The Sun.
London, England, 1839-04-11 00:00:00

unknown region of possibility, and they will always
be liable to blame, and are, in fact, much blamed,
for not having, by a bold reforming policy, gene-
rated an honest public opinion, which would have
altered the actual condition of Parliament, and have
given them power to go faster and further. Putting
out of view what they might have performed, we agree
with the author of this pamplet, that the mere fact
of their not going so far in the way of Reform as we
and other Reformers wish them, is not a sufficient
reason for turning them out and putting the Tories
in office in their stead. Some allowances must be
made for old habits, and some for the defercnces
which men of rank always exact ; something is
due to the principles on which the Government has
for ages been carried on, and from which those who
administer it cannot be expected widely and sud-
denly to depart ; and,
.making these allowances, we
--lare inclined to think that the Ultra-Radicals, like
f_AIV! RODEN and his friends, expect from the
Government more than it can petform. Lord
tioDEN wants in Ireland the security of England ;
r.and those who now demand great organic reforms
,
rtnlnfo what the Ministers have no power to effect.
Tci prevent a change from lukewarm friends to
open enemies, it is the business of the Radicals,

. .
notwithstanding the sneers of the Times, to keep
the coach running, though it carries them only half
way on their journey.

Our Paper of yesterday contained the first of a
series of Lectures against Church Establishments,
which the Rev. Dr. RALPH WARDLAW iS to deliver,
in order to counteract the effect of Dr. CHALMERS'
Lectures, delivered about the same time last year.
It was well attended, and the course will be of con-
siderable use. We are partial to such discussions,
because the pretensions of the Church are at present
the keystone to the Tory policy. Whatever
the Tories do, and whatever they neglect,
whatever they promote, and whatever they
oppose, always has a reference to the mainte-
nance or the extension of the Church. But for the
Church, they would concede Municipal Reform
and justice to Ireland. But for the Church, they
would abolish the Corn laws, and would be only

feebly opposed to extending the Suffrage in
England. The claims of the Church, therefore, to
domineer over the people, are the source of many of
the vices of our Government ; they cannot be too
closely examined, and, if found to be unjust or
erroneous, they cannot be too severely condemned.
The Tory Journali, which continually fight for

the Church, always impress on their readers the as-
sertion that the sole point at issue is, whether Eng-
land shall have a Protestant or return to a Catholic
establishment. No other alternative is ever pre-
sented to them than the maintenance of the Anglican,
or the restoration of the power of the Romish
priesthood ; and the nation is terrified against its
better knowledge into acquiescence in the former
by threats, that if it be not preserved it will be
superseded by the latter. It forms, however, no

part of the determination of those who are
now struggling against the dominant Church
to submit, after they have cast off its trammels,
to a still more arrogant priesthood. That would
be reversing the order of time. The Romish
Church had its day of power till it was overthrown
by the progress of knowledge, and now, when the
same progress is battering the Anglican Church
in its turn, there can be no thought of going back
to that which reason and intelliEence long ago cast
out. Only dogs return to their vomit; and the human
mind can no more re-adopt the monstrous errors of
Popery, than again believe that the world is at rest,
flat, and shaped like a canoe. The cunning poli-

tical schemers, who in the nineteenth century use
the Romish Church to terrify the sound-thinking
intelligent inhabitants of this country into sub-
mission to the Anglican priesthood, and into the
adoption of all their errors and the preservation of all

their long-cherished abuses will find themselves
grievously mistaken. Experience has already de-
monstrated the utility of the voluntary system, on
which Christianity was first founded and flourished ;
it exists in many lands ; it is carried into execution
even in the bosom of the Church itself,

the strength of which has been partially
renovated by returning to that sound scheme
of Church government ; and it is now of-
rred to the reflecting inhabitants of this
empire, as a complete and effectual security
against the domination of any one order of priests.
It is this r. y stem which Dr. WARDLAW has come
amongst us from the North to explain, and the
bulk of the people gradually embracing it, will not,
in casting off the Anglican Church, relapse under
the dominion of the POPE.

One very important circumstance seems to us to
have been overlooked in the debate on suspending
the Legislature of Jamaica the night before last,
namely that the people of the empire compelled the
Imperial Legislature to interfere for the abolition of
slavery. The abolition was no voluntary act of the
Ministers to promote their own aggrandisement, or
to gratify a proud and arbitrary self will ; it was
forced on them by the energetic demands of a united
people. They coal not avoid taking some step
like that which they did take, and having taken it,
they were obliged to follow it out to its just con-
clusions. By the Emancipation Act the Imperial
Parliament interfered with the Legislature of Ja-
maca, overruled its wishes, and put aside its power ;
and having done that, the Parliament, or rather the
Executive Government, which had td carry the law
into execution, was compelled to provide for the
consequences of emancipation.
The Tories in Parliament seem to us to have
forgotten this, and to have considered that the
Ministers should have acted towards Jamaica as if
the Imperial Parliament had never decreed the abo-
lition. On other occasions they insist much that
the Government ought to follow its own views,
without deferring to the opinion of the governed or
dependent colony ; but the night before last they

were all for deference to the slave-owners. The

were quite shocked at Ministers doing anything so
arbitrary as enforcing an Act of Parliament -for
providing prisons for the Negroes, and for propos-
ing a measure to provide for continuing the Go-
vernment of the Colony, after the Assembly had in
a measure abdicated its power. An independent
Colonial Government is incompatible with such
dominion as our Legislature has always exercised
over Jamaica ; and after the colonists submitted to
the Emancipation Law, they ought not to have
impeded its working. We are not advocates for sus-
pendivg Constitutions, but the people of the Empire
virtually overruled that of Jamaica. The Legisla-
ture of Jamaica then virtually suspended itself, and

the Ministers have only proposed to provide a fea-
sible means for the future administration of affairs.
The Bill, says Mr. LONG, a Jamaica proprietor, in a
letter to Viscount ST. VINCENT, when introduced

ly Mr. LABOUCHERE, ought to be styled a Bil

for remedying the evils caused by the voluntary
surrender of its Legislative functions by the Jamaica
House of A-sembly.
One consequence of the emancipation was, that
first the apprentices, and subsequently the free ne-
groes, being relieved from the punishments formerly
infliced by their masters, became liable to
punishments by Magistrates, including imprison-
ment. It accordingly became necessary to provide
proper prisons for these purposes, and it was then
proved that the prisons of Jamaica were in a most
horrible state, and our Paper formerly contained
some striking proofs of the cruelties perpetrated in
them. To remedy
these evils the Imperial Parlia-
ment passed an Act for " the regulation of prisons
in the West Indies generally," the passing
of which Act, says Mr. LONG, the House