The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-28 00:00:00

c‘-‘e-174411

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LONDON; WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 1,1•

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Assuredly the tables have been
turned with a ven-
geance. The house of Commons, last evening, had
to consider once more the annual proposition of the
redoubtable Member for East Surrey, for the exten-
sion of the county franchise to 10/. householders.
Upon the identical motion which last session brought
an ignominious defeat upon the Whig Government,
the Conservative Government achieved in its turn
a triumphant victory. A majority of forty-eight
f Or the
„proposal of Mr. LOCKE KING, in
1 tis 1, carried, as will be remembered, confusion into
Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S Administration. A majority of
5:1 against the proposal of Mr. Locxs KM, in 1852,
411 the contrar imparted additional strength to
the E . y,.
'I of Daanr's Cabinet. The division,
hovirever, upon -the previous occasion, it must
retnen
be
whereas ,tevid, was in a House of 118 ;
less than 51 y
ithe representatives numbered no
of 149 and a %ots:ether—yielding a minority
more than the total the of 202—exactly 233
memorable night last euMembers present on the
d'sfeated the Whig Govern ' When a private motion
ment. c,
io peculiarly changed in regari circumstances are
parties in the Legislature, that thereto' the position of
and more significance than might"bet4are interest
jectured in the foregoing calculations, at first con-
perceived from them that what •
It will bewas AL.,t.,..,
a source 'of . weakness to theldeparted. --LILY
Jiggly it,

in reality a direct source of vigour to the newly con-
stituted Administration. The very champion who
was puissant against Sir CHARLES WOOD is power-
less when opposed to the Right Hon. BENJAMIN
DISRAELI. The formidable colossus under the Whig
Government has dwindled down to a contemptible
pigmy under the Government of the Conservatives.
With perfect justice, therefore, may we reiterate the
exclamation that assuredly the tables have been
turned with a vengeance.
The origin of the extraordinary contrast between
the result of the divisions in 1851 and in 1852 re-
spectively upon the same motion precisely—that of
extending the county franchise to 101. householders
—may be very readily conjectured. The represen-
tatives who were last year in Opposition have this year
assumed to themselves the responsibilities and privi-
leges of Government. Consequently, they are
personally interested now-a-days in the rejection
of what, triumphant for a moment on
the former occasion, caused their predecessors no tri-
fling embarrassment. Antagonists though they were
at heart, last session, to the proposal of the Member
for East Surrey, they considered it worth their
while to enable the Hon. Gentleman by their
absence to obtain, as he did, a momen-
tary triumph over the then Administration.
Therefore it was that in 1851, the House thinned
to merely 118 upon the very motion, which in
1852 collected together no less than 202 resolved
upon its rejection, or, to speak more plainly, 351 in
the aggregate. The game advisable to play in Op-
position would obviously be perilous if repeated from
the Treasury benches. Those who sauntered upon
the first occasion into BELLAMY'S, when the division-
bell sounded the triumph of Mr. LOCKE KING, rushed
precipitately into the House when the same signal
announced the approach of his discomfiture. In all
these fluctuations of temper the dictates of party
feeling are visible more than the influences of patriot-
ism. Members evidently look more to the interests
of their side of the House than to the
interests of the country at large—they aspire rather
to secure the welfare of their own political friends
than that of the entire population. Such
is the melancholy moral deducible from the con-
trast of these two divisions upon Mr. LOCKE KING'S
motion for the extension of the county franchise. .

Yesterday's debate, although ending merely
in the rejection of a proposed reform ema-
nating from a private Member, was at
the same time sufficiently amusing in its cha-
racter, and sufficiently suggestive of the real,
though to a considerable extent, still latent,
anticipations of the Legislature. Everybody
wanted to draw out everybody else—those
who addressed the House speaking rather at each
other than for themselves. Lord JOHN RUSSELL more
particularly incited, it may be, by a painful remem-
brance of his total discomfiture on the preceding
evening, endeavoured to retaliate for his defeat by
dragging into somewhat inconvenient explanations se-
veral among the principal members of her MAJESTY'S
Government. To this end the leader of the
Opposition indulged himself in allusions, somewhat
embarrassing it must be admitted, to the remarks
made both in the House and out of the
House by the Noble Lord the Member
for Colchester, by the Honourable and Learned
Gentleman the Member for Harwich, and by the
representative for the borough of Scarborough. The
effort, however, was ineffectual. Lord JOHN MAN-
NERS had only spoken sententiously and ambiguously.
Sir FITZROY KELLY remained dumb under every
imaginable provocation : and Mr. G. F. YOUNG was
not present to respond to the taunts of
his great antagonist. Confident of their
immense numerical preponderance over the
supporters of the motion introduced by the Member
for East Surrey, the Cabinet persisted in maintaining
a silence broken only by the adroit and eva-
sive remarks of the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER. The discussion consequently exhausted
itself by these mere crossings and recrossings of the
foils of argument, and the division closed, as already
intimated, with another triumph for her MAJESTY'S
Government.

