a Supreme
Magistrate, the creation of Universal Suffrage,
and the Ballot Box, things he may have to
witness in England. But, when we look
atf
ceonies in our vast colony, or rather assemblage
North America, and see them