The Sun.
London, England, 1858-05-25 00:00:00

THE CAMBRIDGE-HOUSE CONSPIRACY.

(From the Daily News.)
Few things quicken ingenuity more efficaciously
than defeat. The beaten general will attribute the
lost battle to all causes, possible or impossible,
rather than to defective generalship ; and the un-
successful advocate blames his case, his client, and
his witnesses, anything and everything but his Own
want of tact and management, for the adverse ver-
dict or the unfavourable decree. Discomfiture is
unpleasant enough under any circumstances, but it
is especially distasteful to those who pique them-
selves on the possession of power and the prestige
of success. The disaster of Mr. Cardwell's motion,
following so close upon the disaster of Mr. Conspi-
racy Bill, has naturally been felt as a heavy blow
by the unpopular ex-Minister and the powerful
organ. When Lord Palmerston fell suddenly from
his pride of place underethe vote of the 14th Feb.,
the Times, it may be remembered, turned fiercely
round on the British public and roundly taxed us
all with fickleness and folly. The nation had pre-
ferred its old liberties to the new favourite of the
Times, and was accordingly rated for its inconstancy
by the most constant and con.sis tent of censors. Lord
Palmerston and the Times have again come to grief,
and the wrath of the great organ seeks another vic-
tim. This time it jet the House of Commons—the
House of Commons, be it remembered, of Lord Pal-
- merston and the Times, the House of Commons which
cams in to reverse the China vote, annihilate the
enemies, to confirm the supremacy, and to perpe-
tuate the power, of the great popular Minister.
Alas ! quantum mutatus ab ills. The House of Com-
mons has tired of the yoke ; it has waxed fat and
kicked • it has thrown its rider ; it has been un-
. grateful to its makers. It has dared to assert a will
of its own. But it is not destined to escape whip-
ping. The Times is down upon it. "No body of
men," we are told, with reference to the vote of
Friday last, " could possibly have managed matters
worse than the House of Commons seem to have
done." "No conclusion could be more absurd,"
than that at which they have arrived. They acted
from none but the lowest motives. Social ambition
personal animosities, fear of dissolution, did it all.
And then comes the sentence. "A house that will
give real and efficient support to neither side is self-
condemned already, and only awaits the moment
of execution." There, gentlemen of the House of
Commons, is a pleasing sentiment to sweeten the
brief leisure of your Whitsuntide recess ! You have
been convicted of a want of party spirit; you dared
to prefer the public interest to the Palmerston in-
terest—the safety of India to the intrigues of a
cabal ; and for this offence you are under notice to
quit. The Times has declared against you : you
exist
.but on sufferance—set your house in order
and make ready to depart.
The arrogance and absurdity of all this is so cha-
racteristic, is so much like what might have been
expected, a priori, under the distressing circum-
stances of proved powerlessness to which the
" powerful organ " has been reduced, that it may
safely be left to answer itself. There is, however,
in connection with this abuse of the House of
Commons, a view presented of Mr. Cardwell's
motion which is so delightful in its naive
absurdity that it is impossible not to ask a
moment's attention to it. This motion, we are
gravely assured, " has done the non-political part
of the country great service, and it is only just
that this should be remembered, because there can
be no doubt that it has not; in a party point of
view, been a success, and because the credit and
alknowledgment of this great public service are due
exclusively to the mover and supporters of the mo-
tion, and not to the House of Commons as a body."
If this be true, the " non-political part of the coun-
try" must be an eminently ungrateful body. The
" non-political part" of the country has to a man
looked on with disgust at the protracted duration
of a parliamentary struggle whose manifest aim and
object was to assert a policy of confiscation in India
as a step to political power in England. The non-
political part of the country has been obtuse enough
to regard the whole thing as a mere selfish conflict
for place—a fight, not for principle but for office.
It seems they have been wrong. The debate has
done them a great public service without their
knowing it. Do they ask what ? The Times shall
tell them. It has produced the resignation of Lord
Ellenborough, and a telegraphic approval by Mi-
nisters of the policy of Lord Canning. Mr. Ca: d-
well, who has " done all this good by stealth," may
well " blush to find it fame." The resignation took
place, the telegraphic approval was sent out, before
the motion came on for discussion. The great public
service had been accomplished before the debate
begun ; why was the debate continued, why was the
motion persevered with, after the results for which
the Times takes credit had been accomplished
There is but one answer : Solely for-party purposes.
But then, says the Times, as a party move the mo-
tion has not been a succese ; you therefore, the non-
political part of the country are all the more bound
to remember the great public service it has inci-
dentally done you—Lord Ellenborough has re-
signed, Lord Canning is not rec tiled. This is really
very impudent as well as very silly. What disgusted
the nat on was the perseverance with the motion
for party purposes after its object bad been gained,
and are we now to be told that such factious perse-
verance is a ground of gratitude, simply because
the attempt, as a party move, had failed ?
And now one word as to the probability of ob-
taining by a dissolution a House of Commons the
majority of which would be really prepared to give
efficient support to a real Liberal Government.
The first requisite to such a desirable end is obvi-
ously this, that there should be a real Liberal Go-
vernment to be supported—a Government based
on comprehensive principles—ignorant of clique
exclusiveness, bent upon great measures of pro-
gress. Give the Liberal party something to som--
thing to support before you blame them for with-
holding that support. But what if the difficulty
lies deeper ; what if it be not only the want of a
real Liberal Government, but the deeper want of
wider and more liberal basis of representation, that
is really at the root of the dm' organiation and
apathy which now pi evail in the Liberal ranks ?
This we believe to be the real explanation of what
all see, and the true friends of rational progress
sincerely lament.' The remedy is in our own bands;
we can remove the stagnation if we will. We mu,t
throw ourselves on the ranks of the unrepresented.
We must find there the momentum, the vigour,
and the enterprise without which the se-called Li-
beral party in Parliament would be nothing but a
disorganised host, doubtfully rallying round a few
half trusted leaders. These leader-, if they wish
to be in fact what they are in name, must renew
their youth, and throw themselves confidently on
that great stream of tendency and aspiration which
is the true life-current of a free, energetic, and
prosperous community. If, when alt else moves
onward, they alone halt, or lingers or turn back,
the consequences are plain. They will be left with-
out followers and without power to lament in nar-
row cliques over a prestige that cm never return,
and a party that has sought out new chiefs. Their
political destiny is still in their own hands. Let
them be wise in time, and net wilfully throw w
by a co!d mistrust and a timorous over-caution,,
that confidence and that affection which a
rens country is still ready to be-itow. tleie-
cousinocracy whisper what they will ; it is better
to lead a nation than to rule a coterie ; to live
in history by great measures than to be famous in
the Clubs for little cabals. The adoption of a
wider and a bolder policy on the part alike of the
leaders and the led, is the one thing now wanting
for the resuscitation and consolidation of the grea
Liberal party.

