The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-24 00:00:00

There has been a temporary armistice between
contending parties in the House of Commons.
Yesterday was, comparatively speaking, a day of
rest, of which honourable gentlemen, of all grades
and varieties of political opinion, were only too
happy to avail themselves. A little repose was
indispensable. There were the clear and con-
vincing arguments of Lord STANLEY, and
the logical statements of Mr. HORSMAN, to
be attentively considered by the independent
Liberals. The latter so clearly pointed out the duty
of the party with which he has so consistently
identified himself that it ought to be decisive, and
to insure the passing of a Reform Bill within the
present session.. Then, on Tuesday, were the bril
liant orations of Sir E. BULWER LYTTON and Sir
HUGH M'CALMONT CAlRNS—orations that will be
duly appreciated by every disinterested and
unprejudiced person throughout the length and
breadth of the land. In the representative
branch of the Legislature there are private and
personal feelings in operation. Right Honourable
and Honourable Gentlemen have given in their
adhesion to some one of the quasi Liberal leaders.
One follows Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and will, under
any circumstances, support higpropositions whether
right or wrong—others pin their faith to Lord
PALMERSTON, duly appreciating the privileges of
the entree at Cambridge House, and the value of
enjoying and participating in the brilliant
entertainments of the noble viscount. Another,
and by no means an insignificant number, feel that
" political gratitude " which consists of a " lively
sense of favours to come." They are pining for
MHO, or for the valuable privilege of pitchforking
friends or relations into situations. But such are
not the sentiments either of the middle classes or
of the• hard-handed and sturdy operatives, who
only desire to earn a fair and honest subsistence
by their own exertions. They deprecate all
factious movements. They care not what
Party may be seated on the Ministerial benches,
provided that the honour, dignity, and safety
of the United Kingdom bo maintained intact,
and Provision made to promote the welfare,
happiness, and prosperity of the industrial
population. In none of these respects have
the present Government been found wanting, and
we believe that if a new appeal to the country
should be rendered necessary, by a majority in favour
of Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S motion, that the result
will occasion as much surprise to hon. gentlemen,
and as large an infusion of new blood into the
House of Commons, as that which occurred two years
since. It will be only another proof of how greatly
the wishes and feelings of the people are misunder-
stood by those whom they have selected as their
representatives.
The present bill unquestionably falls far short

of the national requirements; but it contains good 1
elements, which may easily be moulded into the
requisite form in committee. But what does Lord
Jour` RUSSELL offer in its place ? What are the
views of Lord PALMEE,STON ? We have no infor•
mation on these important points. They are merely
bidding for office—desirous of getting to what is
vulgarly but expressively termed " the sunny side
of the hedge," without binding themselves to any-
thing, or giving any pledge to the real Reformers
as to what may be anticipated should they again be
placed on the Ministerial benches.
We cannot tell what they propose to do, but a
correct estimate may be formed of what will be
left undone. They will oppose THE BALLOT with
all their power and all their strength ; they will
not do anything to suppress bribery, corruption,
or intimidation—to give protection to the voter in
the independent exercise of the franchise, and
enable him to act in the manner which in his soul
and conscience he believes to be right. That
principle is sneered at and derided, and yet
it is the very point on which the great
body of the people of England, more
especially those who will be enfranchised by any
measure that can be carried, have set their hearts.
Many are now deterred from calling for THE
BALLOT for the very same reasons that they are
prevented from voting for the candidate who would
best represent their wishes and political opinions,
by the dread of the consequences that must
inevitably follow to themselves and families.
On the one side the landlord may perse-
cute, on the other the employer threaten—the
most profitable customer may go to the rival
shop—or the " Bill Sykes " of the district
ominously lift his bludgeon with a very sinister ex-
pression of countenance. Even religious motives
may be pressed into the cause by the minister of
the place of worship of which the voter is a mem-
ber, and spiritual threats fulminated against the
man who dares to vote according to his own will.
These are matters which, although disregarded by
wealthy gentlemen, who can venture to vote openly
everywhere (but in their clubs), are still felt
deeply by those whose prospects and interests may
be materially affected. As we have repeatedly
stated, without THE BALLOT there can be no
settlement of the Reform Question !

This evening the discussion will be renewed,
and the more the subject is discussed, the better for
the country. Every admission on either side will be
valuable. It will bind the person by whom it is made
and also his followers. A true estimate of the real
state of the case will be promoted, and the various
constituencies enabled to judge how far their chosen
representatives are worthy of the confidence pre-
viously reposed in them. If the resolution be
carried, any measure of reform will be shelved
for the present session, and "in politics a lost op-
portunity does not always recur !" There are
always excuses to be found by persons unwilling
to carry out their professed objects, and the Whigs
have availed themselves of such pretexts for eight
years past.

It would almost seem as if the several parties
had changed sides. We find professing Liberals
energetically striving to throw out that which would
unquestionably be a large instalment of justice,
although not going to the full extent of their
wishes, while, on the other hand, those who have
hitherto repudiated any change are now willing to
meet in some degree the popular demand. The
matter cannot be satisfactorily arranged until both
parties have been compelled to bid against each
other, so far as the glittering prize for which they
are struggling will tempt them to go. Let the
second reading, then, be carried, and the bill fully
amended in committee, and something will be
obtained; if the resolution be carried, nothing will
be done, and those who vote with the majority
will have "lost the substance while grasping at the
shadow."

