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

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essential to the interests of his party, was at any
rate of such extraordinary advantage to that party,
and was calculated, moreover, to facilitate the
organisation of what was really the only possible
Government in the February of 1858. What other
Ministry, in truth, could have been installed in power
at that period with any reasonable chance of continu-
ing in existence for a single twelvemonth? Viscount
PALMERSTON'S Cabinet had been shattered to pieces

with scorn by his own Parliament. Lord JOHN
RUSSELL sat below the gangway powerless from
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his [glaring unpopularity, Lord ABERDEEN,
fallen into the sere leaf as a political chieftain, had
been long previously shelved as an utterly used-up
and effete administrator. Lord LANSDOWNE had
invariably, pertinaciously, declined every oppor-
tunity which had been offered to him in times past
of even attempting to form what might at the best
have proved indeed to be in two senses of the
phrase, a Petty Administration. .Lord GRANVILLE
had rarely assumed any other office than the purely
ornamental. We have recently seen him, in obedi-

ence to the command of the Sovereign, adventure
upon one futile attempt to rise to the altitude of a
Prime Minister from the resplendent but far in-
ferior elevation:of the positions he has already occu-
pied—one while (fortunately a very brief one while
it was) Foreign Secretary—another time President
of the Council—latterly leader of the Liberal

Opposition in the Lords, and simultaneously Chan.
cellor of the London University. A delightful, charm.

ing, good-natured leader of the Liberal aristocracy
—an intelligent and laborious Chairman of the
Royal Commissioners for the International Exhibi-
tion of 1851—a capital Master of the Buckhounds
—a respectable public servant enough in the
earlier part of his public career, in such minor
posts as Vice-President of the Board of Trade,
Treasurer of the Navy, Paymaster of the Forces,
and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—
GRANVILLE GEORGE LEVESON GOWER, second Earl
GRANVILLE, could hardly be thought of seriously
for half an instant as Prime Minister of England.
On Saturday Lord GRAN VILLE's Premiership
proved, upon experiment, to be as impossible in the
June of 1859, as in the February of 1858, it would,
if suggested, have been necessarily deemed pre-
posterous. Among the Commoners, Mr. GLAD-
STONE might have assumed with all becom-
ing dignity the curule chair of power—but Mr.
GLADSTONE, fifteen months ago, would have
entered office without colleagues. Lord ELGIN
might have reasonably been recognised as a likely
aspirant enough to the supreme post of the Pre-
miership ; but Lord ELGIN was sixteen or eighteen
thousand miles from home, conducting with admir-
able ability the diplomatic negotiations with the
Chinese and Japanese Governments. Scanning
every party and section of a party,,looking to the
Lords and the Commons, to the Whigs and the
Tories, to the Peelites and the Radicals, to the
Liberals and the Conservatives—there was really
no alternative submitted at the close of the month
of February in 1858, to the choice of England's
Constitutional SOVEREIGN. The powerful Ministry
of Lord PALMERSTON had been shattered to pieces,
and cast down into the very dust. Its reconstruction
in any case at that period was absolutely and en-
tirely out of the question. Apart from the
national jealousy excited (mistakenly or other-
wise it matters not at this moment to
consider) by the obnoxious Conspiracy to Murder
Bill—the PALMERSTON Administration had fallen
deplorably " from its high estate" in the general
estimation. Mr. SMITH had shown himself utterly
incompetent at the head of the Board of Control.
Lord CLANRICARDE had outraged the popular
feeling by assuming the delicate, though chiefly
honorary, post of her MAJESTY'S Lord Privy Seal.
Lord CLARENDON had forfeited the confidence of
many among his former admirers by his lamenta-
ble vacillation. Sir CHARLES WooD had allowed
the royal navy of this sea-girt isle, hitherto the
mistress of the deep, to dwindle down to compara-
tive insignificance. And so on through the rest of
the Administration. The reconstruction, again
we say it, of Lord PALMERSTON'S Government, in
any shape whatever, in the February of 1858
was not for two seconds to be thought
of. Her MAJESTY had but one constitutional
course to pursue, and—according to her invariable
wont during these twenty-three years of her happy
and glorious reign—she pursued it. Her MAJESTY
entrusted to Lord DERBY the supreme responsibi-
lity—a responsibility at that juncture doubly
onerous—of forming an Administration. The
Government was obviously, was avowedly, was
necessarily a Government of a minority. It had to
be formed, moreover, in the midst of a momentary
feeling of jealousy between France and England—a
fealing that might have cooled Lint() a serious
estrangement—if it might not even have become
heated into a positive and disastrous rupture. It
had to be constructed besides, this DERBY Cabinet
in the presence, in the very teeth of an angry and
irritated Opposition, Lord DERBY however had
to obey the necessity of the hour. Preferring him-
self his high patrician seclusion he had to
accept frankly the responsibility imposed
upon him at once by circumstances, by
his party, by his country and by his
SOVEREIGN. Honourably and nobly has he ac-
quitted himself since then during these past fifteen
months as the chief the of British Government. And
as honourably, and as nobly have his colleagues co-
operated with him in conducting, under circum-
stances of extraordinary difficulty, the weighty
affairs of Administration, We say this as ultra-
reformers, as the organ of throughgoing liberal in-
dependents. [Not independents, by the way,
liSthakouethmep honourable and learned member for
Southampton—who protest one thing loudly
in debate, and
then vote in direct opposition to
their volunteered and vociferous declarations : but
true, staunch, and resolute Independents, we
mean like the hon. and learned member for
Sheffield—who speak and act, from first to last,
with unflinching and inflexible consistency !]
We recognise, we repeat, as ultra• Reformers, as
the organ of thorough-going Liberal Independents,
the zeal, the industry, the complete self-abnegation
and patriotic self-sacrifice with which the country
and the Crown have been served during the
fifteen months last past by the leading members of
Lord DERBY'S Administration. During that brief
interval—they have done what neither Lord JOHN'S
Government, nor yet Lord PALMERSTON'S, ever
attempted—they have laid a substantial measure
of Parliamentary Reform upon the table of the
House of Commons. That measure, with all
its shortcomings, might have been developed
and ripened into everything the most ardent
reformer could wish in Committee. It would
infallibly have been followed up in the ensu-
ing session by a better and more carefully
matured bill—one that would have left compara-
tively little to be done in committee in the way of
its improvement. Thanks to the DERBY Ministry
again, the Royal Navy, all but ruined by the
pitiable inefficiency of Sir CHARLES WOOD, has
been reorganized, and all but reconstructed, by
the zealous and patriotic labours of Sr JOHN
PAKINGTON. Unembarrassed by any European
war, Lord CLARENDON almost allowed the diplo-
matic relations between France and England to
drift to ruin between the Scylla of a rupture and