The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-03 00:00:00

T "

0 X

F 0 R D,

B, OXFORD-STREET.

This noble building being now completer!, its architectural
beauty, elegance of ornamentation, and brilliancy of lighting
render it one of the sights of the metropolis. Open Every
Evening. The programme is varied, and includes Selections
(by a full company of principals, powerful band, and chorus)
from " Macbeth" and " Un Ballo in Masehera." both operas
by Verdi, the composer of the day—The wonderful Solos on
the Cornet-a-Piston of the renowned LEVY—Scotch Duets by
the Misses Stuart. and other vocal and instrumental music
of the highest order. Conductor, Mr. F. Jonghmans. The
Comic portion of the entertainment is support (ted by Missr
Green, Messrs. Sam Collins, Harvey, and French he,
W. H. Wieland, E. Marshall. and W. Randall. Admission,
Hall, sixpence ; Balcony and Stalls, one shilling. Private
Boxes, 10s. 6d.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tats DA-T.—Morning, 11h. 30m.—Afternoon. h. m.
To-mosatow.-Morning, 12h. Bm.—Afternoon, 12h. 34m.

--'I:I:C—IELt.-611N OFFICE, AUGUST
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
76—highest since noon yesterday.
55--lowest this morning and during the night.
62—this day at noon.'
7.7 :13.4.noltrrzu-29.89.
WlND—Westerly—strong fresh breeze ; with du'
showery weather. Afternoon, cloudy.

F, 11361.

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DIE " 0.3

THE SUN.

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1861.

In Lord HERBERT—better known among his
contemporaries as the Right Hon. SIDNEY HER-
BERT—England has without doubt lost one of her
leading statesmen. No orator—but a speaker en-
dowed with admirable debating powers. No genius
—but a man gifted with very rare abilities, and
those natural abilities enhanced by the acquisition of
various refined and, potential;acoomplishments. For
many reasons this deceased servant of the Crown stood
forth conspicuously among the most eminent men of
his time. A Patrician by birth, he was at the same
time one of the wealthiest of British Commoners.
Possessing intellectual powers of more than ordinary
capacity, he was personally noticeable even in his
bodily form and features as one of the most hand-
some men of his generation. Every one admired
him, every one liked him—more or less accordingly
as people had the opportunity of know-
ing and appreciating his excellencies. Added
to an which, he possessed, over and above his
natural and acquired gifts, that amiable source of
popularity, a desire to please. When we have said
this—adding that SIDNEY Lord HERBERT was
in his nature the very soul of honour, and through-
out his career the very incarnation of industry—
we have said everything.

