The Sun.
London, England, 1837-11-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JO URNALts

All parties being, we believe, agreed upon the poin t
that the Grei:ville Act has proved totally inoperative
for the main end for which it was passed, namely,
mccuring impartial decision;; on election petitions, the
question arises how the admitted defects of that law
are to be remedied. It does not follow, however, that
all who allow the 10th Geo. 111., c. 16, to be in-
efficient, will consent to a change ; because, as we have
fo:merly shown with route particularity, the Tories are
great gainers by the present system, inasmuch as by
a little union and a good deal of chicanery, to which
they do not scruple on all occasions to resort,. they
arfl able, as a party, to avail themselves of the existing
objections to that system. Therefore, while they are
not able to deny palpable evils, they may be able to
refuse to remedy them, on the general ground that
alteration is undesirable, and on the particular ground,
which they have not failed already to urge, that the
law under which the grossest partiality may, and
actually does take place, on the whsle works im-
partially. We deny that it has worked, tha% it will
work, or that it can work impartially, and in
previous articles we have given some reasons for
taking up this position. We are satisfied that the
great body of the representatives of the people can
arrive at no other conclusion ; and although this is a
ilew Parliament, there still remain in the House of
Commons many Members who can bear indisputable
testimony to the manner in which the Grenville Act
has been made to pervert the course of justice for
the mere purpose of advancing the interests of party.
We have before us a pamphlet, written by " a Par-
liamentary agent," touching with shrewdness and
knowledge upon various points connected with the
10th Geo. 111., c. 16, and although the author takes
rather a practical than an enlarged view of the subject,
that circumstance renders his opinion on some accounts
more valuable : it is entitled " The Abuses of Elec-
tion Committees and their Reform ;" and upon the
question how far politics have interfered with the fair
nomination of election committees; and with their final
decisions, he speaks as follows from his own personal
experience.

‘..4 is it not notorious that on every ballot upon an elec-
tion petition for the last two sessions, letters were written
to all the members—that they were ordered to town by
their respective parties, and that it was considered as
great a dereliction of duty not to attend a ballot,
as to be absent on the most important question in-
volving the fate of the Ministry ?
Thus it was that unless the sitting Member
belonged to one of the two great parties in the House
he bad not a chance of a Committee : it was equally so
with the petitioners. The Committee is chosen out of
the first 33 who answer to their names as called by
ballot ; and which party would take the trouble (and it is
no slight trouble) to fill the House on the day of ballot,
if it was not seen that they were most interested in
the result ? But the evil does not rest here : there are,
unfortunately, political clubs in the metropolis—the
Carlton, the Reform, and Brookes's Clubs, to one of
which every Member must, at least in practice does, belong.
As soon as the Committee on a petition is chosen, and
it is seen who are the eleven Members selected and
SIVO37Z to try the case, there comes into play another im-
portant duty of the political parties in the House. It is
scarcely possible that luck or management may have selec-
ted a Committee all of one party ; they are generally of a
pie-bald character, Whig and Tory. Occasionally there
is one of the Members who is not to be reckoned on as be-
longing exactly to either, but veering between both ; for
example, the Hon. Member for —; such a character
is a great puzzle, and if the number of Whig and Tory on
the Committee is equal, the independent man creates a
great deal of trouble by his uncertain and contradictory de-
cisions, and generally to the parties engaged a ruinous ex-
pense. But suppose the Committee to consist of six Whigs
and five Tories, apprehension and doubt of success vanish
The Whig Member exclaims he has a good Committee
His counsel assure him of success ; and however little re-1
lianee they may have had before on the merits of their
case, the inetant they hear that six of the Committee are
with them, all gloom disappears, and they proceed confi-
dent of success,"

