The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-15 00:00:00

Coalition—and met, too, in the face of that most
formidable, because numerically powerful and per-

fectly organised, Opposition.
The Italian question involves our relations im-
mediately with Sardinia and the Two Sicilies,
mediately with France and Austria, directly or
indirectly with all the States of the Germanic Con-
federation, with all_the Powers, large or small,
Catholic or Protestant, of entire i-_,llristendom. Our
resolute adoption hitherto of the prinC_of ;
the
trality does not preclude us from accept._
?le
Neu-
privileges, does not exonerate us from assumn.,l7
the responsibilities of Arbitration with a view to
the better securing of the political liberties, the
union, and the independence of the Roman Penin-
sula. There is that anxious source of disquietude,
moreover,-upon the frontiers of Morocco, where,
again, as mediators, we might debar France and
Spain from the fancied necessity of lighting anew
the conflagration of war in Northern Africa.
The renewal of war has unhappily become a
necessity upon the coast of China, whither
the Western Powers are preparing to despatch with
all convenient haste armaments proportioned in
every way to the greatness of the outrage to be
expiated, to the grandeur of the prestige to be re-
stored, and to the vastness of the empire to be in-
vaded. There is that other outrage no less flagrant
of its kind, but happily as yet bloodless, the seizure
of San Juan by the United States' soldiery—neces-
sitating the settlement at lait, summarily and defi-
nitively of the long-vexed question, there, as to the
validity of the rival (British and American) claims
of the rights of sovereignty. A perfectly new
phase has of late been evolved in what is popu-
larly known as the Eastern Question, the
relative position of the Eastern races, particularly
of the Turks and the Russians—by two startling
events, occurring almost simultaneously—the cap-
ture of the Caucasian Imaum, SCHAMYL, by the
Muscovite General, Prince BARIATINSICI, and the
opportune discovery, upon the very eve of its ex-
plosion, of a deadly conspiracy against the life of
the Sultan-Caliph, ABD-UL-MEDJID. This new
phase will have to be scanned all the more cauti-
ously now that Lord STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE
has withdrawn from his twenty or thirty years'
tenure of the post of honour as the Britannic
SOVEREIGN'S Ambassador at Constantinople. For-
tunately, however, we have at this juncture accre-
dited there to the Sublime Porte as her MAJESTY'S
representative about the next best man in the
whole range of our diplomatic service—Sir HENRY
LYTTON BUIAVER—one of the most astute and ex-
perienced among all`living masters of the higher
science and profounder arts of diplomacy. Alto-
gether—the more closely we scrutinise the Situa-
tion, whether it be at home or abroad, whether it
be in regard to Reform, or in regard to our Foreign
Policy, the Minister who unquestionably assumes
at this moment the prominent position in this
Coalition Cabinet of Sixteen—A 1, among all those
sixteen before England and before Europe is—
not the First Lord of the Treasury, but one of the
Five Secretaries of State, the virtual Premier—
Lord JOHN RUSSELL. To Lord JOHN the country
looks at this crisis—foreign nations look—far more
than to Lord PALMERSTON. The fact is unde-
niable. Here is Lord JoHN's vengeance. In the
recognition by his overshadowed rival of the com-
pleteness of that unostentatious but supreme ven-
geance lies the germ of disruption to the Coalition
Government. How long the Sixteen can be held
together in spite of inevitable and rankling jealousies
remains still purely, of course, matter of conjecture.
Yet must that Happy Family meet at intervals
—it is the frightful necessity of their position—
all their mortal repngnances to the contrary, not-
withstanding ! And these are the -sympathetic
judgments that have to harmonise upon all sorts of
delicate themes with an eye all the while to the
on-coming of that inevitable session when they will
find themselves again confronted b:7 the solid
phalanx of an admirably disciplined Opposition,
led on by the wiliest and, upon occasions, the most
daring of all Parliamentary tacticians !

Lord BROUGHAM has told us, as the result of an
octogenarian's experience, that " if everything at
elections remains on its present footing—if election
contests can only be carried on at a cost ruinous to
all but the most wealthy—if no means are afforded
to securing condign punishment to the practisers of
corruption, and the only risk incurred is the
loss of a seat—the existing evils must continue
to eat into the vitals of our constitution—to render
what is, in mockery, called free election, a mere
farce—to make the House of Commons, only by
accident, the choice of the people—to convert the
electicn of its members into the means of subvert-
ing the independence and destroying the morals of
their constituents—and to raise a grave doubt
whether the country would not be injured by an
extension of the franchise, if it did not beget a fur-
ther doubt about the benefit of the franchise as
already enjoyed."
Weighty words these. Yet, each sentence in
them is but incontrovertible truth. The investiga-
tions at Gloucester are but the illustration, by no-
torious facts, of both the conditions and the conse-
quences of Lord BROUGHAM'S long proposition.
There we have a city, a Cathedral City, an old city,
a city of a magnitude fairly to share in the repre-
sentation of the country, a city which no Reformer
would propose to disfranchise,—yet, even there,
every word of Lord BROUGHAM applies. It is just
" things at elections remaining as they are " that
would make it far better that Gloucester should be
disfranchised !—Batter for the morality of its inha-
bitants, rich and poor; better for the morality of
Sir W. HATTER himself, and of the candidates
who sought the doubtful honour of representing
the length of their own purses and the venality of
the citizens ; better for the "free and independent"
electors, who would certainly be more free if they
did not possess the freedom of the old city so
steeped in corruption. Hero we have a city whose
election in 1818, cost £4o,ooo—Sir M. BERKELEY
confessing to £16,000; and which, even since the
Reform Act, has been regaining its viciousness at a
rate which promises to ruin all political morality
whatever.

One solicitor gave it as his opinion that
there were not ten electors who were not more or
less corrupt ;—and that if they did not receive
money bribes, they obeyed some other unworthy
influence. The statement was indignantly contra--
dieted by Mr. PRICE, the late member; but from
all that followed, it seems very like the truth.
Another most competent witness showed that the
direct bribery had gone on increasing at such a
rate that the first 150 who took bribes would soon
be swelled to 800, or about half the constituency ;
an assertion no one thought of disputing ! When
we find Sir W. HATTER helping to send £5OO in a
secret way from London (secrecy for • anything but
voting), Sir W. CARDEN spending also in 1857 not
less than £4,lls—and this year, when all is put to-
gether probably not much less ; the Liberals also,
spending similar sums, yet all parties except the
" Captains" and one or two more who actually dis-
bursed the money, not knowing anything about
bribery, and almost assuring us that they had no
reason, to suspect anything—when we find men of
education and position, men of shrewd business
habits too, paying and forwarding large sums of