The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-11 00:00:00

VHE CRETAN INSURRECTION.

Mr. GREGORY asked the Secretary for Foreign Affairs
when the papers he had moved for on this subject would
be laid on the table ?

Lord STANLEY said he had placed them there not
ten minutes since. (Laughter.)

THE REFOR QUESTIO q.

[A glance first of all, however, at the actual state
of the political situation just in regard to the whole
Reform question as it now stands before Parlia-
ment. If ever, to use Napoleon's'phrase, " the pear
was ripe," it is ripe now. The Leader of the House of
Commons, one might say, has only to stretch forth
his band and gather it. And what is more, every-
body wants it gathered.

People are getting sick to death of the
whole subject. As Mr. Gladstone said only
the other night, it stops the way. We all want
it cleared out of the way and shall be grateful to
the man who may have the privilege, or luck, or
skill (call it what you please), of so clearing it away.
Both in the llouse, and out of the House, there is
a general, an universal longing to have it fairly
grappled with as a difficulty, and to have it so dealt
with at last that—at any rate for a long while to
come—we shall be well rid of it. And, certainly,
if there was ever a reasonable prospect of its being
thus vigorously taken in hand and dealt with, that
prospect, one would think, is now immediately before
us.

During the last few years we have had—one after
another—how many bran new Reform Bills? Well,
to say nothing of the last Derby-Disraeli Reform
Bill, which was smothered and hustled out of the
way at the moment of its birth, we have had three
purely Russell Reform Bills, as well as a sort of a
Whig composite supplementary Reform Bill, or
cluster of Reform Bills thrown in to boot. It is
almost like an echo of the incantation scenein Mac-
beth :

" Thrice the brindled cat bath mewed,
Thrice and once the hedgehog whin'd ;
Harper* cries, 'tis time, 'tie time!"
1. Mr. Bright—let us suggest—who is perpetually harp-
ing on the subject.]

And now comes the sixth Reform Bill, or at any,
rate the sixth proposition to have a Reform Bill in-
troduced, with a view to its being consolidated
into a substantial enactment.

Preparatory to the Ministerial statement of
to-night—there has been within the last few weeks
issued from the press a whole mass of what might
be called Reform literature. One eminent
publishing firm has laid before the public, in a col-
lected form, the entire series of the Reform
Speeches of Mr. Disraeli. Another has given to
the world, in the same way, those of Mr.
Gladstone. Another, those of Mr. Lowe.
Another, the fourth, and the last, and not by
any means the least, those delivered in the House
and out of it, hither and thither, all over the country
by the Boanerges among all living champions of
Reform, the hon. member for Birmingham. it was
only a year or so back, moreover, that Mr. Moles-
worth gave, in an interesting and valuable
volume, a historical resume of the First Parlia-
mentary Reform Bill of all, the only ono as yet
actually formed into a law, the Reform Bill of Earl
Grey, as the ex-Prime Minister, no doubt would
fain have it called, if he could, the Reform Bill of
Lord John Russell.

Whatever may come of the new endeavour
which is adventured upon this evening by the
Ministers of the Crown with a view to the set-
tlement, if possible, in right down earnest of
the whole complex question of Parliamentary.
Reform, so far as it can be dealt with comprehen-
sively at one sweep by the Imperial Legislature,
there is a very wide-spread sense that the statesman
upon whom it devolves this evening to open up the
question anew in the House of Commons is one who
has obtained as perfect a mastery of his subject as
any man in either House of Parliament. And it
is'the consciousness of this which has imparted
such peculiar interest to the statement looked for
from his lips this evening.

For many years no Ministerial statement has
been looked for with such keen and lively expecta-
tion. Not once, perhaps, ever since the famous
night, now more than a good round score of years
ago, when Sir Robert Peel made his memorable
speech announcing the abrogation of
,the Corn
Laws.]