The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-09 00:00:00

that "he had the liveliest desire, when the diffe-
rences with Portugal relative to the Charles-Georges
had termi►iated, that the question of the engage-
ment of free labourers on the African coast should
be definitively examined and finally settled on the
truest principles of humanity and justice."
It will be seen that he has postponed the claims
of "humanity and justice" to the termination and
satisfactory arrangement of the Portuguese diffi-
culty. While there was the slightest point deroga-
tory to what may be termed his " dignity," his
" vanity," or his self-esteem, he cared nothing for
the interests of humanity, of Europe, or even of
France, with which he was more immediately
concerned, but the preliminary point being
disposed of he could enter on the remainder of
the question with an easy mind and safe
conscience.

He now confesses that, as to the principle of the
engagement of the negroes, his ideas are far from
being settled—emphatically adding, " If, in truth,
labourers recruited on the African coast are not
allowed the exercise of their free will, and if
this enrolment is only the slave trade in disguise,
I will have it on no terms; for it is not I who will
anywhere protect enterprises contrary to humanity
and to civilisation."
This is a noble declaration, sufficient to cover a
multitude of sins. It atones for every previous
error, and places the EMPEROR once more in a
right position. It would have been more satisfac-
tory if, haling once seen the mistake into which he
had been betrayed, he had completely rectified it ;
but we shall trust to his magnanimity to render
complete justice to Portugal eventually.
The most complete proof of his sincerity, how-
ever, is the desire "to resume with the Eng-
lish Government the negotiations which
were entered on a few months ago." This
is a graceful act, and we cordially
render to the EMPEROR all the credit to which he
is so justly entitled in consequence. It is an addi-
tional illustration of the truth of the doctrine, that
now frequently we
" Pluck from the nettle danger the flower safety."

Mr. BRIGHT has not gained much, we fancy, in
the way of repute by his recent oratorical displays
at Birmingham. In everything—saving in regard
to the question of Parliamentary Reform—it is not
too much to say, he went directly counter to popu-
lar opinion. Even when endeavouring to repudiate

the notion of his being un-English and anti-
national, he only contrived to prove himself more
and more clearly to be both one and the other.
Instead of suggesting wholesome and rational eco-
nomy, he propounded doctrines such as, if carried

out at Whitehall, would transform the Chancellor
of the Exchequer's premises in Downing-street into
an elaborated establishment for the skinning of
flints and the paring of cheeses. Never, we be-
lieve, were any sentiments ever enunciated by an
eminent public man more diametrically opposed to
the genius of the nation than those recently ex-
pressed by the hon. member for Birmingham. It
has often been said, no doubt, that an Englishman
dearly loves a lord; and that in these islands, more-

over, there has long been flourishing a baneful sys-
tem, scornfully dubbed by the chief among our living
satirists (men like CARLYLE and TIIACKEIUY)
flunkeyism and snobbishness. We don't believe,
for our own part, in the universality of this moral
stain or social taint among us as a people. The im•

putation is, to our thinking, nothing but a libe'
upon the general multitude. It is rife among cer-
tain classes, no doubt, as in every other population
of Christendom, but that those classes even predo-
minate in England we simply deny as an extrava-
gance. And therefore it certainly does appear to
us to be nothing less than a gratuitous piece of im-
pertinence when any man in a great public assem-
bly rises for the purpose of inaugurating (in the
outraged name of principle) theomost vulgar of all
class movements—a movement against the aristo-
cracy. Hitherto we have assuredly imagined that
our constitution was essentially a mixed constitu-
tion. It has appeared tons that that very blending in
it of different elements constituted its strength and
excellence. This, according to our view of'things,
has been above all the distinguishing characteristic
throughout the whole of our national annals, dating
from our modern Parliament back to our ancient
Wittenagemote. Precisely the same political truths
in this way have been stamped upon our annals,
though in different characters,"century after cen-
tury, generation after generation—whether it were
the Micklc Synoth or the House of Commons—
thanes and ealdormen or the five orders
of the nobility—the princes of the heptarchy
or the one constitutional Sovereign. It is
merely the same thing by a different name
—the apparently contrasting identity of six
and half-a-dozen—whether we speak of the popular
assembly as it was when it consisted of the repre-
sentatives of the ceorls and the borsholders, or as it
is nowadays, when it consists of the representatives
of yeomen, burghers, and potwallopers. Monarch,
nobles, people -- king, lords, and commons—the
same story is.told from the time when on the death
of BRIHTRIC, EGBERT returned to seize the sceptre
of Britain, after his three years' exile at the Court
of CHARLEMAGNE. Even during the so-called in-
terregnum of the Commonwealth it was the same
intrinsically. Then—as before, and as since—there
were the two houses of Parliament. There was the
House of Commons, and there was—" the other
house !" The Upper House being no more called
the House of Lords under CROMWELL than it is so
termed nowadays in the debates of the House of
COmmens. During the Commonwealth, therefore,
we repeat, even during the Commonwealth there
were the same elements of the constitution as there
had been before, as there were to be afterwards.
There were the two houses of Parliament—the
House of Commons and " the other House"—and
in lieu of the Crowned and Anointed King there
was his Highness OLIVER CROMWELL, the Lord
Protector. And " Long live his Highness ; God
save the Lord Protector," shouted the spectators in
Westminster Hall on the 26th of June, 1657—as
OLIVER sat there in a magnificent chair of state,
robed in a purple mantle lined with ermine, hold-
ing a sceptre of massive gold in his hand ! There
on one side of his Highness the Lord Protector,
stood the Lord Mayor, with the sword of the city
—and on the other the Earl of 'WARWICK, with
the sword of the Commonwealth. With different
names, pageants, and costumes, it is the same story
constantly throughout. So that when Mr.BRIGHT has
declaimed with such vulgar zeal against the House
of Peers and the Orders of Nobility, he is not only
himself un-English and anti-national, but his ideas,
his arguments, and his principles are simply un-
constitutional. Beyond all which, moreover, the
member for Birmingham articulates rather incon-
gruously
a complaint against the supposed exclu-
siveness of the House of Lords when he says that
as distinctly as at the entrance to the Parks there is
the announcement "No dogs are allowed to enter"
—so at the door of " the other House" there is vir-
tually the positive intimation "No traders are
allowed to enter." Nothing less than ignorance
of the gravest kind could speak of the House of
I'eers in this way, as the palace of an excuLive oli-
garchy. Why, in the House of Lords there are
scarcely a dozen peers who can trace back their an