It is the merest exaggeration of paneygric in Lord
HERBERT'S regard to maintain, as some have main-
tained ever since his illness had so increased upon him
as to compel him to resign his War Secretaryship,
as some are insisting upon it now that this lamented
statesman has been snatched from us prema-
turely to the grief of us all—that in SIDNEY
Lord HERBERT we have lost one who was
almost safe to be Prime Minister of England.
That ho had very many of the qualifications re-
quisite to make a good administrator—to make a
first-rate administrator—there is not one amongst
'us, we suppose, who would care for one instant
to deny. But as to Lord HERBERT being all but
as a matter of absolute certainty a Future Pre-
mier' /7113' nobody ever dreamt of such a notion
until the late War Secretary's retirement from
office was known to have been rendered inevitable
by the breaking down (by reason of overwork)
of his fine and even apparently vigorous con-
stitution. To reason, a,
that way while Lord HERBERT'S
reasoned, in
'n-ERBERT's strength
was rapidly fading out, was, as we thought
at the time, the veriest extravagance.
Seriously to maintain the fact have
been thus, now that this accomplished administra-
tor has passed from the world's scene altogether is
the merest posthumous adulation. Besides ths sole
reason adduced for thus looking upon SIDNEY
BERT as—if only his health had been spared to him
a few years longer—the inevitable Prime Minister
of England in the hereafter, is a reason to that end
that as such is absolutely no reason whatever.
argued gravely that he had the manifest "making'
of a Prime Minister about him, for inasmuch as he
exercised. over all who approached him such a
glamour of personal fascination ! We have yet to
learn the t the possession of this peculiar attribute
is one of the essentials, is one of the distinguishing
marks of a First Lord of the Treasury. Viscount
MELBOUI INE, we believe to be the only in-
stance isi modern times in which the possession
of this pa rticular fascination was in any way re-
cognizabli?—and in that aspect we take Lord
MELBOUR. SE'S instance to be entirely exceptional.
Remember Ing at the same moment that the most
enthusiastic and infatuated members of the
late lame nted Lord HERBERT could never
aream of claiming for the latter more than a
merest tifilic by comparison of the witching
Sharma
arc' splendid abilities latent in the heart
and brain of Lord 'MELBOURNE. As for the rest
of our tnedern Premiers, we don't know that there
is much illat can be said about any one of them
in the wxy of exciting sentiments of personal
affection among those who approached them.
Even wit?n the present Premier, one of the most
popular of our Prime 3liniaters,cne of the most
generally admired, it is certainly not thus. It
cannot for one instant be pretended to have been
thus, again , n
with that dreary entity kuwn in Mr.
DisRAELI'I political novels as this Arch-
Mediocrity.
gr. PITT'S refrigerating hauteur
and isolati on. ire matters of history. So

It i 8

indeed, may we say',, have already \ beeome the
phlematic coolness and insouciance of Lord JOHN,
hen-OMM to—be rightly designated only as Earl
RUSSELL. As to the late Sir ROBERT PEEL, the
great Sir ROBERT, it was a subject of general
remark throughout the chief part of his
public life, how lonely the man was even amongst
his colleagues, how devoid he appeared to be of those
alluring charms that win for their possessor the
solace of intimate personal friendships. It was only
eventually when this political PROSPERO had
broken his wand and descended from
supreme power voluntarily—it was only to-
wards the close of his remarkable life
that the ice seemed to be broken through in his
regard, and that even the great masses seemed to
be suddenly inspired towards him with feelings of
almost personal affection, certainly of the very
liveliest, of the most grateful and ardent admira-

tion. But—as Prime Minister—Sir ROBERT PEEL
had never at any time been known to exercise upon
those who approached him this strange personal
fascination that is now being so preposterously
talked of, as evidencing, in Lord HERBERT'S in-
stance, such an especial aptitude for the
acquisition of th© post of the Premiership!
That Lord HERBERT was an able and laborious,
a patriotic and a devoted Administrator, not one
Englishman amongst us all is there but will ad-
mit. But that he had about him the making of
a Prime Minister, that had he lived he must cer-

tainly have become Prime Minister, we for one
have never for one instant recognised. And—
simply out of a feeling of complaiBance while
listening to those hyperboles of eulogium—we are
certainly not going now to affect to recognise it.