The History of Party in this country has,
throughout, been the History of the opposing ranks
of the Whigs and the Tories. Each of those great
parties, however, under their last leaders, has
suffered a total disruption : the Tories, under Sir'
ROBERT PEEL—after having been elaborately re-
organised under the title of Conservatives ; the
Whigs, under Lord JOAN RUSSELL—after having
taken to themselves the more vague and less dis-
tinctive title of Liberals. The scattering in the
former instance was a political necessity, recognised
as such by a conscientious and magnanimous states-
man, in the presence of one of the most terrible
famines upon record—one ingeniously described by
his chief political antagonist as a famine of the
ninth century in the midst of a population of the
nineteenth. In the presence of that dire calamity,
with the responsibility of guiding the vessel of the
State through the tempest, and off the lee shore,
Sir ROBERT aided the triumph of truth, even though
his so doing directly deprived him of his own
political supremacy. His course in this was mani-
festly dictated by the sublime principle—,fiat jus-
litia ruat ccrluin. He preferred voluntarily de-
scending from the height of power to maintaining
his position there at the cost of his own integrity.
Every selfish consideration impelled him to persist
in the course the maintenance of which he himself
had hitherto in error advocated. By yielding
honestly to the force of his new convictions, he
knew perfectly well that he must disband an array
of supporters such as no statesman had gathered un-
der his standard during half a century previously. Sir
ROBERT knew that as the immediate consequence
of this he lost office, with no prospect of ever re-
turning to it. He knew that some of the
intimate friends, that many of the personal asso-
ciates of past years would be thereby at once trans-
formed into violent and implacable antagonists.
He was perfectly well aware that his motive would
be liable to misconstruction, that his conduct would
be distorted in all probability by the most extrava-
gant misrepresentation, that when in reality he
was manifestly the reverse he would be charged
with the most glaring inconsistency. These were
the alarming circumstances under which the last
leader of the old Tory or new Conservative party
felt himself constrained to scatter it to the winds.
It was the great and powerful party chief proving
himself beyondthis—a true patriot. It was a Par-
liamentary CINCINNATUS resigning the rod of
the dictatorship, not to return to his farm,
but to remain in the councils of the nation at a
period of the most critical anxiety to accord the
lamentably aid of his advice to his hiseeoruinoatryofinhis
thenceforth, up to the p
premature demise—as the arbitrar of the destinies
at once of the Legislature and of the Administra-

Not thus has the Whig party been destroyed by 1
its latest leader, Lord JOHN RUSSELL. The dis-
ruption of that party has been effected by Lord
JOHN as an act of sheer necessity. The noble lord
in this has surpassed even the estimate formed of
his character by his friend SYDNEY SMITH, the
reverend and the wit. Events have proved that
Lord JOHN possessed a daring far beyond even the
attempting an operation for lithotomy. He has
destroyed a great political party without the
shadow of a reason. He has not only destroyed it,
but he has rendered the mere name of it a hissing,
and a scoff, and a derision. Remembering what the

Whig party has been, who have been its chiefs,'
what have been its achievements, all this is only
the more lamentable and incomprehensible. It is
most of all incomprehensible, bearing in mind that
with the dominion of that party were bound up the
dearest hopes and interests of the house of VIPONT
—we beg pardon, of the house of BEDFORD. No
boon, such as the triumph of the principles of Free
Trade, remains afterwards by way of compensation.
All is lost by it—nothing is gained. It is as
though, for no earthly cause whatever, a leader of
men had himself shorn the plume from his own
helmet, had broken his sword over his own head,
had lopped the spur from his own heel, instead of
leading the way to fresh victories. It is a course
the most perverse, the most insensate, the most
incomprehensible. That it is literally what has
been done of late years by Lord JOHN, as the last
leader of the Whigs, let one of the ablest adherents
of their cause relate in his own impressive
language. It was not idly that the right hon.
gentleman the late Secretary for Ireland spoke
thus on Monday evening :—" Was it not matter of
history that the great Whig party had never
prospered since 1846. Unhappy differences dealt
a deathblow to the Cabinet in 1851 ; humiliation
befell them in 1853 ; and a still heavier scourge
smote them in 1855, when the most illustrious of
their body separated from them to seek other sym-
pathies for the time, taking with him all the noblest
traditions and living renown of the party, and
leaving such a void behind ! In that material and
moral ruin of a great historic party the world saw
both a retribution and a moral. And did the plague
which smote the leaders spare the followers ? Why,
in what condition had they been ever since ? In
what condition as a party were they now ? Could
they justly be dignified with the title of a party ?
For the last twelve months they have been less a
party than a mob—without leaders, without union
or combination, without a common policy, principle,
or purpose. Why, they had exhibited the most
piteous spectacle—a spectacle of the utter disor-
ganization and the low estate to which a great party
might sink, never to rise again until it recognised
and dealt with the real cause of its calamities."
What Mr. HORSMAN thus forcibly avowed we all
know, only too painfully, to be strictly true. These
things are matter of history. We can only read
them and wonder. They are there only to all
, appearance as riddles, contrived for the purpose of
puzzling posterity—certainly without any con-
ceivable advantage gained for this or any other
generation.

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THE SUN.
THURSDAY. MARCH 24, 1859.