The Sun.
London, England, 1837-06-07 00:00:00

SAIUT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

Mr. Proadwood yesterday communicated to the
Ccininons' House of Parliament' his resignation of the
representation of the borough of Bridgewater ! So much
for the " rapid and decided re-action" proclaimed by
the apostate Times and other Tory journals on the re-
turn of this " Honourable Member" by the venal con-
stitutiency of Bridgewater. In the Morning Chro•
nide of the 19th ult. we broadly stated, that " nearly
, TWO HUNDRED electors had been bribed by the par-
' tisans of that gentleman, who will probably repent hav-
ing allowed himself to become a catspaw of the Carlton
Club." This fact fully accounted for the " re-action"
majority of fifty-eight votes over Mr. Sheridan, and
equally explains the discreet resignation by Mr.
Broadwood of his costly seat. The Honourable
Member is reported to have expended six thou-
sand pounds sterling for no consideration in 1834-
5, when defeated by Mr. Leader ; and upwards of
tour thousand pounds for the honour of sitting and
voting one calendar month in Parliament, and
franking his own correspondence and that of his
friends. This is, indeed, paying " dear for a whistle,"
and we do not wonder that Mr. Broadwood declined
the additional and fruitless cost of an election peti-
tion. Mr. Sheridan presented his petition against
tide return of Mr. Broadwood on the 23fl of May.
The latter gentleman on the last day, the recogniz,
ances being perfected and his escape impossible, re-
treats behind the statute 9 George IV., c. 22. That
election Act provides, that if the House of Commons
shall be informed by a declaration in writing, sub-
scribed by a Member, and delivered in at the table
within fourteen days from the day after which any
petition shall have been presented, that it is not the
intention of such Member to defend his return, in
every such case notice shall be sent by the Speaker to
the Sheriff or Returning Officer for the county,
city, borough, or place to which such petition shall
relate, such notice to be affixed on the doom of
the county-hall, or town-hall, and to be inserted
in ono, of the two next London Gazettes (sec. PO.
The statute further enacts, that it shall be lawful,
at any time within thirty days after the thy on which
such notice shall have been inserted in the Gazette,
for any person claiming to have had a right to vote at
such election to petition the House of Commons to
' be admitted a party in the room of such Member to
defend and contest the return. The Member refusing
to maintain his seat is not admitted to appear as a
party on such petition, and he is restrained from sit-•
tang or voting in Parliament until the petition is de-
cided. Thus vanishes into thin air the vaunted ma-
jority of fifty-eight, claimed as the " re-action" of
Toryism. The old " whippet-in" of the Conserva-
tives, Mr. William Holmes, may have been a good
tactician in the times of the Ih:roue:mongers, but it
is palpable that he does not' know how to hunt their
game in the present days. Mr. Holmes, sen., and
his pensioned son with 5001. per annum on the Civil
List, Mr. Thomas Knox Holmes, will be no match for
the Reformers of 1837. The profligate electors of
Bridgewater will not escapeirhe probe of a Select Coin-
mittee of the House of Commons ;' and perhaps an in-
quiry into the merits of the pension of Mr. Thomas
Knox Holmes will amply repay the cost to the public
of a searching investigation into the election practices
of the borou,l which the father and son honoured by
their recent visitation. Mr. Broadwood by this time
must have had " enough" of Parliament, and will be
loath again to tune his instrument to the airs of the
Carlton Club. His bribed electors may defend his
seat ; we hope they may, but it will probably be at
their own cost, or at the expense of the joint-stock
purse of the Conservative party. Whatever drains
doelund of the Corruptionists does good to the Re-
formers. The costlinesss of our misrepresentation will
ultimately destroy the system of misrule. Already
the Tories find it difficult to "plant" the counties.
Several of their most staunch candidates are' sick
of the price of their seats. The Liberals will tire
them out at their own game. The strings of Mr.
ciad wood's Piano ffiies, are slackened, and a
lov qui tam actions and indictments will soon de-
stroy • his Bridgewater instruments. In the mean-
while the Tories are as unluCky iu their pretences to
political purity as in their bribery elections. Last week
Sir James Graham affected singular chagrin at the ac-
celeration of the Glasgow writ. The Carlisle Journal
of Saturday, a chronicle of his own county doubtless
well informed, supplies us with a curious commentary
on the earlier history of the ele_aion manceuvrea of the
" Right Honourable" and turn-about Baronet :

