The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-24 00:00:00

vances opposite 'Washington, of no importance
however, so far as we can perceive. The Confede-
rates were slowly retiring before them, but until the
Federals begin again to approach Manassas Junc-
tion, if they venture to do so, we need not expect a
battle; from -which indeed both sides seem equally
to shrink, as well indeed each may. The attack-
ing party must fight at great disadvantage, and
neither seems disposed to risk it. At present the
Confederates are not within sight of the Federal
position at Louisville, in front of Washington.
In Western Virginia the Confederates are
also reported to be retiring. In Missouri
we can discover nothing certain. By the
last accounts PRTCE was running before FREMONT
into Arkansas. Now we hear of him as waiting
for reinforcements to attack Jefferson city itself!
Thus the best we can say of the war is, that it
wriggles along the whole line, from Cape Hat-
teras in the East, to Lexington in the West.
Advance, it does not—not visibly at least.

Lord JOHN MANNERS has taken a leaf out of the
book of his right hon. friend and colleague the
member for Buckinghamshire. He closes his last
political speech, almost one might call it " political
Man ifesto,"with one of those epigrammatic sentences
flavoured with the acidity of sarcasm that leave a
more or less lasting relish upon the palate of the
general public. "However, for a time," said his
Lordship, " unprincipled combinations may place
in office heterogeneous politicians, those time-
honoured institutions of our land [Lord JOHN
MANNERS is referring to Church and State]
will not be handed without a struggle,
and a successful struggle, to philosophical
pedants or to the more avowed inroads
of political demagogues." The sentence might
really have been uttered by Mr. DISRAELI himself.
One would have deemed it more likely to have
sounded to us from the direction of Bucks, than
from that of Leicestershire. It is a significant cir-
cumstance, we cannot but think, when a gentle-
hearted and almost unimpassioned politician, like
this accomplished younger son of the late Duke of
RUTLAND, is incited to the utterance of taunts and
gibes as galling as those compressedwithin the narrow
compass of his recent harangue to his constituents,
at the great Conservative Demonstration which
took place at Leicester on Tuesday last. It tells
its own tale. It speaks of the confidence infused
into the heart of Conservatism. It reveals also the
latent determination there to overthrow the
"powers that be" upon the very first opportunity.
Not that we believe, for an instant, that there is
any intention whatever, among the Chiefs of the
Opposition, to adventure upon any deliberate move-
ment next session, with a view to the ousting from
office of the "heterogeneous politicians" now making
up the rank and file of her MAJESTY'S Government.
Under the very appropriate leadership, by the way,
of the noble lord who, among all our living states-
men, is least embarrassed by what are called
(evidently a mere phrase in his estimation)
" principles." The Opposition, we are satisfied,
have no systematic design whatever of struggling
for power in 1862 with the present Administra-
tion. Supposing there should be any change of
Ministry at all, after the meeting of Parliament
in February, that change will be brought about
more by failure on the side of the Government
than by any successful antagonism on the part of
the Opposition. In fact, the Conservative party
learnt a good deal last session, as to the superior
wisdom of a course apparently no other than one
simply apathetic. Whenever they undertook any-
thing at all in the shape of an attack, direct or
indirect, upon the Ministry, they found to
their cost that their so doing rallied round
the Cabinet those very heterogeneous politicians
who were otherwise in a fair way of being estranged
from each other preliminary to their disband-
ment. Ever since the Opposition has adopted the
laissez faire, the laissez aller system, they have found
everything, in their own interests, tending directly
and indirectly to the good. Has a Liberal seat,
become vacant, there has been a local contest set on
foot at once, resulting almost invariably in the
return of the Conservative candidate. We remem-
ber how this occurred during the sitting of Parlia-
ment within this last twelvemonth. We remember
that it occurred so often that the small difference there
was between the aggregate on the side of the Govern-
ment and the aggregate on the side of the Oppo-
sition gradually faded out of view as a difference
in favour of the Liberals, until at last it even
began to glimmer out in a ghostly manner almost
as a difference in favour of the Conservatives !
At the close of the late session at least the fears
of the Liberals and the hopes of the Conservatives
said as much pretty confidently.
Recollect for a moment how the two Great
Parties actually stood in regard to each other in
numbers, at the moment when Lord DERBY'S
Cabinet fell to piecee, and when Viscount PAL-
MERSTON assumed the reins of Government.
Is it clearly enough borne in recollection how
small was the majority that led to that transference
of power from the hands of the Conservatives to
those of the Liberal Coalition. The division that
threw out Lord DERBY'S Reform Bill, and with it
Lord DERBY'S Government, was a division in one
of the largest Houses known for years and years
past down at Westminster. And the clear majority
in that largest house within the recollection of the
present generation, was a clear majority of—how
many ? Of "thirteen !" That is to say—had but
seem of those members who took part in this
momentous division by voting with the majority—
voted with the minority instead of with the
majority, the tables would have been turned ! The
Conservatives, instead of being defeated, as they
were, by a clear majority of thirteen in a House of
638, in that sitting of the Commons on the night
of Friday, the 10th of June, 1859, would, by that
transference of seven votes, have been in a majority
of ONE ! Seven votes only making that
difference ! Recollect, since then, how many
more than seven votes have been gained to
the Conservative Opposition from Liberal
constituents ! Recollect how the Government
side has lost, how the Opposition side has gained in
this manner at Leicester, in the county of Cork, in
the southern division of Lancashire, and elsewhere !
No wonder—remembering these things—that the
Tories are becoming heartened as to the future!
But how has it all come about that the tables, in
this age of table-turning, have been turned so very
surprisingly ? Is it not visible at a glance through
the records of the last session of Parliament ? The
constituencies have, in the instances glanced at,
returned Tories instead of Liberals to the House of
Commons—not because they love Toryism more?but
simply because they love Liberalism (that is, the very
dubious Liberalism of Lord PALMERsToN's Coalition)
less ! They have turned this directly against the
Government through sheer indignation at the
Ministerial falsification of so many fair promises.
The Administration that came in to do so much
has done just nothing in the way of good, and
wholesome, and comprehensive Reforms. The
Cabinet that was formed with the avowed design
of reforming the existing system of popular re-
presentation upon a scale, and with a tact and
adroitness far beyond anything attempted in that
way by tin late Tory-Reforming Government, has i