The death of the Dake of BUCKINGHAM recalls
vividly the days of the Reform Bill struggle. The
name of CHANDOS is almost as much associated
with it as that of RUSSELL. The latter gave to the
counties the vast increase of members they then ob-
tained; but the former converted that increase into
the means of landlord ascendancy. Up to the time
of the Reform Bill no class of electors had been
more independent, on the whole, than the county
freeholders. The Reform Ministry, by dividing
counties, thus creating eighty-two instead of fifty-
two constituencies, and increasing the members re-
turned by counties, from ninety-four to one hundred
and fifty-nine, intended to increase the number of
Liberal aristocratic members. They were sure of
preference for aristocracy by freeholders, and they
equally hoped to secure many more members re-
turned by really " Free and Independent Electors"
—they expected that Whig liberalism would be
strong in the counties.
It was the Duke just deceased, then Marquis of
CHANDOS, who changed all this. His celebrated
" Chandos Clause," gave over all the expected
liberal county members bound hand and foot to the
Tories. Whether even he fully realised at the time
the greatness of the Tory victory he had achieved,
may be doubted. Lord ALTHOBP did, and predicted
that the increase of the county representation, com-
bined with the CHANDOS constituency, would ren-
der the bill the most aristocratic measure which
had ever passed the House of Commons. Lord
JOHN RUSSELL himself declared that he intended
by the Reform Bill to secure the ascendancy to
the landed aristocracy. But he had meant it for
the Whig aristocracy—the Marquis of CHANDOS
handed over its aristocratic benefits to the Tories.
Even worthy JOSEPH HUME was deceived by the idea
of increasing the number of electors ; so were many
liberals with him ; and despite Lord ALTIEORP'S
warnings, joined with the Tories in handing over
the counties to the latter.
At first the zeal of Reformers was sufficient to
give a large working liberal majority. But as early
as the Parliament which was assembled in 1835,
under the auspices of WELLINGTON and PEEL the
mischievous effect of the CIANDOS clause became
apparent. Lord JOHN RUSSELL himself, though re-
turned in 1832 at the head of the poll for North Devon
by more than 500 votes, and not having been op-
posed at the general election, at the single election
consequent on his accepting the Home Secretary-
ship was rejected for an insignificant Tory by a
majority of more than 600. Lord PALMERSTON, in
like manner, who in South Hants was in 1832
nearly 400 ahead of the Tory candidate, in January
1835 was 240 below him. In fact it has been recog-
nised since that election, that with the rare excep-
tion of Liberal landlords having the ascendancy, or
of manufacturers predominating in the district, the
Reform Bill placed the counties with their 159
members in the hands of the Tories. It has been
equally acknowledged that the Duke's clause was
the deed of transfer.

We have come indeed now to regard this fact as
not only an accepted ene, but a hopeless one. In
the counties the Tories are to walk the course with
the fifty pounds tenants-at-will as their body guard.
A very efficient one too. In round numbers they
are just about a third of the county con-
stituency—about one hundred, out of three hundred
thousand. As there was before, of course, a large
Tory constituency, the addition of one-third all
well in hand on the Conservative side, settled the
question. Every English county is, in fact, a
close borough. The number of electors is indeed
paraded by Mr. DISRAELI, and those who talk
after him, as a reason why yet more members
should be assigned them. It would seem to re-
quire the honourable gentleman's imperturbable
gravity not to laugh outright while making such
a demand. No one better knows what indeed his
chief has confessed, that to predict the result of a
county election it is necessary only to know the
politics of the landlords. They command, directly,
one-third of the voters, and can naturally influence
a large number
willthe rest,shou ladndbendoiosonbeeyseudp.
The Crt...NDos supposes it
possible that their of
clause extends their power in the
most barefaced
way; it gives a vote to but very
small occupiers, and does
not even require the
slight independence created by a long lease—Xso
d serfdom.nte a
TENANTS AT WILL. The words
seem intended to
describe agricultural ignorance and
course the majority of the tenants have larger hold-
of them, not a great
many,
ings, and many
length
er The peculiar
But it is a great mistake
long - leases.
e r c ooncfceurp a tainoyathainn a
to suppose that even a larger
a lease of ordinary
like independence on the vot .
position of every agricultural tenant is such that he
cannot afford to differ from his landlord at the
polling-booth. It is wholly unlike that of a tenant
•
of a house in a town ; the farmer's land, improved
generally by him, and warmly competed for by
others, he must retain if he can, or make large
sacrifices. And to leave his farm because he has
acted independently is about the worst recommen-
dation he can have in seeking a new tenancy. It
really is not the fault of the farmer that he is poli-
tically subservient. To cherish the game which
devours his crops, and to vote as his landlord does,
is each of them as much a sine qua non as to be a
good farmer and a good ratepayer.

For this most melancholy corruption of the
counties we never heard more than one remedy
suggested. No liberation from the landed incubus
is possible but through the Ballot. The political
slaveholders resist it just as American slaveholders
,now resist the limitation of slavery. The power,