" This virulence, it is to be remembered, was displayed
against his old associates in office ; against .the men with
whom he had, up to a very recent period, been acting
during the whole of his political life, and to serve the
party purposes of those to whom and to whose measures,
he a;;...aped us, on the hustings at Carlisle, in January,
t3f35, he had all his life been opposed.' If the charge
wlech he made couhl have been substantiated—if Mr.
Stanley had been guilty of violating the letter of an Act
of Parliament, the conduct of Sir James in bringing the
matter forward in the way he did would not have been a
whit more justifiable. But Mr. Stanley did no more
than his duty ; he acted upon the spirit of the Act, by
forwarding the writ with all possible despatch. Before
bringing forward such a charge Sir James might have
done well to have reviewed some part of his own conduct
while in office to see if a similar accusation might not be
brought against himself. We suspect such an examination
would have deterred him from throwing stones from his
Own house of glass. At all events, if he has forgotten,
others have not, what was done by him in 1831. It tas
not escaped remembrance that to serve his then political
purpose ho took upon himself to detain the mail—en offence
surely as grave as that of accelerating it. On the 30th of
April, in that year, he arrived at lisle. to contest the
county with his present political associate, Lord Lowther.
He found committees sitting for conducting the election of
Mr. James and Mr. Howard, the Reform candidates for
this city—Mr. James, be it remembered, a liadoal Re-
former. He offered his services to assist the Reformers—a
communication with London was necessary, but the mails
were just about to start. Had Sir-James then any scruples
about interfering with the mail ? Oh, no ; for ho at once
took upon himself to order it to be detained until he wrote
letters for London ; and if my Lord Duncannon should
lal:::te been r
re
to preserve every worthless scrawl he receives, he
nila
able to
received confirml
byfrom Carlisle,
our
dated by. the production
thatoduet day
ionof
a;
and perhaps Sir Jamei will not require much corroborative
proof of its identity'
" These are awkward reminiscences for Sir James, and
he would have done well not to provoke them. To restore
that party
ypatortyfortsoakpeowee:erwy.hich not long since he described as
Composed of the worst possibl! materials he is now
principle, to forget every act, and to
insult every friend of his youth. He has chosen his course,
and must abide bithe result ; but ho must not be surprised
if those whom he has deceived and betrayed, and whom he
would now put down by assuming the office of bully to a
despised faction, should strip him of his pretensions to
purity, and lay bare the meanness of his assumed patriotism
and reverence for the laws."

Some amusing particulars might be added to this
anecdote of the " Cumberland Partner," but we feel no
inclination to waste our efforts on one who has already
sunk so low by his recent exhibition on the Glasgow
writ. The candidate who, on his first hustings, com-
mitted a plagiarism on Burke, by passing one of the.
speeches delivered at Bristol as his own, has very sub-
stantial reasons for lapse;; of memory. We shall see
how lie will deal withßridgewater when the ee;ruption
of that iniquitous borough is fiti:y bet'ore
.the House
of Commons, It would surprise us were he not to
make himself prominent in this case ; for he, seems to
u
have a peculiar knack at disccting occasions for act-
ing parts frontr which men of ordinary delicacy would
shrink.—Morning Chronicle.
The discussion relative to Ow commercial state of
the county,
whic,h took place in the House.of Com-
MOLS 011 Monday night—if that, indeed, can be called
a discussion which one Member had almost a.ltogether
to himself—will not be withoot ptih,lic advantage, Inas-
rl49h m tt4 vcstili, afforded another indication of tit(
&domination of the House of Commons not to listel,

PRICE sd.

