The Statesman. — London, England, 1820-01-08 00:00:00

- ..P' , THE STA'IS.SMAti. FOR rill ItTATRSNAN. • --..•-_ lIIIFI.ECIION, ON T - HE STATE OF THE NATION. Ma. Zoteoe—llee Minister has accomplishes 31011611a1a open. The terrible laws are enacted, by which he hopes to stifle limitary into a disgraceful transaction, sad work a wonderful revolution upon the popular mind. In this, I think. be will find himself mistaken, thosegh l 'inlet avow the truth. and say, that, in my opi -Moo, that mind required, in certain respects, and to a tonal' dievee, a Watery restraint in ardor to guard It against seduction. It is sotto be denied. that the notion and the designs too of mode of our Reformers ire extremely iptemperate. There is a sort of cotscapiessoce of the imagination which leads people astray in more cases than that of love ; then It ollaintes them almost Insensibly from the path of tutus. But in this ease the alienation is of another kind; ft Es in fact an aberrsdoa from the fundamental priaelpies of the Coostitstion. As friends to old Eng bad they should have exerted themselves in correcting the shwas of that Constitution, but instead of so doing they have become complete political renegades, and re jected its faadamental principles. The most venerable of our kestitestimes they have slandered and usisrepre. i seemed, sod the very viruses of our ancestors converted Into sets of injnstice and oppression. In short their malice has distorted every thing; and even Christianity itself, the purest aed most perfect system of morality that ever masted in the world has been assailed by their venomless shafts. Upon the populace these persons have exercised very artful seductions, flattering them with the notion of a republican ascendency, the natural effect of which would have been to overbalance, and eventually to &atm*e other two branches of the Constitution. Such, no &At, must, from the very nature of the thing. have been the result of that preponderance which Universal Suffrage would have coassousicated to the mob, if the good seam of the nation would have allowed such a re volatile* to have taken place in the very elements of which our government Is formed. The English nation bas not lost its power of discrimination ; it distinguishes between the abuse of a thing and the ends and intentions for which it was instituted; and whilst this faculty con finers the advocates of Universal Suffrage will find their views meottirineek. It was a principle generally acknow ledged by the sages of antiquity, that demeerartic rower (the most terrible power of all) ought only to be detested to a virtu: us people ; and that in a corrupt natio% it ought never to be allowed to take the lead. Whilst the Athenians were virtuous. they were comps teat to the exercise of this tremendous power ; bat mbA they•beeame corrupt, what was the consequence ? Why, they banished Aristides because he bad acquired the soros** of Just !! Rome too was fur • great number of years 'tiresome, great, and glorious. under a demons, tic ascendency 3 but at last Rome became corrupt ; miff Apo the co aseqarece was, that the imperial dignity itself was pot cep to sale. We have seen in our days, In a neighbouring natl.i the horrible effete which a democratic preponderaom, is sore to produce when exercised by a people whom habits of corruption have obliterated event ;neat of vino.; what bare beeb the fruits of this expe riment. but anarchy, r apine, bloodshed. and desola tion ? It is well worthy of remark, that the horrors lately produced by • democratic ascendency in that country, give a confirmation to the opinions broached thereby the most enlightened p o liticians that France e ver produced. The President Montesquieu lays it down as a rule, that the rommtioas of democracy produce evils infinitely greater than any which are generated la a corrupt monarchy. or a corrupt aristocracy. I sp ool that Plato was of the same opinion, for although re elle ngarded a virtuous democracy as the best of all go oevameats, yet when the people were corrupt, be appeals to have thorn ht a very rigorous authority necessary to he Invested in the Nobles. or the Chief Magistrate, or both. 'Mere is • story told of him. which I shall give from d or y—A certain nation desired him to draw up for them a form of government—he did so, and the people were extremely discontented with it ; they es- Ml:Lthete Plato would hare given them ample power; ead of that, he bridled them severely, and placed the reins in the hands of the Civil Magistrates. They asked Plato, with a kind of disdain, if that was the best plan of government he could devise—No, replied the sage;.