The Sun.
London, England, 1839-08-10 00:00:00

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1 measures whereby honest Men might find room to live in
' England prosperous and happy.
Mr. VILL IE RS thought her tiftts something eetreiteiy
analogous between the feeeuite pursued by the Ho-
nourable Member fer Birminghees le this House and
that of the Chartists et public meetings, or- bear,
bear, hear.) The Hen. Member coetd hot be surprised,
when he uttered such sentiment's eh every occasion. that he
was received with far mere favour by the Opposition than
by the other side of the House, because there Was some-
thing so singular in his manner, and so eccentric in the ,
matter which he put forth, that he contrived to throw dis- i
credit and east ridicule on almost every question.-1
(Cheers.) He did not say that the Hon. Member did It
intentionally, but this was certainly the effect which he
produced. If the Honourable Member for Finsbury
would accept a compliment from him (Mr. V.) the speech
which he hed made on the present occasion was the
best which be had made in this House. The Hon. Mem-
ber had said almost everything wheels could be urged in
favour of these resolutions. He (Mr. Villiers) thought
they were too important to be passed over in silence, or
(
without the approbation of those who had supported the
measure included in them ; and he therefore intended to
rote for them. He supported them because they were
true, and because it was important the House should ad-
mit them to be so; because, if the proceedings of the
House had not been worthy of the purposes for which they
had assembled, it would be one step to repentance if they
admitted their sins. Some persons might think that the
course pursued by the Legislature was right, and it was
well that the people should know what it was.
Looking to the general character of our legislation it was
not calculated to raise us in the esteem of the country.
That was an evil and a misfortune, than which none could
he more lamentable.—(Hear, hear.) There must have
b. en something in the mode in which business was con-
.ineted, and the business itself, conducted by the Howse,
which produced this result. And the only mode in which
the iliscontent could be removed was, either by legislating
ttic the people beneficially, or including such a number of
1.:0 people in the Legislature as to render it their own
~ fauit if the legislation were not beneficial. It was pos-
t sible that they might legislate for the, people as they
ought to be legislated for; but only possible—scarcely
peeheble. Under the present mode of regulating the fran-
i chile, and the very limited nature of the franchise, a
e monopoly of legislative influence was givers to individual
)interests—to sinister, sectional interests, over the Feneral
—to the partial, above the national.—( Hear.) This had
! made the legislation of Parliament a ground of complaint
(Hear)—and he connected this with the present dis-
t; ; eences—irrational, absurd, inseene, as their projectors
. re. They were only the iedication that the cup was
) now overflowing. But wl:at had filled that cup of discon-
; tent?—( Hear.) The wrongs of those just above the class
who were resorting to violence. It was necessary that
the middling arid the working classes of the people should
be satisfied. It was the lowest and the most ignorant order
of society that employed physical force, and endangered the
public peace. —( Hear.) The House need fear nothing if the
e)esse above these were satisfied. But it was the discon-
tent of the middling classes, as well as of those below
' them, which gave cause for alarm.—( Hear, bear.) Now
the resolutions of the Hon. Member truly described those
measures which the House had neglected during the pre-
sent Session.
Mr. WARBURTON said he should support the reso-
lutions. If he believed thet the existing discontents arose
merely from the Chartises, he might be of the same way of
thinking with the Neible Lord the Secretary for the Home
Department. But the Noble Lord was utterly mistaken
in imagining that this was the case.—( Hear, hear.) There
w. re a great number of steady, thinking men, who had
been the supporters of moderate Reform from the
thee when the Noble Lord and Earl Grey first began
the Reform agitation—who were dissatisfied with the pre-
, sent course of Legislation.—( Hear, hear.) Looking to
the present state of ,parties, indeed; the condition of our
Legislation was really that of anarchy. Nothing good
progressed.—(Cheers) Thus the labours of Parliament
were ineffectual. The Chartists interruption to the Anti-
. Corn-law Agitation did not arise from their friendliness
e to the Corn-laws, but to their conviction that petitioning
i the House as at present constituted was useless.—( Hear,
hear). It was astonishing how the Government could be
I satisfied with their inability to carry useful measures.—
; (Hear, bear.) Matters could not long remain in the pre-
-1 sent situation, and the preponderance must eventually
I turn to the Tory party, unless the Government gave a
; stimulus to the Liberal cause by further changes in the
; representative 5y5tem.......( Hear, hear.)
