The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-30 00:00:00

LONDON, 711EIRSDAY, SEPT. 30, 1869.

Several remarkable Ministerial speeches have been
recently delivered. The Secretary for War, the Post-
master-General, and the Foreign Secretary among
the most recently. To the address delivered by the
last mentioned member of the Cabinet there are three
reasons wby especial consideration should be accorded.
In the first place, Lord CLARENDON is the oldest of
the thirteen Chiefs of the Administration. In the
next place, be is the Foreign Secretary. And
in the third and last place, the speech delivered
by him on Monday was one of the very
ablest and most vivacious, one of the
boldest and most outspoken, to which he has
for a long while past given utterance. He dealt with
the Irish Church Question in retrospect. He dealt
with the Irish Land Question in anticipation. He
spoke of the House of Lords in its relation to the
country, and especially in its relation to the House
of Commons. lie treated of the age and of its
requirements. He spoke not only as a Peer and as an
Administrator, as a Landlord and as a Politician,
but, holding in the grasp of his hand, as he does,
the knotted threads of the whole of our delicate and
complicated system of diplomacy, he shrank not
from speaking frankly also in his capacity
as a Diplomatist, as the Minister peculiarly
responsible to the Crown for the satisfactory
maintenance of our Foreign Relations. And in
what he said in this particular hesitated not to
refer very directly and pointedly to the actual
situation of affairs upon the European Continent.
For the exquisite discretion with which all this was
done, we have only words that, in the absence
of anything like extracts in the way of proof,
might, to mere cynical readers, appear abso-
lutely extravagant. Instead of praise, therefore,
we will adduce illustrative evidence, in itself an
equivalent to the most emphatic commendation.
Speaking of the House of Lards, as having been this
year subjected to vehement attacks, and in a manner
put upon its trial, Lord CLARENDON said, "I feel
that I could neither vindicate, nor blame, nor explain
the course of policy which has been pursued without
adverting to that great question which, almost to the
exclusion of every other, occupied the attention of
Parliament last Session, and which ought not to be
brought into the arena of discussion on this occasion.
But having been a member of that House now for
more than thirty years, having been a regular atten-
dant in it, and to the best of my ability having
observed the spirit in which its proceedings have
been conducted, I will say, without any odious com-
parisons, that, in respect of knowledge, eloquence,
ability, and experience, it stands second to no other
legislative assembly in the world. Nor can this be
wondered at when we consider how the House of

Lords is recruited, and the amount of new blood
which is conatantly being poured into that body."
Having said this, he reminded his hearers at Wat-
ford that the House of Lords had been especially jeered

at for the non-initiation by it of measures, and for the

brevity of its debates. The one thing he attributed
with justice to what he called the natural jealousy
of the House of Commons, to initiate all matters
affecting the taxation of the country, a prerogative
or right inherent in them as the chosen representa-
tives of the people. As for the shortness of the de-
bates, while facetiously denying that that was
any fault at all, he declared it to be mainly attri-
butable to a laudable custom long maintained
in the buss of Lords, never to speak when
they had nothing particular to say. While

the house of Commons was a representative

body, the House of Lords, he insisted, was
a responsible body, a body knowing and feeling that
it was responsible to the country. " Three months
ago," he said, amidst hearty cheering, " it gavo a
signal proof of it." At the same time Lord CLAREN-
DON frankly admitted, as one of the Liberal Leaders
of the House of Lords, that that august assembly, iu
his own individual opinion, wanted—steam ! Steam
or go it wants above all things, he said, in this age—in
which we live a century in thirty years. " I will ask
anybody here," remarked Lord CLARENDON, "What
would have been thought of a man who, thirty years
ago, had predicted that we should, with ease and
convenience, go across Europe, from Marseilles to
London, in 24 hours ; that the traveller, on arriving
in London, should be able to learn, by means of a
bit of wire 2,000 miles long, buried at the
bottom of the ocean, that a friend of his had
had his leg amputated in Philadelphia or New
York five minutes before, and that by taking
two or three sniffs of a vapour he was unconscious
of pain. What would have been said of a
man who asserted that he would command the
sun to take our portraits or that a Conservative

Government would establish household suffrage."
At this of course there was much laughter and
cheering. " I think that such a man, only thirty
years ago, would have been considered fit for Bed-
lam, and we know from history, and not such very
ancient history, that many men have been tortured
at the Inquisition, and even burnt alive, for ex•
pressing views and opinions far more sober than
these. But what would you think," added the
Foreign Secretary, "of the man who, when these
benefits had been realised, would say, ' No; I pre-
fer to go to Marseilles in six days in my own diligence.
Nothing will induce me to receive a bit of informa-
tion by telegraph ; I greatly prefer agony to chloro-
form, and rather than have household suffrage, I firmly
believe that a finer measure to make things snug and
comfortable would be the restoration of rotten
boroughs.'" Again, as a matter of course, there was
a renewal of the laughter and of the cheering. It
was at the close of his speech, however, that, without
any mingling of laughter with cheering, the Earl of
CLARENDON was greeted with the loudest acclama-
tion. This was when he said in his closing sentence,
with particular reference to his recent excur-
sion upon the European Continent, from which,
in point of fact, the Foreign Secretary had
only returned a few days previously —" I
had there the opportunity of collecting opinion, and
I have seen some persons who exercise no little influ-
ence on the destinies of Europe, and, although I have
not the gift of prophecy, though I do not pretend to
see further into futurity than other men, yet 1 cannot
help, on this occasion, expressing my belief that at
no time within the last three years—at no time since

the war between Prussia and Austria—have we had
a fairer prospect of maintaining the inestimable bles-

sings of peace." Peace! It is surely the happiest
last word to a speech that could possibly fall from
the lips of a Foreign Secretary.

FOREIGN affairs are once more becoming interest-
ing. After a period of unusual quiescence, during
which REUTER'S telegrams were reduced almost to
nothing, and even that small minimum was scarcely
worth reading, the nations of Europe are beginning to
arouse themselves. We naturally turn first to
France, our nearest neighbour, and the country whose
politics next to our own we best understand. France
indeed has for some weeks been an exception
to the prevalent dulness. pier affairs have
given rise to no little anxiety. They still do so. The
EMPEROR, about two months ago, promised divers
liberal reforms. That promise has as yet been but
very incompletely fulfilled. The summoning of the