The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TimEs.—The questions, "Are they out ?" and " Will
they stop in ?" which have occupied the town since Satur-
day morning, will be definitely answered by Mr. Glad-
stone in his place in Parliament this evening. It is never
very pleasant to be turned out in the cold, and we cannot
be surprised if the Cabinet which sat during the pitiless
rain-storm of Saturday afternoon determined to remain
where they were, lest they should go further and fare
worse. Such, we believe, was the result of their delibe-
rations. The Ministry had won by a majority of five on a
division in which every possible vote was polled, and
though no condemnation of their plans of action could be
more unequivocal, it was not necessary to construe the
result as a peremptory notice to resign. Their manoeuvres
were reprobated, but they themselves wero encouraged to
remain in office. This would seem to be the Ministerial
interpretation of the vote of the house, and we cordially
approve it. We understand that Mr. Gladstone will this
evening explain the way in which the Government intend
to proceed so as to bring themselves into harmony with
Parliament. The bill for the Redistribution of Seats is
to be brought in and read for the first time on Monday
next. The Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill will
then be before Parliament as parts of one scheme. Though
at this period of the session an attempt to pass both must
seem far from hopeful, the Government are willing to believe
that their Redistribution Bill will meet many of the objec-
tions to which the Franchise Bill taken alone was exposed,
and that with some modifications a scheme can be arranged
which all parties will accept as a permanent settlement
of a troublesome question. The nation at large will not
bo disposed to quarrel with the resolution of the Govern-
ment. Their plans have been needlessly bad, and the mys-
tery which they made of their Redistribution Bill excited
apprehensions which a more frank mode of dealing with
the House of Commons would probably have immediately
allayed, but there has never been the faintest desire in the
country or in Parliament to substitute a Conservative for
a Liberal Ministry. The vote of Saturday morning ex-
plicitly condemned the attempt to evade discussion, and if
the Government accept the reproof the object of Lord
Grosvenor's Amendment will be secured. The honour of
the Administration is in their own hands, and no one will
question their judgment on the subjeet. It is the interest
of the Opposition as well as of the country that the present
Ministers should remain in office. The Reform question
must be settled, and it is not eery to believe that it could
be settled by a Conservative Government. If the Liberal
Ministry went out leaving the question of Reform unsolved,
it would become the one subject of agitation for many
years to come, and the next time the Liberals regained
office a Reform:scheme of much larger proportions than any
with which we have now to deal would be inevitable.
Whatever opinion may bo entertained of such a result, no
one can look forward to the prospect of the prolonged
struggle which would precede it without apprehension.
We have had enough of agitation. Unfounded as the cry
of injustice is, and contemptible as the sentimentalism
which has lately become the vogue may be, they provoke
ill-will, and might in time breed evil passions. It is de-
sirable that Reform should be disposed of, and disposed of
at once ; it can only be settled by a Liberal Ministry, and
it can only be satisfactorily settled by a Liberal Ministry
working in the face of a vigilant and powerful Opposition.
These are the first conditions under which the existence of
the present Government must be maintained, if it is to
be maintained at all.
HERALD.—In reply to the challenge which was thrown
down by Mr. Gladstone at Liverpool, the House of Com-
mons have given to the Government a reluctant majority
of five. Their utmost strength had been exerted ; their
whip had reached wherever a promise, a flattery, or a
threat could tell ; with an abundant and unscrupulous
exercise of power and patronage they have exhausted every
resource of cajolery and coercion ; and they have failed.
The House of Commons has refused their lead and repu-
diated their yoke. Tho country now waits for their deci-
sion, now that their policy has been, by the foremost
Liberals, no less than by the entire Conservative party, re-
jected and condemned. For we presume that not even
the most unabashed of Ministerial advocates will claim
the division of Saturday morning as a victory. There is,
in the first place, the notorious fact that a large number of
those who voted for the bill had spoken against it, and
menaced it with destruction in committee, and that others
were only persuaded to follow Mr. Brand by artifices inde-
scribably discreditable. But even apart from these con-
siderations, Ministers are bound by their own declarations
to abandon both the bill and their offices at once. Sir
Robert Peel once, in summing up the higher qualities of
statesmanship, avowed :that no public man could have a
tinge of greatness in his character who consented to retain
place after Parliament had denied him its confidence.
From the days of Pitt to his own a majority of less than
twenty in the House of Commons, on a large question of
national policy, was deemed equivalent to a vote of cen-
sure. But Lord Russell commands one of five in a house
of 636, from which only ten members were absent, the gap
being accounted for by the judgments of the election com-
mittees upon Liberal corruption. He has irretrievably
alienated the best supporters of his own party, who
have distinctly announced that they no longer recognise
in him their natural or adopted chieftain; and be-
sides, after dilating with so much emphasis on the value
of pledges, the Ministry cannot without self-degradation
unspeakable disavow those which were given by Mr.
Gladstone during his pilgrimage of agitation in Lanca-
shire. There, with out its being extorted or provoked from
him, he announced in language befitting the reckless ad-
vocate of a desperate cause, that he and his colleagues bac'
passed the narrow Rubicon, had destroyed the bridge, and
burnt the boats behind them—had cast the die, and were
resolved to stand or fall by the consequences. We are
under no obligation to carry the argument a single step
farther. Five votes cannot save Mr. Gladstone's Reform
Bill ; and if Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone think that by
any jugglery they can save the Cabinet, they will only be
opening for themselves the prospect of a more disgr acefu
fall.