-.but it is the best government for a nation that has become to corrupt as you are. I feel disinclined to extend my remarks on this head,' because I fear that if I were to say all that might be said, I shouldappear to furnish Mimeters w ith a justill , eating of their measures. which (however necessary re *triable, may have been to a certain degree. and in cer tain Cases)! cannot conscientiously approve. I lament that seine uses should have become political apostates, but I do not think It Jo s t that the defection of a few sharkd be punished by the die/V.B'44omm of all. which, if I am to believe what has been said in Parliament by omoy respectable Members, will. to a certain degree at least, be the effect of throe Hills. I have not read these famous Wile; hut I will nevertheless venture to give an optnioa, that the better way to have brought back these 'woken within the pale of the Coustitution. would hove been to have ;stroll it-of these Magma aurae does; so notorious., that they have bees compared to the sea at noon day, and which are equally irreeontilable with the primitive principles of our tioverensent, and the prosperity of the Dation. This. fa doubt, would bisee been the wisest and the most honourable way of , and would have been far more satisfactory dm sat on at large than the passing of coercive M ORIN restricting the liberties of a free people. The great 11141teity of the people looked with dismay at the doe- Weis of the Radicals. and were far from being desirous Minister's should accede to the wishes of those uses. not soosethiag was due to justice—something was of messary to arrest the progress of eorreption, wnick Uni voreal Staffrav, instead of diminishing, would have festmessed. Seeeething was requisite to secure the ssmaheing _property Which war and prodigality have lift • w . BO this severity no wise man would ex- Crfton' on extension of the right of suffrage to who. 1.11•0 no stake is the roasts'', no property ut Meat is upon their backs. and who, emu they rise is u • mooning, know not where to And a dinner, till by seine laborious, or servile oilers, pirhaps some artifice or Ine- Oxides upon the public. they hare plied one. There ate seas too, to whom this right is proposed to be is wino hive not even a b their was irs f which they hare sold f rer a for powder."— Crean be expected of all the nom but that they •should look only to protest ratification? that they should sell their sewly4equired franchise for a few pots of beer, a few l assoes of en, or a few shillings in hard sod as it la net the value of the thing. bet the !Isolation with which it is given and received. that con "dila htibere sod the relative crime of bribery, It is clear 'hat to vetted the right of suffrage to persons !dr such a description ffnakl only tent to give a gr Intension to corruption in general, which is already a tell of too great magnitude. It is wrong to taut of the earruptlesi of parliament, the disease is la the nation at large. and there the remedy should he applied. The Presi.lent Montesquieu says, in the 13th chap. of his Sth Book on the Spirit of Laws, a book already alluded to, and which treats of corruption in general, under Deenocratical, Monarchial, and other I:govern : nients, that "the Romans remained longer uncor roptimi than other satiate, from the great veneration thox paid to an oath. Such was the influence of an ! eatis (says he) &min these people, that nothing bound theta stronger to the laws. They often did more for the observance of an oath than they would ever have done I fee the thirst of glory. er for the love of their country." And again lie says' i " Rome was a ship held by two I anchors. Religion and Motality, in the midst of a fa , rious tempest."—ln my bumble opinion, the most effec tual means for increasing the spread of corruption, which in this country is, as I have already said. too prevalent. are. first to weaken the force of religion by blasphemous publications, and nest to extend the elec tive franchise to persons in distressed circumstances, or in vicious habits. who either are too poor to be inde pendent, or too immoral to desire it, as is the rase with the military, and all that numerous class who live by their wits io London, and other populous towns. If Rome was a ship bad by two anchors, religion and morality, so in every other State. and oars armies the rest ; and I should be glad to know how we are snore bitchy to lose those two anchors than by scoffing at religion in the first place, and circulating such writings among the illiterate ; and in the second place, by com municating political rights to men who, from their dis tressed situation, or their depraved characters, must be expected to turn them to profit, and by the inevitable consequences of snch bribery, to plunge themselves over head and ears in perjury. When the obligation of an oath is no longer he - 141 sacred. adieu all national morality. I In taking op the pen to offer a few remarks on the state of the nation, I felt it impossible not to nodes the Radical Reformers; because it is their doctrines, and I their preemedings, which have brought about tha t de plorable state; but it never was my intention to give all the latitude to that part of my subject of which it is sus ceptible. I certainly think I was to blame in replying to the gross attacks in Toby Philpot's Letter; and as to Hibernicus. he .site it quite impossible for me to no tice hint. by calling in spisistion my veracity as a Gentle man. Oar writer. Mr. f ordham. jun. less objectionable In style and language. I promised to answer; and if illness and other circumstance% lead not prevented use, I should have laid before him a faithful representation of