The Sun.
London, England, 1837-08-07 00:00:00

poratcd with it ; neither landlord nor tenant can make
paper wings and fly off to France, Italy, Russia, or
America, on a bill of exchange for the whole amount
of his fortune, as a mere merchant or tradesman can
do, at twenty-four hours' notice. The dependence of
the landed population for its whole well-being on the
general safety and stability of our institutions is in
some important respects, if not peculiar to that class of
our tellow-subjects, felt at least by them with peculiar
force. The man in trade asks how such or such a mea-
sure will immediately operate upon himself—the man who
holds his paternal acres th s how it will affect his grand-
child. For many years past—namely, since the cessa-
tion of foreign war threw back the English mind upon
our domestic interests—the question of Parliamentary
Reform had been making way amongst us. The crisis
of 1830 in France gave a fresh impulse to the public
spirit on that question. From that t►me down to the
!access of the Melbourne Ministry, the Democratic
principle was in a state of rapid and vehement evolu-
tion. The innumerable follies of that disgraceful Go-
vernment—the ignominious terms imposed upon it by
the worthless Papist at whose feet it lay, and the
consequent mischiefs into which it was huiried—com-
pletely disabused the credulity of most men who, with
the best feelings, had indulged Utopian visions of some
impracticable future. The exposure of much disho-
nesty in the agents--the evidence of much perverseness
and danger in the system, which had assumed to itself
the name of " liberalitg," wrought a change in
men's sentiments on behalf of what was tried more ra-
pid and far more rational, than the previous one in fa-
vour of the untried, and the democratic principle, from
its state of evolution, passed over into that state of
self-correction which we see now illustrated by the pu-
rified and much-improved character of our county repre-
sentatives. There is another testimony to the spread of
political re-action in this country—less satisfactory, per-
haps, with a view to immediate objects, though quite as
convincing, and quite as gratifying, for those who look to
the permanent welfare of the realm, as any that can
be derived from the increase of Conservative returns.
It is the prodigious excess of Conservative votes in
those eonstituencies where the majority have still been
in favour of Radical candidates beyond the number of
Conservatives:who had polled at any preceding elec-
tion. There is no instance in the history of Parlia-
ment where the successful candidate being a declared
friend of the Minister was run so close as almost
invariably at this last election. The cases are too
numerous to be specifically referred to, but we state
with confidence, and appeal to the several polls,
that no political contest ever yet took place where the
losing candidates opposed to the existing Minister ran
their successful antagonists half so close. The re-
sult is, that for Lord Melbourne to stand will be
impossible. He has not merely to fight the adverse
votes in Parliament, but to encounter the moral in-
fluence of that vast progress of Conservatism out of
doors, which has been demonstrated both by its growth
within doors, and by the severe nature of every elec-
tion struggle where it has just failed of succeeding.
What may be done in Ireland is difficult to tell,
nor is it of much more serions moment. The rottenness
of Lord Melbourne's position is this—viz., that
while he has England for his enemy, he has also
O'Connell for his friend. In our opinion, if the
Papist and rebellious interest were less eager in its
partisanship of Lord Melbourne, the Noble Viscount
would fare somewhat better in the estimation of Eng-
lish Protestants. The sworn devotion of O'Connell
to the Ministry is not given gratis. The question
asked by every man in England is, what price of Bri-
tish freedom, religion, or supremacy does Lord Mel-
bourne pay for the support of this alien mercenary ?
