The Sun.
London, England, 1837-07-20 00:00:00

DEPUTATION TO MR. HUME.

(From the Morning Advertiser.)
Yesterday, in consequence of several rumours which had
been afloat for some time past, respecting the opinions en-
tertained by Mr. Hume with regard to the opening of the
trade of the Licensed Victuallers on free-trade principles,
a Deputation, consisting. of Mr. Wells, Governor of the
Licensed Victuallers' Incorporated Society, Mr. Ward,
past Chairmae of the Society, Messrs. Passniore and Hunt,
Trustees ; Messrs. Bingley, Branhure, and Banfield, mem-
bers of the Committee ; Messrs. Proctor and Belton, past
Trustees of the Society ; and Mr. Vousely, jun., Chairman
of the Licensed Victuallers' Protection Society, waited
upon the Hon. Gentleman, accompanied by the Editor of
this Journal, for the purpose of ascertaining his sentiments
upon various matte's connected with their interests, as well
as those of the country at large.
Mr. Hume received the Deputation in the kindest possi-
ble manner, and in the course of a long and patient inter.
view, extending to two hours, most candidly and freely gave,
not only a full account of the whole of his political con-
duct, but also a full statement of the reasons which had
induced him to pursue it. He stated, that with regard
to the Beer Bill, he, as well as many others, had been in-
duced to vote for it, in consequence of a belief generally
entertained, that its adoption would tend to improve
the quality as well as the cheapening the price of beer ; but
he was now aware that the measure had not only proved
a total failure, but that in consequence of the very limited
responsibility in point of capital of the parties who had em-
barked in it, the beer-shops, especially in the country, had
become receptacles of improper characters, and thereby a
nucleus for the demorelization of the people. The inten-
tions of those who voted for that Bill were what he had
stated. They bad the good of the people in view, and
nothing but the good of the people—a sentiment which
was strengthened in their mind by the fact, that the great
brewers, who were interested at that time—which he was
glad to learn they were not now—in public house property,
consented to forego everything in the, shape of cotnpensa-
tion, under the hope that in the course of time they might
overcome any possible losses by a more extended trade.
As the physical and moral health of the community h'ad
been mentioned as one of the objections to making the
trade in spirits as free and open as the trade in bread and
beer, which he deemed to be necessaries of life, he would
beg to observe to the gentlemen present, that along
with the establishment of an effective rural police, he
was convinced, from the operation of the Beer Act,
responsibility on the part of the landlords of public-houses
must form an important concomitant—a responsibility
which could only be insured by the interest of the land-
lords of such houses, namely, the embarkation of consider-
able capital. He was strongly fortified in this opinion, not
only by what had been stated to him in the course of the
present interview, but also by the perusal of evidence not
yet published, but which he had had an opportunity of
seeing, taken by the Commissioner of Inquiry regarding the
establishment of a rural police—the whole of which, so far
as the inquiry had gone, had tended to impress him with the
belief, that all houses of public entertainment should be
continued in respectable and responsible hands, and not in
those of persons, the amount of whose capital did not fur-
nish a sufficient guarantee of interest for their good con-
duct. Further, so far as regarded the principle of free
trade, he was bound in candour to own that he was one of
its most zealous advocates ; but, on the other hand, he was
equally an advocate for just compensation, where compen-
sation rested on just grounds ; and, having always acted
upon the principle that private interests should be sub-
ordinate to the public good, when a great publ:6
good could be obtained without manifest injury to private
interests ; and on the other taking care that private inte-
rests should not suffer even for a great public good—these,
he observed, being the general principles which had regu-
lated his conduct during the last 19 years, he could scarcely
conceive any possible position in which he could be placed
which would induce him in future to alter a line of conduct
which he believed to be based in the fairest principles of
justice. In the course of this part of the statement the
Hon. Gentleman mentioned that in all cases where rail-
roads, improvements in streets, &c., were brought forward
he had always been an advocate for just compensation, and
in the case of any such matters affecting the trade of public-
houses, he conceived that the landlords and proprietors of
them were entitled to the full amount of damage. In con-
clusion,he begged to state that he was inclined to believe,
from all that he had seen and heard from the reports to
which he had referred, that the present system of respon-
sibility for good conduct and good order in public-houses
of entertainment would gain instead of losing' by inquiry,
and be strengthened instead of weakened ; and he was
farther of opinion, that greater evil would arise from an
alteration of the system than any good—so far as he
at present saw—that could possibly result from it.
With regard to the alarm entertained lest a free trade
in wine and spirits, as well as in beer, should be entertained
by the Legislature, he confessed he had seen no reason for
it. 'the report of Sir Henry Parnell, alluded to by some
of the gentleman present, had not come under his conside-
ration ; but of whatever recommendations that report might
consist, he trusted, from the candid and fair explanation he
had given of his past conduct, no one, whatever that report
might be, could entertain a doubt that the former would be
an emblem of the future.

