The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-03 00:00:00

LOiVDON, THU.RSDAY, DEC. 3, 1868.

Mr. DISRAELI, no less than the Emperor NAPOLEON,
has had his Second of December. As Prime Minister,
the course pursued by him, yesterday, was as start-
ling as any coup (Petal recorded in history. By ten-
dering the resignation of himself and his colleagues,
as he has done, he has acted as best became
the dignity of his position as the Leader of a great
Constitutional Party. He has not been driven from
office. He withdraws from it. In so doing he has
had regard especially to the interests of the na-
tion, to the convenience of the Legislature, to
the preservation intact of his own high
Parliamentary reputation, to the honour and
consistency of all those, both in the House
and out of it, of whom he is the recognized
and responsible Leader, and, last:not least of all, to
that loyal self-abnegation which best became him, at
a crisis of this supreme importance, in his:capacity, as
chief Ministerial adviser of the Sovereign. Hitherto,
but more particularly of late, the meanest motives
have been imputed to him in that capacity by the
more virulent and unscrupulous of his assailants.
Ho has been described as a trickster who was
bent, above all things, upon clinging to
office at no matter what sacrifice of prin-
ciple—as a mere Parliamentary tactician, consum-
mate no doubt in his ability as such, but at the best
as a political adventurer. By the course pursued by
him yesterday, those flagrant and unjustifiable im•
potations have been altogether falsified. Ile has
acted with the strictest regard to honour. Ile has
preserved his consistency. He retires with dignity
from the supreme position he has occupied as head
of her MAJESTY'S Government. And, in withdraw-
ing his forces and assuming his position anew
as Leader of the Opposition, he does so with his fol-
lowers not only not disorganised, but in the highest
state of vfliciency awl discipline—and carrying with
him the prestige of having, during his tenure of office,
solved that great problem of Parliamentary Reform
which had so long been the stumbling-block of party,
and the des:ruction and disgrace,one after another,
of a series of Administratioas.

By resigning as he has done, Mr. DISRAELI, as we
have said, has presJrved his c,:msisteney. He has carried
out his own programme. Opposing—mistakenly, as
we conceive—the proposition brought forward in the
[louse of Commons within a few days after his eleva-
tion to the Premiership—Mr. GLADSTONE'S no doubt
sadden and startling proposition—for the dis-

establishment and disendowment of the Irish
Church, Mr. DISRAELI declined to abide by the
adverse decision of that last Parliament : preferring,
as in his position he had a perfect right to do,
a direct appeal to the country upon the great and
momentous question thus abruptly ventilated ; urging
at the same time, and with equally good reason, that
the appeal then made to the country should be xaade,
not to the old and restricted, but to the new and en-
larged constituencies. In order to render this
appeal to the enlarged constituencies practic-
able, it became necessary that the incom-
plete measure of Parliamentary Reform upon
the broad basis of Household Suffrage should be
perfected as rapidly as possible—he and his colleagues
retaining office to that very end, namely, that they
should finish what they themselves had commenced.
By applying themselves to that most laborious task
with resolute industry and assiduous application, the
Great Reform Act, with which Mr. DisttAELa's name
will henceforth always be associated, was with
really extraordinary rapidity, under the circum-
stances, brought to a satisfactory completion.
A special statute was passed, the old Parliament was
dissolved, a new one was summoned to appear by the
mandate of the SOVEREIGN, the writs were issued,
the appeal was made to the country, and that appeal,
moreover, addressed to the greatly increased body of
electors, to the newly-enfranchised multitude, to the
enormously enlarged constituencies. And the answer
given bythe:country to that appeal has been given—
as the world knows by this time, as Mr. DISRAELI
is himself the first to recognise—quite unmistakeably.
So unmistakeably that the Premier does what no
Premier has ever done before him under kindred
circumstances—he frankly, manfully, honourably
resigns office into the hands of his Sovereign be-
fore the meeting of the new Parliament. By
a resignation like this be disarms criticism.
Away to the win,ls go at once all those
miserable imputations about clinging to office
—about systematic trickery—about paltering with
the name of his Sovereign for mere party purposes
and for the furtherance of a selfish ambition, no
matter how unscrupulously. Against the course that
has all along been pursued in this matter by Mr.
DISRAELI, no accusation whatever can now be directed.
The paltry gibes of partisan opponents must hence-
forth be hushed for very shame. Mr. DISRAELI has
acted not as a mere tactician, not as a political
trickster, not exclusively even as a party leader :
he has acted throughout—he proves by his resigna-
tion thus instantly at the close of the General Elec-
tion and before the meeting of Parliament that he
has acted throughout—in his high capacity as Prime
Minister of England, as a loyal servant of the Crown
and as a great constitutional statesman. Mistaken he
may be—mistaken we, as one, believed him to be—on
this question of the Irish Church, but we cannot at
the same time do otherwise than regard with respect,
and in one sense with admiration, the dignity of
the course he pursues in his manner of opposing it.

