The Sun.
London, England, 1857-03-14 00:00:00

IfIGFI WATER AT LONDON BRID4r.t..

THIS DAT—Mora. 6 min. aft. 4 —Evening 20 mid. mi.. 4
ro-Afosno4—torn. 33 min. aft. 4—Evening 43 raj, aft. 4

TiiE WEA.TEIER Orrrom, MIME( it.
THIRMOMETER, IN Trill STI&DE.
48 —highest sines noon yesterday.
44 —lowest this morning and during the night.
66 —this day at noon.
BAROVICTIEB, 29'17—a great fall.
WIND, W.S.W.—Fresh, with occasional sunshine, and
heavy passing clouds.
It was quite stormy during the night, with rain.

~ ~~

,§:11t11,

• LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 1867

......._.
A distinguished. state____ sman and administrator,
& politician skilled in diplomacy, a patrician in
the very fullness and strength of his mid-career—
.7.ofEs BRUCE, Earl of ELGIN—has just been
selected by ministers to Ci the import int and
responsible office of our Negotiator with the Chi-
nese Government.

It is a judicious appoiatment. All things con-
sidered, we believe the news of this appointment
the majority of the
will be hailed by people
throughout the country with unalloyed and un-
affected satisfaction. Lord ELGIN has a name of
popularity among his fellow-citizens. He has
never yet damaged his reputation by a blunder.
A wonderful avowal to make in regard to any
public man nowadays ! His energetic and yet
eminently conciliatory administration of affairs in
Canada, won for him the applause of two
Ministers, the good-will of the whole community,
and the conspicuous approbation of his SOVE-
REIGN. Since his return homewards from his
great Colonial Governorship, he has lived for the
most part in comparative seclusion--vigilantly
observant, no doubt, of public events generally,
but refraining, in the majority of instances, from
any direct participation in them) even as a sena-

for deliberating upon them in the upper branch
of the Legislature. Whenever Lord ELGIN has
spoken, however, during this interval of compara-
tive repose and privacy, he has invariably, to
our recollection, spoken rather, as it were, with
the calm and equally-poised judgment of a patriot
than with the passion or pique of a mere politi-
cal partisan. Now that he is once more induced
to emerge into public life, he does so, conse-
quently, without any diminution whatever to his
prestige—on the contrary, be it said, with that
appreciable increase to his influence, which
naturally enough accrues from the mere
circumstance of a temporary and dignified
withdrawal from the political arena, after the
honourable completion of a series of distinguished
and protracted public services. It is now
eleven years since the date of his appointment as
Governor-General of Canada. Nevertheless he is
at present but in the forty-sixth year of his age—
the noble earl having been only thirty-five at the
period of his departure for the opposite shores of
the Atlantic, as the representative of his SOVE-
REIGN in the Two Canadas. He is, therefore, as
we have said, in the prime of his life, in the full-
ness of all his powers—equally removed, we may
believe, from the rashness incident to youth, and
from the timidity not unusually the concomitant
of old age. The very man apparently desired by
all parties under the existing emergency. A man
with large and wholesome experience. A man
with already well-proved sagacity and determina-
tion. Accustomed to the responsibility devolving
upon one of her MAJESTY'S representatives.
Habituated to think with promptitude, and to
act with vigour at a distance remote from the
central authority. Familiar with the onerous
and delicate duties of a plenipotentiary. Un-
biased, as much as one could reasonably expect an
English Statesman to be, by mere considerations
of Party. Inspired by a love of country.
Animated by a jealous regard for the national
honour. Interested, deeply and resolutely in-
terested, in the maintenance of the rights and
properties, and much more, consequently, in
the conservation of the lives and liberties of his
fellow-countrymen in far-away corners of the earth.
In one word, a thorough Englishman. Such we
conscientiously believe to be the especial merits
and qualifications of the nobleman who has just
been selected by the Prime Minister for the won-
derfully delicate task of conducting our diplo-
matic negotiations with the Chinese Government
in the capacity, with the authority, and under
the official designation of her Britannic MAJESTY'S
Minister Plenipotentiary and. Ambassador Extra-

