The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-09 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 9, 1868.

Mr. GLADSTONE'S Cabinet is to-day announced as
completed. This afternoon, indeed, has witnessed
at Windsor Castle the going out of the late Ministers
and the coining in of their successors. In the dis-
tribution of the principal offices of State there is,
however, one transposition which is noticeable—
namely, the according of a seat in the Cabinet to
the Postmaster-General and not a seat in the
Cabinet to the Chief Commissioner of Parks and
Palaces. Otherwise the Fifteen Cabinet Ministers,
Late and Present, may be thus enumerated :

1. First Lord of tlia Treasury,

Mr. GLADSTO:sIE rice... Mr. DISRAELI.
2. Lord High Chancellor,

Lord PAGE WOOD vice... Lord CAIRNS.
3. President of the Council,

Earl DE GREY vice...Duke of MARLBOROUGH.
4. Lord Privy Seal,

Earl of KIMBERLEY... .vice... Earl of MALMESBURY.
5. Home Secretary,

Mr. AUSTIN BRUCE....vice...Mr. GATHORNE HARDY.
6. Foreign Secretary.

Earl of CLARENDON ...vice...Lord STANLEY.
7. Colonial-Secretary,

Earl GRANVILLE. rice...Duke of BUCKINGHAM.
8. Secretary for War,

Mr. CARDWELL vice... Sir JOHN PAKINGTON.
9. Secretary for India,

Duke of ARGYLL rice... Sir S. NORTIICOTE.
10. Chancellor of the Exchequer,

Mr. LOWE ... vice...Mr. HUNT.
11. First Lord of the Admiralty,

Mr. CHILDEPS vice...Mr. CORRY.
12. President of the Board of Trade,
Mr. BRIGHT vice...D eke of RICHMOND.
13. President of the Poor Law Board,

Mr. GOSCEEN vice... Earl of DEVON.
14. Secretary for Ireland,
Mr. FORTESCUE yice...Col. WILSON PATTEN.
15. Postmaster-General,
Marq. of HARTINGTON..vice—Duke of MONTROSE.

Or, rather, that last Cabinet Minister, vice Lord
JOHN MANNERS, Commissioner of Parks and Palaces,
who, it has already been intimated, had his seat in the
Cabinet of Mr. DISRAELI, in lieu of the Duke of
MONTP.OSE, as Postmaster-General. An examination
of the two lists thus placed side by side indicates al-
most at a glance, and certainly very strikingly, the
far larger and more diversified intellectual
capacity of the new Premier's colleagues as
compared with the colleagues of the late
First Lord of the Treasury. But, then, to
begin with, Mr. (DISRAELI had what has been
termed his body-guard of Dukes, and those Dukes—
the Duke of RICHMOND, the Duke of BUCKINGHAM,
and the Duke of MARLBOROUGH. The new Prime
Minister, on the other hand, contents himself with a
single Duke in his Cabinet, and that Duke a no less
able one than the Duke of ARGYLL, distinguished at
once as the philosophic author of_the Treatise on Law
and as one of the most vigorous debaters among the
Liberal Leaders in the House of Lords. Nevertheless,
with this intellectual preponderence on the side of the
new Ministry, when they are weighed in the balance
against their predecessors—Mr. DISRAELI, Lord
STANLEY, and Lord CAIRNS being alone noticeable in
the one group of Cabinet Ministers, whereas in the
other there are observeable names as distinguished as
II
those of Mr. GLADSTONE, Mr. BRIGHT, Mr. LOWE, Mr.
CARDWELL, Lord GRANVILLE, the Duke of ARGYLL, and
Lord CLARENDON—complaints are notwithstanding
becoming already audible as to the disproportionate
amount of the old Whig element in the formation of
the new Government. Mr. BRIGHT, Mr. LOWE, and
Mr. CHILDERS are really the only new men who
have been enrolled ; and, in their sympathies
and their natures, they are distinctly antagonistic.
Mr. LOWE, besides, was already a Privy Council-
lor, had already been in office, though hitherto
without a seat in the Cabinet. But his whole genius
is antagonistic to Mr. BRIGHT. He was the ring-
leader of the Adullamites. His, one might say, was
the fleecy hoisery of that political Skye-terrier faceti-
ously referred to a couple of years since by the mem-
ber for Birmingham, as so bewilderingly small and
confused that one could never tell which was the head
and which was the tail. And yet these are among
the men who are to sit amicably cheek-by-jowl
at the same council board. Advanced Liberal and
retrograde Tory, as one might really, in many
respects, term the member for the University of
London ! Talk of the Happy Family ! Talk of the
Bird and the Cat ! It is the Lion and the Basilisk !
Another very regrettable peculiarity at the outset
in regard to the Cabinet justconstructed is thatwhereas
four out of the five Secretaries of State under the
last Government, were in the House of Commons,
namely, the Foreign Secretary, Lord STANLEY, the
Home Secretary, Mr. HARDY, the Indian Secretary,
Sir STAFFORD NORTIICOTE, and the War Secretary, Sir
JOIIN PAKINGTON—three out of the five under the new
Government are in the House of Lords—namely, the
Earl of CLARENDON as Foreign Secretary, the Earl
GRANVILLE as Colonial Secretary, and the Duke of
ARGYLL as Indian Secretary. And, in point of fact,
only one of the remaining two has at this moment
a seat in the House of Commons, that one isolated
Secretary of State being the Secretary of State for
War, Mr. CA.RDIVELL. For, the Home Secretary (of all
men !) has yet to be provided for in that way—Mr. 11.
A. BRUCE having been rejected in the late contest by
his old contituency of Merthyr Tydvil. It is ex-
pected, however, that a vacant seat will be
found for him on the elevation to the
Bench as Lord Justice of Appeal (in place
of Sir W. PAGE WooD, now promoted to the Wool-
sack) of Sir ROUNDELL PALMER, now M.P. for Rich-
mond, in Yorkshire. What the subordinate posts may
be which are to be allotted to Mr. STANSFELD
and Mr. W. E. FORSTER has yet to be announced,
but in any case their claims for office can hardly be
overlooked. Seeing that Parliament meets to-mor-
row, we may expect, before the close of the present
week, to have seen filled in all the other offices in
the Administration.

BY general consent Mr. GLADSTONE'S appoint-
ments in the Upper house are considered to be the
weakest part of his Cabinet. In the first place, there
are too many of them ; in the second place, the peers
selected are, with few exceptions, not up to the mark
so far as debating power is concerned. The Duke
of ARGYLL, Earl GRANVILLE, and the Earl of
CLA-LIENDON will indeed be able to hold their own
against such men as the Marquis of SALISBURY,
the Earl of CARNARVON, and Lord CAIRNS. But the
new Lord CHANCELLOR will be nowhere in debate,
and will have to look for aid to Lord 'WESTBURY,
the cashiered Chancellor of a former Administration.
Lords HALIFAX, KI3IBERLEY, DE GREY and Parox,
SPENSER, and other noblemen who have been
named will add little strength to_ the Government so
far as oratory is concerned. Even if the Marquis
of lIARTINGToN: and Sir George GREY, should