The Sun.
London, England, 1839-05-06 00:00:00

POLITICAL

The Morning Post of this day, in the course of a leading
article sue:qested by the Jamaica question, observes:—
" The Ministers of Great Britain ought to be able to sus-
tain British authority in her Colonies, without a tyrannous
suppression of Colonial liberty. It is amazing, and eis-
graceful, that this nation should bear with common patience
the combined imbnility and hypocrisy of an Administration
who acts as this Administration has acted, with respect to
the Colonies. It appears en their own showing, that they
cannot govern them, except upon the principles and by the
practice of direct, unmitigated absolutism. This is imbe-
cility. It shows a want of resource—of energy—of
contrivance. Civil liberty is not so poor and so weak a
thing that the moment the exercise of it becomes embar-
rassed, absolutism must be applied as a remedy."
The Morning Herald is singularly and elaborately co-
mical on the subject of Lord John Russell's letter to the
Electors of Stroud. " His Lordship," observes cur
sportive Contemporary, " endeavouring in his Letter' to
stop the progress of the democratic movement which he
contributed to produce, reminds one of the man in the fable,
who having set a wood on fire for the purpose of roasting
his game, attempted to blow out the conflagration as he
would a farthing candle, to prevent it roasting himself.
Or, perhaps, he may still more resemble that ancient
Irish Precursor' of whom it is related that having
by laborious and persevering effort bored a large hole
in the embankment of the Shannon, with the view
of inundating his neighbour's crop, endeavoured to stop
the torrent by thrusting his wig into the aperture, when be
found that the flood was about to devastate his own. The
democratic movement which Lord John Russell helped to
set going is no more likely to be stayed by his pamphlet in
favour of quasi. Conservatism, than the rushing torrent
of the Shannon by the Irishman's wig." Really this is
very ponderous and elaborate waggery, written with diffi-
culty, and read with greater.
The Times discusses Lord John Russell's Letter to the
Electors of Stroud with much care and caution. Speaking
of some of the leading principles promulgated in this docu-
ment, our Contemporary says Do they signify Lord
John's harmony of political principle with his colleagues?
In which case we have a right to expect that Lords Nor-
manby, Howick, &c., will take the first opportunity of an-
nouncing their full adhesion to the constitutional and tran-
quillizing doctrines of the Home Secretary, but at the
time their total difference from, and rupture with, Lord
Durham, who has even lately pledged himself to Household
Suffrage, Triennial Parliaments, and the Ballot. Or do
the reasonings aad opinions of Lord J. Russell belong to
him, as being altogether independent of and separated from
his colleagues? In which case he proclaims a fatal schism
in the Cabinet on matters which he represents to be by
their magnitude capable of shaking the public mind.'
It comes at a curious time, this pamphlet. Whatever may
be the Noble Lord's purpose in the publication of it, the
very act of publication is, towards the Ultra-Radicals, a
snapping of his Lordship's fingers, a bluff challenge to them
to do their worst, and to quarrel with him whenever it suits
their convenience. Now, if it were not disrespectful to
Lord John Russell, we should be tempted to call this
au unworthy fanfaronade on his part. He knows (for
who does not know right well ?) that the Radicals by their
shouting demonstrations of dissent from Ministers, and
disapproval of the comparative tameness of their policy,
mean nothing beyond mere empty words. So long as
his Lordship and his colleagues make a parade of numbers,
and put a bold face on their prospects within doors, the
Radicals treat them with derision and contempt; but the
moment Mr. Edward Ellice hoists a signal of
distress, and says to the Radical declaimers, " Vote
with the Whigs to-night, or they are ' out to-
morrow,' and in they snivel with their tails between
their legs, penitential and cowering, and ready to be told
of in a dozen divisions of a night. We beg leave to ap-
prize the Noble Lord, therefore, that in so far as his letter
makes known to thepeople of England what they may ex-
pect from him as regards his vote upon questions involving
the stability of our representative system, he has judiciously
consulted the interests of his own character, and has drawn
a line between himself and the revolutionists which cannot
fail hereafter to serve him with the nation." In a
letter signed " Lmlius," which appears in another part of
the Times, and which, we suspect, emanates from the same
pen that wrote the leading article, Lord John Russell's
Letter is alluded to in a more hold and decided manner •

" I have read your Letter to your Constituents," says
Laelius ; I like it; it is thoughtful and determined, and
worthy of you, who from his lineage, ambition. and career
will occupy no mean space in the future history of our
country." Lzelius then goes on to say--" Your Lordship
will retire from public life with dignity, for you have pre-
pared the way for your great rival. He has deserved this
service, for he has been a generous antagonist ; and if you
adorn your solitude by writing the memoirs of your Admi
nistration—a task which you would perform admirably—l
have such confidence in that nobility of sentiment which is
inseparable from genius, that I do not doubt you will do
justice to his consummate qualities. You really seem to
me to be the fair ideal of a Conservative Statesman. They
tell me you are somewhat in a scrape at present about
Jamaica. Trust to your national allies, the Tories, to ex-
tricate you from it." Strange compliments these l Eight
years ago the Times lavishes the warmest panegyrics on
Lord John Russell for having introduced the Reform Bill

into the House of Commons ; our Contemporary now
praises his Lordship with equal warmth for having made
the first advances towards the bitterest enemies of that same

Reform Bill, whose great object, ever since its introduc-

ion, has been to neutralize its effects.