What is the amount of the bond which he has exe-
cuted to the Shylocks of Maynooth ? By what sa-
crifice of her honour or tranquillity is England to buy
this disgrace ? The wretched impolicy by which the
grant of political power to the Irish mob was dictated
manifests itself by the sort of hands into which that
power has practically fallen. The question is not whe-
ther we shall tolerate the Popish priests of Ireland,
for it is no longer a question whether they will tolerate
us ; they avow that they will not do so. " Justice to
Ireland" requires that they, the priests, should exer-
cise dominion over Ireland ; they acknowledge no
other " justice." In this spirit it is that O'Connell
has summoned over to Ireland the refuse of the re-
jected Radicals from this country—that he denounces
as traitors those electors who will not yield their votes
as he commands them. The arch impostor's majority
for the city of Dublin over the Conservative candi-
dates in 1835 was nominally a majority of some hun-
dreds. It was a fictitious majority of fabricated votes,
and so proved to he on a petition to the House of
Commons, under all the disadvantage of proceedings
instituted to serve the purposes of O'Connell, though
ending in his discomfiture and disgrace. We foretold
some days ago that lie would " per fas vel ;Islas" pro-
cure the return in his favour in this present election,
and doubtless in that respect lie will have laid his re-
resources too artfully to risk a disappointment. He
imposes on the Conservatives the necessity of another
petition, and in the meanwhile usurps, with a sort of
impunity, the privileges of a Member of Parliament.
But until Ireland shall be rescued from the abomina-
tion of having constitutional powers exercised by those
who turn them to the overthrow of the Const►tution,
there will be for that country neither security nor
peace. The measures of the Melbourne Government
were framed to aggravate that evil, not to alleviate it ;
and for such a merit it is that they call upon the people
of England to support them. They have called in
vain.— limes.

The present elections exhibit two features unparal-
leled in depth of infamy by any former election. One
is the extent to which bribery and corruption have been
other is the shameless and profligate man-
ner in which calumny on private character has been
employed by the Tories. Wherever honesty is found
unassailable by bribes, there it is libelled and calum-
niated with audacious vituperation. The most odious
reflections on domestic habits and transactions are
made—all truth and decency are violated—and all the
cesspools of Billingsgate abuse are emptied on tiv
victim. Seats ate put up to sale, as in the days of
Gatton—and reports are suppressed, or garbled, or
coloured to force the objects of jobbing dictatorships
down the throats of the public. With the cry of
" Religion in danger !” all the foundations of religion
and morality are shaken to their base by the faction
who raise it. In short, if some ready be not found,
the country bids fair to be rendered one vast quagmire
of corruption. Lies of the must outrageous descrip-
tion have been propagated, with a wilful knowledge of
their utter falsehood, against the Reform candidates,
in the hope that they would stick for the time, and
do their dirty work during the two days devoted to
elections—although they may be ultimately refuted or
indignantly repelled. Many of the elections have
been carried against real friends of the people by this
resort to the darling instruments of debased and de-
graded minds—vilification and detraction. Mr. Hume
is only one example out of many of the revolting
falsehood and outrageous indecency of the calumnies
resorted to. Mr. Fearon (Mr. Hume's chairman)
justly attributed much of the evil effect produced as
regards the defeat of Reform and rejection of Re-
formers, to the ignorance of the constituent bodies of
the inestimable value of the franchise, and of the rela- •
tive condition of the representative and the constituent.
This is quite true. Nor is there any remedy for the
evil—but that combined remedy to which we have so
often adverted, viz., to diffuse education among the
people, and to protect them from the corrupt influ-
ences of wealth, or the intimidation of tyranny, by the
ballot. A cry having been raised for the ballot, Mr.
Enron replied, that " the remedy would not be found
in the ballot, but in increased suffrage and education."
But with this opinion we differ. Increased suffrage would
require increased protection ; and if we have to wait
till that distant period, when education has proved the
social criminality and moral prostitution of selling a
vote, where must we look meanwhile for protection for
the uninstructed copyholder and purchasable freeman?
There is no time to lose. All men now look to the
ballot as the only sheet-anchor of sinking freedom.
That which we predicted on the subject of the latter
remedy is already beginning to be accomplished. The
infamous arts of intimidation, calumny, and corruption,
which have been so immeasurably employed in the pre-
sent election, have opened the dullest eyes and con-
vinced many of the opponents of ballot of the neces-
sity of finally resorting to it, Two eminent candidates,