The Sun.
London, England, 1857-03-17 00:00:00

LONLON, TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 1867.

Elsterday the Earl of DERBY, in the course of
his really remarkable address to the House of
Lords—ostensibly upon the Income Tax, but
virtually upon the existing Situation came
down with one energetic and sledge-hammer blow
upon ourselves. Unexpected as the blow was,
and formidable as any Llow dealt by one so
puissant in Debate and so authoritative in Posi-
tion could hardly fail to be, we dare say it may I
be survived. The Noble Earl had beet recently
embarrassed, it will be remembered, by taunts
violently directed against his Party through that
Chink in its Armour—the semi-recognised and
demi-luthentic weekly organ of her MAJESTY S
Opposition. Lord DERBY, not unreasonably,
detcrtnines, therefore, to avail himself of the
very earliest opportunity for retaliation. He
resclves—acting upon an old and time-honoured
plan—to carry the war, if possible, at once into
the Enemy's Camp. To accomplish which pur-
pose, however, he obeys in the present instance,
we cannot but think (to say the very least of it),
a most eccentric inspiration. Reaelved, as we
have intimated, upon carrying the war without
any more ado forthwith into the Enemy's Camp
--What, after all, does the Earl of DERBY actu-
ally decide upon to this end? What, bill-, plainly
and literally, upon t eking exception to the lino of
argument pursued not by any partisan newspaper,
not by any recognised official organ of Lord PALMER-
STON' :3 Government, but by a journal of long-sus-
tained thoroughly established independence. Lord
-1-)Ereiv retorts Upon those who have taunted his
party, as before intimated, by directing attention
to earnest opinions expresser' by ourselves, by a
l,oir.ted reference to the views advanced in The
Sent —au organ too Noble Earl described last
night is the House of Lords as cc a
nem__ .
pap r which warmly supports the
Noble
Viv:atnif, and —ass,a t; his claim to the confidence
Aye, my Lord DERBY—'gut
of the country;'
n derst tndine•
hot-, upon what Plea, upon what u
upon what clearly indicated stipulations ? Why,
obviously and notoriously as was indicated by the
very views of ours which wore referred ti yester-
day in the Upper House by the distinguished
Leader of her MAJESTY'S Opposition —llp ti'e
not Simply implied, but rather upon the distinctly
defined condition that Lord Pt 'L
and explicit'y
MERSTON prove himself to be indeed worthy of
that confidence by a manly enunciation betimes

of the giliding princiviPg, pirticWarly in regard

to our Home Policy, which are intended .1, ac!tt-
,
---itte and regulate the movements of the
NoLle Viscount's Government. In regard to his

Foreign Policy we need no explanation whatever.
Its character and its tendencies have been illus-
trated, beyond the shadow of the shade of any
misconception, by a public course of now half a
century's duration. A career which has now for
many years been the glory and the boast of Eng-
land. A career already, as the world recognises,
historically illustrious. A career which long since
extorted a memorable panegyric from a great
living rival and contemporary. One which has
not only won for the present Premier the enviable
title of "THE BRITISH MINISTER," but which
received upon a notable occurrence the for-
mal, deliberate, and enthusiastic approval of
Parliament, and which has now at length, in the
fullness of time, and at a crisis of extraordinary
emergency, left the British Minister par excellence
without one single competitor in popularity
among the ranks of living English Statesmen. It
is solely in regard to his views and intentions as
to our Homo Policy that we are solicitous, as we
intimated yesterday, to have a formal Political
Manifesto from the hand of Lord PAL3IERSTION.
And for thus untentionally but authoritatively
enforcing this demand we esteem ourselves in the
present instance as it were under a personal
obligation to the Noble Earl the Leader of her
MAJESTY'S Opposition.

Mr. COBDEN has done his best to befool the
country, but it is to be hoped the country can
well look to itself. He has sent down an issue to
be tried at the hustings and the polling booth,
which the Cabinet had settled satisfactorily, and,
no thanks to him, if that too rare opportunity—
a GENERAL ELECTION—be not thrown away upon
the savage YETI, and the most savage of the
semi-barbarian Chinese. It will require all the
efforts of all hearty Liberals to prevent the great
septennial chance from being wasted about what,
only in the most indirect manner, concerns our
own domestic progress. The last Parliament was
elected to decide an issue already settled, Prctec-
tion—that was almost entirely a waste election ;
as Parliament for the country it accomplished
nothing but the passing of a few bills, which had
been waiting some time, which their pareats could
not reject, and which their foster-parents thought
it well to get the credit of. Let electors take
care that they be not again taken in. If it were
needful to sacrifice everything to bury Protec-
tion, it is not necessary to waste an election on a
Chinese War—DISRAELI and Lard JOHN have
at last acknowledged that practically that business
is now settled ; that the next Parliament will
have little to do with it ; that in a word, if

COBDEN wero Prime Minister, ho must fight i

out.

