The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-30 00:00:00

1t11i11.1,1 'lotlt

LONDON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1845

Mr. MACAULAY'S letter authenticates the explana-
ion which we gave, immediately after the event, of
the failure of Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S attempt to form
a Government. " All our plans were ft ustrated by
Lord GREY," says Mr. MACAULAY. After this there
is no doubt on the matter. We have thought, from
the first, that the interests of the Liberal party re-
quired that there should be no delicacy about Lord
GREY, if, as is now indisputable, Lord GREY did it
all ; and that to publish the truth was the only way
to prevent erroneous and exaggerated accounts
from getting into circulation, which might
seriously injure the Liberal party and the great
cause identified with it. Already has Lord GREY'S
objection to Lord PALMERSTON, as Foreign Secretary,
been magnified and distorted into an objection to sit
sith him at all in the same Cabinet, and into a gene-
ral reluctance on the part of his political friends to
place him in the Foreign-office. If either of these
things had been true, we might despair of a Liberal
Government ever being formed. The knowledge of
the exact truth only causes us to regret that Lord
GREY should have been so far humoured as to be per-
mitted to break up an Administration, while it assures
us that, when next Lord J. RUSSELL is sent for, he
will not consult Lord GREY till after Lord PALMER-
STON is appointed. "All our plans were frustrated by
Lord GREY." Mr. MACAULAY may be allowed, in
writing to a constituent, to indulge in some self-gra-
tulation at,the course which he himself had pursued,
and to contrast it with Lord GREY'S. " From the
first I told Lord JoHN that I stipulated for one thing
only—total and immediate repeal of the corn-laws ;
that my objections to gradual abolition were insur-
mountable ; but that, if he declared fur total and im-
mediate repeal, I would be, as to all other matters, ab-
solutely in his hands ; that I would take any office or
no office, just as suited him best; and that he should
never be disturbed by any personal pretensions or
jealousies on my part. If every body else had acted
thus, there would now have been a Liberal Ministry."
We may safely conclude from another docu-
ment proceeding from another of Lord Joßra
RUSSELL'S advisers—Lord MORPETH'S address to the
electors of the West Riding—that he, too, stipulated
for immediate and entire repeal. "If I am sent to
the House of Commons at the present juncture,"
says Lord MORPETH, " I should deem it the main
object of my mission to insist upon an immediate and
final repeal of the corn-laws."
But to return to Lord GREY. A weekly Contem-
porary has attempted his defence, and it is a defence
which Mr. MACAULAY'S remarkable letter will not
affect. We are told by Lord GREY'S apologist that
he had travelled to town with another of Lord JOHN
RUSSELL'S confidential advisers, to whom he had
communicated his objection to Lord PALMERSTON as
Foreign Secretary, and he was to take it for granted
that this objection had been communicated by his
travelling companion to Lord JOHN. We are not told
that Lord GREY had commissioned Mr. ELLICE (for
he, we understand, is the party alluded to by the
Spectator) to state his objection to Lord JOHN. But
even if he had so commissioned Mr. ELLICE, it would
surely have been no justification of Lord GREY. It
was surely his duty to state his views on such a mat-
ter himself to Lord JOHN, and to take the first oppor
tunity of stating them.

But this is not all the defence. We are told that
on the evening of the clay on which it was determined
to undertake the formation of a Ministry, Lord GARY
went home and wrote a letter to Lord JOHN, recom-
mending great caution and disregard of all private
feelings in the arrangements of the various offices at
his disposal, and making satisfaction with all Lord
JOHN'S arrangements a condition of his own accept-
ance of office. Strong hints these, says the apologist.
The idea of hints at all, we reply, in acase c,f this kind!
" However," Mr. MACAULAY adds, " perhaps it is
best as it is." And so say we. It is gratifying to us
to find the views which we have all along expressed of

income of more than three per cent. on his
capital—that is to say, he would have his
three per cent. on his capital invested, plus the profit
of his labour. The following question, although
evidently put with an ill intention, for the purpose of
endeavouring to excite dissensions between employer
and employed, is so self-evidently fallacious, and
contains such an important admission on the subject
of the rate of agricultural wages, that we really feel
obliged to Sir CHARLES WOLESLEY for putting it. "If
Lord TALBOT gives his labourers 12s. per week out
of his three per cent., how much ought Mr. COBDEN
to give his mill workmen out of his 1,6001. per cent. ?"
If Lord TALBOT gives his labourers 12s. per week out
of his three per cent., he is indeed a rara avis among
landlords, inasmuch as he must himself pay, out of the
rent he rt-eeivs, the wages of all the labotrers employed
by his tenants in tne cultivation or the farms they hold
under him. In no other way can he pay his labourers
12i. a week out of his three per cent., because, if the
labourers are employed by him in the cultivation of