(From the Morning Herald.)

The speech delivered by Sir James Graham on
Thursday night in the House of Commons was a
remarkable combination of terse argument, close
reasoning, felicitous &Mire, and historic illustration.
It was another instance of the extraordinlry cha-
racter which the debate had all along assumed. The
vindication of the Government came from leaders
of the Liberal party. In fact, there never WAS a
debate in which the preponderance of argument
was so great on the Ministerial side, and there
never was a debate in which Ministers spoke so
little. They left it to the Liberal party to destroy
the anti-ministerial cause. The result was, that if
the motion had proceeded the reserve force on the
Treasury bench would have annihilated the Oppo-
sition, who on Friday night recoiled from the de-
bate with all their ammunition expended. What
is remarkable in the speech of Sir J. Graham is the
vast number of pertinent nets which he digests and
applies in support of his argument. This charac-
teristic .had especial value in a debate in which
everything turned upon matters of fact and in which
so few facts were known. Nor is it possible to ex-
eine
wciaehasciornjs.it.4ration of the peculiar grounds under
policy
of aham came forward to vindicate the
ne had held Government.the Admiralty
He was a professed Liberal ;
under the Coalition Go-
vernment; and if Lordo Derby had now given way,
and anew Coalition
dvei%ment had been formed,
he might have dictate
father
thraateanning
moreover, the representative Own term. He was,
party in the
louse of? Commons to .whiceli:
dis-
tinctively belongs. It was
t7iilanomaly to
see the Whig leaders manifesting a
Nvlelix,,traa.nocirdi-
nary solicitude for one who was not
observe the Peelite leader offering this unbiassed
but uncompromising criticism on the Peelite pro-
consul in India !
What marks the speech of Sir James Graham
with its greatest force is the extreme clearness with
which he brought into view the disastrous differ-
ences of opinion subsiiting between the Governor
General and the military and civil authorities of