The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-13 00:00:00

sions of 1859. If such are the result of these sessions,
can they be regarded as wholly fruitless ? Have
the Lords and Commons, but especially the latter,
laboured in vain during the last stormy and anxious
half-year, if—scanning the whole of this last weary
volume of Hansard, surveying the whole of these
sour debates and spiteful divisions—we find, as the
result of all, the joyful return of the Whigs to
Downing-street ? What is the postponement for
another year of Parliamentary Reform ? Have we
not compensation for this, full and complete com-
pensation—in the restoration of the Whigs to the
offices of the Administration !

Common sense certainly tells us that we
ought to make the most of this one Great
Result of the Parliamentary session of 1859
—for it is a result that has been purchased
dearly enough. The price of it is, among other
things, the postponement not merely of Parlia-
mentary Reform (though that of itself is matter
of sufficient consideration), but with Par-
liamentary Reform of every other kind of Legi-
slative Improvement. The Legal Reforms,
among others, prepared for us at the open-
ing of the first of the two sessions last
past those of the insolvency and bankruptcy
laws, those involving the consolidation of the cri-
minal laws, those relating to the titles to land and
to their registration—all have been given the go-
by—that the Whigs might be brought back to
power ! In the eager struggling of the Whigs back
once more to power, place, and patronage—we end
the Parliamentary sessions of 1859, leaving the
church-rates still unabolished. Because the
Whig determination to wriggle back at any
hazard, coute qui coute, at any cost of principle, of
public spirit, or of consistency, the diplomatic
labours of Lord MALMESBURY were first of all
rendered powerless, and were afterwards flagitiously
misrepresented. The precipitation of the war in
Italy—was the adverse majority of 39 upon Thursday
the 31st March, upon Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S paltry
because entirely partisan and " dodging," resolu-
tions. Nay, the Times itself, the thick-and-thin
advocate of the present Coalition in its rise and
development, as afterwards in its formal installa-
tion, the very Times itself acknowledges this morn-
ing, in reference to the position of the late Govern-
ment, as far as its Diplomatic efforts to prevent the
outbreak of war were concerned, that " a Ministry
on sufferance immediately after a defeat in the
House of Commons is naturally regarded with dis-
trust and comparative indifference by Foreign
Powers." Now, remember that while as far as
relates to the interests of Parliamentary Reform
alone, there was not only every reason not to vote
for Lord JOHN'S ridiculous resolutions, but, as we
still believe, every reason to vote diametrically
against them—as regards the influence of that
untoward division upon the affairs of Europe
even the organ of the then Opposition to-day
acknowledges the result of the majority to save
been—disastrous. To put the matter plainly, and
in as few words as possible—To thrust LordDERBY
and his colleagues out of office, and to bring the
dear old Whigs back again into power—the war
in Italy (to say the very least of it) was precipi-
tated. For (to repeat the ipsissima verba
of the Times) " A Ministry on Sufferance
immediately after a defeat in the House of Com
mons, is naturally regarded with distrust and com-
parative indifference by foreign Powers." There-
fore, by reason of Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S own act,
the introduction (for purely selfish ends) of his in-
sidious and paltry resolutions, the war in Italy was
precipitated ! He inherits now, in his Ministerial
capacity as Foreign Secretary, difficulties for which
• he himself is in a very great and a very heinous
manner responsible.

Nothing hardly could have justified such a
course at a moment so peculiarly perillous
to the peace of Christendom nothing, cer-
tainly, could yield a shadow of justification 'to
it below the immediate interests of the great ques-
tion of Parliamentary Reform, the problem of re-
organising and revivifying the whole system of
our popular representation. But that those
immediate interests were in no way at all
advantageously affected by the momentary
triumph ensured to the Whigs by the " dodge "
Lord JOHN'S Resolutions—the position of the
question of Parliamentary reform at the present
moment only too clearly and too painfully demon-
strates. On the contrary—as independent Liberals
and thoroughgoing Reformers it, the House, like
Mr. ROEBUCK, and equally independent Liberals
and no less thoroughgoing Reformers out of the
House like ourselves, maintained loudly and
strenuously at the time—the " immediate interests"
of Parliamentary Reform demanded the rejection
of those paltry resolutions, and the reference of
the inadequate but improvable Bill of Lord
DERBY and Mr. DISRAELI to the judg-
ment of the House of Commons in Com-
mitteee. Had those honest recommendations
been followed, we might now have had cause to
exult in the happy triumph at last of the Cause of
Reform—all that was evil in that bill being easily
eliminf.ted, all that was good in it as readily de-
veloped—developed even, had the House so willed
it in Committee, to the approximation to Universal
Suffrage, to the realisation of the Ballot, to the
securing permanently, what we have now virtually,
but irregularly, namely Quadrennial Parliaments !
But no : the Whigs, like true dogs in the manger,
wanted the glory of the thing to themselves. If they
could not give Reform, no one else should. Reform,
in fact, appertaining exclusively to the Whigs, as the
Times has the singular audacity (even for the
Times) to express it to-day, as " the legitimate pro-
prietors of the doctrine !" The Whigs " the legiti-
mate PROPRIETORS " of the doctrine ! As if Reform
belonged not to the whole mass of the population !
But no—that is the Whig creed. There may be
free trade in everything else—but of Reform of all
kinds (Heaven knows why), they are the impre-
scriptable Monopolists. -Wherefore—not, of course,
that they loved Reform less, but that they loved
power more—the Whigs, led on by Lord JOHN, set
aside the possibility of our getting Reform: securing,
instead, the success of those insidious and pernicious
resolutions.

As the first consequence of which, The Italian
War became in a manner inevitable—the media-
tion of the discomfitted Ministry being rendered
powerless for good by the selfish and partisan
tactics of the Opposition. In the next place,
the setting aside for yet another session of Par-
liamentary Reform, as well as of all other reforms,
was ensured, as we have now the anguish of
witnessing ! Everything was lost for ourselves,
everything was imperilled for Christendom—so
that the Whigs and their friends might only con-
trive, by the grossest bribery in the elections, and
by the most flagitious misrepresentations in de-
bate, to worm their way back somehow, any-
how, by fair means or by foul, to the power
greedily hungered after by themselves and their
following. The end of it all being, that the Whin,
are back again, and that the nation is expected
to feel consoled by that one fact for having No
Reform, a nearly Doubled Income Tax, and a very
our Neutral position
us degree of dignity in.
Powers of Christendom.
amongdubio the Great

The immaculate counties ! But one petition, we
believe, has beentried, or will be tried. Boroughs
have been proved to be nests of corruption ; not only