The Sun. — 1860-04-30 (London, England)

UGLY SYMPTOMS.  We have drawn upon ourselves piteous remonstrances by venturing to liken this halting Reform , Bill to a sickly innocent. We are told that, so tar from being innocent, it is the cause of all the troubles that afflict the country. Just so. It is the nature of an innocent to turn the house topsyturvy, interrupt the common household course of things, expel its progenitor from his own room, and very often to go off in a convulsion when all the mischief is done. If innocence could exist only under the condition of being the cause of no evil, we should 'apologise and retract it at once. This Reform Bill stops everything itself, and does not move itself. Allthe public business is in arrear. We are nearly half way through the session, and nothing has been accomplished. Half the Treaty business has yet to be worked off. There are the Wine Licences, when, as the Ministers will have to meet a curious alliance of knaves and fools, they will have to fight a hard fight. There are the Paper Duties to be taken off, and some measure to be adopted to prevent the' Emperor of the French putting them on again for his own bene6t. The Stamp Duties are still unsettled. The wild notions of the Post-office Secrettry, who forgets that he is managing a monopoly, and fancies that he is only collecting a revenue, have to be corrected at the cost of much public time. There is not yet a vote passed in the Committee of Supply. Law Reform, which stood out so large in the sessional programme, has had so little chance Qf hearing that, even the Bankruptcy Bill cannot find an hour for its discussion; and that Bankruptcy Bill is more practically important than a thousand Reform Bills. There is a complete legislative block. So far as we can perceive, August might find us in the same position. The debate on the second reading has now gone on for almost more nights than we can count, and if nothing be done it may go on for as many more. To-night Mr. Bentinck takes up the wondrous talc, and some great fixed star—perhaps Mr. Gladstone—will rain his light upon the evening. There is no symptom, however, that tonight, or even Thursday night, will see the end of it.  We believe the bill will be withdrawn. It has long been determined that it shall not pass. The plain common-sense of the matter is, that the House of Commons is not inclined to commit suicide. This eighth Parliament of Queen Victoria is ydung yet. It has a right to consider that it has a long life before it. It is not a year old. It is full of youth and ambition and vigour. It does not want to be cut up and boiled in the bubbling pot of a general election, in order to be rejuvenated. It must be a very fascinating Reform Bill which would receive the support of a House of . Commons under such circumstances. But this is not a fascinating Reform Bill. Its very endurance by the Bright party is a confession of utter defeat, and is suggestive of some secret compact, .perhaps rather tacit and implied than declared and absolute. To the Derby party it must be odious, and its only chance of passing is its becoming under the plastic infiuenee of a committee just what their Reform Bill would have become if it had been suffered to be put under the same process. Decidedly this is not a fascinating bill. It is not likely to excite any English Parliament to any deed of heroism. There aro certain gentlemen' in the house whose seats are secure, and whose elections cost them nothing, and whose nature it is to make hustings speeches, who would just as soon it passed as not. There, are also a few Conservative leaders who have never ceased to regret their own folly in committing themselves to any reform and who would perhaps buy a release from this most disagreeable pledge, even at the expense of an interview with their constituents, But, with these exceptions, the passing of this Reform Bill means money out of pocket, a month of hard, disagreeable work, and possibly a fall from the Parliamentary firmament. Perhaps it might have facilitated the progress of the bill if a public announcement had been made that a Reform Act should not be followed by a dissolution. The idea, we believe, has occurred to many, but perhaps it has been thought so candid as to verge upon indecorum. A maiden may be very anxious for a husband, a barrister for a brief, or a politician for a seat, and each may tremble at the thought of losing the object of his solicitude ; but it is part of the respectable hypocrisy of social life that a perfect and stoical indifference shall always be assumed in such matters. We believe that if such an assurance had been volunteered even Mr. Horsman would have indignantly repudiated any suggestion of an unwillingness to test the confidence of the electors of Stroud. But still it might have helped the bill. If the house will not move this bill on or throw it out, it may be better to withdraw it than to waste the session. But the worst of this course is that we shall have the same difficulty over again next session. The office of leader of the House of Commons will come to have but one duty—that of advancing a Reform Bill to a certain stage, and then letting it drop. There may be a new Sisyphus each session, but there will be always the same stone: Toalay Lord John is enduring this purgatory. We do not pity him. It is the Nemesis which pursues him for his mistakes in that other world of opposition. We told him last year, prosy preachers as we were then thought, how it would be. Day by day, six days a-week, we tried to induce him to let Lord Derby's Bill go into committee, and there to mould it. He would not do so, and here he is, in his own turn, at the same hopeless work. Not one step has the cause of Reform moved since Lord John carried his resolutions. Lord John now, as Mr. Disraeli then, is laboriously rolling up the stone to the second reading point. Lord John now, as Mr. Disraeli then, is out of breath, and is giving up the hope of preventing it from slipping down again. We recur to the advice we gave last year—,, Pass something !" Better for all purposes, public and private, to pass something. For the conduct of public business it is absolutely necessary to get this obstacle out of the way, and to pass something . For the sake of our position with foreign Powers, wich, if it is not at this moment very threatening, at least renders it important that we Ahould be able to'