Mr. COBDEN tells us the Ministerial Programme
is PALMERSTON—no Reform—and a Chinese War.
We care not what programme Manchester chooses
to assign to the Ministry ; no man better knows
than Mr. COBDEN, that the country can, if it be
only awake, put what it pleases into a Ministerial
programme. He has seen the Corn Laws repealed
by the Parliament elected t) maintain them, and
buried by another elected to revive them. Tire
Electors of England CAN make a REFORM PARLIA-
MENT of one chosen to reverse a COBDEN crotchet on
the Chinese War. Will they do it 4 Will they
allow themselves to be stultified by cotton spin-
ners and Peace Society men ? We do not know,
however, yet, that we are not unjust to cotton
spinners. If they stand by those amongst them who
first uttered their voice on receiving the news of
the COBDEN-GIBSON triumph, they will demon-
strate plainly that cotton spinners do not surren-
der English common sense to the men of crotchets.
Our readers will see that the two great classes
who need political reform have spoken out. The
represented and unrepresented have each made
their demand. The represented want a free vote,
and the unrepresented a place on the register.
The BALLOT and the SUFFRAGE ; these are the
words which must not be forgotten on the hust-
ings. There is no fear whatever about Lord
PALMERSTON and China. The Premier is safe
enough, and wo aro glad he is. The penitents
all over the country loudly proclaim that PALMER-
STON cannot be ejected. Reformers are free, there-
fore, to fight their own battle. They cannot en-
danger the Government, but they can put reform
into the Ministerial programme. We are confident
that IF the country pronounced for the Ballot and
Household Suffrage, or any other suffrage, that
PALMERSTON would carry what they asked. He is
a Conservative, they say, at heart. We believe
it. We believe the same of Lord JOHN RUSSELL.
Lord JonN, except for party purposes, would not
like to move an inch beyond the Reform B:11,
and no Tory would care to repeal it. Neither
would Lord PALMERSTON. But as surely as Lord
PALMERSTON sits on the Treasury benches, so
surely would he, if Mr. HATTER told him, after
the elections, that three-fourths of the constitu-
encies had voted for the Ballot and the Suffrage,
himself initiate both, or, it may be, put them in
the QUEEN'S Speech.
It is the fault of Reformers themselves if Lord
PALMERSTON be not a Reformer in the next
Parliament. No man amongst the Premier class
objects less to reform,—it is the bother of it he
dislikes, and he cares nothing about it. Ho would
infinitely rather reform than go over, he and his,
to the Opposition benches. Who imagines that
Lord PALMERSTON would quit the Treasury
benches from aversion to reform 1 He is of too
*genial a temperament, In fact, to go out upon any-
thing that a majority of his countrymen were
eager to have. Ho would rather, like all the
rest, let reform alone, but he would much rather
take it up thail hand it over to some one else, or
be at variance w:th. the bulk of the people. We
have now, then, in our hands just the very in-
strument to put Lord PALMERSTON right, and we
have in him a Premier who would give us quite as
good a Reform Bill as the Vienna Lord, and per-
haps a bettir one. It is just now remitted to us
to see, ne quid detrimenti respublica capeat, and if
Lord PALMERSTON do not turn reformer, we may
justly exclaim, nos, nos—populi destont43 ! The
commonwealth is in our handy, and it will be our
fault, ours alone, if we use not our power.
Reformers hare been lulled to sleep by coalition
Ministers, and divided by war. There is nothing
now to excuse inattention. A war in China can be
no pretext for their not going heart and soul into
reform. Seven weary years may await them, if
they demand not, now, shorter parliaments ;
electoral serfdom at intermediate elections, and
the next general election, if they do not insist
on the Ballot; and a relatively diminished constit-
uency, if they do not require an extended frac-
chige- The House of Commons makes Ministers,
but the people makes the House. It is uselees
whining and moaning to HirtcueEs. when our owil
shoulders t) the wheel is all that is wanted. Lot
auy one but take that notable and impartial Red
1;007', " Doo's Eloetoral Fa
cti"—lot him just
turn to Cle proportion of votora to the population,
and notice the miserable fraction of the population
entitled to a vote ; let aim glance over the par. -
graphs innumerable informing whose " influence"
predominates in the boroughs—into the counties
lie needs hardly to trouble himself to look ltt
jiiin add to this all he remembers of bribery and
corruption in 1852, and, then, let him ask whe-
ther Reformers can, with decency, be content to