all those consequences which a mob ascendancy is cal culated to p roduce. and which it did produce sot many years since in a certain country; but nowt shall decline the subject, for reasons which 1 have already adverted to. My greed obiect is not to combat a party, but to defend the Constitution. As that never can be deemed sedition or treason, it is a task that I never shall relinquish ; and if I perform it, as I ought to do, Mr. Fordbaut will find in that defence a sufficient reply to his doctrine. Twu greater epposents cannot exist than the English Coo siltation sad Universal Suffrage ; and to borrow the emphatic laagnage of Shakespeare— " Two stars WA not their mottos la one sphere. Nor can use England brook the double reign' • of a Constitution composed of King, Lords. and Com mons, and a Democratic ascendancy. The reader will please to observe, that I have not ventured to pat any constructions upon any man's mo tives ; the most obpasinalde doctrine of the Radicals I have treated, not as an e.epetlicat, but as an error in judgment. To some it might be the one, to others the other; for different men will have different viens ; and, as Mr. Horns Tooke said, though they travel the same good. one may intend to go much further than another. ?Isere is one Oentleinaa. however. among the Radicals, the purity of whose intentions no one will call in ques tion. As that Gentleman lately said, on a public occa sion, " whatever errors be might fall into, for that is the common lot of humanity. posterity, be trusted, would consider him as an honest man." On this head. I shall only say, that if it does not, it will not do him justice. —The principle preferable to all, and which I shall prac tice myself, and recd mead to others, is, nerve to twit the Oaten track EV" the Constitutions. That east never lead us too far, or subject us to either danger or sus picion. I have written 'sires of paper on its defence. with good intentions I will venture to affirm, bet I dare not say with any great success; for to speak the truth, it seems to me that it never was in greater want of de fence than it is present. The fact is. that it is over whelmed, not by corruption only. but by the slander. malice, and misrepeesentation of awn who pretend to be the friends of liberty. In my next letter I shall offer souse remarks on nate ral rights and constitutional rights, and on some that were first natural, and then constitutional; also upon the doctrine laid down by Mr. Hunt. that an English man who is represented is a freeman, bat an Englishman who is not represented is a slave. For the present. I remain. Sec. Ste. TIMOVIT T111{1011•X. Beckinghaeashire, Jan. 4,1920. XEIV SYSTEM OF REVENUE, ere. From a late publication entitled, " New Sptens e Reveille and Right of Ssifrage," we abbjoin the following extract, which entirely coincides with our ow u opinion:— " The rights of the sultject are diminished, and his liberties abridged, in the precise retie of the aseitiplisa tioo of the laws. Every new law is so much new strength added to the power of tievernmesti if it be of liessce, to its prepon&rance, inffiettee. arta pewerref - weahlri if it he of regulation and restraint, to its despotism. " A very complicated state of m society ears so reason or necessity for a very p grithilicsties of laws. The regulations that will nice for a regiment of MO men, are equally sulkiest for sae composed of a IWO —fee an army of 10,000. It is only the extension of the same fundamental principles. The whole system of le- gislation, as the whole Waimea of the legislator. resolve themselves into two very simple oars. Protection of persons and properties easpnses all the aroma. Aid when legislators keep those first principles constantly and Mostly in view, and honestly and sincerely seek to give elect to them, and to them only, without sinister missives, laws will be little multiplied. It is whoa pre jadices usurp the pbccof principle—whoaa disguised itite fur shit provenly! sad liberties of the 'abject 'einem, the iegtslators, tits laws are imminently mal tiplied. " Therefore, it will be geterally foetid, that that State is the most free that has the fewest laws—and them States will be the most moral. and redoes the frwastellmess and the fewest crimes; for adalls.llol l Ames being fee the most part determined and mall by the laws, the mere the law forbids , the more ofte n maw be offewded.—The fewer restriction that the law bnrien upon men, the lees often he can 'Enid s as the r Isms the law requires from him. the lees eftes will he be e defaulter—the Imo will be be impoverbeed--tbe rester will be his prosperity-40d the rester win he die prosperity of the State. The preepersty of the Sisk being bet the aggregate of the isilividsal presperity of 4111111 e Deb& 0 Waterford IO I Geerseey sail Jersey o Gotleebergh I Hembergh 0 MAI ova. eV N. 0 Holland ... I 0 Flanders I Frames . 0 0 Lisbon 0 0 Malta MISR OF STOCKS THIS Bank Stook 3 per Cent. Red. 011111 3 peewit. Cone.filf 09 Int per Cent. 761 4 per Cents. 96f 901 90 6 Per Caw. Nisy 10$ 1621-1 I Long Ann. 17 lit-161 per Cent. Ann. DAY AT ONE O'CLOCK. India Stoat Ditto Bonds 9s. pis. OW Ananias, Ex. Bills, 9d. par Is. dis. Ditto Can. Ills. dis. °motels (son.for Ae. Mal Lott, 'rackets 119 18 - LONDON: SATURDAY, JARUART 8, 1880. -.41.