The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-09 00:00:00

THE SUN.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1859.

Under pressure from Lord ELCHO, the Govern-
ment, last night, spoke at very considerable length
in the House of Commons upon the great question
—Whether, in the interests of Italian Liberty,
England should, or should not, take part in an
European Conference. "By particular desire" (of
the noble lord the member for Horsham) the
Oracles, not of DELPHOS, but of Downing-street,
were, for one evening, not dumb. One after
another they ascended the parliamentary tripod, and
there spoke—as became them all, most oracularly,
and as especially became them each in turn, most
characteristically. Our extended report else-
where will sufficiently indicate at a glance the
length to which the discursive discussion of yester-
day was carried by the leading members of the
Administration. A more careful examination of
these ministerial harangues will chow, according to
a more strictly idiomatic meaning of the phrase,
literally, "to what lengths" the leading organs of
the Cabinet went last evening in the affected
ardour and frankness of their explanations! Ex-
planations, by the way, so glaringly dis-
tinguished throughout, for the most part, by
their ambiguity, that they only remind one
of those once put forward by SOUTHEY in certain
problematical prelections, in regard to the mystical
obscurity of which Lard BYRON wickedly ejacu-
lated—

Explaining metaphysics to the nation ?
I wish he would explain his explanation !"
It is absolutely impossible, we maintain, after all
that was said last night by so many of our leading
Administrators, as to the alternative of a Congress
or no Congress, with England represented at its
council board by her own plenipotentiaries—it is
absolutely impossible, we insist, to understand,
after all that weary debate of yesterday in the
House of Commons, whether the Cabinet is really
for or really against any direct participation by
England in the labours of the European Conference
—a Conference brought together for the re-
organisation of Italy and the establishment
of Constitutional Government in the Roman
peninsula. They would—evidently—and—they
would not. They are obviously—and this
is the whole secret—afraid to commit them-
selves ! They vascillate between intervention and
not intervention—of course, of a strict- diplomatic
character. They are eager to have a finger in the
pie—and yet—it is so very recently out of the
oven of war that they are—afraid of burning their
fingers ! Hence the exaggeration by each of the
great Ministerial speakers last evening of his own
peculiar role in the Parliamentary drama. Hence
the noble viscount at the head of the Administra-
tion was more hilarious than ever towards the close
of the debate in doing the light comedy part, and
was (upon topics the most serious) more provoca-
tive than ever of laughter, renewed laughter, hear,
hear, and a laugh, and finally of cheers and laugh-
ter. Hence the noble lord the Foreign Secretary
was more than ever, if that were possible, blandly
evasive and constitutionally commonplace. Hence
gentleman the Secretary for War the right hen.
indulged in such a preposterous ostentation of
r of
him-
self and his ('olleagues,
really making a clean breast of it, on the pa
olleagues, that his elaborated
rigmarole
is actually--;iot ironically, but simply and honestly
—thus epitomised in the summary of the Times
this morning. "Mr. S. HERBERT," writes the re-
porter, 4, denied that Lord PALMERSTON had said
anything about going into Conference to settle the
details of the Treaty of Villafranca." [Mind that,
just to begin with , by way of a safe preliminary
reserva. 'ion to fall back upon in case of necessity.]
" The G overnmeßt had never been asked to join in
settling 1 ',hose details of the Treaty of Villifranca."
[Now for the more elaborated specimen of
SIDNEY H -IERBERT'S circumventing, circumambient,
circumlocu. 5.0 n--so sinuously intervolved and intri-
cately windik g even when epitomised !] " Although
we 'wind be la belligerents that was no argument
against enterin 1. the Conference; and would it be
i