The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-16 00:00:00

contrary, it is acidulated with sarcasm where it is

not positively bitter with acrimony. Altogether, its
flavour, to our thinking, has the twang of true wit
and the:shrewdness of genuine sagacity. It cer-
tainly has a relish about it that we are none the
less disposed to acknowledge, where we cannot
deem it to be actually wholesome—where we have
somewhat of a suspicion even that it is calculated
in a slight degree to be deleterious. The poli-
tical article :we are :alluding to is the closing
paper in the current number of our true-blue quar-
terly contemporary. It is a production to which
we would earnestly direct attention as one consti-
tuting a graphic epitome of recent events in Par-
liament, calculated to afford a more vivid idea of
their general bearing and of their real signi-
ficance. The reviewer sets out in his argument
by remarking, as truthfully as picturesquely,
that " the tragic vicissitude which has overtaken
Lord PALMERSTON seems more in keeping with
the records of despotic, nay of oriental favouritism
and its sharp reverses, than with the more tranquil
and even movement of the fortunes of statesmen
under a well-balanced system of constitutional
Government." And having shortly afterwards
alluded to the circumstance that the Administra-
tion subsequently called into existence, the one now
presiding over the destinies of the empire, actually
and notoriously rules by a minority, the writer
adds that, nevertheless, " The Ministry of Lord
DERBY exists with pretty general approval and
with nearly universal acquiescence." Nay—it
having been already remarked by him in so many

words, that "at this moment the actual party o
the Government can hardly be said to exceed
two-fifths of the House of Commons," the re-
viewer thus happily analyses the proportions of
party in that popular assemblage. He says—
" Two fifths of the House of Commons, to begin
with, are fast friends of the Government. Two
more fifths, although not its fast friends, yet from
various motives are not prepared to concur in its
removal. Some, because they think it a better Go-
vernment than the one which preceded it. Others,
because they think it a better Government than
any which is likely to follow; Others again, be-
cause, though in mental vision they forecast some
form of Liberal restoration, yet they know
the time is not come. Others, because
they think the Minister, who took office to meet a
real public emergency, ought to have fair play.
And all these are taught by their common sense
that they ought not to distress a Government which
they are not prepared to remove. Thus it comes
about that with four-fifths of the House of Com-
mons the Administration is strong for every prac-
tical purpose : that it can rely on its allies as well
as well as on its native troops : that its miltia some-
times rival its regulars." The illustration will cer-
tainly be allowed to be very felicitous. It happily
enough adorns the romantic tale of our late Parlia-
mentary vicissitudes, the moral of which tale is
sagaciously pointedby the following congratulatory
-remark upon the result, as " honourable to a coun-
try where we see that party in politics is not always
blinded into faction." The independent section of
the Liberal party is said immediately afterwards
to have preferred—" to the eclat and the perquisites
which it might, had it been so minded, have
continued to enjoy in the train of a Minis-
ter "—" the dowerless poverty of honourable
opposition." Hereupon follows the elaborated epi-
taph already alluded to—the epitaph inscribed by
the Quarterly: over the tomb of a Cabinet which
says the reviewer, " will perhaps, after all, b.
chiefly remembered as the braggart or Bobadil
Administration." Its foreign policy was for the
most part its chief standing ground. Whereupon
thus wittily quoth the Quarterly, "It was once
said to be a policy of vigour tempered with concili-
ation : it is now seen to have been a policy of arro-
gance, dashed and variegated with timidity." It
is described as having lacked any definite powers of
comprehending the idea of "public right"—now
strikingly defined as " the keynote of harmony in the
march of States." Proving, it has been observed
by the writer, that the advantages which might
otherwise have accrued from the ex-Premier's
" great knowledge of one great department" were
in reality " more than neutralised by the spirit of
mingled turbulence and levity" carried by him into
the affairs of general administration. These peculi-
arities he is said to have transferred into them with
yet further effect through " the supple and unresist-
ing medium" of my Lord CLARENDON, th 3 then
Foreign Secretary. As a consequence of all which,
is is surely no wonder now to be reminded
that Lord PALMERSTON'S "two years of peace ad-
ministration were agitated by abundant quarrels
both of ink and blood." In proof of which it is not
alone to the imbroglio with Naples, or the anxiety
of our situation in regard to France and the French
alliance that reference is here made exclusively.
" The very same spirit," observes the Quarterly,
" which ruled in the matter of the imprisoned
engine-men and the WALEwsKi despatch, had been,
as we now all find, visibly enough at work before.
That spirit it was which, in 1855, peremptorily re-
fused to rule the questions of the Isle of Serpents
and the Bessarabian frontier otherwise than by
force, and made a demonstration of force accord-
ingly by sending the British fleet into the Black
Sea contrary to the treaty of Paris ; and which
then, upon the same state of facts, and
without any confession of error, allowed those
very questions to be submitted, as Russia had re-
quired, to the decision of a Conference. That same
spirit it was which, with the elaborate sophistry of
diplomacy, pushed America into extreme irritation
by frivolous claims to the possession of Ruatan and
by virtual dominion in the Mosquito territory ; but
which abandoned these pretensions wholesale, when
it was found that, as in the case of Naples, the
other party to the quarrel was at least more in
earnest than ourselves. That same spirit it was,
which by miserable quibbling, and by its under-
ground manoeuvres for the purpose of recruiting in
America contrary to law, brought down upon us
the insult of Sir JOHN CRAMPTON'S dismissal
with three or four. British consuls in
his train, and then took credit for its mag-
nanimity and forbearance in refusing the
challenge which its own misconduct had
provoked." Altogether, the system expressed in
the late Government is defined by the reviewer as
" a system which at home was favourable neither
to permanence nor to progress, and which abroad
united the dangers of violence with those of pol-
troonery." It is curious to remember, indeed, that
by a whimsical anti-climax the Cabinet, whose
chief claims to support were that it had brought about
peace, and that, in the meantime, peace was even-
tually d
avowedly
destroyed by a device emanating from those
who are
the advocates of the uncompro-
mising, fantastic, and utterly impracticable scheme
of Peace-at-any-Price—conscientious sticklers for
that most utopian of all political principles—they,
even they, would not consent to accept peace at
the price of a PALMFRSTON Government.

The Bank Charter Act has been unequivocally
condemned, not merely by the vast majority of the
experienced and intelligent witnesses who were
examined, but by almost every disinterested mem-
ber of the Committees of both branches of the
Legislature, and by the general sense of the entire