The Sun.
London, England, 1837-01-10 00:00:00

gustive to the Tories than anything which they had
previously imagined. That there is a small section of
the Reformers who do not agree for the moment in the
views of the general body, is perfectly true ; but for
the consolation of the Tories, there is not a member of
that section, save two or three refractory individuals,
who is not prepared at all hazards to make fight in
favour of the present Government, and against any
Conservative Administration which the enemies of the
people may attempt to form. We have not to-day
sufficient space left to advert, as specially bearing upon
this point, to the dinner given to Mr. Sharman Craw-
ford at Belfast ; but we refer our readers, with high
gratification, to the ample report of the great public
dinner given at Glasgow, on Thursday', to Mr. Oswald,
M.P. With the speech made by that Hon. Gentle-
man on that occasion, we need not say how fully we
eoncur, since it echoes the opinions, and enforces the
arguments, which we have so recently and so repeatedly
advocated in the Morning Advertiser. We may, how-
ever, especially notice its two most prominent features ;
one, the necessity of all Reformers of every grade
uniting in support of the present Ministry, in order to
prevent a real re-action---not the mock re-action
which the Conservative prints depict, but which exists
only at present in their own office-coveting imaaina.
tions—by the restoration to power of a Tory Adminis-
tration. On the subject of this imperative and urgent
call for union, Mr. Oswald made the following ener-
getic and convincing observations :
" There was, at the same time, others who opposed the
Ministry, because they did not go so far as they wished.
To this party he would say, that whatever might be the
opinions of any one man, or of any body of men, those
opinions, when yielding them for a time did not imply a
disregard of the dictates of conscience, ought not to be
too much pressed, when the question came to be, were
they to have a Tory Administration or a Liberal one,
taking into connection with the open opposition to the
Liberal Ministry, the fact of the Court influence opposed
to them, an influence that was much greater than that
company was aware of ; or even if they did not come up
to the wishes of some of the most ardent Reformers, he
would ask them to support that Ministry rather than put
them in ril by opposition ; because, though he did not
believe an 3 Tory Government could last long in this coun-
try, yet he believed that if a Tory Government was per-
mitted to resume power, there would be felt a real re-
action. Let them, in such a case, go to Ireland, and
there they would see a re-action—an attempt made to
carry on the Government by the sword, in the same way
in which it had been carried on till the commencement of
the peaceful reign of Lord Mulgrave. One week of an
attempt on the part of the Tories to bring about the old
system would inflict more evil on the country than could
be cured for seven years to come. He trusted, however,
he would see no such attempt, but that a cordial, close,
and distinct union among Reformers would effectually pre-
vent it. In one thing they ought to imitate their oppo-
nents—they never quarrelled among themselves. Let Re-
formers then join in a long pull, a strong pull, and a
pull altogether.'"

Certainly it will be admitted at once that the poi
session of power begets power—that strength, like
money, creates strength ; that if the Tories were once
again fairly seated in the saddle of office, it would be
difficult to unseat them for a considerable number of
years. At all events, the present consideration of the
urgent claims of Ireland to English justice, and to that
equality of rights before the law, without which the
bond of the Union may be pronounced waste paper—
would be postponed during the whole period, short or
long, of Tory domination. Mr. Oswald ably confutes
the sneers of those Conservatives who pretend that a
public man cannot go to the extreme length of those
reforms which the general spirit of the age and the
country demand ; and at the same time calls upon the
country to place confidence in the present Ministry.
Why should they not ? Ministers have pledged them•
selves to bring them forward, and their interests as in-
dividuals, as well as their duty as' public men, involve
an absolute necessity for the redemption of that pledge.
Whatever the hireling Conservatives may pretend, we
believe that they will redeem their pledge. At all events
it is the part of the people to wait and see if they
shrink from it. It will be time enough to censure
or desert them then. It would neither be justice nor
common sense to withdraw their support before they
have their visible and convincing proof that the Minis-
ters are unworthy of it. To act otherwise would be
to play a card into the hands of the Tories. To act
otherwise, would be to turn our guns against the van-
guard of our own army the very moment of their ad-
vance upon the enemy. In order to show that Mr.
Oswald is " fully up" to the popUlar " mark," at the
very moment when he eloquently urges the expediency
of uniting in support of the Government, we make the
following extract from his arguments on the necessity
of Peerage Reform ; and we do so with the more grati-
fication, since our readers will recognize that the senti-
ments they convey, and the paramount necessity they
inculcate, are precisely those which have been un-
flinchingly urged and unvaryingly indicated in the
columns of the Morning Advertiser:—
There was one point the most prominent of all others
at the present moment, to which he would for a little direct
their attention ; that was, what was to be done to bring
the two Houses of Parliamont into unison with each other?
All other subjects sunk into insignificance compared
with this. He would be a vain and presumptuous man
indeed were he to attempt to bring forward any project
for settling this matter—to solve the problem which was
admitted by every person to be one of the greatest diffi-
culties. It was not for him to say what should be done ;
but this he would say, that situated as the House of Com-
mons now was, something must be done to bring into
harmony the two Houses of the Legislature. He did
not know how it was to be effected, but this he knew,
that startle as men might when an organic change vas
spoken of, it was quite clear that this country could not
long go on without change. They talked of a creation
of Peers ; but he never could see how that could be
a cure—it would rather, in,his estimation, be a continuance
of the disease.--(Hear.) People might startle at the idea
of a change ; but he must state that the • aspect of the
House of Peers as an elective House, was not a new prin-
ciple in the British Constitution ; it was a principle acted
upon already in the case of Scotland and Ireland. But
whether it was to be elective or not, a change must, and
ought to be made.—(Great cheering.) There was not a
day, while the Peers were sitting, in which they did not in-
fringe on the rights of the people.--(Hear, hear, hear.)—
Something, therefore, must be done, and before many
years or months pass over their heads, unless it was
wished to see the country thrown into confusion, from an
obstinacy on the part of that House, which was alto-
gether unparalleled in the history of the nation."
Verily ! it is time for the Peers to " put their House
"in order." In obstructing Reform elsewhere, they
have brought Reform to their own doors, with a velo-
city and a force which, two years ago, the most saga-
cious politician could not have foreseen.—Mornang
Advertiser.

