The Sun.
London, England, 1858-05-26 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY E V ENING,

some clue will be got towards the apprehension of the
party or parties to the foul deed."
THE LATE EXECUTION IN NENAGIL
A correspondent of the Daily Express of this day
puts forward the following statement :
"A paragraph from the Dublin Evening Post to the'
Effect that Burke, one of the witnesses in the case against
the Cormacks, was arrested in Liverpool for perjury,
having caused a good deal of sensation, and added an
unpleasant degree of importance to a subject which has
been freely canvassed since the execution of the Con
macks—namely, their innocence—l have learned the
facts connected with the rumour. Burke was some days
since transmitted from Nenagh, and on his way to Dub-
lin stated in conversation that he gave his evidence under
coercion, and that he knew nothing whatsoever of the
transaction, and swore to prevent his being detainedin
custody. The matter was reported to the Inspector-
General of Constabulary, who caused Burke to be brought
back to Dublin, and the police-constables who escorted
him from Nenagh were also ordered to attend there to
be examined. After a full investigation before the au-
thorities in Dublin, the statement of Burke was found to
113 groundless, or rather given with a view to stand well
with the people, and he was discharged. A strong feel-
ing exists against the jurors who tried the case. Their
names are circulated all through the North Riding of
the county of Tipperary ; and numbers of that body,
who hitherto were highly popular with the people, are
now spoken of w;th opprobrium, and the most absurd
stories are told connected with their finding of the ver-
dict Even persons who were not on the jury, but who
were said to be of the number, have already experienced
most disagreeable results, which it would not be proper
to publish ; but it is an undoubted fact that the morbid
sympathy with the unfortunate men who lately suffered
the last penalty of the law has reacted upon a class of
men who have faithfully and fearlessly at all times dis-
charged their duties to themselves and to the country."

THE CAMBRIDGE HOUSE CONSPIRACY.