- Paris Papers of Tuesday and Wednesday have WAN to hand. The Chamber of Deputies assembled on the 4th inst. M. Pasquier, Minister for Foreign Ainiirb, rose to reply to some observations which had been made in a previous Sitting by one of the Members, and which charged Ministers with closing the dis suasions before the Opposition Members bad op portunity of addressing the Chamber. M. Chauve- Fin and General Demareay replied ; after Which the business of the day was proceeded in. Several private petitions were disposed of. The Minister of Finance explained the motives for introducing a project of a law, whereby the purchasers of na tional property would be released from the re sponsibility of paying their arrears of purchase money. " A wise Government," said he, " knows bow Ouch the assurance of entire security to land proprietors tends to the amelioration of culture and the interests of the nation ; and by this act, the actual loss to the Government would not exceed two or three millions of francs, a sum which they could clot have expected the purchasers to pay in a less period than fifteen or twenty years." N. Capelle having read the project, it was referred to the Bureaux, which was to meet on Thursday to take it into esasideration.—The Chamber sdjseraed. A carless case came on before the Tribunal of the Gnu hotlines on Tuesday. The facts of the cause are Melly stated as follows: — la the year 1783, the Prince de Conti sold to Mon simile• (Mg Look XVIII.) the domain of the Isle of Adam, kr several millions. Sixteen hundred thousand francs were left in the bands of the purchaser for the purpose of paying some annuities. By an Act under the pine date (the Prince de Coati sot being a party asamerneith Iloasieer ceded to Louis the XVith his third of the protectorship of the domain. reserv ing to himself the usufruct. At the epoch of the Re volatioa this important property was united to the do mains of the State. In the month of March, 1814, the Prince de Conti died in Spin, leaving the Chevalier Dangrariers the sole legatee. The persons for whose me the 1,800.000 francs had been left with the purshaser, having died, that sum became due to the legatee. In conseqneuce of which the Chevalier Des graviers commenced a personal action against his Ma jesty for the recovery of it, according to the teems et the agreement of 1783. N. Duple stated the grounds on which the action rested. M. Mars, the King's Counsel, cestended, that the incorporation of the King's private property, when be ascends the three*. with the property of the crown, necessarily readers the whole estate chargeable with the debts on the private property; and that. consequently, ' the one is question became a public debt, and ought to be 11161 dated by the nation. (The cause was to be con tinued on a subsequent day, is order to give M. Duple an opportunity of replying.) nonce, Puxos.—Five per Cents. 71 f. 70c.—Bank Actions, 1390 fr. TIMF. PRPAIDENTII NIVISAGIL We have now time and leisure to make our further and last remarks upon this important and much looked-for production. In the view of a mai Hammy composition, we must, though reluctantly, confess, that we feel ourselves much disap pointed ; it being far inferior in language and OW striation, to the shorter piece of Mr. Quart ADAM on the subject of emigration, as given io our .paper of yesterday. It i•, nevertheless, domptehermive, Methodical, and, as* State Per fle o • periketly satisfactory to an American ; which is the I main sod almost only use it is designed for. But we have been accustomed to witness what might have been deemed paradoxical in expectation on these occasion, 1111.-0111 T and their biome so far halo degenerating, that it has come more cor rect and relined Nora the mouths and pees of a people transplanted to a great distance from their alas ewer, es it were, and still more impelled, by necessity to be agricultural and maritime. That their liberties, laws, manners, and customs, should all be improved, amid sot foe a moment surprise us; but that their and our vernacular tongue should be freed from any unoecessary expletives and me lsifrornameeta, under such a state of things as this weederhl people have endured, is a feet never to be brgettea. That men might be supposed to take a voyage from diffirent quarters and regime of the globe, to taste of their freedom, and to witness and fa milisties themselves with their simpk,rt admirable institutions, would be but natural in inspisidve and restless man ; we shall not, however, be surprised if, hereafter, one of the motives for visiting this ~~ r77111111M•11 ic. 1111•91 PP" . )41 t f 0 jt Usk Dew country of the great Covousus should be the design of attaining in perfection that language which, though stolen in bits and scrips front every language on the face of the globe, has yet done more than all together, in carrying the arts and the sciences to a point of perfection, which for centuries excited the envy and admiration of all civilized States; but which, without a corre• spoudent improvement in the