The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-06 00:00:00

STIRIT OP THE PUBLIC :01:TENALO;

Mr. Disraeli's triumph when he entered the House of
Commons as Premier amid sympathetic cheers from
all sides was, says the Times, complete. He may never
attain a greater exaltation. The nation will not grudge
him the glory of that hour. But the nation cannot suffer
its interests to be sacrificed to a phase of passing senti-
ment, however justifiable. Mr. Disraeli took his place
on the Treasury bench as the chief of a Ministry, and he
had undoubtedly proved his right to the position. Mr.
Bouverie, the self-constituted critic of the evening, ex-
pressed the general feeling when he declared that Mr.
Disraeli had fairly won his position. The right to take a
place must, however, be distinguished from the right to
keep it. What had Mr. Disraeli to offer as the programme
of Ins Cabinet ? He began his speech, as was natural, with
an eulogy upon Lord Derby, and he selected as the charac-
teristic least appreciated by the world Lord Derby's vast ca-
pacity for labour. This introduction, under all circumstances
graceful, was last night eminently appropriate, inasmuch
as Mr. Disraeli proceeded to declare that the new Govern-
ment inherited the opinions and principles of Lord Derby's
Ministry. Lord Malmesbury made a similar statement in
the House of Lords. Unfortunately, such an explanation
is an instance of the figure ignotuin per iynotins, and it
is a disappointment to find it formally announced that the
opening of the second seal is to reveal no more than that
of the first. The foreign policy of the Cabinet will be the
same as it has been, or, in other words, it will continue to
be directed by Lord Stanley. The critical question is as
to the domestic policy of the Ministry, and here Mr.
Disraeli declared that the Administration would pursue
" a Liberal policy." The Opposition cheered, and those
on the Government benches, who were not too much
astonished—

" Stared with great eyes, and laughed with alien lips."

/Is for Ireland, " there is a debate coming on next Tues-
day, when Lord Mayo will declare the policy of her
Majesty's Government with reference to the sister island."
Mr. Disraeli has done much. He has spent half a life in
the House of Commons, and he knows its tone of feeling,
its habits of thought, the extent of its aspirations. But
there is a possibility that in studying the House of Com-
mons he has paid too little attention to the nation outside
it which has to he governed. The House is in many respects
—perhaps in most•—the counterpart of the nation, but not
in all. There are diversities, and even delinquencies, on
the part of the popular assembly, compared with its
great original, which are scarcely capable of definition, but
are still real and easily recognised. It is at all times
dangerous for a Minister to confound the two together,
and to pay attention exclusively to either. He may find
that, though the favourite of the House, he has lost the
confidence of the country, or that while an object of
popular enthusiasm the House will no longer listen to
him. But it is doubly dangerous to neglect the distinction
between representatives and people on the eve of a Re-
formed Parliament. At such a time it is necessary to be
more than a master of parliamentary management. Go-
vernment, according to the exigencies of the situation,
does not stir an unenlighted mass. They require an enun-
ciation of principles, an unequivocal declaration of policy.
It remains to be seen whether Mr. Disraeli will rise to the
emergency. He is, undoubtedly, in a position of great
difficulty, and he cannot be harshly judged if he prefer to
shape his course as apparent necessities suggest. But if
he would do something more than secure the support of a
moribund Parliament, he must dare greater things than he
announced last night.

It may, perhaps, be hypercritical, the Post remarks, to
complain that Mr. Disraeli has thought proper to indulge
so largely in generalities and to grace his first speech
which he has made in the House of Commons as Prime
Minister with the platitudes one is accustomed to find in
hustings orations. But, frankly, we think the House of
Commons deserved to be treated with a little more can-
dour and a little more respect. We are quite willing
to make large allowances for the peculiar position
in which the Premier is placed. He acknowledges
frankly that he is in a minority, and he does not
affect to ignore the immense difficulties which beset
the path of the Minister who attempts to conduct
the Government of Great Britain under such conditions.
So long as Mr. Disraeli maintains his present position he
must be presumed, and conclusively presumed, to possess
the confidence of Parliament. It is not his fault if he finds
hims:lf obliged to have recourse to shifts in order to retain
it. If his mode of reconciling a hostile majority to his
system of party government be successful, its honesty or
expediency cannot be justly questioned by those who
tacitly endorse it. A few days hence it will be necessary
for him to proclaim the course which his Government pro.
poses to pursue in respect to that which is at the present
moment the paramount question of the day. When that
declaration of policy is made, it will be for the majority to
say boldly whether they approve of it, or whether, in the
contrary event, they are prepared to drive Mr. Disraeli
and his colleagues from office. The issue is thrown on the
Liberal party, and they must make up their minds how
they will deal with it.