iMr. D'ISR A ELI said he ascribed the present discon-
tents to the systematic attacks which, since the passing of
the Reform Bill, had been made by the Government on
the civil rights of .Englishmen, and which had at last
' roused in the people that vindictive spirit which was ever
! the result of oppression, and prompted them to assail
the Constitution of the realm. Within the last seven
i years, the ordinary time for the lease of a house,
t, the Government had attacked the Church—bad to-
; tally revolutionised the parochial jurisdictions of the
i country, the most ancient and most intimately associated
i with the mass of the community—had attacked the prin-
. eiple of the Trial by Jury—had destroyed Corporations—
had attacked the ancient police of the country—( Laughter
' from the Ministerial benches)—had attacked the old local
Administration of Justice—and had confiscated the ancient
. patrimony of the people. What should create discontent,
; if tot such injustice as this? In former times, different
i parties of the Aristocracy had put themselves at the
I head of such insurrections, and given them the cha-
t meter of political movements.—(Hear, hear.) And per-
haps it was one of the peculiar features of the present
disturbances that they did not display this characteristic,
and yet were connected with a deep and wide-spread or-
ganization. Into the causes of this it was the province of
that House to inquire. But one eeuld not shut one's eyes
to the fact, that (be people were now only practising the
lessens they had received from a certain party of the aris-
tocracy, who bad formerly taught them for their own poli-
tical purposes. The Noble Lord opposite (J. Russell),
Cm was not only an historical student, but an eminent
bistorian,—had traced the progress of the present
sedition. It was not for him (Mr. D'lsraeli) to corn-
Tsetse with the Noble Lord in framing the pedigree
of sedition—(Cries of " Oh, oh I")—but he, for his
p,srt, could not help tracing it far higher than Mr. Oast-
1, a—( Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord described these
sihturbances to the single efforts of that now celebrated
p,- rsonage ; but forgot that there was an Act—the Reform
Act—prior to the Poor-law ; forgot that in Birmingham,
which had been least affected by the Poor-law agitation—
there were formerly heard threats of 500,000 men rising
in arms to assist in the deliberations of the Peers on the
Reform Bill—( Hear, hear); forgot that the predecessor
of the Noble Lord received addresses from crowds, headed
with the tri-coloured flag.—(Hear, hear, hear.) It
w. 14 admirable to see the hypocrisy with which
to: n were frightened at threats of physical force
from the poor Chartists of England —as if these
were the first that bad appealed to physical force, as if threats
of -physical force bad not, ere now, oft wafted into place
and power successive Ministries, though now, forsooth, the
resistance of physical force teas to be the band by which
all the sections of the Liberal party were to be held toge-
ther, to support a Government owing its existence to ono who,
when appealing to the petitions of 500,000 " fighting men,"
never, oe course, dreamt of appealing to physical force—
oh, no—only to the moral, intellectual, force of the masses.
—( Hear, hear.) Was it surprising that the people should
now turn against the Government those arts and devices
which that Government first taught them, when that
House had not now such a hold on the affections
e'' relit people as to be able to stem the torrent e—( Hear. )
I ens a remarkable fact, that this House, though the
y 1,, eest popular assembly in Europe, was constantly
nes/ sing " reverend antiquity," as Lord Bacon called it,
aen invesmigating the foundations of every thing ancient,
as I -his, too, in a nation which, above all things, admired
and respected antiquity. The constitution was now re-
duced to a state of political paralysis. The utmost which
could be said of it at present was, that it was a system
weereby the Crown could do no wrong, anda Government
lie right? Seeing then that, practically, anarchy had been
~.d iced, how could the Chartists be reproached. How
,r, o'd the Chartists be accused of advocating what was
heeracticable when they could point to the state of our
lehi eition ? No hope would be entertained for the country
til: a cordial reconciliation had been effected between the
p ,ople aed their natural leaders. Now this would only be
iee :esult of a strong Government. Whatever scheme the
re, .lists might have of an agrarian republic—the middle
re —es, of unionist monarchy—Whigs, of place, or Tories
‘.. e; ,wer, the country wanted a Government.—( Hear,
; . h.) The present Ministry governed nobody. They
. 1.. no administaation—for what did they administer—save
s ,nage ?—( Hear, hear.) This was the necessary result
• 1 . - ~ir Whig principles—not of their personal qualities.
, ,oti-national party, opposed to the national institutions,
only exist through excitement and agitation, and
. - in as the people returned to their senses, an oli-
,, .1
:r my, supported by sedition, must be unpopular.—( Hear.)
"I e was not a week that passed that there was not a
.ntroduced that wounded the feelings and prejudices
re ; o English people. He attached great importance to
;station now going on, because the people were with-
" leaders —it made it more fearful.—(" Question,
•' ion.") There was great discontent amongst a section
tilting to three or four millions of the people—they
.lone nothing during the Session, and were about to
e ; .ern, with the Colonies in rebellion, and our internal
.-. was not secure.
.;-. EWART agreed with the Hon. Member, that it
ery desirable that there should be a strong Govern-
,,, . , t, but he thought it could only be strong in the affec-
:see .of the people, and that could only be dby good
loess-sires. They had been like soldiers,beating time
hduring the 'Session —there had been much motion,
vlsut no progress. There was too much disagree-
meet amongst parties—a sort of mild enthusiasm
Oh ,tie one hand, and high aristocratic notions on the other,
e Itti the sound social reformers isolated in the middle.
' He trusted there would soon be an amalgamation of the
parties, and a steady, onward progress of reform, which
would at once quiet the country. He abjured all doc-
trines of violence, and he trusted the people would be
contented with the resolutions of his Hon. Friend, and
trust to the sound, well-thinking portion of the people.
Sir H. VERNE Y urged the Government to provide
for the religious instruction of the people as the best means
of quieting the dissatisfaction.
Mr. HUME did not think additional chapels and
churches were wanted. The contest was between aris-
tocracy and democracy, and as the aristocracy had the
making of the laws, they made them to relieve themselves
The instruction the people
aed to press upon the poor.
wanted was such as would enable them to profit by chapels
and churches. The mitecrable sum of 30,0001. was voted
after much discussion, by a majority of two only
Ihr the purposes of education. The cause of the
sitting discontent was, that the working classes were
treatscl as slaves, by having no voice in the choice of re-
presentatives. If it was unreasonable to ask for relief, then
were these men unreasonable The people did not desire
to seize the property of the Country and divide it among
themselves. The written dhclarations of the Chartists
disproved this. They wished to go% the root of the evil
by demanding extension of the Suffrage. The finality de-
claration of the Noble Lord had done more to produce the
&Weent excitement than anythin% else.
---51 r. W. O. STANLEY attributed the discontent to