The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-26 00:00:00

Racing Indicator.

This slip of paper, for which the public is charged half-a-
crown, only takes four horses to beat the field ; and, if betting
men were to back the whole of them, they would be nothing
in pocket. The writer says :—Taking everything into
consideration, we shall not vary our previous selection of
Benham Lass and the best of the French lot (Palestro or
Gabrielle d'Estrees), expecting they will find their most
formidable opponents in Limeflower and Ivanhoff.

He was of the same age and standing as Lord
Russell—the year of his birth being 1792. The de-
scendant of an ancient Scottish family, he was born
at Netherby, and like many of the young Whigs,
was educated at Westminster School. From there
he went to Queen's College, Cambridge, and very
speedily entered upon public life. Travelling for
his pleasure abroad, he was induced to become
Private Secretary to Lord Montgomerie, British
Minister in Sicily, during the most critical period
of the war. Lord Montgomerie became ill, and the
entire management of the mission devolved upon
him. The young man in this, his first taste of the
real business of life, showed the stuff that was in
him. He worked ten hours a day, so that when
Lord William Bentinck returned to the Embassy,
he, although previously unacquainted with Mr.
Graham, requested him to retain the post. He per-
formed several important services in this capacity.
To him has, indeed been assigned the praise of
having conducted the negotiations which led to the
separation of Murat from Napoleon ; but this, we
believe, is an honour which more properly belongs to
Lord Aberdeen. The war ended, he returned to
England, and in 1818, after a most severe contest, ob-
tained a seat for Hull. At this time he was known
as the Yorkshire Dandy, a title procured for him by
his fine appearance, and by a style of speaking
which seems to have been too studied and flowery.
His watchwords on the occasion of the election
were Parliamentary Reform, the Abolition of un-
necessary Places and Pensions, and the Suppression
of the Slave Trade. The ideas conveyed in these
words were not very acceptable in those days, and
in 1820, at the election which ensued on the death
of George 111., he lost his seat for Mull. Subse-
quently he became member for Carlisle, and took a
high positioi in politics on the strength of his
pamphlet on "Corn and Currency," in which, while
insisting on the necessity of reducing taxes, he de-
clared for " the free importation of corn, with a
moderate protective duty." His influence was so
strong that in the Reform Ministry of Earl Grey
he had an honour which his contemporary, Lord J.
Russell, did not enjoy—a seat in the Cabinet. He
was made First Lord of the Admiralty, and the
men of Manchester refer to the expenditure of those
days as the model for ours. In 1834 he seceded
from the Whigs with 11r. Stanley, and gradually
came round to the so. called " Derby Dilly " till be
joined the party of Sir Robert Peel. He became
Peel's righthand man. No orator could be more
brilliant or telling than Lord Stanley, but Lord
Stanley was too independent, and the Premier was
glad to transplant him to the Upper House. On
Graham he chiefly rested, and Graham was of the
nature to give such a man as Peel a thorough-going
support. In some respects, however, he was as much
a weakness as a strength. He was most unpopular.
The incident of opening certain letters in the Post-
office brought on his head a storm of public disap-
probation; and his haughty manner of dealing
with the Scotch Kirk, which ended in the Disrup-
tion, made him hated with a most bitter hatred
north of the Tweed. His strength lay in his power
of work and power of argument. The celebrity of
the Peelites for administrative ability was largely
based on the effectiveness of Graham. After
Peel's death, partly from constitutional timidity,
partly from a desire for repose, he withdrew
by degrees from the excitements of political
warfare. His part was chiefly to turn the balance
of party, to give the weight of his authority to his
friends, and now and then to overwhelm his adver-
sary;with mild sneers or cutting compliments. He
managed always to make the Tories excessively
angry. No man roused Mr. Disraeli's or Lord
Derby's resentment so much—a resentment most
openly displayed. It was a proof of his power, but
it may be doubted whether it was equally a proof
of his wisdom. Sir James was not a farseeing man.
He was a child of the hour. Indeed, on one occasion
he characteristically defended the thesis that every-
thing was changing, and that it was the business
of a politician to be somewhat of a weathercock.
The late Sir James Robert George Graham was
the eldest son of Sir James, the first baronet, by
Lady Catherine Stewart, the eldest daughter of the
seventh Earl of Gallcway, and was born on the Ist
of June, 1792 ; consequently he was in his 70th
year. He married in July 1819, Fanny Callender,
youngest daughter of Sir James Campbell, of
Ardinglass, by which lady, who died in 1857, he
leaves issue Frederick Ulric (married to the eldest
daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Somerset)
and several sons. Among his daughters two are
married, one to the Hon. E. Duneombe, and
the other to Col. Baring. He is succeeded in the
baronetcy and estates by his eldest son, Frederick
Ulric, born April 2, 1820. The present baronet was
attached to the Embassy at Vienna in 1842, and
subsequently entered the Ist Life Guards.

