The Sun.
London, England, 1835-04-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The mere repetition of the names of the members of
Cabinet will convince the country that the new Admi-
nistration does not contain the talent or the principle
Which ought to entitle it to public confidence. It is,
in fact, but a re-instatement of the rump of the Grey
Cabinet, with the only man of 'superior ability which
it contained excluded--we mean Lord Brougham, who,
though his talents are 'not exactly those of a statesman,
has achieved distinction as a debater, while not one-of
the members of the present Cabinet has, in that or any
other walk of public exertion, soared above mediocrity,
if we except Lord Holland. Even he, who, with a
suirit kindred to that of Fox, used to make the Senate
resound with the impassioned thoughts and generous
sentiments of a constitutional orator—equally hostile to
despots and democrats—has long since sunk into mute
indolence and contented obscurity. Over his intellect
the poppy influence of place has diffused its narcotic
effects. He has resigned himself to a sinecure and si-
lence. Ever since he stepped into the easy chair of
the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, which
the Whigs were -at one time so anxious to have
abolished, the classic eloquence of his patriotism
has lost its voice. From the moment that the
destinies of Europe were delivered up to the tu-
telary protection of Lord Palmerston and his pro-
tocols, he has seen the Cossack power that used to
be the object of his indignant denunciation, growing
daily in its giant strength towards universal dominion.
He has seen it with philosophic indifference, and has
never disturbed the dullness of common-place _debate
by one eloquent appeal to English feelings and
English sympathies on the ambition of Russia and the
wrongs of Poland. And so the genius of Lord Pal-
merston is again to be inflicted on the foreign policy of
England ! Again are Belgium and Holland to be
blessed with the mediatorial services of the author of
the abortive protocols, who, in the four .years'" speedy
and final settlement," of ,their dispute, as the Whig
Papers used to have it, contrived to make matters more
unsettled than he found them, and who, if he bad
died in that service a martyr to his diplomatic labours,
could not have had a more appropriate monument
erected to his memory than a pyramid of his own waste-
paper. Under his auspices, too, the Russo-Dutch
Loan job was matured, and the gold of England went
to replenish the ceders of the Autocrat, while Poland
vet struggled in the agonies of existence with her bar-
barian oppressor. With the same vigilant Argus to
watch our interests in the East, the genius of Britiih
diplomacy was overreached and insulted by the nego-
tiation of the " secret treaty" between Russia and the
Porte, which bound Turkey fast in the chains of Rus-
sian policy, and has laid the eastern world at the
feet of the Czar. it was under the auspices of Lord
Palmerston that the British fleet was sent to the North
Seas in the season of fogs and -storms, in conjunction
with that of France, to intimidate the King of Hol-
land ; but failing to excite any other feeling in the
Dutch King and people than that of more resolute de-
fiance, it sailed back dishonoured to the Downs. Thus
was the glory of the Nile and of Trafalgar tarnished
by this disgraceful demonstration. The Anglo-Gallic
convention, entered into at the instigation of the wily
Talleyrand, produced great advantages to France, by
reducing Belgium to-the condition of a French pro-
vince, but brought nothing but disgrace to England ;
nor did the bloodshed which it occasioned advance the
Belgic question one single step towards a settle-
ment. There it remains still in all the beautiful en-
tanglement of the Gorgian knot, whiCh, probably, like
its antique original, the sword is destined to cut.' A
fatality, indeed, seems to have been over all Lord Pal-
merston's diplomatic contrivances, proving that if he is
not a most unskilful statesman, he is a very unlucky
one. Never did the, cause of Don Carlos prosper as
it has since the announcement of the quadruple treaty
which the 'Whigs and their scribes told us would
extirpate his cause, and crush his hopes for ever.
From repeated " annihilations " have 'the Carlists
revived to extinguish army after. army of their oppo-
nents, and vain have been the boasts and threats of
the succession of Queenite Commanders-in-Chief,
whom Zumalacarreguy 'has defeated and foiled, leaving
to the whole of those Generals, one after the other,
nothing but bitter disappointments and blasted laurels.