The days of Conservatism are numbered. We shall
soon have to record its death and funeral. Even the
provincial dinners of the faction, which, but a short
time ago, loaded the columns of their country organs,
to the exclusion of almost everything else— even these
are about to " cease and determine." There could
be no more fatal omen. Toryism can no more live
without good feeding, than animal life could be pre-
served without breathing the free air. Need we re-
mind the Tories of the well-known sentence of Junius,
" If they have it not"—name, the aforesaid good feed-
ing, .‘ if they have it not, they die ?" But if any-
thing were wanting to accelerate the catastrophe of
the annihilation of the Conservatives as a party, it
would be found in the union and determination of the
Reformers. Like drowning men catching at straws,
the poor Tories have been for some days past catch-
ing at an article which has just appeared in a
quarterly organ of ultra-Radicalism, as if that arti-
cle could avert their doom. They must, indeed,
be in a pitiable, as well as a desperate state, when
they could lean for support, in the hour of their ex-
tremity, on so fragile a reed as a Radical article in a
Radical journal. By what peculiar process they can ex-
tract comfort from the paper in question, is one of
those problems which are to us of impossible solution.
What is the drift of the article ? Simply this : it re-
commends those Radicals in the House of Commons
whose opinions are as deeply tinged with ultraism as
those of the writer, to withdraw, in certain contingent
circumstances, from the Alelbourne Ministry, and act
independently for themselves. And, what, we should
like to know, is there at all wonderful in thig ? Has
not the same counsel been given to the Radicals a
thousand times over ? It has, though happily they
had too much good sense to adopt it. But will they
adopt it now ? We are grievously mistaken if they
do. They must not only be strangely blind to the in-
terests of the country, but, at the same time, regardless

