The Sun.
London, England, 1866-06-29 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 1866.

It is a severe test of the practical valuo and
utility of anything to be compelled to dispense with

it for a time, and it occasionally happens that our
estimate of it is considerably increased or diminished

by such an interval.

We have now an interregnum

of unusual length with respect to nothing less than
our central Executive, and England is making the

experiment how she can do without a Ministry.
Mr. OSBORNE, at all events, thinks this a great
grievance, and the leisure it has afforded him has
been devoted to a careful analysis of the position of
the Government. the forbearance of Parliament he

thinks highly commendable, but the survey which
he takes of the general aspect of public affairs alarms
him considerably. At home, we have a commercial
and financial panic; abroad, we have revolution in
Spain, war in Italy, and war iii Germany, besides a
threatened attack on one of our colonies. Was the
House of Commons, he ask; elected to sit quietly
through such a state of things? Yet we have been a
week without a Government, and are to have
another eight days' interval. The result of his
cogitations is that he declares that Lord RUSSELL'S
Cabinet is much to blame for the resignation
which has produced the hiatus. The great
Liberal party, he avers, have been left in the
lurch by their leaders ; and though, with his
accustomed mixture of frankness and humour, Mr.
OSBORNE plainly confessed that he thought a tem-
porary occupation of the Opposition benches would
be a very good thing for them—he declares his
conviction that the transit is perfectly unnecessary.
The 44 gentlemen who went over to the enemy on
the question of rating versus rental were, he main-
tains, good supporters of the Government, and
would have stood by them on any question of con-
fidence. " Here we have," exclaimed Mr. OSBORNE,
" a very strong Liberal party—an overrated party
as to its majority, I have no doubt, but still
with such a majority that the Government might
have had at any time, if they had liked, a vote of
confidence." But..the fact is that, however strong
numerically and by reputation, the Liberal party is
not very strong, and has not been for a good many
sessions past, because a great part of its members
are insincere in their professions and disunited in
their actions. There is not much of that hearty
advocacy of a measure, those strong political
convictions which supersede all questions of
party interest or personal aggrandisement.
A kind of political cant has prevailed
to a great extent, of which Reform and
the working man are the two main features ; but if
we submit their encomiasts to the test of practice,
we find that any alteration likely to imperil their
seats is very unwelcome, and that the interests of
the working man are of more consequence on the
hustings than anywhere else. It is very easy to
blame the Government for resigning, but they had
driven an unwilling House as far as it would go,
and, like a restive horse, the time had come when it
was necessary to abandon the attempt or accept a
dismissal. It is very IA ell to talk about a question
of detail, but it was the last feather on the camel's
back ; and certainly the House cannot complain of
being taken by surprise, since Mr. GLADSTONE inti-
mated plainly enough that he would not accept
the substitution of the rating qualification for the
rental. No more confidence would have been placed
in his public declarations if he had failed to abide
by the alternative which he had himself proposed,
and if Mr. OSBORNE complains of a fortnight's de-
lay in the formation of a Ministry, what would he
have said of
othe six weeks' interregnum of a dissolu-
tion ? Mr. OSBORNE laments the wasted session,
but, judging from the progress hitherto made with
the Reform Bill, it would not have been much else
thehifeisprepared, iNrienisatrre,
ydhad retained office. At all events,
partly from consideration of the
troubled state of affairs abroad and at home, and
partly from wrath with his natural leaders, to give
any Government that comes in a fair trial and a
fair hearing. The House generally, he thinks, is
hound to withhold all factious opposition during
the remainder of the session ; and he observed, with
his accustomed shrewdness, that there was little
reason to fear for the progress of Liberal opinions, for
whatever Government might sit at the right hand
of the Speaker, it mast produce Liberal measures.
Such is the real state of the case, and, if we may
judge from the rumours already current as to Lord
DERBY'S intentions, the Premier elect himself is
fully sensible of it. Mr. GLADSTONE, in a brief
speech, thanked the House for their indulgence,
and defended himself and his colleagues from the
reproaches
of his independent supporter. A mat-
terof form prevents the regular adjournment
of the House till Thursday next, as was originally
intended, but all public business virtually stands
over until hon. members can be officially informed
under which King they are to fight, and the Whigs
and Radicals have passed into the once familiar
but always unwelcome shade of the Opposition