In the course of the interview, Messrs. Bingley, Vousley,
and Procter brought many facts under the consideration of
the Hon. Gentleman, with which he was previously not ac-
quainted ; but it is nevertheless a simpl.e act of justice to
acknowledge, that he spewed an ardent readiness of convic-
tion oa the one hand, and, on the other, exhibited a matured
knowledge of the business and trade of the Licensed Vic-
tuallers, which the deputation had not found in any other
quarter. •

After the long interview of two hours, to which we have
referred, the deputation toek its leave, with appropriate
thanks for the patience with which they had been listened
to, and with a highly-improved impression of the honest,
candid, and straightforward conduct of the late Member for
Middlesex.

TIIE LAST EXPEDITION UP THE NIGER.--We
are requested to state that the New Work, entitled " Nar-
rative of an Expedition into the Interior of Africa (by the
River Niger) in 1832, 1833, and 1834," by Macgregor Laird
and R. A. K. Oldfield, Surviving Officers of the Expedi-
tion, is published this day by Mr. Bentley, 8, New Burlington-
street, and may be obtained of all Booksellers. Agents : for
Scotland, Messrs. Bell and Bradfute, Edinburgh, and Mr.
Duncan Campbell, Glasgow ; for Ireland, Mr. John Cumming,
Dublin.

LANCASTER AND PRESTON RAlLWAY.—Pre-
parations are making for commencing this line of railway, and
every effort will be made to have it completed by the summer
of 1139. Mr. Locke, the engineer, will commence the preli-
minary operations in the course of a few weeks.—Manchester
Guardian.

ROCHDALE FLANNEL MARKET, JULY 17.
The market to-day has been rather slacker, and fewer pieces
been sold than in the two previous weeks ; prices have under-
gone no variation, being already extremely low. Wool is ra-
ther looking up, and the dealers are asking somewhat more
for it, but in very few instances has an advance been obtained.
—Manchester Guardian.

FREE TRADE.—From Bell's Comparative View
the external commerce of Bengal, for the year 1334-35, and
1835-36 (a Calcutta Annual) it appears, thatiAince the aboli-
tion of the East India Company's monopoly, the quantity of
native produce exported has gone on increasing till within the
last year, it exceeded in value the total imports by 1,37,87,679
rupees,

AN ENGLISH TORY, KING OF

HAVOVER.