The Morning Chronicle speaks as follows of Lord John
Russell's Letter to the Electors of Stroud :—" Repeated
and careful perusal of Lord John Russell's Letter to the

...-
Electors of Stroud,' has left us without any distinct im-
pression of what his Lordship promises in the title to ex-
plain, viz., his notion of the principles of the Reform
Act,' and of the implied incompatibility of those principles
with the changes now advocated for the accomplishment of its
I refessed purposes. His Lordship grounds the necessity for
re Form on two all,Frationa • the, one, that the members
of the House of Commons did not individually represent
the people ; the other, that collectively they did not
speak the sense of the people.' Here we have some-
thing like principle implied, but it wriggles out of the
grasp the moment its application is attempted. Within
a very few pages we find his Lordship contending, as he
recently did in the House of Commons, that there ought
to be an opening to legislative honours for shrewd law-
yers and illustrious warriors, though they may not be ac-
ceptable to popular constituencies. Now every body knows
that his Lordship denounced this principle when
he introduced the Reform Bill. The very doc-
trine laid down in the Pamphlet as a principle
of the Reform Bill (but laid down there in
glaring inconsistency with the previous statement of the
grounds of the Bill), is the principle on which the Bill was
opposed by Sir Robert Peel and the Tories. If nomina-
tion be a good thing, Lord John Russell was wrong in
introducing the Bill at all. If nomination was a bad thing,
and that is his Lordship's defence for his conduct in 1832,
what shall be said of his conduct in 1839, when he takes
the field in arms for the foulest species of nomination that
ever the world saw, that of the corruption of small con-
stituencies to procure the return of clever lawyers and
officers who are unpopular with large constituencies ?"
Our Contemporary then proceeds to observe : —" Still Lord
John confesses that, contracted as he describes it to be, the
liberalism of public opinion surpasses that of the House of
Commons. That it (public opinion) entitles them (the Li-
beral party) to a larger proportion than they now have, I can-
not, seeing the bribery and intimidation employed at the last
election, entertain a doubt.' To a certain extent, then, the
country is confessedly misrepresented in the House of Corn-
mons ; and it is misrepresented in consequence of a
system of foul corruption and abominable injustice.
What, then, does his Lordship propose to do for the
correction of this evil ? Nothing—absolutely nothing.
He hopes the Lords will, in some undefined period, be
persuaded to allow the rate-payer a little further
time,' and assent to some correction of the abuses and de-
fects of registration, under the penalty that, if they do not,
certain worthy persons will shake their heads at the Lords,
and he ( Lord John) will be sorry to see them shake their
heads at the Lords. But supposing this persuasion to be
successful, what will it do to stay the plague of corruption,
or to shield the dependent from intimidation ? These con-
fessed evils of the time, with their confessed result in the
proportionate perversion of the representation, are quietly
handed over to futurity, in the hope that when the people
shall have grown wiser, the Tories will grow ashamed of
their dirty work."

NATIONAL ANTI•POOR-LAW
ASSOCIATION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SIR,—In the fourth column of the last page of the
The Sun of the 24th of April, is an account of the
formation, in London, of a National Anti-Poor-law
Association,

As one who greatly rejoices in the formation of the
above Association, I should feel obliged by your stating
in The Sun, the name and address of the Secretary of
the above National Anti-Poor-law Association, or the
address of Mr. Hopwood who presided at the meeting.
Believing that the daily London Press generally ad-
vocrte, as a whole, the cause of the Poor-law, and as to
its working, and as residing in a rural district, and as
having also closely watched, as a whole, the
working of the Poor-law Amendment Act, I trust
your candour will permit me to say, that I can but
think—l state it merely as my own opinion—that the
Lily metropolitan press, has been abused, as to the in-
formation it has received relative to the working of the
Poor-law. I can but contemplate the Poor-law Act,
and as to its workings, as most cruel and oppressive in
its operation as a law ; and on these two points I wish
iin a legitimate way to attack t---UNCONSTITUTIONAL
and UNSCRIPTURAL ; and therefore, I consider it a
duty I owe my country and my Maker, in my humble
way, to stand forward for the immediate and total RE-
PEAL—being firmly persuaded it is too bad to mended
—of the Poor-law Act ; and for consolidating, through
Parliament, in its stead, a Poor-law for England and
Wales, in accordance with the rights of the subject, the
spirit of the Constitution, and the principles of the
Scriptures. I remain, Sir, yours, respectfully,
CHARLES BROOKER.
Alfriston, Sussex, 3rd May, 1839.