The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-09 00:00:00

us to the last—Why, in the name of common sense, nobody, certainly not the co' asumer, and we hope
this tardily-published Blue-book, giving the whole both Houses will see it in tb: is light.
of the correspondence in regard to the Italian The practice is common enough in other coun-
Question, and constituting the succinct and incon- tries ; in France, especially , we have ample testi-
trovertible vindication of the policy of LordMALmEs- mony that all articles consu med by men, physic as
BURY, was not published, and laid upon the tables well as food, are liable to co nstant inspection ; and
of both houses, at the very time of the assembling fraud—the fraud of adulterat ion is severely punished.
of the new Parliament down at Westminster? The consequence is, that from bread to grocery and
That Blue-book not being so printed, not drugs it is quite easy to pl.( )cure the genuine article
being so laid Upon those tables, was an act of you ask for. In the major ity of cases people can
cruel injustice to the Earl of MALMESBURY ; it was, mix for themselves ; everyl iody can mix his own
we repeat, an act of political suicide on the part of chicory and coffee, and wi th very little difficulty
the whole DERBY Government. It was worse than our dames of the kitchen cant a djust the proportions
a crime in Ministerial tactics—it was a mistake : they think desirable of milk at td water. If the pure
and a mistake so easily avoided, a betise so readily article cost, as it probably would, a litle more, we
prevented, that, for not avoiding it, for not pre- should probably need less of it ; and we should
venting it—the Cabinet really deserved to be de- know what we had. Of course the worst danger
feated (as they were) upon the first division. If of all is that of deleterious matters being mixed
the printing of that Blue-book had required with food. Had the sweetmeats which poisoned
that a hundred printers should have been at the unfortunate persons at Bradford been unadul-
work night and day for a fortnight, any exertion, terated, the mistake which substituted arsenic for
every exertion ought in reason and justice to have what was innocuous, but cheap or worthless, could
been made with a view to its timely publication. not have occurred. There can, indeed, be little
_ doubt thatthe Bill, many
Had this exertion been so made, had the Blue passed,if will save
lives,
book appeared simultaneously with the commence- as well as most of our pockets.
ment of the first session of the new Parliament, the
late Ministers of the Crown would not yet by pos-
sibility have been defeated at all, they would still
have remained in power, strong in the integrity,
and the consistency, and the truthfulness
of their Foreign policy, as the inaugurators
of the principle of neutrality on the part of Eng-
land in the midst of this sanguinary outbreak
of war in one of the most central points o
Christendom.

Reference at this present moment, however, to
the contents of that unfortunately and blunder-
ingly retarded Blue-book is regarded on all sides
as unadvisable (as yet), because clearly inoppor-
tune. So inopportune is the moment, in truth, for
anything like explicit discussion in regard to
diplomatic correspondence, that even the greatest
master of irony in the House of Commons, the right
hon. gentleman the leader of her MAJESTY'S Oppo-
sition, can only for the moment—

"hint a fault and hesitate dislike,"
when he has occasion, as he had last evening, to
allude incidentally to the half rash, half timorous,
wholly blundering foreign policy of Lord JOHN
RUSSELL. As between the belligerents, now ground-
ing their arms for five weeks to come ! in the quadu-
lateral, the present lull, observable both in the Lords
and Commons, signifies by no means a permanent
compromise or pacification—it is nothing more in
each'instance than a Truce or Armistice.

So—Mr. HENRY BERKELEY has again bowed
down meekly to what he regards as the force of
circumstances. The worst of it is that, with him-
self, he humbles the cause he affects to advocate !
We may contrive possibly to endure the spectacle
of the hon. gentleman himself walking meekly
under the caudine forks, amid the cheers of the
delighted anti-Ballot place-hunters now seated upon
the front Treasury bench as, for the time being, its
Ministerial occupants. But then—trailing in the
dust, after the heels of the member for
Bristol, is the draggled standard of THE BALLOT-
the Reform of all Reforms, and the one which the
hon. gentleman has been deputed to Champion
upon every reasonable opportunity ! We cannot
look at repetition after repetition of this spectacle
without feelings of profound indignation. Last
evening the really honest supporters of the Ballot
in the House of Commons had the satisfaction of
witnessing once more the uncommon relish with
which this Pistol of the Ballot can " chew the leek"
to the unconcealed delight of the Whig Fleuellen
now installed as Foreign Secretary. The Ballot is
inconvenient to Whiggery—therefore," breathe not
its name, let it sleep in the shade," now that those
dear charming Whigs are again enshrined (like the
flies in amber) in Downing-street, leaving many
and many an honest beholder to "wonder how the
devil they got there ! " Mr. BERKELEY is quite a
fire-and-fury champion of the Ballot, so long as there
is no reasonable chance whatever of either getting the
Ballot, or making a Whig lord uncomfortable.
But—sound a blast upon the brazen trumpet of
Whiggery, roll a peal upon the dull old drum of
routine—and the hon. gentleman can be hood-
winked as easily as PARoLLEs;and led away—just
anywhere. The exhibition of yesterday was only
a fitting sequel, it is true, to that witnessed
upon the last division in the last departed
Parliament. Never had the cause of the
Ballot obtained a more tempting or a more
auspicious opportunity than then—when (counting
Speaker and Tellers) there were actually brought
together within the walls of the House of
Commons no less than 638 members altogether.
But no—Mr. BERKELEY then, as now, would
have none of it—the Ballot then, as now, had
better be set aside out of complaisance to its Whig
opponents. It would be so inconvenient ! Mr.
GROTE never would have acted thus, had he con-
tinued to be the Parliamentary champion of the
Ballot. Mr. HENRY BERKELEY, by so acting, has
forfeited any right to be Mr. GROTE'S successor.

We heartily rejoice that, notwithstanding the
Home Secretary's opposition, the House of Com-
mons, by a majority of more than two to one (227
to 103) affirmed the principle of Mr. SCHOLEFIELD'S
bill. Every reason for Acts to regulate what
people cannot possibly see for themselves, such as
weights and measures, the character of cabs and
cab-drivers, and the like, applies, and even more
strongly in some cases, to adulteration of food.
The Bill, as drafted, may need some amendment in
committee,but that municipal and other authorities
should have power to appoint analysists to test the
purity of the articles we eat and drink, as well as
inspectors to insure us fair measure, seems undeni-
able. We detest, none can do so more, the needless
intermeddling of authority with our personal and
commercial matters ; but such intermeddling as
protects the honest man, and lights only on the
underselling rogue who compels him to follow him,
or go into the Gazette, is no more intermeddling
than placing police in the streets. There are thou-
sands of thoroughly honest tradesmen who detest
the present system of adulteration—who would
rather sell the pure article, or mixed in recognised
proportions only ; to such men Mr. SCHOLEFIELD'S
Bill will be heartily welcome.
We cannot see what objection an honest trades-
man can possibly have to this bill. If a
retail tradesman, and if the wholesale merchant,
without or contrary to his order, have furnished
him with an adulterated article, the bill should
provide some inexpensive means by which the
penalties should be recoverable from the wholesale,
not from the retail vendor. Another provision
should be, that if the paper in which the article
was contained had printed on it conspicuously,
as in the case of coffee and chicory, what was
the mixture of which the article really consisted.
the vendor should be held blameless. But it ought
to state also the proportions by weight or measure.
We cannot conceive of any valid reason why, with
a few such safeguards against wanton annoyance
of a tradesman, and provisions for such as would
prefer a cheap mixture to the genuine article, there
need be any hesitation at all in passing such a
measure. If it worked oppressively we shouldsoon
hear enough about it. Six months' trial willlhurt