The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-19 00:00:00

T "

6, OXFORD-STREET.
The architectural beauty, elegance of ornamentation, and
brilliancy of lighting of this noble building, render it one of
the sights of London. Open Every Evening. The pro-
gramme is varied, and includes Selections from " La Tra-
;iata," "Un Ballo in Maschera," (by a full company of
principals, powerful band, and chorus). Solos by Miss Bryant
en the Piano Forte, and by Mr. Russell on the Trombone.
Old English Ballad, by Miss Green, Scotch Duets by the
Misses Stuart, and other vocal and Instrumental music of the
highest order. Conductor, Mr. F. Jonghmans. The Comio
portion of the entertainment is supported by Messrs. M. P.
Foster (in his " Life Sketches"), Sam Collins, Harvey, and
French (the Nerves), E. Marshall, and W. Randall. Hall,
sixpenee ; Balcony and Stalls, one shilling. Private Boxes,
6d.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tun DAY.—Morning, lh. sm.—Afternoon, lh. 30m.
TO-Id ORR 0 w.-Morning, lh. 48m.—Afternoon. 2h. 10m.

THE WEATHER.—Suw OFFICE, AUGUST 18, 1861.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE•
71—highest since noon yesterday.
57—lowest this morning and during the night.
70—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-30.03.
WlND—South-Westerly—fresh; with very fine harve3t
weather.

AUGUST 19.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
70—highest since noon yesterday.
.57—lowest this morning and during the night.s
70—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-29.99.

WlND—South-Westerly; fresh and squally, with fine
sunshiny weather.
HALF-PAST ONE.—Wind, W.-N.-W.—Overcast, with
heavy clouds and squally—with a sprinkling of rain.

t..7P
I,cce 4.
• - /4.-• NI 0 •••1 4.4.4`
-

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THE SUN.
LONDON, MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 1861.

Lord STRATIADEN'S protest against the third
reading of the Appropriation of Seats Bill appears
opportunely enough with the result of the election
in South Lancashire. The triumphant return of
the Tory Candidate is a perfect justification of that
protest of Lord STATLIEDEN. It is more than that.
It is a glaring evidence of the folly of that wretched,
little, peddling, bit-by-bit reform system in favour
of which the Liberal party, as represented in the
present Coalition, appear to have abandoned their
endeavours to carry through any measure of a really
reprehensive character. There, in effect, is proof
pm ►itive of that folly—there, in the return at the
hey al of the poll of Mr. CHARLES TURNER, the
Co! iservative Candidate, now M.P. for South Lan-
cas hire. Our contemporary, the Observer, as the
I.i. beral Sunday organ of the Government, ap-
Pears somehow to have been startled by the news
or. lir. TURNER'S success. Insomuch as to cry out
In a sudden paroxysm of dismay—" It is no use
mi'acing the matter; political power is gradually
P"ing away from the Liberal party, and, unless
some event calculated to wake the country to ac-
tion immediately takes place the narrow majority
now wielded by the Government will soon dwindle
down to nothing." Adding, moreover, 4; The only
event of the kind that Can effect the object is a
prompt dissolution of the present Parliament;
because, by bringing the danger home to the
business and bosoms' of all men, there would be
more likelihood of a decisive reaction, which is
the only effectual remedy for the present atrophy
of the Liberal party." Nay, even going so far as to
exclaim in a series of almost hysterical ejaculations
—" The circumstance is critical ; the issue is vital;
the time is rapidly speeding; and in a little longer
it will be too late." Winding everything, up with that
exaggerated apostrophe so often—and we will endea-
vour to believe always so inappropriately quoted—
the Miltonic words addressed by SATAN to the le-
gions of the damned ! Besides—even, in the present
instance, waiving the origin of the apostrophe— I
it must surely have been regarded, at the worst,
in its present application, as a very monstrous exag-
geration. Supposing, that is to say, that what is now
popularly spoken of as the Conservative Reaction
to be as far spread throughout the constituencies
as Lord DERBY'S most infatuated supporters could
wish the world to believe—even then surely it
were somewhat preposterous to address the Libe-
ral Reformers all over the country in these de-
spairing words of his Satanic Majesty's :

"Awake, arise; or be for ever fallen I"
Rather hard, that, upon the Liberal Party—to sup-
Pose it can be so very easily swept aside ! Why,
according to this view of the political situation,
the cause referred to must indeed be in a most
Ileketty condition, The South Lancashire 1-4'.lec-
t ion, viev,,d
lugubriously, is in truth but
the last 'bop to brim over the cup of bitterness for
the Coalition,
oiaist straw to break the camel's
back of the grand
~..arding.
the
actual
position
Government. Re-
tain:on of things between oppos-
i nj parties, it is cer
jt,pireoiyvofking, to say the least
of it. That, we take
unanswerable by any
one. It comes inopportun
Ministers at the
close of the last session for two rr
loss aosfons. Firstly—
it follows bard: upon the
many other
seats, the chief amongst Which We
particularised
only a few- , even ings since. ~
Another and
another" [of these. Conservative candidates]

"still succeeds." Another and yet another
Tory gets returned instead of a Liberal supporter
of Lord PALMERSTON. South Lancashire, in fact,
being merely an additional instance to be supple-
mented to the long list already known. Secondly,
as a reason why this preference of the South Lan-
cashire constituents for Mr. TURNER, in lieu of the
Liberal candidate, Mr. CHEETFIAM, is so very
lamentable a baulk for the Government and its
supporters—it ought to be borne in mind that this
is the first fruit of the only bill affecting the
popular representation introduced during the late
session by one of the Cabinet Ministers
in the name and on behalf of the present Govern-
ment.

