The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-14 00:00:00

THE WEATHER.—Sini OPIPICTi MAY 14, 1561.

THERMOMETER, IN THE SHAWL
153—highest since noon yesterday.
39—lowest this morning and during the night.
59—this day at noon.

BanoMETER-30 40.
INVlND—Westerly—light ; with fine warm weather.

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THE SUN.

LON DON, TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1881.

It is something lamentable, we cannot but think

that Sir JAMES GRAHAM should evidence an
inclination to signalise the close of his political
career by throwing down the apple of diseord be-

tween the Lords and Commons. The Earl of DERBY
having but very recently exclaimed at the Mansion
House Banquet, " Oh that the Ministers would but
ge to the country with the electioneering cry of
Down with the Paper Duty and up with the duty
upon Tea!" Sir JAMES GRAHAM disingenuously,
we had almost said flagitiously, endeavours now to
improve upon that, by assuming the counter-cry of
the Opposition to be—" lip with the Lords and
down with the Commons !" The device is in itself
so monstrously unfair that the old Tory-Radical
Member in putting forward this notion is
constrained to say, "I do not wish to raise an in-
♦idious hustings cry, but I am of opinion that"—
et cetera. In other words, he does not wish to be
invidious, but—he is so nevertheless. Now, having
watched very carefully the arguments for and
against the Budget, from the very commencement
of these discussions until now, we cannot, in jus-
tice, but protest against the invidious and extrava-
gant suggestion of the right hon. baronet the mem-
ber for Carlisle, as against, a piece of arrant clap-
trap, as unfair in itself, as in its tendency, it is
calculated to prove unpatriotic and unconstitutional.
To put the matter in dispute as Sir JAMES
GRAHAM is putting it, is to do far worse than
simply to beg the question—it is to distort it. The
alternative before Parliament at the present mo-
ment, the alternative that may eventually come be-
fore the country, is nothing of that kind. It is
purely a matter affecting the financial policy of the
country. It is neither right nor reasonable to
regard it as a struggle between the Lords and
Commons for supremacy. It never has been such
a question. It was a shameful distortion of the
facts of last year, when it was pretended by a
little clique out of doors, headed by an exceed-
ingly small section of the House of Commons,
that the Lords were—in rejecting the Paper Duties
Abolition Bill—in any way whatever exceeding
their powers and prerogatives. Strictly speaking,
the House of Lords, in acting as they then did in
that matter, were found upon the cicsest scrutiny
to have been acting, in the fullest sense of the words,
quite constitutionally. If, in acting thus, they
were doing so in a manner, to say the least of it,
very unusual—their justification lay in the
circumstance that they were called upon
so to act under the exigency of very
unusual circumstances. It was observable then,
it is still clearly within the national remembrance
that—after the financial arrangements for the year
had been otherwise accepted and completed, the
calculations upon which those arrangements were
based were proved by subsequent events, were

absolutely proved beyond the reach of one moment's
contradiction, to have been altogether erroneous !

The SUMS of money imperatively required for the
prosecution of the Chinese war turned out
to have been only partially indicated by
a lack of candour, or else by the sheerest igno-
rance of—either a shortsighted or a disingenuous
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Again—the Cabi-
net, after the bulk of the fiscal and financial ar-
rangements of the year had been entered into by
the Legislature, came down to the House of Com-
mons with an extraordinary supplementary propo-
sition for the inauguration at an enormous outlay
of a gigantic and costly system of fortifi-
cations, Ana
ecollect , moreover Ministers
had reserved that proposition until after the
Financial Statement had been made and ac-
cepted by the conftdenee
or the complacency
of Parliament—they had wilfll
u y reserved this
supplementary proposition for the disbursement of

so many millions sterling upon an elaborate scheme
of fortifications; they are known to have so re-
served it, to have so kept it quietly in the back-
ground until the ordinary Budget of the year was
satisfactorily passcid—they are known to have so
done, because the report of the Committee upon the
question of the National Fortifications had
been in their hands before Mr. GLAD3TONE
(lalt year) rnadn his first Financial State-
ment! The result, therefore, proved to be
what might.have baen confidently predicted. The
surplu# our sanguine financier was counting upon
securing within the progress of the financial year,
rapuly—within the first few weeks of that year—
dwindled away, and turnedinto. an unmistakeable
deficit. Then it wc.r; 'hat the Howe of Lords stepped
in to th,; rcocuo a Mr. CiLADsiosz 'ail:l:l6,4i; then it