This is an illustration of the evils of the system ad-
verse to the party to which we need not, at this time
of day, avow ourselves to be attached, and the leaning
of the mind of this " Parliamentary agent" seems in
some respects rather unfriendly to the Liberal side of
the question than otherwise ; but that is a matter of
no consequence, for whether the majority of a Com-
mittee be Whig or Tory, if the result be an unfair
decision, it makes just as much for our argument
that an amendment of the law is necessary. The
wonder to us is, that when the petitioning or the re-
spondent party finds that a select body has been
formed of a political complexion different from their
hopes, either the one or other does not at once relin-
quish the contest. There is a droll satire on the ad-
ministration of justice between party and party in
Rabelais, where he represents the judges hearing the
arguments of counsel day after day, then pondering
on the case perhaps for as many weeks, and finally
casting the dice in order to arrive at a decision on the
merits. If the chance with a Whig or Tory Election
Committee were equal, if the determination merely
depended upon a high or low throw, there might he
some reason for prosecuting or resisting the claim to a
seat ; but when the parties know that on an Election
Committee there are six or seven Tories, or six or
seven Whigs, as the case may be, to only four or five
Members on the other side, it seems to us, with re-
cent examples before our eyes, a preposterous waste of
money to proceed ; and we can only account for the
perseverance of individuals by supposing that they are
not unfrequently influenced by their Counsel, and
Agents, who arc of course not a little interested in the
expenditure of as much money as possible, no matter
how fruitlessly. Therefore, although they may tell
their principal that the result in his favour is certain,
because the maj'ority of the Committee is of his poli-
tics, we much doubt whether they are ever so disin-
terested as to go the length of giving advice, that as
there is no chance of success ail further proceeding
ought to be dropped. Taking it for granted that an
alteration of the law is necessary, we come to two
questions, both of much importance : how is that
alteration to be accomplished ? and what ought that
alteration to be ? A point is raised (not for the first
time) by the author of the pamphlet we have already
quoted, how far it is competent to the House of Com-
mons alone, and without the aid and concurrence of
the other two branches of the Legislature, to change
the present mode of deciding disputed returns ? Can
this be done by resolutions merely, or does it require
the authority of an Act of Parliament ? It is quite
clear that from an early period the House of Commons
has shown the utmost jealousy of any inteiferenee with
its right of determining matters relating to contro-
verted elections. By the Journals, under the date of
27th of January, 1603, it appears that a resolution
was passed " that it was universally known and ad-
mitted to be the sole right of the House of Commons
to examine and determine all 'natters relation- to the
election oftheir own Members," and although, as the
pamphlet before us proves, James I. endeavoured to
impugn this right in the case of Sir Francis Goodwin,
the House ultimately persevered in the maintenance
of its privilege, and in 1G24 it declared it to be " the
ancient and natural undoubted privile,9t, and power of
the Commons in Parliament to emoin-e the validity f
elections and returns concero;:n their House and As-
sembly,
and to cause all undue returns in that behalf
to be reformed,," &c. Until, however, the passing of
the Grenville Act, in 1770, the House had Pr) power
and could-only acquire the power by statute, of admi-
nisterirg oaths either to the member; of committees or
to the witnesses examined befoe he
e ern. It was one
main object of that Acttotive this power, with a view
to a just determination
of
regulations
rio ,yo
insertedl o
he Bill were
at issue, and the
d till were merely incidental,
))ears, included. reason
he effect
as by the result now ap-
ifect has been to control and
check the 1-I'..mSe of Commons in any changes it might
'find it cY.fiedient to make from tim • ' . . e to time in themAe of
inveslagating the merits of petitions complaininc, 0 of un-
due This is an evil which the House brought
upon itself, and the 9th George IV., c. 22, was in-
troduced to amend and consolidate the
previous law,
because that previous law had established the prece-
dent of the necessity of an Act of Parliament. Had
en Act been passed in 1770, merely giving the power to
Election Committees to administer oaths to witnesses
(without requiring the worse than useless oaths from
the Members forming those Committees), it may be a
gravequestion whether the House of Commons could
not have done all the rest much better for itself,
without the intervention of the King or the Lords. i

