The Sun.
London, England, 1852-03-26 00:00:00

MARCH 26, 1852.

ministration can continue in office without meeting
the popular feeling on the subject of fiscal, financial,
Parliamentary, monetary, and legal reforms. It is
for the people to see which side will make the best
bidding for their favour, and to bestow it on the
most eligible, without reference to ancient dis-
tinctions.

As early as possible after Easter, or, at the latest,
soon after Whitsuntide, Ministers will consent to the
dissolution of Parliament. The consequence of that
appeal to the country it would be difficult to conjec-
ture, probably for the very reason that it is a matter
fraught with an importance so very extraordinary
and comprehensive. Each of the two great divisions
of the Legislature entertains, or at any rate affects,
an implicit confidence in the triumph of
their respective opinions. The Government an-
ticipates a clear working majority actu-
ated by the principles of Conservatism, and
resolutely bent upon the restoration of monopoly.
The Opposition looks forward, on the contrary, with
no less sanguine reliance upon the enthusiastic ac-
ceptance„ of their views in regard to free trade
and Parliamentary reform by the great mass of the
elective population. That the latter interests must
necessarily be triumphant in the approaching con-
test we feel assured if—and here comes the gist of
all we would wish to imply by our present observa-
tions—the various constituencies throughout the United
Kingdom will b• only true to themselves I It is too
late, of course, for all practical purposes,
to repeat the advice of Sir ROBERT PEEL upon a
former occasion, to register, register, register. But
it is happily not too late for us to recommend the
possessors of the franchise to scrutinize with an eye
of the utmost penetration the different persons who,
within a short interval from:the present moment, will
appear before them as candidates. Let the electors
in every instance in the slightest degree doubtful
subject these • aspirants for their support to a
severe and inexorable cross-examination. The

principal question to be decided upon by
the next House of Commons is one of a value and
of a mngnitude altogether too remarkable to allow of
euy cilLelez.,sues on the part of the electors, or of any
indifference in the distribution of their ♦otes—with-
out involving those who may be guilty cf this care-
lessness and indifference in a very terrible respon-
sibility. The question referred to is of infinitely
greater importance than our merely assuring the main-
tenance of Free Trade—it is the question, the vital and
momentous question of Retrogression, or of Advance-
ment. That is the alternative about to be sub-
mitted to the country immediately on the dis-
solution of the existing Parliament. It is
imperatively requisite, therefore, that the vari-
ous electors should be alive to the importance
of the juncture in which they will have to select
their various representatives. There is one phase
in the problem about to be submitted to the popular
solution which we are anxious to particularise, for
' the purpose of commenting upon its very specious
and pernicious affectation. Politicians have already
presented themselves to some among the constituen-
cies, holding out as a lure to the masses the conquest
of the pretended dangers of Democracy by the bene-
ficence of Conservatism. It is insinuated by them
that of late the struggle between class and class has
recommenced with more than its wonted virulence
throughout the various races of Christendom. They
insist, that if the people of England are
really solicitous to preserve the rights of liberty,
of family, and of property, if they are desirous of
conserving the beautiful fabric of society upon the
basis of civilization, if they are anxious to uphold the
cause of authority against anarchy, of religion against
infidelity, of tranquillity against insurrection—they
must exert themselves to the very uttermost at the
ensuing elections to disarm democracy, by according
their votes to the admirers of a Tory system of go-
vernment. In testimony of the accuracy of all
these assertions they point rather unfortunately
to the record of the events of the last three or four
years on the European Continent. Unfortunately,
we say, because those events must, by every dis-
passionate observer, be acknowledged to demon-
strate exactly the reverse of all they have here as-
severated. Throughout the majority of those great
revolutionary movements which agitated Europe
from 1848 to 1850 inclusively, Democracy raised its
banner in the name of humanity. The first act pro-
claimed in its name in front of the Hotel de Ville,
at Paris, was an act of sublime magnanimity. It was
an act declaratory of a direct antagonism to blood-
shed. It was the abolition by a stroke of the pen of
capital punishment for political offences. That was
the system of brutality inaugurated by the Revo-
lutionists. That was their cruelty, their barbarism,
and their destructiveness. We assert, deliberately
and earnestly assert, that the history of mankind
does not furnish a nobler chapter than that
which illustrated the rise of the new reform move-
ment in Italy under PIO NON°, in Hungary under
KOSSUTH, in France under LADIARTINE. Dema-
goguism subsequently triumphed here and there
over the forces of Patriotism, but until then no plea
of the feeblest description bad been afforded for
the subsequent atrocities of tyranny. During the
last three or four years on the continent, the mag-
nanimous were the democrats, the criminals were
the despots, the victims were the revolutionists. It
is an egregious absurdity, therefore, to assert,
as the Tory candidates are already beginning to do,
that the interests of humanity are implicated in the
conquest of Democracy by Conservatism, in the tri-
umph of the Tories over the Radical Reformers. The
interests of humanity, on the contrary, are so far
likely to be implicated in the next general election,
that the success of the Tories would inaugurate a
disastrous epoch of retrogression as inevitably as the
success of the Reformers must insure a still further
progress in the course of civilization.