of their own character, if they are simple enough
to be seduced into the course which the writer
of the article referred to advises them to pursue.
If they should, by so doing, play into the hands of
the common enemy, they will incur a responsibility
which may well appal the stoutest heart. Even, how-
ever, if the advice of the reviewer should be followed
by those members of the House of Commons who
sympathise in his extreme views on political subjects,
we do not see that the Tories have any cause for im- ,
moderate exultation. Such members are but a mere
handful ; and they could not exert, even were they to
act as an independent party, any very great influence in
the House of Commons. All they could do would be
to delay the progress of measures, and retard the busi-
ness of the House. It is impossible—and none can
know this better than themselves—it is impossible that
they could ever acquire sufficient importance in the
House to carry out their own peculiar views. They
must—on the hypothesis in question—eventually act
with Ministers ; though they may waste, on given
occasions, some hours of the time of Honourable
Members, in asserting their own principles, and giving
an exposition of what their notions of the duties of a
Government are. They may move amendments on the
motions of Ministers, going much farther than those
motions ; and they may even divide the House on
their amendments ; but when they see such amend-
ments lost, as they will do, by a majority of forty or fifty
to one, they must then of necessity vote with Ministers,
as going much farther than the Tories, The Conser-
vatives, therefore, are only reckoning without their
host, when they anticipate any important consequences
from the article to which we have so often alluded. In
the first place, we cannot persuade ourselves that the
Radical Members of the House of Commons will
adopt the advice of the reviewer, and withdraw from
the less extensive Reformers. But even, in the se-
cond place, though they did, they could only, by pur-
suing that course, slightly harass Ministers and im-
pede the public business. Eventually they must chime
in with Ministers, and vote for their measures in oppo-
sition to the measures of the Tories. However much,
therefore, the Reformers may theoretically differ among
themselves, practically, as the Tories will find to their
cost, they will exhibit the closest union. And with
this union, and the determination which at this mo-
ment animates them to carry out their principles, the
prospects of the faction are, in all conscience, melan-
choly enough.—Morning Advertiser.
Our readers may possibly have heard or seen a good
deal of late on the subject of " open questions,"
which, we are told, will be the foundation of the new
policy of the Government in the ensuing session of
Parliament : we shall, therefore, devote a few words to
an explanation of this new resort of conscious weak-
ness. It has doubtless been observed that this " open
question" specific for a tottering Administration has
been chiefly dwelt upon by those political writers who
mistake affectation for profoundness, and think they
have cleared away a difficulty when, in truth, they have
only obscured it, by the use of some scarcely intelligi-
ble phrases. It seems a fine thing to say that the Ad-
ministration will free itself from all its present etnbar-
rassments by allowing the existence of two or three
" open questions." There is a mystery in the phrase
which not only is, but is intended to be, above
the comprehension of the vulgar ; and the objec-
tions of many arc silenced because they are ashamed
to confess that the thing is unintelligible to them,
and afraid to criticise what they do not under-
stand. There is, however, one good general rule
to be observed in such cases, and it is this—that
when politicians use these unintelligible phrases—the
" flash words" of their craft—it is because they have
an interest in turning the attention of the public from
the real and substantial truth. The " open-question"
jargon amounts simply to this—that there are certain
important speculative points upon which even the pre-
sent Ministers have hitherto ventured to oppose the
Ultra-Radicals—that Ministers find they cannot con-
tinue to do so with safety to their places—that they
can neither bring themselves to resign these places, nor
to bring forward these speculative points as Govern-
ment questions, because if they did the latter, they
would in all probability be dismissed—and that in this
dilemma they will take the middle course of neither
opposing nor bringing forward these questions, but
leave every one to vote according to his individual im-
pressions regarding these subjects, or according to the
circumstances which press upon him as an indivicilial.
Hitherto the present Ministers have, as a Government,
Given their opposition to the ballot question—to the
proposition for shortening the duration of Parliaments
to three years—to direct interference against the House
of Lords by the House of Commons, and to several
other Ultra-Radical crotchets equally extravagant.
But these are now to. be " open questions," at least ;
that is the condition upon which the Ministers
are to be allowed by the Radicals to exist. The leader
of the House of Commons is to abandon his leader-
ship whenever these questions are mooted. The head
of the Government is not to trouble his head respect-
ing the votes which his colleagues or his subordinates
may find it convenient to give upon these questions.
In short, the political tournament is to be turned into
a melee, and out of this confusion we are assured
that political harmony will grow, and the weakness
of the Government be made strength I To us it ap-
pears that the folly of this expectation (if it be really
entertained) is palpable at the first glance. To sup-
pose that a Government could go on at all under
such circumstances is a fantastical dream, which no
one of actual experience would indulge. Perhaps
some who have experience may countenance such
conceits, but if they do, it is only to gain time. They
must know that such elements of discord could not but
break up any Government ; and even if it were not so,
the contempt of the country for an Administration
which feared to take any part as a Government in these
questions, would soon bring that Administration to an
end. It does not require a recollection of very many
years to go back to the period when one question was
left in this way by the British Cabinet, namely, the
question of Roman Catholic Emancipation, and the
evil consequences of that period of Government, inde-
cision, are even now but too painfully apparent. Yet
that was a question which certainly did not appear
likely to have such immediate and overwhelming effect
upon the course of legislation and government as any
of those which it is now proposed to treat in the same
way. That was a question too upon which all ranks
and interests were divided, insomuch that if the British.
Ministry ought to represent the concentrated political
mind of the British nation, it was by no means a sure
thing that it could do so by exerting the full influence
of Government either the one way or the other upon
that question ; but in those upon which the present
Administration is called upon to remain neutral,
there are no such circumstances of justification.
One of the Utopian speculators upon this new mode
of carrying on the public business, by leaving it to take
its own course, fondly anticipates that the plan of ope-
ration would have many advantages, since " friends
may differ without hostility." The entertainment of
such a theory, with reference- to the matter in hand, is
a sufficient proof of the visionary minds of such as
patronise the plan. Friends,• who express their opi-
nions at a distance from one another, and with the
calmness of written expostulation, may, indeed, differ
without hostility, but the conflict of personal debate is
a very different matter, and we very much doubt that
even the mutual love of place, which is the same to
these Ministers as what the chemists call the " attrac-
tion of cohesion," in more solid and more useful bodies,
would be sufficient to overcome the tendency to explo-
sion, which must arise from disunity of action upon
the most stirring political questions. No ;to differ
without hostility may be practicable in private life,
though we would advise no one to try it who could
avoid it ; but in the Members of a political Govern-
ment it is an attempt equally fantastical and dangerous.
—Morning Herald.

The " open question principle" appears to be aban-
doned for the present. We cannot pretend to say who
has interposed the veto. Whether Mr. Spring Rice
has really been honest enough and rational enough to
merit the half of the abuse which has been poured out
upon him, we cannot determine. But the thing is
settled. The Spectator announces that " the weari-
some topic on which, with a view to strengthening
Lord Melbourne's Government, it has dwelt so long,
and so earnestly, may now be discarded ;" and pro-
ceeds, like the fox in the fable, to assure us that the
grapes it cannot reach are sour—that "it may be