The general meaning of Mr. Disraeli's declaration is,
Ikrald observes, plain and practical enough. He
inherits the principles and the work of Lord Derby's
Government. He has to finish the work of Reform ; to
carry the Scotch Reform Bill, and defeat the attempt of
certain members of the Opposition to reopen the whole of
the question of redistribution, settled last year by a wide
and liberal measure of justice to new and growing com-
munities ; to pass the Boundary Bill—the rectification of
abuses as convenient to one party as the close boroughs
once were to the other, and as fatal to true representation;
to avert, by carrying an effective Bribery Bill, the worst
danger incidental to an extensive suffrage. Upon other
matters open to more dispute, and likely to excite more
angry and evenly-balanced conflict, the Ministerial chief
has spoken out, in a tone which commands the confidence
of his party. Firm fidelity to our principles ; firm faith
to each other ; a bold front to the enemy— such, in sub-
stance, is the mot d'ordre of the new regime. It promises
well. A Government true to Tory principles will never
find the faith of the Tory party fail ; and at the present
time, at least, a Tory party that can present a united front
to the divided and disorganised Liberals may, despite the
thunders of Mr. Bouverie, confidently hope to repeat in
1868 the victories of 1866 and 1867.

There is nothing, says the Standard, in the programme
unfolded by Mr. Disraeli to excite much interest or pro-
voke any enthusiasm. It really tells us nothing that we did
not know before ; but it was impossible for the Premier
to have told Parliament any more. There was no revela-
tion to make— no news to communicate. Mr. Disraeli
could only say to the House of Commons that he• would
pursue, as head of an Administration, the policy he had
pursued as one of its most influential members ; and the
wonder is that, having so very little to say, he could have
made a speech so eloquent, so felicitous, and so free from
all surplusage and verbiage.

Trades unionism, the Dail) News contends, is not con-
fined to the lower classes. In the medical profession the
trades union spirit has been exhibited in the persistent at-
tempts to throw difficulties in the way of ladies seeking to
qualify themselves by study and examination by the autho-
rised boards for a title to practise among their own sex. A
little while ago the name was published of a gentleman of
distinguished ability, who had undertaken to deliver a
course of lectures at the Ladies' Medical College,
and instantly a medical newspaper came down upon
him in a paragraph intended to induce his brethren
not to meet him in consultation. It appears that
the Court of Assistants to the Apothecaries' Com-
pany, having taken legal advice, find that by Act of
Parliament they are not permitted to exclude women
from some of their examinations ; but the Medical Times
informs us, with exultation, that the Court of Examiners
in Medicine have contrived to do by a side-wind what
could he done by a direct prohibition. They will make
the female dissect with the male student. We commend
these facts to the good people who think that coercion,
restriction, and the tyranny of combination are peculiar
to any one class of society. It will be a great day in Eng-
land when the right of every individual to make the most
of the ability which God has given him, free from
interested interference, is recognised, and to that goal wa
are surely advancing ; but our progress is slow, and it is
very clear that it is not only in the lower ranks of the
community that the obstructive trades union spirit is
energetically operating.
The Telegraph wishes to have the doctrine of treasure
trove more clearly defined. A story is given in support
of the want. One John Collins, a labourer who for
fourteen years has been in the employ of Mr. Alderman
Lawrence, has been charged at Guildhall with the unlaw-
ful possession of twenty-nine old guineas and twenty old
shillings of the reigns of the Stuarts and the first three
Georges. Collins, it seems, had been at work at the erec-
tion of a strong room at the Scottish Insurance Office in
Cannon-street. The house itself was built by Mr. Alder-
man Lawrence's firm about sixteen years since. John
Collins had also been employed at an old house in Throg.
morton-street, and the prosecution assumed that
he must have - found the treasure in question either
in Throgmorton-street or ann6n-street. It was
staled that the men employed Wore bound to bring
they found to their employers ; hut they gene.
rill:- considered that if they f,,und anything, it belon,ged
to Oicni. It WAS (1 that Collins hod always
b known as a straly:liff,,l-v.ar.l and upl.ight man, and
that up to the present time character hail been without
a flaw. While we have not the slightest wish to prejudge
this case, we may point to the gross anomaly which
becomes apparent when a woman who finds a ring sum-
mons before a magistrate the pawnbroker by whom it is
detained ; and when, on the other hand, a man who is
supposed to have found some gold coins is subjected to a
criminal prosecution. The law as to treasure trove should
be definitively established, not by the dictum of a judge,
which is frequently open to discussion and misconstrue•
tion, but by a spurt and explicit Aci; of I'arliamcnt.