IN placing their resignation in the hands of the
QUEEN, her MAJESTY'S Ministers have adopted the
most dignified and honourable course. There was
nothing to be gained by prolonging in the house of
Commons a contest which had been irrevocably
decided on the hustings. The battle is over, and the
victory won; the debate in Parliament after the
polling must have been as much a farce as the
nomination which preceded it. It would have
been worse than a waste of time to gather
together the 658 representatives who have
passed through the turmoil of a general elec-
tion for the mere sake of reproducing in the Legisla-
lature the fierce personal struggle which has just
ended in the country. A " no-confidence " motion
may sometimes be an indispensable ceremony, but it
can never be deemed other than the most disagree-
able contingency of political warfare. It may some-
times be necessary to determine the most
important questions of policy, but it never fails
to expose the worst side of political life. The
personality and recrimination which marked the
debate of 1859, when the last Conservative Govern-
ment was expelled ;_ from office, ought to be
amply sufficient to satisfy the country for a genera-
tion, much more for a decade. In 1864 Mr. DISRAELI'S
motion on the Danish question, which amounted to
a declaration of a want of confidence, was
the only mode of testing the strength of the two
parties, and of determining the policy of the country.
There had been no appeal to the nation because
there had been no previous defeat. The question
came for the first time before Parliament. But in
the present instance there is not the slightest need
for the dismal formality of debating upon a Royal
speech which would confessedly represent the policy
of but three-sevenths of the House. The Ministry
appealed to the country upon a definite issue, and
the country has returned the most definite reply. It
has assured the present Government that it must
give place to another, and nothing remained for
the Ministry but retirement. In former times
when a choice of deaths was offered to the
condemned the option was rarely neglected, and
the easiest and simplest mode of demise was chosen.
The Ministry also have done wisely in selecting the
simplest form of an inevitable formality. The Minis-
terial crisis will now be got over before Christmas,
we shall enjoy our annual festivities undisturbed by
politics, and then—the first Radical Government
shall have its innings.

THE not unnatural curiosity which is felt in ascer-
taining the exact figures of the respective parties
in the House of Commons may now be gratified
with scarcely the smallest danger of error. A diffe-
rence of two score in the original calculations would
not have affected the practical result ; but it is satis-
factory to find that those estimates were in the main
correct, that the country has not belied the just
expectations that were formed of its decision. The
verdict on the side of justice has been favourable
almost beyond hope ; the majority against the Irish
Church is large almost to danger. In the Reformed
Parliament the Liberals will outnumber the Con-
servatives by 110. The seats yet to be assigned can-
not alter this verdict by a greater variation than that
of one or two on either side. Mr. GLADSTONE will
be supported by a party which, under most circum-
stances, would fall into that security which needs no
legislative successes to strengthen its position, that
inertia from which the country has already suffered
so much. The character of the Liberal leader is,
however, one guarantee against a reproduc-
tion of the Palinerstonian era ; and the
character of the new House is another. Mr.
GLADSTONE is active or he is nothing; during the
reign of his late chief his greatness was merged into
one department of the State, simply because there
was no opportunity for action in any other. I.li that
elivaast
a financier partly because his genius led him in
direction, but also partly because the Budget was for
several sessions the most important item of the year.
The constitution of the new House, though not
wholly satisfactory, is an additional guarantee that
the Liberal host will not be idle in its
strength. Mr. 0 LADSTONE'S majority is simply
a deputation so far as regards the Irish Church
question, and is deeply pledged on other sub-
jects. One of the greatest reforms of our genera-
tion is virtually accomplished, and many others can
no longer be kept in the background. The great
attention which has of late been given to the topic
of economical administration, and particularly by the
Liberal leader himself, leaves it almost beyond doubt
that some change will be attempted in this direction,
either by the Legislature or the Executive. Then
conies the piece de resistance, education, the
liquor traffic, and others of the many social
reforms which political agitation has kept back
so long, Tile Liberal majority is more or less