The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-14 00:00:00

LON DON, 547 URDAY, NOV. 14, 18G8.

Lord STANLEY'S speech at King's Lynn, yesterday,
comes before the country most opportunely. Every-
thing considered, it is quite as well that the Foreign
Secretary's pronunciamento should have been post-
poned thus until the very eve of the General E!ec-
tion. He speaks throughout as a Moderator. His
manner is equable, yet assured. IL flings no fire-
brands about him. His words are not taunts. They
have the charm of co:mum sense. EvJry one can
understand what he means. II: evidcncs au inerra-
dical)le distaste, on the one hand for reticence,
on the other for circumlocution. He speaks

with a set purpose not to put a gloss
upon anything but to make his meaning quite
plain in regard to all the points, one after another,
of public interest demanding at this moment very
urgently the public consideration. Almost at start-
ing he seizes at once upon the imputation so persis-
tently flung in the teeth of the First Minister of the
Crown and his colleagues, to the effect that they
passed the Reform Bill simply because they wished to
retain office ; and that, actuated by that one motive,
the love of place, they are ever since then clinging to
power. Lord STANLEY, we say, seizes upon this at
once and flings it aside dis lainf ally. As for him-
self, he says, it has been strictly by his own choice
that he has passed the far greater part of his parlia-
mentary life as a private member. Thirteen yews
ago (1855) Lord PALMERSTON offered him one of the
highest positions in his Cabinet. Ten years after-
wards (1865) Lord RUSSELL, then Premier by the
death of his chief, repeated the offer in terms even
more flattering. "Not wishing to sever myself from
the political connection with which I had acted," says
Lord STANLEY, " I declined both proposals."
IftsißsAcEciLui,ally worthy of remembrance in regard t 3 Mr.
D
as it appears to us, that when he became
Prime Minister no statesman had ever risen to supreme
power in a constitutional state more legitimately.
It may be said of him quite truly that he became
First Lord of the Treasury by direct right of inherit-
ance. Lord DERBY'S resignation of the Premiership,
by reason of his failing health, left the post vacant
for that one among his colleagues whose reputation
was alone second to his own, and who had borne the
brunt of the fight for upwards of twenty years as the
leader of the Conservative party in th it most for-
midable of all political battle-fields, the House of Com-
mons. Mr. DISRAELI was Lord DERBY'S natural suc-
cessor. The former had both earned and inherited that
supreme position as head of the Conservative Govern-
ment. He had advanced, moreover, in spite of how
many enormous disadvantages ! Without family in-
fluence to back him up, without great wealth or
high connection to give him a start in life, he
had had to fight his way as a very young man into
the front rank, first of all outside the walls of Parlia-
ment, in what is called the Republic of Letters, and
afterwards, inside those walls, in the milst of the
representatives of the people of all shales of political
opinion. It is an of I story, and one that is perfectly
well known to the great mass of the pe3pla of this
country ; but it is especially deserving of being re-
called to mind, thus, in passing, now that Lord
STANLEY, as a Minister of the Crown in the two
last Governments, first of all under his father's
Premiership, and then under that of his f tther'e
successor, has seized up3a this despicable taunt
directed against both Cabinets, namely, that they first
passed the Reform Bill, an I that they hare ever since
continued "in," purely and sine ply because thsy wished
to retuin ollize ! Lord SraNLEY seizes upon the taunt,
we say, aid c tsts it aside disdainfully. Mr. D.311.1EL1,
against whom it has all along been in tinly d:reeted, '
has, on the other hand, up to this mo:nent, remained
(yet more disdainfully) silent altogether on the sub-
ject. Asd with reason : for the ciecurnst tncer raider
which he has single-handed fought his way to power
without any adventitious aid whatever, is of itself an
answer. An.l the House of Commons felt this, through
what he himself in one of his happiest phrases his
designated its unerring instinct, when, upon the
moment of his accession t 3 powe ~ it hailed his ap •