The Sun.
London, England, 1859-04-04 00:00:00

day. There will neither be an immediate resigna-
tion nor a dissolution: A few short weeks will
suffice to pass not only the measures absolutely in-
dispensable, but many of those which are
accepted by members of all parties, and the
advantages whereof are ‘,fully recognised by
the country. Keen, indeed, must be the
appetency for office, parching the thirst for
patronage, which could so completely disregard
the•best interests of the nation as to cast any fac-
tious opposition in the way of such a course, should
Lord PALMERSTON and Lord JOHN, notwithstanding
the conflicting views to which they have given ex-
pression, it will set the crowning seal to the de-
struction of the slender remains of their political
reputations.

We look now with no little interest to the course
which will be taken by the leaders of the advanced
Liberals. Amongst them we have always reckoned
the honourable members for Birmingham and Ash-
ton, the former of whom has had the cause of
Radical Reform in his hands during the whole
autumn and till the meeting of Parliament. Mr.
Fox also, of Oldham, is prominently a people's
man, and his speech in the great debate was in-
comparably the best which was made for the so-
frequently praised working classes ; and the
honourable member for Bristol has a claim to a
foremost place amongst the advocates of popular
reforms. What will all these gentlemen, and per-
haps some others who might be mentioned, do, at the
present junctare, to justify their course on the last
division of. Thursday night ?
We are bound to assume that they had reasons
of overwhelming importance for their absence from
the division on Mr. WYLD'S motion. We do not
presume to doubt this. Several of them are men
whose sincerity on the particular reform of the
Ballot ought to admit of no question ;, but
their judgment has yet to be vindicated by
the development of their policy. Losing to
win is fair play, whether in games of amuse-
ment or the graver games of politics or war.
The winning, however, is the only justification
of the temporary sacrifice, and we now wait to see
the great gain to accrue from the Crimean policy
of withholding support when a brave officer was
striving to carry a political Redan. That the enemy
of the hour should be strengthened by such deser-
tions from the Liberal ranks as Lord JoHN Rrs-
SELLL, Lord PALMERSTON, Sir G. C. LEWIS, Sir
CHARLES WOOD, Sir GEORGE GREY, Mr. R. LOWE,
Mr. M. T. BAINES, Mr. J. WILSON, and Mr. SMITH,
can excite no surprise. These noblemen and gentle-
men have of late always ratted on every question
of earnest and real reform ; according as they were
in or out of office, they and the Tories have always
been ready to help each other against the people.
This whole knot, of old stagers as most of them are,
ought now to be laid aside by the country—as gover-
nors of it we mean. They might be very useful,
from their experience, to criticise, and so improve the
measures of other men up to the wants and demands
of the present day ; but as originators of measures
for the people, they are but fossils of the Old
Reform Bill Era ; their minds can never get out of
the ruts of their famous Anno Domini eighteen hun-
dred and thirty-two. Fine fellows some of them
no doubt, in their time; so were the huge ante_
deluvians, whose shapes -and forms mingle with
the realities of the Crystal Palace, We accomplish
far greater things now, however, by the less por-
tentous creatures of the age to which we belong, and
we fear that it is only by leaving our fossil
friends to their fate, and throwing ourselves upon
those whom the present day has adapted to itself,
that we shall achieve anything worth doing.
That the acknowledged leaders of Radical Re-
form should, however, desert while the antiquated
Reformers did worse than desert—this is tlut.eourse
which has yet to be justified by results. If we find
that they have made a compiict, or only an honourable
engagement with the worn-out Whigs, which will
issue in laying. on the table of the House and
pushing through all its stages a Reform Bill
worthy of. Reformers, then we shall acquit them—
acquit them heartily and gladly. We shall only
wish that they had contrived to let old and un-
flinching Reformers, like ourselves, know before-
hand, in the confidence of those who wish for the
general support of the independent press, the ex-
cellent reasons they had for preferring co-operation
with Old Whigs, and burking for a time their own
views. But if we find that, although professedly
thorough-going Liberals, they could sell themselves
to those who have tricked us so often ; that they
could make speeches of the most reticent, moderate,
guarded character ; that they could be silent about
the Ballot while Tories were pushing them upon
it ; that they could speak and act as if Mr. HAYTER
were pulling their coat tails all the time they were
talking or making motions—if, in a word, we find
that they have served Lord JOHN RUSSELL and the
old family clique, to be jilted with fair words and
left in the lurch at last, what shall we think of
their wisdom ?

We shall not affect to regret the " untimely
division," as those not in the secret have termed it,

till we see what BRIGHT and Company have gained
for us by entering into a joint-stock concern
with RUSSELL and Company. If the Anti-Church-
rate-Abolition and Anti-ballot )Whigs have given
Mr. BRIGHT a bill on liberalism which they will hon-
our in office, all will be well ; if not, we shall only
be able to regret that some who ought to know
better have been again caught with Whig chaff.
A little time, come what will, must show whether
our old friends have sold themselves for nothing or
not. If the former, they will most seriously have
damaged their position, and destroyed confidence
in their leadership. We shall have Lord JOHN
RUSSELL boasting on the hustings at Guildhall that
he only voted against the ballot when the Birming-
ham and Bristol members ran away from it ; and
not-improbably his—nott al►irking the question, al-
though he voted wrong, will be well set off by the
foil of " old stagers" turning tail when it came to a
pinch. We condemn no one, however, at present;
we await the pioof of run-a-way wisdom.

An admirable snggestion has recently been made
by the eminent surgeon, CHARLES HAWKINS,
F.R.C.S., with a view to the better expression of
the honour and homage with which the memory of
JOHN HUNTER is regarded by that great man's
profession. This suggestion, it will be understood
at once, has sprung out of the project now advanc-
ing towards its happy realisation—that of erecting
a suitable monument to the renowned anatomist.
And that project, as will be remembered, arose in its
turn out of the discovery of JOHN HUNTER'S remains
in an obscure vault under one of our London
churches, and the transference therefrom of the
mouldering coffin, with all funereal pomp and core-
.
mony, to Westminster Abbey, for the purpose of a
final and fitting interment. Now that one of the
greatest of England's sons rests at length in that
honoured sepulchre down in the old Abbey at
Westminster, it is but reasonable, as a sequel to the
re-burial of his dust, that the members of the
medical profession should desire to give expression to
the homage w ith which they cherish the remembrance
of his glorious life. As the most distinct evidence
of this unanimous feeling on their part, the Sur-
geons and Physicians of the United Kingdom are
at once beet upon raising a public statue in honour