DAILY NEWS.-It is useles to seek to interest the public
to-day in any other question than that which is to receive
its solution from Mr. Gladstone this evening. Ministers
have so openly and so purposely identified their continu-
ance in office with the success of their Reform measures,
that the public—who feel how important it is that the Go-
vernment of the country should not pass out of firm and
able guidance—are anxiously waiting to learn what view
the Cabinet will take of the situation created by the
division of Saturday morning, and the resolution
which it will form thereupon. This is a subject which
strongly tempts speculation; but although it might be pos-
sible to anticipate the actual result, it is not worth while
to form conjectures, however probable, as to what must
so soon become a matter of certainty. It may be more
profitable to take a survey of the general position in which
Ministers are placed, and to compare the several courses
which are open to them. It must be evident to every
reader of Mr. Gladstone's speech on Saturday morning
that he had anticipated the smallness of the actual majority
on Earl Grosvenor's Amendment, and that his words looked
beyond the division then impending. Every reader must
have received from that speech the impression that the
Government felt that it was engaged in a great work, called
for by the permanent interests of the country—a work,
therefore, for the sake of which it might become proper,
under certain circumstances, to dare much in reliance on
the sound sense, good feeling, and public spirit of the
country. When men are animated by this spirit many
considerations which in ordinary circumstances have
weight fall away of themselves and exercise no influence.
Ministers have undertaken to settle the question of Reform.
Not only their supporters, but the country, and we may
even say their opponents, exact it of them, and they are
bound not to recoil before small difficulties.

MORNING POST.—As was generally expected, the result
of the Reform division on Friday was to give a small ma-
jority to the Ministry. That it should have been as small

to it was did not, however, seem probable ; but at the last
moment three more Liberals went over to the Opposition,
and two Conservatives of the three whose votes had been
counted upon by the Ministry returned to their allegiance,
and further diminished the majority—already reduced
through the election committees by ten—to the very small
figure of five, at which it stood when the numbers were
proclaimed, and the Cabinet had to consider on Saturday
what course to take in the most embarrassing of all the
results the division could have had. It was thought by
many that a very narrow majority would be accepted as a
clear indication of the insecure hold the Ministry has on
the confidence of the house, and as evidence of the impos-
sibility of carrying the bill, especially when flanked by the
Redistribution Bill, through committee, and it was thought
probable that such a majority would be followed by the
resignation of the. Cabinet, or at any rate by the secession
of some of its members. We are, however, able to state
that the result of the Cabinet Council held on Saturday is
that the Ministry have resolved neither to resign nor to
abandon their bill, and that no member of the Cabinet will
secede from its ranks in consequence. That there will
bo some surprise felt when Mr. Gladstone indicates, this
evening, the course which has been decided upon, is more
than probable, and the ultimate result, whether as regards
the fate of the Ministry itself or of the bill to which they
have expressly linked their fate, is, to say the least, doubt-
ful ; but, as a present move, it is probably the wisest they
could have made.

ADVERTISER.-But what will follow, whether resigna-
tion comes now, or ten or twelve days hence ? That is a
difficult question to answer. We may conjecture what
the course of things will be, but it can only be conjecture.
All is uncertain. What we should deem the first step most
likely to be taken by Earl Russell would be to advise her
Majesty to send for Lord Derby to _consult him as to what
ought to be done in the important crisis which has oc-
curred. The constitutional course is for the Sovereign to
send for the party who has been the means of overthrow-
ing the Government, to command him to construct a now
Cabinet in the room of that which has been destroyed.
But the present is an exceptional case. Lord Grosvenor
is not a man of sufficient mark to justify Earl Russell in
advising her Majesty to send for him to form a new Ad--
ministration. Besides, it is plain to every intelligent per-
son—indeed it is not anywhere denied—that Lord Grosve-
nor wks but an instrument in the hands of the Conserva-
tive party of upsetting the Russell Administration. That
Administration has been broken up through the votes of

the Conservatives as a body comparatively few of
who range themselves—which Lord Grosvenor himself
does—under the banner of Liberalism, haying voted against
the measure. The virtual defeat, therefore, which Ministers
have sustained being brought about by the Tories as 3.
party, and Lord Derby the only acknowledged head of
that party, we see no other course open to Earl Russell
But
but to advise her Majesty to send for Lord Derby.
will the noble earl undertake, in obedience to her Majesty's
commands, to form a new Administration ? We do not
believe h© will. those
h h
SATURDAY REVIEW.—If we look to the mode in R
Parliament has been treated, the House of Commons 1,95 5
right to complain bitterly. The very case set up by the,
Government was that the house was not to be trusted, and
that it was proposed to make men vote for the two halve.wh
separately who would never have voted for the
u?? g
There is something, too, exceedingly irritating in a yo
member of the Cabinet like Mr. Goschen being comie"
sinned to explain coolly to the house that a trap had bee°
set for wavering members, that the Government was goili.g
to cajole them, and that the Government was quite cern°
of cajoling them, although the mode of deception was
revealed to them beforehand. It is natural that men 4),1
honour and self-respect should resent all this bitterly, an
that some at least of their number should prefer to which
der what is due to themselves, and to the body to
they belong, rather than to the claims of party.
OBSERVER.—What will be the result of this nab
majority upon the bill itself, or the Government by wh°lra
it was introduced, will be made known on Monday, as the
Chancellor of the Exchequer gave formal notice of his
tention then to move that the house go into committee on,
°'
the bill, when he will, no doubt, take the opportunity
explaining the course which the Government Will 120
decided upon adopting.