A very interesting discussion took place in the
House of Lords last night on the subject of the
adulteration of coffee, which has been so painfully
notorious for some years past, and to which the praise-
worthy investigations of the Lancet first directed the
public attention. Viscount TORRINGTON, in bring-
ing forward the subject, clearly and ably exposed the
frauds to which the community had been subjected,
which not only occasioned a considerable falling off in
the revenue, and a diminution in the consump-
tion of colonial produce, but gave an adulterated
and deleterious article in place of a pure and whole-
some one. When we find that in the United States
a population of 23,000,000 consumed 1.50,000,0001b5.
of coffee, while in the United Kingdom 27,000,000
of people actually used only 3:1,000,0001bs., what-
ever the nominal consumption might have been, we
can scarcely wonder at the want of popularity in the
beverage, especially if we consider the nature of that
which is foisted on the public under its name. Let
the greatest lover of coffee go into any of the small
grocers' shops throughout the country, or into a ma-
jority of the houses supplied from these sources, and
he will become disgusted with the article supplied
under the name of coffee. It is not merely that
there will be found a large admixture of chicory,
totally altering its character ; that might be
tolerated, although we confess that we think people
ought to be supplied with that for which they con-
tract, and which they suppose that they are obtain-
ing. If they desire the addition of chicory they
may purchase it separately, and at a much cheaper
rate than coffee, and by so doing , they would, at
least, have a much greater prospect of obtaining both
matters in a pure state.
But when once the practice of adulteration is
sanctioned we cannot
_tell to what extent it may be
carried. The fraudulent tradesman (for it is a fraud
under the most favourable circumstances) will not
restrict himself to the addition of pure chicory to his
coffee. He will speedily seek to increase his unholy
profits by the adulteration of the chicory, until the
various abominations mentioned in the extraordinary
revelations of the Lancet are brought into operation,
injuring the public health to a much greater extent
than the public revenue.
We rejoice to find that the PREMIER) in ex-
plaining his opinions on the subject, clearly and
unequivocally repudiated the doctrines laid down by
Sir CnauLEs Woon. With that singular obliquity
of vision for which the ex-Minister of Finance was
remarkable, the Right Honourable Baronet totally
dismissed from his consideration the :interests of the
people. So long as the revenue did not directly
suffer, the health, nay more, the lives, of her
JESTY'S subjects might be tampered with with impu-
nity. " Chicory is wholesome ; many persons prefer
an admixture to pure coffee, and I have had com-
munications from many respectable vendors, stating
that if they did not gratify the public taete they
could not dispose of their goods." From these
Premises the Right Honourable Baronet argued
that
thatthan Y interference would be improper,
e
Spanish btawler might mix parsnip?, earth,
thought proper, bO,
eing in fact, anything he
chaser to take careit
of his
own interests.
vieLwo.rdili)exivvy hparso,pele the business of the pur-
ewevber., taken a very different
litany the event
tteec t s
coffeeto the
dealers tringteon cy
very of
the old law, that subjectYedos
penalties
on his premises
heavy p
of his having
mixed with or substituted for capable of being
coffee. The Noble
Earl laid down a just principle in Stating that any
person who preferred the untaxed
article should be
at liberty to indulge his taste, that he might drink a
decoction of chicory or of roasted corn, or beano but
he should do so under its true name, and not suppose
that he was quaffing pure coffee, and
paying
for
z.
it
as
such. The fair and honest tradesman is en-
titled to the protection against his unconscien-
tious competitor, denied to him by Sir
CHARLES WOOD. lie sees himself undersold
by his rival, who is realising large profits by his un-
fair proceedings, and he must either ad opt similar
practices, or see the business transferred from his own

premises.
The medium courserecommended by the First Lord
of the Treasury is that which should be adopted.
It is not the admixture and sale of an avowedly mixed
article that is objectionable, but the fraudulent ad-
-1414M of a spurious and unwholeo me article,

which, in fact, is neither more nor less than
obtaining money under false pretences. We,
therefore, hail with pleasure the declaration
that the attention of the Government will be directed
to the best mode of restoring a due supervision, not
upon that which might be a legitimate admixture of
an innocent material with coffee, but for the purpose
of preventing a base and inferior substitute being sold
under a false designation. By so doing he will protect
the humbler classes of consumers, afford no incon-
siderable advantages to the fair dealers, and render
material service to the colonial interests, already
sufficiently depressed. The mere announcement of
these views will cause no trifling alteration in the
practice, and the coffee drinker, at least, will have no
cause to regret the removal from office of Sir CHARLES
Wool), and the accession to power of those who,
whatever might be their antecedents, can no longer
be termed a Protectionist Ministry.

VICE-CHANCERY —(THIS DAY.)
(Before Vice-Chancellor TURNER.)
GREGORY V. SMITH.
This part-heard case was continued this morning.
The question wss the construction of a nuncupative
will of Alexander Worrell, late of Norwood and New-
gate-street, whereby he expressed his will to be that
after the death of his wife, his father and mother, the
bulk of his property should go to " the families of Gre-
gory and Gear."