'Or a moment to any proposition for again tampering
with the currency. If, Parliament adhere inflexibly to
that determination, there can be no reason to doubt
that the vessel of the State will outride whatever storms
may agitate her, no matter how fearfully, for a while :
but let that determination be departed from, and we are
once again at sea without helm or compass, equally
ignorant of the dangers that beset our erratic course,
and powerless to avoid or to overcome those dangers
whit they shall have become visible. For this reason,
therefore, Mr. Attwood, who was so goad as to make
a:mot:on, of which the object was to tamper with ihs
currency, and. who was moreover so obliging as to press
that motion to a division, deserves and has our best
thanks. We have so repeatedly expoeed the mischief's
and the absurdities of those currency-crotchets which
Mr. Attwood and gentlemen who think like him have
been putting forward for the last 20 years, that we
cannot help feeling that we should be wasting our own
time and that of our readers if we were to go over the
same ground again now. Upon the showing of these
worthies themselves, the state of the case (admitting,
for the sake of argument, all their positions Lobe true)
is, first,. that an injustice having been inflicted some
years afro upon debtors, in long by-gone transactions,
there should now be a similar injustice inflicted upon
creditors in present and existing transactions. We
cannot, we never could, understand either the wisdom
or the justice of such a proceeding. and until two
wrongs can be proved to make a right, these currency-
correctors ought not to be allowed to make even a start
in the dance they would lead us. But let it not be
forgotten what these persons really want. It is, in
factaa currency which shall put the. pennyless specu-
lator on an equality with the eolvent trader, and reduce
all commercial transactions to mere gambling.—Times.
In deference to an unwillingness manifeeSed by the
House of Lords last night to cuter elyea"► the diacussion
of the resolution passed. leei• the House of CoMmons
with regard to its -privilege to libel, Lord Denman
postpones], ;,is motion until Tuesday next.- It evinces
more prudence on the part of their Lordships than we
supposed them to possess, to endeavour to evade a
question which might accelerate and aggravate a colli-
sion with the Commons. The subject involved, thoueh
difficult and complicated, would admit of a compara-
tively easy decision, if the law of a case %vete not so.
frequently opposed to the reason ; and frame law of libel,
above all other laws, is anomalous and absurd. An
act of libel may be a criminal act, and a simple'reso-
lution of the • House of Commons cannot legalise that
width the statute-book recognises as a crime. At
the same time, if the House of Commons have the sole
power of deciding upon what are termed its privileges,
the Lords cannot take the resolution into their consi-
deration without in the very act encroaching upon the
tights or privileges of the Commons. So much for
the fictions and absurdities of the law, and of two co-
ordinate bodies of legislature ! . In this, as in 'many
other instances, it would be far easier for either House
to prove the other to be wrong than itself to be right,
though, if the House of Commons really represented
the people, there might not much harm accrue from its
superseding by a resolution the legislative functions tST
the House of Peers. We would, however, recommend
this experiment to be made on some of the more no-
' portant measures now in progress—the Irish Municipal
all or English Church-rate Bill for instance,. would
be meal' an extraordinary effort in their accomplish-
ment ; but the privilege to libel is a paltry privilege,
not worth the contest.—Morning- Advertiser.
One of the Tory triumphs over which the faction
have recently so much exulted is already converted
into discomfiture and defeat. Bridgewater must now be
Weed on the debit side of the Tory ledger—a per
contra to " reaction," Mr. litoad‘VcW, con'scions,
would appear, of time mal-practices employed in his be-
half at the late election for this borough, and desirous
of evading their thorough exposure, has, as was com-
municated to the House of Commons last night by
the Speaker, declined to defend his election, aeainst
which a petition was presented by the liberal candidate
Mr. R. B. Sheridan. In thus declining a full inves-
tigation of the mode in which his majority was ob-
t mined, Mr. Bioadwood has evinced discretion, as the
corruption practised by his party at Bridgewater was so
flagrant that even Tory assurance dare not orate the dis-
grace of its exposure. For our own part, though the
ejection of a.Tory from his usurped possession, and the
accession of a Reformer be thus facilitated, we should
have much preferred that an opportunity were afforded
of exhibiting to public abhorrence the iniquitous man-
ner in which the election was conducted by the Tories,
and that the transfer of the seat should he accompanied
with an authentic publication of the abominations
which invalidated the surreptitious majority. How-
ever, as the 'Tories have lost (heir money and their
seat, we can afford to be indulgent to their reputation,
if that needs indulgence which may be regardsd as
eetire in the depths of its degradation. In this way
the Tories may certainly bid defiance to defamation ;
for assaults upon their character, to use a vulgar, but
appropriate simile, fall as harmless as soot on a sweep's
face ; like that, their reputation being too black to be
sullied. Now that a Liberal is about to succeed to the

representation of Bridgewater, it in iv apneKr injudicious
to impugn the integrity of its constituency ; but as Ite-
for.n needs not a fraudulent support, and as the refusal
of Mr. Broad wood to defend his seat, is tantamount to
an admission that his election was effected by inde-
fensible influences, we may freely state that Bridge-
water is almost as notorious for its corruption as Staf-
ford or Ipswich. At every election the most barefaced
bribery is put in practice. Instances have occurred oii
former occasions of electors taking bribes from both
candidates by way of obtaining an equipoise of con-
science, a balance of evil influences, which would enable
them to vote for their favourite without the imputation
of an unfair motive. For this, and most of the other
iniquitous practices resorted to at elections, the ballot
is the obvious remedy ; and as secret voting would be
an effective barrier against al:nost all those illegal in-
fluences which so frequently invalidate elections, its
adoptimi would at the same time relieve the House of
Commons from the labour which every Session en-
gages its numerous Committees in sitting and deciding
upon petitions against undue returns.—Morning
Ad-
vertiser.

We live already noticed, as well as several of .our
Contemporaries, the novel and unprecedented line of
conduct which Government has chosen to adopt in re-
gard to the Brighton Railway Bills. A line of con-
duct which public opinion has stamped with its de-
cided reprobation, as discreditable to Ministers of
State, who ought not to give occasion to say that at
an eventful crisis, they have been so neglectful of their
duty, as to leave the political destinies and the com-
mercial interests of the country at the mercy of acci-
dent, while they put forth all their energies to job in
private Bills ! What an additional disgrace, too, that,
after exercising all their influence, they should succeed
in their object only by a majority of seven—being less
than the number of Ministers that voted to oust the
Committee on the Bills of its jurisdiction, and by plac-
ing the case in the hands of a Government inquirer,
to make a Government job of a Brighton Railway
undertaking ! We wonder that, according to the
true Whig fashion, Ministers did not appoint It
Commission with snug salaries,- to inquire and report
upon a question ,which has already heen decided by
a Committee of Parliament, after a long and labo-
rious investigation in v.,hich Ministers took no part, and
upon evidence of which Ministers knew nothing.
The part which Mr% Poulett Thomson, in particular,
has acted in this matter, will not soon be forgotten ;
very properly did Mr. Hums Timk) in d that Right Hon.
Gentleman last night of his former declarations, which
are upon retwd, as to, his making it a rule never to in-
terfere in private lilts, except in performing the duty
of a member of th:! Standing Orders Committee. Did
be state any objections to-the V.',.:ltinet of the Commit-
tee upon the Bripht,...n ilaitways to justify his &par.
in :tl tiflot instance from the rule which he protesstd