As to our home policy, Lord Melbourne, who bowed
the knee on a former occasion to the Irish Baal, is
again intrusted with its direction. 'To him it belongs
to lead to their proper destiny those " statesmen," if.
we must by courtesy so call them, whose plots and in-
trigues drove Lord Grey from his own Cabinet, but
not until they had already driven away Stanley and
Graham, and Ripon and Richmond. If Lord'Mel-
bourne have the talents necessary to govern a great
empire he must be exceedingly modest and bashful never
to have given any proof of it during his whole political
life. He was one of that section of the Whig aristo-
cracy that was opposad to all and every measure of Par-
liamentary reform, up to the time of the Whigs' accession
to office. Now, though we were reformers when Lord
Melbourne was not, we admit that the Noble Lord
outstrips us in the race at present, for we cannot, like
his Lordship and his colleagues, for any temporary ad-
vantage, leave the safe course of constitutional reform
to earn the loud cheers of Repealers and Radicals, and
to toil and pant along the path of destructive ambition,
abandoning every former principle of action, and bringing
to the affairs of a great nation no higher rule of conduct
than what governs the politics of the hazard-table„ be
ginning in chances, pursued in chicanery, and ending in
a scramble. But has Lord Melbourne really made
terms with Mr. O'Connell ? This was the substance
of the question put by Lord Alvanley to the Noble
Premier in the House of Lords on Saturday evening.
This was the substance of the question to which Lord
Brougham officiously interposed his powers of inter-
ruption to prevent an answer being given. In doing
so Lord Brougham showed that want of tact and
judgment by which he formerly did great mischief to
his own party. If Lord MelbOurne, instead of being
asked a question relative to the terms on which hec
accepted office, and which the Noble interrogator had a
perfect right to put, had been impeached of high crimes
and misdemeanours at the bar of the House, and if
Lord Brougham were his advocate, it would be very
proper for him, if he knew his client had not the con-
sciousness of innocence to repose upon, to start up,
and caution him not to answer any question that might
tend to criminate himself; but Nisi Prius tactics are
sometimes the very worst that can be adopted in the
arena of politics. What would have been the infer-
ence all through the country if Lord Melbourne,
acting upon Lord Brougham's advice, had declined-to
answer the question ? Would not the universal nation
believe that the Premier of England was bound hand
and foot to the chariot wheels of the repeal Agitator,
and that the first Minister of the Crown was only the
first captive dragged in the insulting cavalcade of the
Romish (not Roman) triumph ? Why should Lord
Brougham, who, being excluded from the Cabinet, is
only an out-door servant of the Crown, have been
more forward in this matter than the Premier's Ca-
binet colleagues ? We cannot say, but certainly Lord
Melbourne reproved that officiousness when he said,
" Perhaps the Noble Lord was not greatly out of order
in putting the question," and then proceeded to an-
swer it by saying that he did not coincide at all with
Mr. O'Connell in opinion—that he entertained the
same opinions as when the Coercion Act was under
consideration—that he did not know whether he was
to have the assistance of Mr. O'Connell or not, but
most positively he had taken no means and had en-
tered into no terms to secure his support. Now this
was all very well as far as it 'went. It showed that
there had been no capitulation with Mr. O'Connell
in precise terms—no regular treaty of surrender and
submission drawn up and engrossed on parch-
ment, and formally signed. But as to the more
important point, whether the Cabinet was constructed
upon a basis which was calculated to conciliate Mr.

O'Connell, the Duke of Buckingham applied the
touchstone, when he reminded Lord Melbourne of the
principle upon which the Cabinet of Sir Robert Peel
had resigned, and asked him whether he was prepared
to incorporate with his measure relative to Irish tithe
the principle of appropriating the surplus revenue to
other than religious purposes. In answer to this
question, the Premier frankly avowed that he felt
himself bound and pledged to .a.ct upon the principle
of the resolution adopted by the House of Commons.
This is a sufficient sacrifice, in all conscience, at pre-
tint, to the ascendancy of the repeal and Papal far:.