It was in the absence of any new Reform
Bill whatever, good, bad, or indifferent, that the
Appropriation of Seats Bill was regarded
with auy (even the smallest) degree of com-
placency when originally laid upon the table
of the House of Commons by the Right
Hon. Baronet the Home Secretary, now the Secre•
tary for War. The four seats, which had been so
long left vacant by reason of the disfranchisement
of St. Albans and Sudbury, were at length to be
filled up. Before they could be filled up, however,
it was necessary to create new constituencies
for them. They had to bo appropriated,
It was a Liberal Government that had at length
determined upon securing their appropriation.
The bill was introduced. We all remember with
what results,-in the shape of debates and divisions.
The bill brought before the House of Commons in
one form—went up to the House of Lords in
another, The formidable Opposition had moulded
it by that time to their own liking. There had
been—at any rate, for one of the four seats—a
somewhat unseemly scramble. The upshot of the
whole discussion being that the Four vacant seats
were appropriated thus—One to South Lancashire
—Otte to Birkenhead—the Two others to the West
Riding of Yorkshire—that mammoth constituency
henceforth being halved into the North and south
Divisions. With half an eye—it was manifest that
the Conservative Opposition, in so manag-
ing matters, had looked after their own
interests right well. The Government had
manifestly got little enough out of their measure !
In fact the absurdity of still hastening the bill in
its new shape through Parliament appeared so
manifest to the common sense of a dispassionate
observer like Lord STRATHEDEN—heart and soul
liberal as he is—that he protested against the third
reading of the bill through the document given else-
where in our impression of this evening. A glance
at Lord STRATHEDEN'S protest will show how, for
no less than fourteen cogent reasons, he felt himself
constrained thus formally to inscribe his name on the
journals of the Lords as a dissentient. Without
entering into a detailed re-examination of those
fourteen good and sound reasons—it will be enough'
while we publish the protest in its entirety, to point
(as to Lord STRATHEDEN'S perfect justification in
writing it) to the result of this very significant
election in South Lancashire. The Conservatives
having gained the day in South Lancashire—how
will the struggle end in Birkenhead ? And how,
eventually, will matters go whenever the double
contest can take place upon the halving of
the West Riding of Yorkshire ? Those are
really becoming very serious subjects for con-
sideration. For jibe though some may, as at an
empty phrase, at what is called the Conservative
reaction, it is at any rate absolutely undeniable
that seat after seat is being lost to the Liberal side
of the House, and secured one by one to the Con-
servative Opposition. That Opposition is so for-
midable already, while the majority with which the
Government entered office was originally so very
small, and has since then so dreadfully dwindled
away that the future certainly looks
dark enough before the Coalition. It is
amusing to observe that the chief organ of the
Government affects this morning to be utterly
bewildered as to the meaning of the Conservative
Reaction. Can the Times really and seriously be
in doubt about it ? Can there be any uncertainty
in this way in the conscience of the Coalition, sup-
posing it be blessed or troubled with anything of
the kind ? If so the elucidation of the mystery is
easy enough. The Conservative Reaction, or what
is so called for want of a better name, meaning in. a
very few words—a Reaction, not so much For the
Opposition as Against the Government—a reaction
of sheer disgust against a quasi Reform Coalition
that, so far as the interests of Reform have been
affected by it since it assumed power, has proved
itself to be " a mockery, a delusion, and a snare"
—aa monstrous a sham, as flagrant an imposture as
ever Mr. CARLYLE put lance in rest, took pen in
hand, to destroy.

We shall before long see whether the North is
really in earnest. We have had volunteering
enough, and enlisting enough, and talk and writing
enough in all conscience, but now it will become a
question of paying. The pocket test, and the test
direct too, is to be applied to all the States north
of the Potomac, the Ohio, and the Missouri, with
some tags and fringes perhaps of semi-loyal States
south of those rivers. Not only are tea, coffee,
, sugar, spirits, and a host of other things to be
taxed which were not taxed before ; not only
are the MORRILL duties to be raised, not
only is a man to pay for carrying his
timekeeper in his pocket, according to its value as
silver or gold, but he is to pay also a 3 per cent.
income tax. The customs and excise taxes might
be paid without knowing it, as our own are, and the
needy man might, if he liked, economise a little by ,
abstinence. Not so, however, as Jonathan will soon
find, with the income tax. Whether he be a
bachelor or a man with a dozen young hopefuls,
the eldest hardly yet out of school, he will find that
he cannot escape the same income tax, His £5OO
or his £l,OOO must pay the same
one
ex
mouth
hrdors
redintegration of the Union,t whether
twenty has to be fed by it. We shall see how
the farmers of the North-west, and all the
other agriculturists of the North, like this.
They, as well as the whole South, are
severely taxed by the Morrill tariff, in the
interest of Massachusetts cotton-spinners and
Pennsylvania iron-masters. We shall see whether
they will be content to pay an income tax to save
the Union, and a cotton and iron tax at the same
time, to put money in the pockets of their own
manufacturers, at the cost of the 11ederal Revenue.
One arrangement in the tax is reasonable, but has
been urged without success at home. It com-
mences at incomes of Xl6O. That is held to be a
moderate livelihood. Tile tax will, therefore, be
paid only on the excess above that sum. In this way
great numbers of the worst grumblers may escape.
The sovereign mob will at all events go unscathed.
Congress has passed one Act, it is said, with
the reluctant assent of the President, which, were
its principle carried out at all constructively,
would emancipate almost the whole slave popu-
lation. The Act referred to is one for confiscating
rebel property, and it contains a clause, that
"whenever, during the present insurrection, any
person held to service or labour shall be employed
in military or naval service, entrenchments, &C.,
the person to whom such labour or service is due
shall forfeit his claim to the same." The
is, limita-
.
two. of course, intended to be strictly adhered:to,