By the death of Sir James Graham the country
has lost one 'who stood in the first rank of its politi-
cians. It is for the next age to say whether he deserves
the title of statesman. The verdict in such a case
is difficult to anticipate. The contemporaries of the
deceased have, perhaps, been disposed to judge him
hardly; Sir James Graham never attained the
highest political honour—the post of Prime Mini-
ster ; and it is likely that at no period of his career
would the popular feeling have ratified such a choice
on the part of the Sovereign. The prominent mem-
ber of threo great Administrations, the Minister to
whose judgment even Peel sometimes deferred, the
able administrator and indefatigable man of busin
eass
had not the qualities which enable men to lead
parties, to dictate the decisions of an assembly, Qr

The wonder is that such a man should not have
had greatness thrust upon him. Though an official
rather of the Continental type, and wanting the
warmth and impulse which make men great in
England, he might at any time have been raised to
the highest post, if not with the favour of the
public, yet witt out any display of surprise. A poli-
tician who was in the Whig Cabinet of Lord Grey
and in the Conservative Cabinet of Sir R. Peel, and
who, again, formed the connecting link between the
two sections of Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet in 1852,
seems one who ought to have risen still higher.
No man, with the exception of Lord Palmerston,
had been brought into close intimacy with so many
public men, or was the depositary of so un-
broken a chain of political tradition. For thirty
years he has been the man whom " no Cabinet
ought to be without ;" so steady and sensible was
he, so acquainted with business, and so ready to
condescend to minor work, and to play a small part
in great affairs. That the possessor of these useful
gifts should have passed away from official and
almost from political life with hardly any notice on
the part of his countrymen, and that his death
should now be important chiefly as making a va-
cancy in the representation of the last of the many
constituencies for which he sat, is a singular end of
an accomplished politician. it is to be accounted
for, we think, by the well-known habit of Sir
James's mind, his instinctive timidity and irresolu-
tion when grave decisions had to be taken. This
man, whom a portion of the public looked upon as
the ideal of a wily politician, was in truth a very
Hamlet when he had not some stronger nature to
guide and to say " This must be done." He was
more than once " master of the situation," and might
have grasped power, at least for a term : but when
the decisive moment came he seemed to lack courage
to act up to the part, and the opportunity passed
away. Even in administration this fault was appa-
rent, and it was the source of all the others with
which he is charged. He would always be so very
sure that he did nothing; or, as is often the case,
waited to the last moment, and then, all in a hurry
took the worst possible course. To blunder through
fear of making a mistake, and then to affect a cyni-
cal disregard of all censures in hopes that his
timidity might not be suspected, was a habit of
mind which lay at the root of Sir James Graham's
ill success.

But,notwithstanding these drawbacks, Sir James
Graham belonged to an order of politicians which,
we trust, will never fail in this country. A man who
with the means of living in ease and self-indulgence,
braces his mind to encounter the toils of political life
and the responsibilities of office, and does so encoun-
ter them during a long political life, must have
qualities not everywhere to be found. There are
many who begin the business of politics young,
as they enter the army; but the great number of
these, if possessed of wealth and station, are but
amateurs in the pursuit, and shrink wearied after a
few years of regular exertion. Few work at all, and
hardly one works as Sir James Graham did. From
1818 to the day of his death, with the exception of
a few years, ho has had a seat in Parliament, and
till lately his voice has been heard continually. That
during all that time he has been an able counsellor
of the State, often wrong, but always zealous and
painstaking, is enough to give him a place among
those entitled to public gratitude.

CARDINAL D'ANDREA'S LETTERS TO

CARDINAL ANTONELLL

No doubt now exists as to the discord at Rome.
A blow even more serious than that given by
Father Passaglia to the moral influence of the
Papacy amongst the members of the Catholic com-
munion itself has just been struck by ono of the
members of the Sacred College. Under the title,
" The Roman Curia and the Jesuits," the publish-
ing house of Barbera of Florence has just given to
the world two letters addressed to Cardinal Ante-
esecongead to o
Congregation
the his
Anto-
nelli by Cardinal d'Andrea, explaining the causes
postwhya s
the
Prefect second
thhinalf obliged
Index. It appears that in a theological contro-
versy between the Bishop of Bruges and the
Professors of the University of Louvaine
the Congregation of the Index, on the ques-
tion being referred to them, decided, by the votes of
all the 16 members present, in favour of the pro-
fessors. But two Jesuit members refused to attend
the deliberations, and the Jesuits are all-powerful
at Rome. Contrary to the constitution of the Catholic
Church, Pope Pius overruled the decision of the 16
members present, and gave validity to that of the
two absent Jesuits. Cardinal d'Andrea, therefore,
in his official character of Prefect of the Congrega-
tion of the Index, wrote to Cardinal Antonelli to
express the impossibility of that body publishing
stigmatising doctrines, which the whole 16 of its
members present at the discussion approved of, and to
know whether the influence of the Jesuits
vir-
tually to overrule and override the laws and gof the Catholic Church. The ants: of dwuassaeeetrhe effect that
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