The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-14 00:00:00

Ministry. Their only justification can be, the
terms they demand for their support from the new

Ministry.

With Mr. ROEBUCK, Mr. LINDSAY, and the
smaller number of the " Independents," we had
hoped to get some substantial Reform, by next
session at the latest, from the outgoing Ministers.

There is not a shadow of doubt we should
have had it. We believe, like Mr. ROEBUCK,

.n the instructive uses of adversity. Ministers
bund that enfranchisement of freeholders,

voting-papers for absentees, and the re-
tention of the present borough franchise,
were everywhere unacceptable. They had expressed
their wish—why should we not believe them—
their sincere wish, to accept the verdict of the elec-
tion on these points ; and had we gained these,
well looked to as they would have been by such a

powerful opposition, we should have advanced a
great step—a far greater one than any which Lord
SOHN RUSSELL has proposed since 1832. They
would have left much, indeed, to be desired—above

all, the liberty of voting in the counties ; but they
would have been a substantial gain. Tho
independent Liberals must therefore make terms
for something better, for something not better
by a hair's-breadth merely, but by some
broad difference which does not want a
microscope to find it out. Liberals might have
been in Egyptian bondage while a Tory Adminis-

tration was over them ; but if we find ourselves soon
in a hungry, thirsty desert of Whiggism, we shall
begin, slavish-minded as we are, to remember the
Jew Bills, the property qualification abolition, the
law reforms, the lowered income-tax, and the like,
which we had under Toryism. We shall remember
that we did get some decided reforms, even Mr.
LOCKE KING'S offered to us, in those days of our
bondage.

Some of the Independents, we know, and even Mr
ROEBUCK, seem half penitent for their late wrath
with Lord JOHN, and think that noble Lord a good
reformer. Well, he may be ; all we know is, that
he shows it in a singular way. At all events,
like " The Dog in the Manger," if he can't get re-
form into his own hands he will let no one else have
it in his. His first bill since 1832 was literally
so worthless that it died with hardly a gasp. His
second, by good luck for it, was politely bowed
out for the Crimean war ; but for which the disap-
pointed Liberals would certainly have helped the
Tories to kick it out of the House. We do not
know, however, that the Tories would not have
adopted it, for it distributed most of the seats
created by disfranchisement among the counties—
forty-one out of sixty-three. Indeed, we think
Mr. DisnAELl's Bill, unless foully worked, would
have done more for popular representation than
Lord JOHN'S of 1854. He is more enlightened now,
but it is by the same process which has enlightened
his late competitor. We cannot, indeed, review-
ing Lord JOHN'S course since 1832, and since he
gave effect to the immediate demands created by
the Reform Act,—we cannot see any reason to rely
on inclination to Reform ; pressure, and pressure
only, has got anything from him.
We would not querulously rake up bygones,
but we ought to show that we do not speak the
language of pettishness merely. Did he not then,
very early, make his celebrated finality declaration
which he now wishes us to interpret in a non-
natural sense ? Did he not declare in explicit
terms that he intended in the Reform Bill to
give the predominance to the landed aristocracy,
which his large increase of county members, his
refusing the Ballot, and his agricultural boroughs
have done, beyond all possibility of mistake. Did
he not abandon the appropriation clause ? a derelic-
tion both of principle and political honour which
can hardly ever be retrieved. Did he not resist
Repeal of the Corn-laws as long as he could, and
declare it " mischievous, absurd, and impracti-
cable ?" Did he not oppose LOCKE KING'S motion
till it would have been political martyrdom to per-
sist in doing it ? Even the abolition of the property
qualifications never formed a part of his bills. Has
he not resisted the Ballot with all his might, though
he promised that deeds like his own expulsion front
South Devon should make him a convert to it ?
Indeed, we hardly know of any proposal for Reform
of the Representation which he has not resisted,
unless first made by himself.
Then Religious Liberty is his own pet subject
and as in Parliamentary Reform he was sound to
a certain extent. The Test and Corporation Acts
Repeal, and Catholic Emancipation were, however
the length of his tether; unless we add that, with
Sir ROBERT PEEL, and some Radicals, he was
desirous to put the Irish Priests and all dissenting
parsons in the harness of salaries received from the
Treasury ! Dissenters would not have his money,
the Catholics could not get it if they wished, and so
the former had to thank him for lampooning their
Ministers as stage-players, the latter for a Durham
Letter and an Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. Of church-
rates he has been a most redoubtable defendant.
The House of Lords, the Crown, the Church,
would all be shaken to their foundation by their
abolition ! and, he has changed his note only since
the country has half abolished them in the parishes,
and Lord STANLEY'S argument convinced the
majority that go they must. The Jews themselves
he kept out to the last, because they should be
admitted in HIS way or not at all. In bishop-
making at the national cost he is unsurpassed.
Dissenters and Catholics have long, indeed, had
little to thank him for. But we have done. We
have said enough, and more than enough, to show
that Independent Liberals will ruin themselves
with the public unless they make the terms they
I ought with Lord JOHN RUSSELL.

Nothing
ov
facte tl
that lreland
sixty
i ty with
more clearly shows that Lord DERBY'S
Irish
members
high
eprrsa practical
x
aMbiinliitsytrYthang the governed n
g Coalitionists last Friday on the
confidence e wdinviesion. There is no parallel during
the last thirty years in the ease of the Liberal party
being able to bring up from Ireland, in a party
division only, thirty-five votes. If Lord DERBY
had not been attentive to Irish interests, if Lord
EGLINTON had not shown skill and courtesy in
the discharge of his viceregal office, it is auite im-
possible that such a Parliamentary tribute would
have been paid to the Conservative leaders. Sir
ROBERT PEEL always found Ireland "his difficulty,',
and it is not impossible that, in a party point of
view, the Whigs and Liberals will find Ireland to
be a cause of much trouble, now that the sister
country seems to have entered upon a new political

course.

Great as may be the praise due to Lord DERBY's
dexterous management of Irish affairs, we cannot
wholly attribute the revolution of opinion in Irish
politics to mere political skill. General causes of
a most marked character have aided the reaction
in Ireland. The great success of the landed
interest at the recent election is to be
attributed to social and economical changes. The
extensive sale of estates in Ireland has created a
new class entirely different from what had been
anticipated. It used to be supposed that the Roman
Catholics had much hoarded wealth, and that they
would purchase the greater part of the land freed
by the Encumbered Estates Court. Large estates
have been broken up, whose owners in many cases
were Whig proprietors, or apathetic and absentee