The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-06 00:00:00

sumptive evidence." So difficult indeed was Mr.
BRUCE'S position at that moment that the Foreign
Secretary is constrained to observe thereupon,
" That her MAJESTY'S Government, without being
able in the present state of their information to
judge precisely what measures it might have
been most advisable for you to adopt at the moment
see nothing in the decision that you took to diminish
the confidence which they repose in you." "Iler
MAJESTY," writes the Minister, " deeply regrets
the loss of life which attended the gallant though
unsuccessful efforts of the British and French forces
to clear the passage of the river. But her Mqjesty
has commanded preparations to be made which will
enable her forces, in conjunction with those of his
Majesty the Emperor of the French, to support you
in the execution of the instructions which will be
hereafter addressed to you." And so with that
significant closing sentence of the twelfth despatch
ends this remarkable correspondence. We have
been thus careful in analysing Lord MALMESEURY's
despatch (No. 1) of the Ist of March, and Lord
JOIIN RUSSELL'S despatch (No. 12) of the 26th of
September, because those two documents, in reality,
constitute the very Alpha and Omega in the record
of these momentous transactions.

During six months Ministers are free to prepare
their plans—undisturbed in their deliberations by
either side in either of the two Houses of Parlia-
ment. This is, of course, in accordance with con-
stitutional usage. Autumnal sessions are excep-
tional events recorded only now and then, at un-
welcome intervals, in the annals of our Legislature.
There was a rumour towards the close of this last
session that something of this kind was again in
preparation—that her MAJESTY'S present advisers
were so eager for Reform that they must needs, at
any cost and at every hazard, summon Parliament
to re-assemble at the very latest, early in November.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL especially, it was intimated,
regarded himself as in some mysterious manner,
and for some inexplicable reasons, and through some
utterly incomprehensible conjuncture or concatena-
tion of circumstances, pledged—that was the word—
" pledged" to an autumnal session as a sine qua
non ! As, in fact, the one simple but inexorable
condition, upon the concession of which, by his
colleagues generally, he consented to sink his own
claims to the Premiership— magnanimously agree.
ing to devote, in a subordinate position, the whole
of his immense genius and herculean energies—for
the good of the country and for the advantage of
the Crown—to the conduct of the affairs of her
MAJESTY'S Government. ParEament, in fact, was
prorogued upon this tacit understanding—that it
would, in' all probability, meet again for a brief but
important autumnal session some time in the early
part of November. In the sacred interests of
Reform, it was said, that the man who, among all
men now living, regards himself as incomparably
beyond all others the Arch• Champion of the
Cause, would insist upon the autumnal session
as a matter of certainty. And so, with this
Fata Morgana glimmering exquisitely in the air
before them, the more credulous and infatuated be-
lievers in the great Whig Reformer witnessed the
close of the last session with a certain degree of
equanimity. Granted, they said, that the new,
grand, liberal, reforming Coalition Government has
ended this session without whispering one hint as
to their projects in regard to Reform—granted that
upon this one paramount question of Reform
Ministers have remained inscrutably and imper-
turbably dumb to the very last—granted that Mr.
BRIGHT'S " unsubstantial pageant" has " faded"
out entirely, leaving " not a wrack behind" (saving
and excepting alone the rack upon which the
nation was kept during the period in which that
Halcyon Measure was being promulgated)—granted
that Mr. DISRAELI'S bill is as irretrievably lost as
the wand of PROSPEIW was broken, or his book
sunk in the ocean deeper than ever plummet
sounded—yet are the nation's hopes of Reform
certain of realisation through the new Reform
Bill of the true Reformers for Lord JOHN
RUSSELL is " pledged" to bring forward the Go-
vernment measure in an extraordinary autumn
session not later than the beginning of next No-
♦ember. Rumours of this kind were, of course, got
ap simply " for a purpose." And that purpose
having been served—they are quashed now conve-
niently as utterly ridiculous.

An autumnal session was never once seri-
ously thought of by Lord JOHN or by any
one of his fifteen colleagues. They were al-
together too wise in their generation. They
felt instinctively that by insisting upon an au-
tumnal session—especially an autumn session con-

vend for the purpose of introducing a new project
of Parliamentary Reform—they would be courting
peril, if not actual destruction. Old birds like
Lord JoHN and Lord PALMERSTON were not to
be caught so easily by the empty and worthless
" chaff" of a little possible increase to their popu-
larity. Six months' quiet power "in hand" was
better than six years of it to be sought for wild
" in the bush," through the risk of a precipitate
Reform Bill introduced prematurely in November.
Ministers, in fact, at the close of the session,
gladly gave themselves half-a-year's immunity from
the danger of a defeat in Parliament. Predisposed
to do so, more especially remembering, as they could
hardly fail to do, that their exceedingly minute
majority in the House of Commons had been reduced
to something just" next to nothing "—to something
even bearing a rather alarming resemblance to a mi-
nority—through the adverse decisions of a series of
extremely annoying election committees! Therefore,
as a matter of common sense, and of the most ordi-
nary prudence, when Parliament was prorogued for
the long vacation in August, it was really pro-
rogued until February.
Six months' grace therefore fell in due
course to the lot of her MAJESTY'S Ministers.
Upon their use of that interval upon their
mode of availing themselves of that golden
opportunity—will depend their own fortunes in

1860. If they postpone everything to the evil day
when Parliament shall have re-assembled, they will
infallibly go the way of their predeceS.sors. If
their occasional Cabinet Councils mean merely what
Cabinet Councils generally do mean--namely, a
careless club-room sort of chat about this, that, and
the other, while every question that ought to be
seriously discussed is, on the contrary, systemati-
cally shirked as inconvenient—then will they
assuredly and inevitably have to look out for squalls
in their management of the State Vessel. Parlia-
ment, the Public, the Press—are each and all of
them sick to very death of this wretchedly affected
dilletanteism in statesmanship, this frivolous pro-
crastination of all the vital interests of the hour— a
system of government the promoters of which
appear to be perfectly satisfied with, if only they
can contrive so to conduct affair. that they keep
their opponents Out and themselves In. Ministers,
therefore, ought distinctly to understand this—that
they, in a peculiar manner, hold at this moment
their fate in their own hands ! and that according
to their use of the next four months— October,
November, December, and January—will be their
prospects for good or for evil in February, upon
the re-assembling of the Lords and Commons.

The Wakefield and Gloucester Election Commis-
sioners are still proceeding with their inquiries.