The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-13 00:00:00

THE NEW MINISTRY.

Whatever may be the personal composition of the
Ministry about to be formed, the country will look
rather to the principles which are to be asserted in
its formation than to the success of elaborate attempts
to combine hitherto discordant ingredients in nicely
balanced proportions. We are not disposed to join
in the hypocritical litany wherein personal feelings
and preferences are set down among the political
plagues from which the spirit of patriotism is
prayed to deliver us. We should be very sorry to
see the day when, under the plea of unselfishness,
any set of men would find it reputable to unite with
any other for the mere sake of office. On the con-
trary, we in finitely prefer the self-respectful
temper in public men that leads them to weigh
well the consequences of entering into intimate
combinations with others from whom they have pre-
viously differed on important matters of opinion;
and if, after calm reflection, the recurrence of such
differences seems probable, we own that we respect
the men all the more if on such grounds they dis.
interestedly decline the distinction of eminent
trust and station. To the vigour of administra-
tion, unity of main purpose and cohesion of
elements where the strain is most likely to come,
are essential. It is the absence of these
characteristics that renders coalitions so objec-
tionable. But combinations of men of different
classes and different antecedents holding substan-
tially the same opinions, and swayed habitually by
similar party feelings,. are not to be confounded
with coalitions to clutch at power in common, with-
out the possibility of
using it for any common ob-
ject. Fellow-travellers who have assembled for
their journey by convergent paths may get on to-
gether very well ; but no wisdom of man can assign
a useful end to the packing of a number of gentle-
men into the same Cabinet if beforehand they can-
not agree as to the way they want to go. Let this
obvious truth be borne in mind when we hear, as
we May possibly hear within the present week, of
office having been offered to men who may decline
it on the score of incompatibility of views. We
quite admit that the incompatibility ought to be

plain and broad, and thatmen who have borne a
share in the overthrow of an existing. Government
are bound to do their best to secure a better for the
country in its stead. All we mean to insist on is
that they may do- so more effectually by waiving
claims of personal ambition than by rashly waiving
repugnances of sentiment on vital questions. _
This is one side of the matter ; but there is an-
other. Those who may be entrusted with the task
of forming a Ministry have a perfect right to seek
for homogeneity of opinion in the selection of
materials to compose it. If they narrow their test
of conformity within certain bounds, they are soon
likely to pay the penalty of their intolerance and
folly, and they may be safely left the liberty of
doing so at their peril. But as between• men of
different classes,- they have
_no right to hesitate.
The prestige of class exclusion is dead ; the once
haughty privilege of birth and wealth is no more.
What used to bo the exercise of a time-honoured
prerogative of social rank, if now to be revived,
would be 'rejected and spurned as a fraudulent
usurpation. The nation has got beyond that, and
will consent to Tirley about it no more. The aris-
tocratic jealousies of government have been
taken off their hinges, and sent to be broken up
for historic firewood.- We don't envy the impudent
meddler who would try to set them up again. We
will have no more of the darkening and deadening
system. The country has "niade up its mind to the
representative principle in the cemposition of the
Executive as Well as in the Legislature. It does not
profess to dictate as to individuals; but it will insist
upon all daises being treated as alike eligible, and
all pursuits being treated as equally entitled
to have its foremost men admitted to theoouncils of
the Crown, provided they arc qualified by ability,
eultivation, and worth. To the credit of Lord
Derby it will ever be remembered that in this re-.
spect he showed-from the outset a desire to comply
with the national will. His cabinet had othe

grievous faults, tut exclusiveness was not one o:

them ; and it is a tribute to its memory we cheer-
fully pay when we say that throughout all the
departments the same spirit of fair play to plebeian
talent and character was strikingly manifested.
We will, moreover, add our persuasion that to this
_

circumstance in no small degree was owing the
forbearance long shown to the late Governinent on
many trying occasions, and the degree of support
it obtained so far as was possible from the press.
Be that as it may, however, the precedent has. now
been fully and fairly set ; the principle of progress
has, in this essential requisite of constitutional life,
been thoroughly established ; and no administra-
tion has henceforth a chance of prolonged existence
that does not largely and liberally recognise it.
The positive pledges given by the Whig chiefs,
at the public meeting of the Liberal party recently
held at Willis's Rooms, leave no room to doubt their
personal disposition in this all-important matter.
But he can know little of political history who
overlooks the difficulties and temptations that beset
men who are called upon to form a Governinent.
From the hour they receive the command of her
Majesty to undertake the task until in all its de-
tails it is known -to be completed, they are besieged
by applicants of high degree and low -capacity,
insatiable of public profit on which they have been
bred to gorge, and sycophants of rank and intriguers
of quality, all wanting something, either title,
place, or preferment, and each possessing, or fancy-
ing he possesses, more or less of the hereditary
means of showing resentment if his opportunity
be hitheeded. Amid the clamour of these noble
cormorants the claim of worthier pretensions is
liable to be forgotten, because it is comparatively
seldom heard. But the eminent statesmen, who,
in. the present case, are consulted by the Sove-
reign as to the constitution of a new Executive,
will comprehend the necessities of the situation

and prove themselves superior to old prejudices and
new embarrassments. They will, we trust, snow
that, while their foreign and domestic policy is more
in unison with the wishes of the nation than that

of their predecessors, their sense of administrative
justice and equality is not less so. They will
neither submit, letus hope, to be worried nor flattered
into shipping an incompetent crew. They will make
nominations to office their first appeal to the judg-
ment of the country ; and. if these nominations shall
be found to contain the fair proportion of middle-
class intelligence, energy, and experience, which the
highly developed condition ofthose classes naturally
demands, they will have opened their campaign
successfully. They will disdain all shirking of the
principle we have been contending for. If

health, pre-occupation, peculiarity oi views, or

any other circumstance, prevents this .nan or that

from accepting office, in;tread of treating it as so

much additional prey unexpectedly regained for
the harpies of exclusion, they will gladly find in it
the opportunity of proving the sincerity of their

conversion to Popular right by offering it to some
other, though possibly less prominent, man of com-
merce, science, or letters. We can never consent to
listen to the insulting pretence that such men are
not to be found. They are always to be found when

they are sincerely sought for; and the community
that has achieved in arts and arms what ours has
done, will no longer submit to be questioned as to
its abundant competency to govern itself.—Daily
News.