We only put this hypothetically, because it is
an important point, which ought not to be inci-
dentally dispom:d of, and which we reserve for
future consideration ; but it strikes us that to call
upon the other branches of the Legislature to join in
a statute to regulate the mode in which the merits of
election petitions shall he decided, was, pro (onto., a
relinquishment of the privilege formerly claimed and
insisted upon by the Commons " to examine the vali-
dity of elections and returns concerning their House
and Assembly, and to cause all undue returns in that
behalf to be reformed." How far the Commons can
or cannot now resume this privilege, and adopt resolu-
tions the tffect of which may be to alter the objec-
tionable mode in which election committees are selected
and appointed, is a different question, but one at the
presrnt moment, and under present prospects, of no
little moment. We sh:111 take another occasion to ad-
vert to a plan by which it. is proposed to avoid most of
the grounds of complaint to which the existing system
is liable.—Morning Chronicle.
What may be the first measure of the ensuing Par-
liamentary campaign on the part of the Conservatives
roust, of course, be only matter of conjecture at present.
As they form the defensive force of the Monarchy
and of the Church, they may very prudently wait for
the attack of the enemies of both, determined to with-
stand patiently and firmly the open aggressions of
O'Connell, and the insidious and more dangerous
hostility of his Ministers. The settlement upon the
young Queen and upon the Duchess of Kent can
hardly afford matter of difference, unless the newborn
loyalty of the Whigs should display itself in some emi-
nent degree of baseness and prostitution. If, indeed,
the Conservatives should be disposed to give battle at
the earliest moment, they cannot want a pretext for it
upon the choice of a Speaker. The example of their
opponents, and the merits of the individual whose
authority in the chair the Ministers must wish to per-
petuate, will furnish abundant grounds for a division.
It would have been invidious, and, perhaps, in these
days of privilege it might have been dangerous, to
scrutinize the pretensions of any gentleman to the
chair in which he was actually seated. The House
of Commons might-have voted anything a libel, and
might hare claimed to itself the sole privilege of
publishing libels. But as there is now no fear of the
Sergeant-at-Arms, it may be permitted us to inquire
what was the " principle" involved in the choice of
a Speaker under Sir Robert Peel's Administration,
which " principle," according to the published letter of
the Hon. James Abercromby, alone overcame his
reluctance to become a candidate for that dignity ? It
could not be the want of fitness or character in the
last possessor of the chair, for he had been proclaimed
by Lord Althorp, with the universal acclamation of
the House, as the individual most qualified to fill it.
It could not he any unconquerable antipathy to an
Administration conducted by Sir Robert Peel and
the Duke of Wellington, for the Hon. Gentleman had
not scrupled to accept from them the office of Chief
Baron of Scotland, or to enjoy the; sinecure of 2,0001.
a-year into which that office was shortly' after converted
for him by Lord Grey. Neither can it be imagined
that it was the " principle" of the Reform Bill to give
to one set of Ministers the monopoly of the Govern-
ment, for it was one of the avowed objects of that mea-
sure to afford to the King greater freedom in the choice
of 'Ministers, and one of the boasted results that the
Government could no longer be conducted by patronage
and influence. The Hon. Gentleman has most un-
kindly awakened our curiosity about this great
" principle," without taking any step to satisfy it,
unless indeed we may infer that his " principle"
is nothing more nor less than the great " principle"
of all Whigs of the present day—namely, to employ
all the means in their power, all the influence of office
or authority, of whatsoever kind, for the mere pur-
pose of serving their own petty interests as a part).
This we can understand. It is upon this principle
that the whole Melbourne Administration moves. So
long as they can accomplish the security of their own
emolument and power, all means are legitimate. To
them " there is no difference between a beggar and a
Queen," so long as they can use the one or the other
for Whig purposes. They do not scruple to allow
their Sovereign to be-held out as a writer of election
squibs, when it suits their ends on the hustings, nor do
they disdain a filthy alliance with rags, roguery, and
rebellion, if they can gain a scanty majority by it.
Lord Melbourne has candidly avowed that the Peers,
the liberal professions, the aristocracy, and the wealth
of the country are against him ; but that neverthe-
less he would not abandon his post so long as he
retains his majority in the House of Commons—that
is to say, so long as he can, by giving the patronage
of Ireland to O'Connell, command a dozen or two
joints of his tail. The great Whig " principle " may
be illustrated by what would be a very appropriate
motto for his Lordship—
.

