The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-30 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SlP.,—Within a few short weeks it will be exactly
one year since I commenced a series of letters to
you, with the query " What will Lord Derby do ?"
I showed to you clearly that there was no reason
why we were not to have a Reform Bill from a so-
called Tory or Conservative Government. I recalled
to your memory and the memory of your readers the
great, useful, and substantial reforms that bad been
carried in days of yore by our present illustrious
chief. At the end of the session I pointed out what
Lord Derby had done ; I showed the good and use-
ful Reform Bill he had carried for the second time
in his life, only 35 years (a brief period historically
speaking) after the former one ; and I wound up
lay letters by proving most incontestably that Lord
Derby is no Tory after all, but a genuine old Whig,
of the Grey, L'lnsdow:te, and Alt torp school, and
is trueTeven to this day, to the principles in srhich
he was brought up. Indeed, for my own part; Ido
not at all believe Lord Derby entertained (or that
he holds now in I8G8) in 1867 at all different
opinions while lie was advocating the Refortn Act,
which in less than a twelvetnonth from the present
time will have become the law of the laud, to those
Liberal opinions which he espoused, with language
which was considered such a perfect masterpiece of
oratory, in 1831 and 1832, when he was advocating
" the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill."
These were the days of our noble Premier's youth.
He was, at any rate, quite a young man at that
tune. How many of us feel boys again, and think
of our Virgil, our Horace, our Juvenal, the Greek
Plays, our Euclid; and other rich stores of learning
which we have been compelled, unfortunately, to
lay upon the shelf for many and many a long weary
year, when the words come back to our memories,
" That dangerous young innovator and revolu-
tionist, Mr. Secretary. Stanley." There is certainly
a quotation from Horace which is by no means ap-
plicable to our noble Premier. He cannot with truth
say, " Non sum qualis eram." O n the contrary,
his motto might, in good truth, be "Semper eadetn."
Now 1 proceed to the main question of my letter,
which is to inquire whether there be any resem-
blance between the Liberal measure carried by the
Tory Government of 1867 and those Liberal mea-
sures carried by its father and grandfather, those
old defunct Tory Administrations of 1829 and 1846,
so long descended to the tomb of all the Capulets.
Physiologists and naturalists tell us that there are
no two peas, no two gooseberries, or even two
grains of sand on the sea shore exactly alike. How
much less are two human beings exactly alike. Let
a child or other descendant resemble a father, grand-
father, or other ancestor ever so much, yet, never-
theless, when you come to examine both carefully
together, how wonderfully marvellous is the differ-
ence between the individuals. No two of Nature's
productions are ever quite the same. Precisely the
same is it in the political world. No two Adminis-
trations are, or ever have been, altogether alike ;
nor any two great Liberal measures. I therefore
now proceed to show how totally different is the so-'
called apostacy of Lord Derby and the Chancellor
of the Exchequer to the so-called apostacy of those
late great and immortal men, the one the greatest
warrior the world almost ever saw, one of our
greatest, if not by far the greatest, statesman Eng-
land ever possessed.
_ _

