The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-01 00:00:00

point, and he hoped the decision of the Government
would ultimately be in accordance with the unani-
macdesire which had been expressed by the people
of Ireland." With regard to the position of the
Papacy, Sir ROBERT remarked that " the Govern-
ment had maintained a strict principle of non-
intervention in the internal affairs of Italy, and if
any circumstances had occurred to interfere with
the temporal power of the POPE, it arose from
the action of the people of Italy themselves."
The re-election of Sir GEORGE GREY by his con-
stituency at Morpeth, his election by them for the
sixth time as their representative, was quite as
much a matter of course as Sir ROBERT'S re-elec-
tion down at Tamworth. The advancement of the
former right hon. baronet to hie former position
at the head of the Home Department, being, how-
ever, much less of an " event" in the political
world than the nomination of the bold, dashing
baronet to the post of the Irish Secretaryship. In
addressing himself yesterday to his old friends
the Liberal electors of Morpeth, Sir GEORGE did:not
consider it unworthy of himself or of his colleagues
—like a veteran champion as he is, like veteran
champions as they are—of a now abandoned cause,
to fight all over again in retrospect the grand Sham
Fight in behalf of Parliamentary Reform ! "It
would be remembered," he remarked, " that it was
owing to a difference between the late House of
Commons and the Government of that day that the
dissolution took place—a difference with respect to
some important details, or rather they might be
called
principles, involved in the bill for amend-
ing the representation of the people which
that Government had laid before Parlia-
ment, and he stood there to admit fairly before
them the fact that the Government of Lord
PALMERSTON came into office pledged to in-
troduce to the House of Commons a measure of Re-
form. That pledge, he was anxious to say, he felt
had been fully redeemed. The Government did
propose a bill to Parliament, which no one denied
was in accordance with those resolutions which the
House of Commons had passed, and by which they
had signified their approval of the leading principles
of that bill. That bill was submitted to Parliament
in the early period of the session of 1860, and when
the second reading was moved it was met by no di-
rect opposition. But it soon became evident as the
debate upon it proceeded, that there was a disincli-
nation on the part of the House of Commons to
sanction any great and extensive change in the
system of representation. That debate, as they
knew, was protracted to an almost indefinite length,
till at last they arrived at a period of the session
when it was absolutely impossible to prosecute that
bill with the slightest chance of success. In consi-
dering whether, in this session, they might renew
that attempt, they had reason to believe that such a
measure could only again be proposed with the
same result, and it was thought that it would be
better to devote this session to measures of practieal
legislation, which might benefit the country gene-
rally, than to be proposing measures of that kind,
leading to indefinite debates, without any practical
result." In themselves these words are certainly
very significant. But inasmuch as they are uttered
by the right hon. baronet the Home Secretary they
are perfectly conclusive. The removal of Lord JOHN
RUSSELL to the House of Peers as Earl RUSSELL
occurring at the same time, moreover, makes assur-
ance doubly sure ! Ministers, as Sir GEORGE GREY
I says, speaking for himself and his colleagues, now
look upon their pledge to the House of Commons,
and through the House of Commons to the country,
as fulfilled. They have done—according to the
French idiom—their possible. And there—an
end of it. With a Conservative like Lord
PALMERSTON at the Head of the Coali-
tion Cabinet—and with the arch-champion of the
cause of Reform removed from the House of
Commons—and with declarations like those we
have just quoted from the speech of a staunch
Whig statesman, like the right hon. baronet the
Home Secretary—much prospect of Reform cer-
tainly the country has now, as the result of the
specious pretext that turned Lord DERBY'S last
Cabinet out of office through the cunning agency of
that ever memorable political dodge, Lord JOHN'S
delusive Resolutions !

The Federal forces have made at length a decided
advance. They were according to the telegrams
received yesterday fully thirty miles away from
Washington, and approaching a spot of which we
have often heard in this contest—Manassas junc-
tion ; where the railway to Western Virginia meets
that which leads to Richmond. It is therefore a
very important position giving the power of
acting promptly in Virginia in two direc-
tions. It was about three miles from this junc-
tion that the first important resistance has
been made to the main body, now advancing towards
Richmond, and into the heart of the Eastern or
rebellious part of Virginia. The place was suffi-
ciently strongly fortified to resist the attack of the
advanced guard, but the main body appear to have
overpowered it easily.
The two armies must now be pretty well within
sight of each other. Manassas Junction is under-
stood to be the spot where the Confederates have
their strongest force, advanced thither to prevent a
march on Richmond. Its numbers are still said to be
about 60,000 or 70,000 men—the same estimatewhich
has been so frequently repeated lately—it is pro-
bably therefore about the truth. Hence the number
of Gen. M'DOWALL'S column, which is the Wash-
ington
or central, cannot be much greater than that
of the Confederates. If so, the battle will be one
of prowess and not of numbers. It had been sup-
posed that Gen. SCOTT intended to combine the
three columns on the main attack, and that it would
not be made till BUTLER from Fort Monroe
on the East, and
M'CLELLAN, and PATER-
SON, whom BANK
8
h
ion the West, could as now superseded,
approach near enough to
threaten the right and left of the Confederates.
They were however much too far off for actual co-
operation at the time when IVI'DoWALL was
expected to fight the looked for great battle, and
Gen. SCOTT must therefore think 1114DONVALL strong
enough to vanquish the Southern army without
their aid. Cautious as the old
he hasldgene notacted pre_
is,
we quite
expect it will be found that
cipitately. The only thing which could induce
him to do so would be the popular demand at
Washington for action.
The
One sentence in the telegrams should not be
overlooked—to us it seems very ominous—"
Government has decided that no more fugitive
slaves shall be allowed to follow the army." It
is already tired of the "contraband of war." There
is, we are confident, much more in this simple sen-
tence than meets the eye at first. It is an adver-
tisement to the Slave States that President LINCOLN
is not an abolitionist ; that, although opposed to
the extension of slavery, he is not, in the proper
sense of the word, an anti-slavery man ; that he is,
in fact, a friend still, to that good old constitutional
enactment, the Fugitive Slave Law. Just at this
stage of the contest, this single announcement
deprives it in our eyes of half its interest.
There must be a very strong feeling
in the North against attacking the grand cause
of all the embarrassments, when on the very field
of battle it disavows encouragement to slaves.