ordinary.
Under the heavy pressure of his very grave re-
sponsibilities Lord MAIN may console himself
with this most reasonable conviction—that the
British People will not fail to remember, from
first to last, the exquisitely delicate and compli-
cated labyrinth of difficulties out of which the
Noble Earl is expected to extricate affairs at
Canton. Allowances cannot fail to be made
in simple justice, if only in consideration of the
unusual entanglement of existing differences.
And there is always this saving clause in every
such supreme emergency the Gordian Knot, if it
absolutely defies all the unravelling adroitness of
Diplomacy—may at any moment be severed in
twain, as it were, by a single blow from the
trenchant glave of Britannia l Lord ELGIN must
remember that—Lord ELGIN will remember that,
while proceeding to the aid of Sir JOHN Bow-
RING, as well as to that of Sir MICHAEL SEYMOUR,
in his new capacity as her MAJESTY'S Plenipo-
tentiary.

Electors, do not forget Prussia I Many will
wonder what they are to remember—are they to
recollect her dirty conduct before the war, at the
beginning of the war, all through the war, and at
the end of the war? Is it her bullying Neuchatel
and Switzerland, hergetting the prisoners liberated
to avoid a conviction for treachery, and her now
playing the Emperor of the FRENOII false, and
Switzerland too, by refusing to settle the busi-
ness ? Yes—all and any of these if they please ;
but probably no effort of memory is needed—the
contemptible meanness, the avarice, self-seeking,
and political crouching of Prussia are never likely
to be forgotten by the generation which has wit-
nessed the war with Russia. But what have
Electors to do with Prussia just now ? Why
bring her up at the hustings in 1857 1 Has Lord
PALMERSTON indicated any wish to maintain the
honour of England at Berlin or at Dantzic ?
Lord PALMERSTON will have to guard both the
honour and the purse of England in the new Par-
liament if we be not much mistaken ; and Prussia

will be the source of danger. We pray, as in
duty bound, for her Majesty Queen VICTORIA, for
his Royal Highness Prince ALBERT, for ALBERT
Prioca of Wales, and for all the Royal Family,
the PRINCESS ROYAL surely included ; and amongst
our prayers we certainly ask that they may never
dishonour their position, nor disgrace their coun-
try, nor become channels to enrich German poverty,
or to satisfy German longings for the proceeds of
English taxation. We have had too much of that
already. LEOPOLD of Belgium and Quee❑ ADE-
LAIDE will never be forgotten. True or false, it
will always be believed that a German Princess
instigated a Monarch, shrewd in such matters, to
get her the enormous sum of 100,0001. per an-
num as the price of his signature to the Reform
Bill, and for what on earth could it be wanted but
for needy German Cousins ?
Wow the rumour has been that the New Par-

lianient will be asked for 50,0001. per annum !
for the interest of 1,000,0001. at 5 per cent., to
t,) marry the PLINCESS ROYAL to a Prussian
Prince ! Could Prussia and its Royal Family be
degraded further ix the eyes of Europe, we
should say that such a mercenary transaction
would sink them yet lower. Happily for us the
credit of Prussia is not in our keeping ; for we
certainly would not discount a single draft on her
honour. But we must bethink ourselves of the
credit of our own Royal Family, and of our own
pockets. These are points for the hustings.
Nothing made Queen ADELAIDE so unpopular
with the nation, nothing so indisposed it to mourn
for her death, as the repulsive Germanism which
taxed the people so unmercifully, either to enable
her to roll in wealth, or to enrich her poor Ger-
man relations. We would not have our young
Princess brought into the same mortifying posi-
tion. We should like our Royal Family to bo
favourites with the country. They will be so if
only reasonable support is asked for them, but if
our Princesses are to cost us 50,0001. a year
each—bless us—where is the end to be ? If the
daughters are to be salaried in this; style, and the
sons in proportion ; and if the latter are to swal-
low up military sinecures retained as special
rewards for ♦eteran service, Lord PALMERSTON
may rest assured that the country will think we
pay too much for the whistle of Royalty, and that
the opinion will spread that a President is better.
Prodigiously less costly at least.

Let electors be awake. There is the utmost
will
especially
danger of a job. The Prince and the Premier
need the voice of the country to enable them
to resist the urgency of German, of
Prussian, avarice. They must be able to reply
that England will not endure it. That England