" Flectere si nequeo supero!, Acheronta movebo."
He would not scruple to make a league with the Devil,
and give him half his patronage to ensure the other
half. And why, great statesman as he is, " should he
decline support from any quarter ?" If his measures
accidentally happen to Ineet the approbation of the
powers of Acheron, why should he therefore abandon
them, or scrupts: to congratulate himself on the honour
and felicity of an alliance which keeps him in place
for six months longer, and which only imposes on him
the easy condition of aiming a few heavy blows and
great discouragements upon the Church of England and
upon the monarchy? Here, then, perhaps we may find
that great Whig. "principle" announced by the Hon.
James Abercromby,as paramount to all sense of propriety,
to all touches of gratitude, to all objections of personal in-
convenience or aversion. "It is true that Manners
Sutton is an honourable man, a most excellent and
impartial speaker, long experienced in all the forms
of the House, and blest' with an intelligence of mind
and an urbanity of manner that make him justly the
favourite of all parties. True also that I can pretend
to none of these qualifications, and moreover that I
owe some little gratitucL to the present Ministers for
personal kindness, and that I was accustomed to
praise them as brill, the first to repudiate that system
of exclusion which had so long kept my merit from its
just reward. True also that Sir Robert Peel has an-
nounced popular and useful measures, and that he
is, probably, the only Minister that can success-
fully carry them. But what are all these considera-
tions to the great principle' Of acting with the
Whig party, and stlving it with all my heart,
and mind, and soul, under all circumstances and
whatsoever may be its objects ? I must iel,l
the duty of party allegiance : my Lord, I. - to
in you I recognize all that remain- f the am
spirit yours ,
gull
of Whiggism—and ,
• me, since you desire
it, you shall find all t 12.„, a Whig ever desired in a
Speaker.
pt Whliner they have indeed found this in
his racice •
. of coiling on the Members who offered
thems,•,,m, tt) speak, the Members of the House now
ao mem can best judge. We have never heard of any
complaints of him on this head from the Whigs, as
we sometimes did of Manners Sutton from the Tories.
But we have not forgotten the little history of the Car-
low election petition.. We were informed of the pro-
' ceeding, though it passed with closed doors and empty
gail.ctits. Was the Hon. Gentleman's reading of the
" and," as if it hail been " or," an illustration of
the great principle ? The House consisted of an eaaer
majority in favour. of Mr. Villors, the sitting Member,
who had declined to defend his own seat. -Nay, if we
are not mistaken, an active Minister allowed himself to
be chosen on the Committee, so great an object was the
politicaliast of that Committee to the Whigs. The great
" principle" which governed him would not permit him
to swear off; and those who have the best opinion of the
Speaker's understanding, suppose that the same great
" principle" enlightened him to a construction of time
statute, which gave a fair opportunity for a partial
House to form a committee by striking two to one
in favour of the sitting member. But fortunately for
the character of the House, the " principle " was not
paramount to all conscience in the breasts even of
Lord Ebrington and thirteen Ministerialists then pre-
sent, who could not resist the manly appeal of Lord
Stanley to their honour as gentlemen, and walked over
to the Opposition side of the House, disdaining to
take advantage of a construction put by a layer in
the chair, which afforded- them a pretext for a corrupt
rote. Now, we do not affirm that the extraordinary
opinion of thd Hon. James Abercromby on that occa-
sion must necessarily be referred to the influence of the
great " principle." We give him the benefit of his

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1837.

own negative conjunction " or." We say that he must
have been governed by the great Whig " principle)
or that his understanding 13 weak, and his judgment
as a lawyer not upon a level with that of an attorney's
clerk of six months' standing. Lord Ebrington a:id
his small party of conscientious adherents have this
dilemma before them—will they vote for the Hon.
James Abercromby being elected to the chair?—
Times.