art Of Goverement, will become, at Do great distant', of time, the curse of every philosopher and phllantluopist, There is a point at which the most natural and laudable desire of social man never dreamt of being carried : though we felt, before the sensible and benevolent Mr. Owars told us as much, that as were' threatened with actual starvation from the multiplied effect of productive labour!!! Pro• digiously afflicting ! We are like the patient OM it is not an imaginary ease or position) about t, die by too much health ! But of Mr. Monaot's speech, concerning which we have bestowed more literary criticism than we intended, we have so doubt but that it will meet with universal apple. lotion for its political effect ; sine it is at °ace temperate in speaking of the wrongs the American sipzens may be supposed to have Spaniards, and dignified in its means for repairing them. The A, Able case their PRIsIDINT has triode Sur the best of the argument on ' V they should be pushed, after a ' Soo of dispute, to that Wawa retie not a particle of doubt but that the will exhibit a glorious example elL•ct over an old kingdom. The force of Earl WALDIGRA • C.lwes non existent," seems does we have witnessed in the produce plantation of Britons to the American short space we have to look back worst part of the allusion of Horace, of which Lord W.'s motto is Sally controverted by the American :.ave left some part of aim, and have improved that . Sway with them. If the Roman allow us to substitute one word phrase, though in that substitution a syllable, we would say " Calm (instead of &mimeo) mutant, qui , snot," for they have not changed their whole vocabulary during years ; and, even in itch cases, . much ingenuity to deny improvement. Lord Lsvaarots., se doubt, • moor with the whole Wooer „ speech, for the plain logic with off (Lot ostentatiously, nor the advantages of a Rzruszte Dimon, in the essential points origin of all Governments. Mr. I not be more reconciled to it, from a very great Government may saran eriesparsiire expense, sad drate its expenses to its inconte—nay, within it : sod, above all, the . now a Sea:dory of Slate, will prevented by a pillow, stuffed mile flowers, at the whole address columns, Dot containing a single allusion to treason, sedition, coercion, lion ; nor, in short, to any this indoctue Doctor is alone a part. As a senator, legislator , cannot, in spite of our perfect person, as well as of his good other unknown faculty, but him. He has done too much and to millions of his fellow-creatures forgiven. liseves's revenge is often Oily to strike the Serer:' We cannot bet confess that agreeably disappointed, to Sod _ kept so dear of the political entanglement his MOST CATHOLIC lIAJHATT Woos or Amotioa. with respect . 19 the Floridan, We have no our readers will share with as pleasing disappointment, since for half a century past, no mess in any of the Courts of Europe, representatives of John Boll: Mow this exception has happened Auld like to see something aimed into • system. Perhaps again of Parliament, we may • from Ministers, of lopping°, an abridgement or overpaid of the Roam Boroughs, and _ in Lard CASTLRIZAGN, br tracking mesas of one of these facilities. agreeable surprise" indeed ; . at St. Stephen's, will doebdoes admirers as the comedy of the Lane. --orm— we have made hwther witness sea Pepin which wee* 11111111ived ' It amen diet the Wisp sweeps at Matitheeear here cep the American collared from the s proposal of the Americans, by tie made out, have by on their side. sad a too long retie- fie regime, we have the NEW annum) of its vigour and DIGRAVIeII MOM, does away by what Woes of the tram- aseriean soil, is the ck to. Indeed, the o rate, is bb maxis, bat an extract, is nerican people, fer f the mind babied at which they took omen classic might rd for another in his lotion be would lose Minn nos fives," qui taw mare str- inged ten words is ten times as maw es, it would require reopen' ~ will be eat of be• of this pretty Mg with which •it sets even intentionally) ague over a Vo- lute aimed at in the Ifr. VANETTART win from its showing that y be carried on at and that it may qua- wro—nay, even keep e son of a Deem. will run mad, unless ed with irm ease- address of nearly be Ingle word or a bat coercion, nor etreyee• one object in which se calculated to play dor, or statesman, we ignorance of his very rood qualities in any it hate and despise it injury to his mush r-creatures evert to Is often. slow. Met blow ! t we are surprised sad led that oar Court hes • entanglement betwose VITT and the Unita aped to the o n e ) doubt that many of as in that simple sel ce all must know that mess has been brewed, e, wi shout the ovee-bey putting a Amer isle it. need weltnow not. We resembling the Mimi rhaps on the meet* ay witness a year's' a bog sineeero-0 1 —• salaries, an exam** od a self-deneaciaiiss ballade( in a seed 11 itiss. This will be • ; and though lea sit Mims attract as 001 the same name at Dray Wrung from the Amy* shed yesterday :-- esessiesed isa lle Isle' s ea-bee, 1 • ! .:11111‘ i I .11 A l • 1 - I 4 ktattlmatt. (N. B. Taa "BRITISH STATESMAN" is wore •• Tii STATIMMAN.")