4 JANUARY 1868, Page 8

It is announced that Mr. Thornton has accepted the mission

to the United States. The Times objects to the selection, and says Lord Kimberley ought to have been sent. Doubtless Lord Kim- berley is the fitter man, perhaps the fittest in England ; but would Lord Kimberley go? It is not usual for a man who has been a Viceroy to accept an embassy technically of the second rank, and we have not the means of raising our Minister in Washington to the first position, the Republic appointing no ambassadors. We could pay him on the first scale, however, and it would be good policy to make this ministry a prize for statesmen out of work. It is, if not the first, at least the second of our embassies in real importance.