I think I can now prove how completely the con-
version of Peel and Wellington from extreme poll.
tical Protestantism to being advocates for Roman
Catholic Emancipation, and, later still, from being
Protectionists to Free-traders, differs, and is at
variance from the so-called apostacy of Lord Derby
and 'Benjamin. Disraeli, from being anti -Reformers
in 1866 to being Reformers and carrying a good
and substantial Reform Bill in 1867. Sir Robert
Peel, from his earliest infancy down to the period of
his apostacyin 1828 and 1829 (in carrying the total
repeal of the Test Act in the first-named year and
granting Catholic Emancipation the year following),
had been brought up in a school of exclusive of
more than ultra-Tory. The Duke of Wellington,
independently of the Tory school in which he had
been educated, belonged to -the profession of arms,
which, in the rod-of-iron reign of that well-mea&ng
and conscientious but, in many respects, most mis-
taken and narrow-minded Monarch, King George
111., was quite enough to account for his being, as
we all know him to have been, a most rabid Tory.
Now, albeit the great change in these two illustrious
and wonderful men in 1829 and 1816 respectively,
and the two gigantic measures of reform and ad-
vancement which they carried, in the two above-
named years, were, I most firmly believe, the result
of honest conviction, entirely emanating from efforts
of most laborious and most painstaken industry, of
having thoroughly investigated the opinions in
which they bad so conspicuously held fur so many
years ; and, moreover, when they surrendered on
becoming convinced that they could no longer with
honour or conscience retain the same; nevertheless,
it was an utterly new phase in their political exist-
ence. Whether got at honestly or dishonestly, one
thing is absolutely certain, " a change came over the
spirit of their dream," and, of course it was, and as
a matter of history ever will be, open to all politi-
cians and political economists to question the honesty
and integrity of those great changes.
But with Lord Derby the case is totally different.
He was brought up in a school as entirely and com-
pletely Liberal as Sir Robert reel had been in a
school completely Tory. For the first 35 years of
his life Lord Derby bona fide belonged to the Whig
and Liberal party, and was for three years and a
half a leading member of that celebrated old Whig
Ministry headed by the late Earl Grey, the so-
called Father of Reform. Earl Grey's Pet was his
universally well-known name in those ancient days
of yore. Even if he did emigrate at the mature age
of 35 from his native land of Liberalism to the
colony of Toryism, we can only regard his rallying
at the ripe age of 68 to Liberalism in the light of a
weary traveller and emigrant who, having heaped
up riches in the colony to which he had gone out as
a settler in his prime, now returns to the land of
his nativity to enjoy
the riches of his well-earned
labour. Or Lord Derby's political career might be
compared (assuming his change from Whig to
Tory in 1834 was to have been most deeply
lamented) to a beautifui sunrise in the charming
months of May or June, when nature puts forth her
bloom, which inspires the mind with joy and grati-
tude towards the Maker and ,Giver of all things,
yet towards day changes to a miserable wet noon
and afternoon, by which the mind becomes as much
depressed as it had before been elevated ; neverthe-
less, a lovely evening sets in, and a magnificent
sunset closes the day, and we are inspired with the
same feelings of joy, gratitude, and happiness at
the sun of the departing day as we were at the
aurora and sunrise of the new-born and incoming
day. As a friend of mine remarked to me little
more than 15 years ago, in the days of the first
Derby Government (my friend herein alluded to is
an ultra-Liberal), when speaking of the present
Chancellor of the Exchequer, " He is a vile 'l'ory,
'gut never mind, be is a man of great ability ; he
began right (alluding to the fact of his having
stood for Marylebone in 1833, in favour of annual
Parliaments and universal.suffrage), and he will end
right." As regards Lord Derby, it may be said,
passing from the future to the past tense, and
Assuming the Reform Act of last session to be the
last great political act of his laborious and well-
spent life, which, however, I earnestly trust and
pray it may not be, for the good of the country,
he began well and lie has ended well.--I remain,
Sir, your faithful servant,
A LOVER AND OBSERVER OF HISTORICAL.
DATES AND FACTS.
January 24, 1868.

Commodore Edmonstone, C. 13., Superintendent
of Woolwich Dockyard, attended by Mr. Francis J. Lory
and Mr. Charles W. Co:e, Paymaster and Assistant Naval
Secretaries, yesterday inspected her Majesty's iron screw
steam storeship Industry, at Woolwich, engaged in parti-
cular service ; and mustered the crew on the occasion of
their being turned over to the command of Navigating
Lieut. Charles J. Polkinghorne, who has taken up the
command of that ship, the term of service of Navigating
Lieut. E. C. T. Youel having expired.

A Shepton Mallet butcher advertises to sell on
Saturdays a single pound of good fat mutton at Lid., and a
round 01 good English bacon at Oct.