The progress which the human intellect is making
in Ireland, under the auspices of the O'Connell,
M'Hale, and Mulgrave system of Government, may
b: pretty well understood from the following piece of
Irish intelligence :—" His Holiness, Pope Gregory
XVI., has granted a plenary indulgence to all the
fti:hful of both sexes, who, having confessed and re-
ceived the sacrament, shall visit the blessed body of
S:. Valentinus the martyr, which the Pope has sent
to the Carmelite Church in Dublin. The indulgence
to commence at first masses, and continue until sun-
set on Wednesday, the 18th inst. Each person is to
repeat three aves, paters, and glorias." It is added,
" The day has been appointed bv the Most Reverend
Dr. Murray, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin,
and one of the Commissioners of National Education."
Thus the march of the human intellect in Ireland, like
that of the crab, is backwards. It is a march from the
noon-day light of the nineteenth century to the barbarous,
ignorance .and superstitious gloom of the " dark ages,
and this march is headed by whom ? By one of the
Whig-appointed Commissioners we National Educa-
tion ! National education, indeed I It might be
more appropriately called a system of national delu-
sion to perpetuate-the reign of superstitious ignorance.
Only let the " most thinking" people of England
reflect upon the portentous fact of a principal Com-
missioner of " national education" in Ireland being
employed in assisting sueh pious fraunds of the lio•
mish Propaganda as that about to be perpetrated at
the Carmelite church in Dublin, where the prostration
of the soul and body of " the faithful" at a sarco-,
phagus of dry bones, accompanied, no doubt, by the
payment of certain fees, is to entitle all believers of
both sexes to a plenary indulgence, which means a full
pardon for past sins and a licence for the commission of
futu. e ones. If such a spectacle were presented in
some remote corner of Ireland, where the English lan-
guage is unknown, and where a ray of English civiliza-
tion has never penetrated, it might be said, " Why
should such an instance of provincial and isolated igno-
rance and barbarism be charged upon the Roman Ca-
tholic hierarchy and the whole Roman Catholic body
of Ireland ?" But this monstrous fraud is the ac-
knowledged act of the Romish hierarchy of Ireland,
headed by Archbishop Murray bearing the especial
commission of the Pope, and invested with the autho-
rity of a Commissioner of national education I A.re
we not right, then, in describing the " march of in-
tellect" in Ireland, under the auspices of the O'Con-
nell, M'Hale, and Mulgrave system of government,
as a march backwards? Yet it is under this
system that the " enlightened" patriots arise who are
break the chains of mutual darkness in Protestant
England, and teach Englishmen the principles of
genuine liberty I—illorning Herald.

In the Advertiser of Saturday appeared an account
of a great meeting, received by express, recently held
in Meath for the purpose of congratulating her Majesty
on her accession, expressing full and unabated confi-
dence in Ministers, and paying a tribute of approval
and gratitude to the just, impartial, and conciliatory
manner in which her Viceroy, Lord Mulgrave, has
exercised the high functions committed to his charge.
The meeting was not one of a particular class nor
party, but embraced almost all the nobility, gentry,
landed proprietors, clergymen—Protestant as well as
Catholic—and freeholders of the county. The High
Sheriff presided, so that nothing was wanting to give
the meeting an effective and authentic character. ArL
enthusiastic unanimity appeared to actuate the assem-
bly. Landlords and tenants—Protestants and Catho-
lics—Clergymen and their parishioners—all combined
in the fervid expression of their gratitude and confi-
dence towards a Government, the first which has ever
sincerely and stedfastly attempted to pursue a just
and equitable policy towards Ireland. Not more ear-
nest, however, nor unanimous was the sentiment of
gratitude and devotion towards her Majesty and her
Ministers than was that of abhorrence against the fac-
tion who prevent the consummation of the healing, just,
and propitiatory policy of the Government. Such a
combined and determined manifestation as this must not
be treated with indifference. As expressive of the
feelings of the people of Meath, the proceedings would
claim a deep interest ; but, as expressive of the feelings
of the people of Iteland, which they are, the sentiments
uttered come with all the force of a nation's authority,
stamped and scaled with the approbation of a whole peo-
ple. To set at deffance opinions promulgated under such
auspices would be to shake the whole political fabric to
its basis. Let it he recollected, as was forcibly urged at
the meeting, that three fourths of the Representatives of
Ireland, chosen as they have been with a limited fran-
chise, exercised in fear and trembling of oligarchic per-
secution, yet three:fourths of the representatives of
Ireland are in favour of those measures of Reform
which have again and again been defeated by Tory
machinations in the United Parliament of Great
Britain. Should this system be persevered in—should
Ireland be still kept excluded from equality of rights
with the other portions of the empire of which she
forms part—and should the opinions of threefourths
of her representatives, supported as these opinions
are by millions of her population--no honest Re-
former could long conscientiously oppose the repeal
of a Union which to one of the contracting parties
brings nothing but insult, injury, and degradation.
The question in such case would no longer be whether
or not the Union might be productive of good
to the empire at large, but vvliether it be politic, and
if politic whether it be possible to hold eight millions
of people in bondage ? Justice to Ireland, or a repeal
of the Union, is the alternative to be decided in the
approaching Session. Ministers, and all honest Re-
formers arc for the former ; the Tories, and all who
speculate in national calamity, seem resolved to fore-
on the latter. • It is they who foment discord hurl --
trust between the several divisions of the 1. ms-
doin—it is they who urge on pony'' -.rated King-
is they who justify the a commotion—ite- •
Irish wrongs must ► „prehension that redress for
as was recce ' sought by violent means; it
.
hind
observed, " they who dethee Fe-
--
.awl be in arms if she socks to be free, =ldle&
return to power will bt the signal."—M. Advertiser.