(From, the Daily News.)
We hear on all sides of the great political " dead-
lock." Parties can't be kept together ; majorities
won't work. Powerful and popular Ministers sud-
denly find themselves denuded of support. There
are no effective rallying cries. The Whigs are in-
dignant. The Coteries are puzzled. The Solons
of St. James's-street and Pall-mall sit owl-like in
solemn conclave, peering out blankly into the chaos.
All kinds of devices are tried and found wanting.
Cambridge House, according to John Bright, has
attempted a Government by evening parties, but
this, too, would appear to have failed like the rest.
What does it all mean, and where is it to end ?
are questions asked on all sides, without meeting
with any very satisfactory answer.
It is no doubt high time that some answer should
be given—that some serious and earnest attempts
should be made to ascertain the nature, the causes,
and the remedies of a political condition so anoma-
lous and perplexing. Suppose, instead of asking
incessantly where it is all to end, we began by try-
ing to find out how it all began. What are the
causes of that political indifference and stagnation
which have for a time suspended the regular and
animated working of our Parliamentary system !
The inquiry is not an abstruse one—the solution of
the problem requires no deep reach of philosophy.
It needs little more than ordinary attention to the
plain meaning of one or two phrases which are so
often on our tongues that they are scarcely ever in
our thoughts. All political parties, by universal
admission, are substantially reduced to two—the
Liberal and the Conservative ; the party of Pro-
gress and the party of the Status in quo. There
is no avowedly Retrogade party in Parliament ;
there is no avowedly Destructive party ; there
are none who would go back ; none who would
pull down. The desire to keep things as they are,
either more or less absolutely, is the characteristic
principle of the Conservatives. The desire to
move onwards, either more or less rapidly, is the
characteristic principle of the Liberals. Now it
is quite conceivable that a period should arrive
when, from the absence on the Liberal side of any
vigorous impulse to advance, and on the Conser-
vative side, of any rooted aversion to c:iange, the
mass of Parliamentary or active politicians ranged
under the opposite denominations of Liberal and
Conservative should he distinguishable rather iu
name than in reality. A period like the present—
a period;whieh has succeeded to the great middle-
class Revolution of 1832 without participating in
its active enthusiasm or its turbulent excitement—
a period of widely diffused information and of
varied experience, which has witnessed, on one
hand, the dissipation of so many eleutheromaniac
dreams, and, on the other, the utter futility of so
much stubborn resistance to institutional change—
such a period as this is naturally distinguished by
the presence of political eclecticism and the absence
of party zeal. It is well if it be not also leavened
with the scepticism to which all public objects are
alike indifferent, and the cynicism to which all
public virtue seems a delusion, and a lie. In free
constitutions these epochs of political languor are
not without their peculiar dangers. Without the
animating stimulus derived either from grand ob-
jects of pursuit or conscientious principles of. resis-
tance, the business of politics is too apt to degene
rate into a sterile conflict for place and power—the
faction-fights of retainers for their chiefs, not the
struggle of parties for their cause. What, life can
there be in a Party of Progress which has ceased
to be progressive, or in a Party of Resistance
which has nothing to resist 1 The result is what
we see—uncertainty, embarrassment, disorgauis e-
tion—in a word, the dead-lock.
Now, in the middle of the eighteenth century--
in the days of the Walpoles and the Pelhams, when
the State was a virtual aristocracy, the middle
class a political-nonentity, and the "great order"
of the peasantry and handicraftsmen but a dumb
multitude—this state of political equipoise was
natural enough. Where the people had 110 voice,
progress no organ, and resistance no object, the
problem for politicians was well understood to be
seduced to a simple question of dexterously divi-
ding the spoils of office. To extend connexions, to
secure votes, to get and keep place, and to let things
in general pretty much alone, was almost the
whole science of politics with statesmen of the
Bubb Doddingtou type. It is different now. In.
1832 a new power entered into the domain of legis-
lation ; the artificial barriers were removed ; and
since then the stream of progress has flowed inces-
santly onward, varying in its speed, but uniform in
its tendency. The rush of waters that followed the
Reform Bill, the angry rapids that swept away the
Corn Laws, have been followed for a time by the
tranquil lapse of a broader and more languid
stream. But it is movement still. It is not stag-
nation • it is not equipoise. The dead-lock is not
in the Nation ;itis in the politicians—it is in those
who fail to comprehend its tendency, to represent
its wishes; to enter into its spirit. Those who
would sway a people must rise to the level of is
destinies, must discern before they can lead, and
be wise before they can be powerful. Above all, if
they aspire to head the palter of Progress, they mast
renew their youth with the spirit of the class in
which Progress is most vital.
The classes whom the Reform Bill enfranchised
are not the whole of the Nation. Ten-pound
householders are much, but they are not all. Above
and beside the electsrel qualification of 1832 there
are numbers—below it, there are multitudes tho-
roughly competent and honourably eager for the
full exercise of the active duties of citizenship. A
wide extension of the suffrage, accompanied by
that protection of secret voting without which it
will be to thousands a burden in the guise of a
birthright, is a concession not only to the just
claims of the People, but to the future prospects of
progressive legislation, which the party calling itself
Liberal—assuming to act on the principles of pro-
gress-esshas been suicidal in so long deferring. If it
is to be said that the country does not in truth
desire suck a measure—if the middle classes an
content with what they acquired in '1832, and the
unrepresented class have no craving for their rights
—then, of course, the present position of Parties
adequately
represents the present position of the
Nation. if this be so the dead lock is the only
and Progr
cry
lknow bes t suite
that
possible condition of politics, and "Lord Palmer-
stonaanudt the
we
a
lessive Improvement" are the man
nation.. eavnednththeetvimerey.
thislt
htn th
e tsoi sn o
House of Commons
at, under the influence of
popular bewilderment,
support this man
away from both. The country
snore earnest than Lord P I
and
awtashi elected a year ago to
I
cry, has already fallen
wants some leader
a tnerston come cry more
definite than Progressive Improvement. What. the
cry is, no Liberal ens doubt, Secret Vol-in,
Household and Educational Suffrage,, „,
express with
sufficient accuracy the most imminent political
needs of the time. Who is to be the leader? The
person may principle be contingent, but the p • • le -
p 1:4
clear : it will, it can only be that statesman, or
that order of statesmen, who shall show mo -t
promptness in adopting, and most earne,t-
-11033 in prometin,,
e the only adequate meaus
for re.cuing Party fr•im its present dead-lock, and
ip nint, up before the English p, °plc a new I,it 1
broad path of sec i ri emelt-ration, politictlprogress
and constitutional self-de velopalent.

(Prom the Morning Herald )
The battle has been fought and, the victory is
won, what are to be its fruits I Though Lord EUen-
borough has resigned office the doctrines he has
enunciated will live and survive all the politician 4
who have mingled in ihe recent strife. Those doc-
trines are the fruits of the victory. "We desire,"
sail his lordship, "to see British authority in India
rest upon the willing, obedience of a contented
people : there cannot be contentment where there
is general confiscation. Government .cannot long
be maintained by any force in a country where the
whole
people is rendered ho ,tile by a sense of
w
rong ,• and if it were possible so to maintain it,
It Would not be. a consummation to be desired.'