(From Le Commerce of Monday last.)
The Duke of Cumberland has just seated himself on the
throne of Hanover. Royalty is about to be submitted to
the experiments of English Toryism—pure Toryism, with-
out fiction, without hypocrisy. For the people of England,
and especially for the people of Ireland, it will be a spectacle
full of instruction and interest to see the chief of the aris-
tocracy, the Grand Master of the Orange sect, give full
swing to his doctrines and his passions, which are those of
the whole party.
The acts of King Ernest Augustus will serve as practical
commentaries on the language of his friends in Parliament.
These latter have never said, and never will say, all that
they think. The restraint of the laws, the fear of public
opinion, the rivalry of a formidable party, impose upon them
a circumspection which has become even more compulsory
since the change of reign has consolidated the power of the
Reform party. Contemplating the administration of the
King of Hanover, Ireland will say—There is the lot which
the Orange party keeps in reserve for us ! Observing his
political alliances, all England will say—lt is thus that the
Tory party means to regulate my international interest. For
we must not deceive ourselves—it is Toryism that occupies
the throne of Hanover, in the person of the Duke of Cum-
berland ; it is the spirit of Wellington and Londonderry
that has prompted the decree with which he commences his
reign. Hanover is this day linked much more closely with
the interests of the Tory aristocracy than when the two
crowns were united on a single head. Under the pre-
vious reign, whatever separation existed between the two
administrations, the Crown of England was not abso-
lutely irresponsible for the acts of the King of Hanover.
William the Fourth could not have permitted himself
such a coup d'etat on his German subjects as King
Ernest Augustus had just committed, without incurring
the animadversion of English opinion, and perhaps the
censure of Parliament. The new King, free from the ties
which attached his predecessor to the British Constitution,
is nothing more than a Tory, abandoned without shame or
restraint to the passions of the political party of which he is
the chief or the instrument.

All the nations of Europe, and France in particular, have
also a deep interest in considering the conduct of the Tory
King. Toryism is a variety in the species of the absolu-
tist and aristocratic factions of Europe. We had never yet
seen it acting with all the freedom of its pride and tyranny
—we had not secn it, like the other parties to which it is
allied, at the head of a movement of re-action. The acts
of violence exercised by Tory diplomacy in foreign States
had given us no more than a very incomplete idea of the
brutal contempt of that party for the dignity and the
tights of nations. Behold it at length busy at a Resto-
ration—and in this line it may be said to have surpassed
all that has been done, since 1830, on the Continent, and
even in Poland.

The Constitution, which has just been torn by King
Ernest Augustus, had not been oetroyee, like the char-
ter of the Bourbons of the elder branch, and he could
not allege, like Charles X., the right of resuming a free
gift. It had not, like the Spanish Constitution, arisen
in the tumults of civil war ; and he cannot, like Ferdi-
nand the Seventh, pretend that this Constitution was
decreed in the absence of the King, against the will
of a part of the nation, and consequently devoid
of its sanction. King Ernest Augustus did not enter
his States as a conqueror, like Nicholas King of Poland ;
and he cannot pretend that his subjects have lost their
rights by revolt, and broken the bonds of the reciprocal
contract between them and their Sovereign. His situation
towards the kingdom of Hanover is without parallel. The
Hanoverian Constitution had been accepted and executed
by the preceding King ; and what proves that it contained
few revolutionary elements is—that it had offered no ob-
stacle to any of the acts of the Royal Government—had
given no umbrage to the Germanic Diet, little tolerant as it
is in constitutional matters ; and that, finally, it had not
prevented the Representatives of Hanover at Frankfort
from supporting all the measures repressive of German li-
berty. To say all in a word, it did not allow the liberty of
the Press. However, it had for some time been remarked,
that the journals under a censorship, and the Official
Gazelle, in particular, were written in a spirit of opposition
to the Germanic Diet, and of hostility to Prussia and Rus-
sia. It was evident that the Whig influence was seeking.
to penetrate into Germany through Hanover. This de-
serves to be considered, for the full understanding of the
conduct of the new King.
The Proclamation of the sth of July has all the charac-
ters of an act of gratuitous tyranny. The King declares
that the fundamental law does not comport with his wishes,
and that, besides, it has no obligatory force over him. He
dispenses with the signature of his responsible Minis-
ters to his decree. The bon plaisir never showed itself with
more shameless audacity. There might perhaps be a way
of preventing the serious consequences of this coup delta.
The Germanic Diet might cite the King of Hanover before
the tribunal of arbitrators instituted to decide between Ger-
man Sovereigns and subjects, and might condemn this Van-
dal to re-establish the Constitution which he has violated.
It acted thus towards the Duke of Brunswick in similar
circumstances. But is it possible to suppose that the Duke
of Cumberland should have hazarded an attempt so auda-
cious without having been prompted to it by the great
Powers, and therefore by the Diet itself?