We understand that the cause of Sir It. Peel's ab-
sence from the entertainment of Guildhall was, that the
King of the French had postponed to a later day than was
originally fixed the promised visit of the Right Hon. B %ro-
net to Versailles, and that there were circumstances which
rendered it difficult for Sir Robert Peel to refuse hi! ac-
quiescence in the postponement.—Morning Paper.
DERANGEMENT OF THE MAIL.BAGS.,-..,nV a
very rare but awkward mistake, the null-bags rot Inverness
were, on Sunday last, forwarded to Aberdeen; and thous of
Aberdeen came to Inverness. Some of our toWnsMeti, who
happened to be standing by the Pestzalle*, Were astonished
at the bulk of the bags reteiM here on Monday morning,
so far exceeding our .tsual quantum, until the cause was dis-
closed, to tlio mortification of sundry politicians in our
Reading-room and elsewhere.—lnverness Courier.
LITERARY NOVELTIES.--Mr, Colburn, of Great
Marlborough-street, has just published the following new
worki :-1. Pascal Bruno, a Sicilian story, edited byTheo-
dore Hook, Esq.-2. The Bench and the Bar ; by the
author of " Random Recollections of the Lords and Com-
mons,"ropo
by
s.iss Stories La-
ndon,
of;ke, Lord Chief
J
" The Great Metlis," &c., 2 vois.---3. Ethel
Clllrelvi iol t4a.l e
et liLe
irfei
e gonf
Sirof G2Eevdoowri
sga.er
dslvclo.o.
Spanishustice i
'LI e the rceliitgend(blyjla,lineeust.l-C"olonel Craufurd, 2 vols.-
6, The Spas of Germany ; by Dr. Granville, 2 vols., with
thirty-eight illustrations-7. Uncle Horace ;by Mrs. S. C.
Hall, authoress of " The Buccaneer,', " Sketches of Irish
Character," &c., 3 vols.—S. A new naval story, by Captain
Marryat, entitled " Snarley Yow ; or, the Dog Fiend,"
3 vols.

ETHEL CHURCHILL ; OR THE TWO BRIDES.
—Miss Landon has added another and lustrous gem to
her coronal as the High Priestess of Passion. No writer
less gifted than the author of " Francesca Carrara" could
have produced these exquisite, affecting, and brilliant
volumes, in which one or two errors or inaccuracies of de-
tail are redeemed by a prodigality of power, and poetry, and
passion, which, had " Ethel Churchill" been Miss Landon's
firstsioswnOrk, must have placed her in the very first rank of
poetical
novelists, and which, as it is, will increase and
deepen the current of a popularity already co-extensive with
a knowledge of our literature and language.—Morning Post.'