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

CLOSE OF THE SESSION.

The Parliamentary sessions of 1859 have at
length, thank HEAVEN, been brought to a close!
Those two sessions between which—as effectually
as between the two stools of the adage—everything
in the way of wholesome legislation has fallen to
the ground. We have long since had quite enough
for one year of all these fruitless bickerings of party,
both in the Lords and in the Commons. We are
heartily glad to be rid at last, for a brief interval,
of those spiteful wranglings of faction, which have
for a whole twelvemonth precluded the nation from
the merest chance of enjoying the realisation of
any positive and practical legislative improvement.
Unless something at present entirely beyond
our ken should arise to necessitate the ex-
ceptioial and always unpopular labours of
an autumnal session, the Gallery Reporters
will have no more to do in their magic art of per-
petuating oratory by hieroglyphics, until February.
Our ultra-reforming Premier will, in that case,
have to curb his impatience as best he may during
five whole months before he can seize the oppor-
tunity he is known to court so eagerly for tho-
roughly remodelling and reorganising our existing
system of popular representation ! As if in doubt
as to that eagerness on the part of Lord PALMER-
STON and his colleagues, Lord DENMAN last evening ,
gave notice in the Upper House, that " in the event
of her MAJESTY'S Ministers delaying a reform bill
next session, he would move for leave to introduce
the bill so prematurely put an end to last session."
It is a painful reminder—this prospective and con-
tingent notice of motion by Lord DENMAN—that
we close the Parliamentary labours of 1859, the
toils of two sessions, the deliberations of two Par-
liaments, at precisely, and absolutely, and literally
the same identical point, at which those labours,
now upwards of six months ago (namely, on the
3d day of last February) commenced ! And yet
further—the Manner in which this outrageous
waste of time has been brought about, the Cause
of this monstrous wasting, and worse than wast-
ing, of a whole year, Lord DENMAN yesterday sen-
tentiously but most fully indicated when, in giving
his notice of motion for 1860, "in the event of
Ministers delaying a reform bill next session,"
(as they are known to have done, in truth, so often
previously) his lordship observed, "He had given a
silent vote for Lord DERBY "—adding—" he would
now mention that he had received a letter from a
gentleman, a cousin of his (Lord DENMAN'S) in
which the writer said, (I quite agree with you that
Lord MALMESBURY has been unfairly treated.
Nothing could be more constitutional, upright, and
firm than the way in which he conducted the
foreign business of the country.'" Yet it is notori-
ous that it was precisely by reason of that unfair
treatment of Lord MALMESBURY, because of the
wicked and intuitive perversion of his sayings and
doings as Her MAJESTY'S Foreign Secretary, be-
cause of the entire misrepresentation of his policy
from beginning to end, that the last chance of the
possibility of any real work in the way of whole-
some legislation for 1859, was lost to the country !
Simply for the sake of bringing back to office those
dear inevitable Whigs, so that the great families
might yet once more cram the loaves and fishes down
the insatiable maws of all the GREYS, and all the
ELLIOTS, and all the RUSSELLS Sixteen months
exclusion from power having whetted their natu-
rally fine appetites from a hunger to a positive
ravening for place and its perquisites.
That is really the One Result of these two sessions
of 1859—the Whigs are located once more in their
old haunts in Whitehall! Sir CHARLES WOOD is en-
abled to dedicate his immense genius to the service
of his country in a perfectly new character, namely,
as the reorganizer of our Indian Empire, as the vir-
tual ruler of 200,000,000 of his fellow creatures
Sir GEORGE GREY is empowered to draw a pretty
,handsome salary in the sinecure position • of
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Sir GEORGE
LEWIS devotes his resplendent administrative cape-
-cities to the conduct of the affairs of the Home
Department. Lord Joris RussELL is entrusted
.again with the management of that delicate and
o omplicated loom of the Foreign-office, where the
ft broils threads of diplomacy are spun and inter-
wc wen—that same Lord JOHN who has already so
fret tuently and signally illustrated his adroitness as
a diplomatist; for example, let us say, in the instance
of -the Vienna Conference ! When we recall these
thi ugs to mind—when we remember, moreover,
thw, t there, again, somehow or other, in the sacred
purl 'lens of Downing• street and Whitehall, Mr.
Low X, for instance, the high-minded and public-
spirit red Mr. LOWE. now ac Calne,lately of Kidder-
minsl toils at the publi► ! desk and draws the
public money—we are consoled, we are fain to re-
tract ur estimate of the fruitlesoness of the two ses-