The Sun.
London, England, 1837-10-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

, The distinguishing feature in the character of that
party How struggling to obtain the Administration of
affairs is this, that every profession they put forward
to obtain the public confidence demonstrates one of
Three things, either their total incapacity for that sta-
tion to which they presume to aspire, the egregious
Falsehood of the assertions reiterated by their organs,
or their own consummate knavery. We are now told
that it is " a broad, a gross, and shameful falsehood"
to charge the Conservative party with harbouring any
design to neutralize the Reform Bill, or to repeal the
Catholic Emancipation Act. So far from it, that the
wish nearest their hearts is to carry into full operation
these salutary measures, and to extend their liberal
provisions to all. Now the question that on hearing
this immediately arises is, have the Conservatives chang-
ed their sentiments as to the nature and the conse-
quences of these measures?—do they believe the Reform
Bill, as they denounced it at the time of its enact-
ment, a measure inevitably destructive to the Constitu-
tion ? Do they believe the Emancipation Act fraught
with all that ruin to the Church which they predicted
at the time of its adoption ? If they do so, then where
is the language to describe the profligacy of a party
ready, for the sake of place, to aid in the enforcement
of measures, every application of which must be a blow
to that Constitution which they pretend to venerate.
But if they tell us that their views have expanded
with the progress of events—that they now believe the
Reform Bill a wise, a provident, and a beneficial mea-
sure—that the people of England may be safely en-
trusted with the election of their own representatives,
and that the liberty of the Catholic is not incompa-
tible with that of the Protestant, then how unparal-
leled is their effrontery who, confessing the continued
error of their entire political life, acknowledging
their own ignorance and improvidence, would fain
persuade a thinking and a grateful people to trans-
fer the execution of measures from the hands of those
whose wisdom devised and courage accomplished their
enactment, to men distinguished only as the unrelent-
ing and clamorous assailants of a policy now acknow-
ledged by themselves to be just and salutary. Thus,
then, when the Conservatives proclaim their readiness
to carry into effect the great charters of English or of
Irish freedom, they acknowledge either unexampled
turpitude in enforcing measures which they deem de-
structive, or tried incapacity in having opposed enact-
ments to whose wisdom they now subscribe. But let
us see how far the people of any portion of the empire
would be justified in giving a moment's credence to
the professions of a party whose zeal for reform and
improvement has been coeval with that new disposition
of affairs which has rendered the avowal of such
a disposition essential to obtaining power. Who,
then, are the men now appearing in the garb
of Reformers, ready to apply amelioration to
every department of the State ? They are those who
refused the principle of representation to the great
towns, the emporia of the intelligence and strength of
of England ; who refused a franchise, forfeited by the
convicted corruption of a paltry borough, to the virtue
and the wealth of Birmingham ; who declared the
people of England in the very citadels of light too un-
principled or ignorant to be invested with the rights of
freemen ; who upheld the depraved and inefficient cor-
porate system that prevailed, throughout the British
empire, while, in Ireland, they fostered municipal in-
stitutions now acknowledged by themselves to have
been the lowest sinks of corruption, the holds of public
robbers for whom no plunder was too large, no pecula-
tion too minute—institutions by means of which the
the jury-box was packed with perjury and bigotry,
and thus the life and property of the subject made
the prey of the very refuse of society. The Conser-
vatives, we repeat, are those who loaded every seg-
ment of the empire with onerous taxation, dissipated
in profligate and prodigal expenditure ; who shackled
the Press with excessive duties, and sought to crush it
by unwearied prosecutions ; who filled the pages of the
criminal code with statute after statute, conceived in
the mere wantonness of brutality, and written in the
blood of that people for whose good they were pro-
fessedly enacted ; who, prating of religion, encouraged
the slave-lasher of the west in the perpetration of hor-
rible atrocities, and in hunting from his shores the
missionaries of that Gospel in which the broken spirit
of his victim might find comfort and support. These
are the men who, having been found in every portion
of the empire, and in every hour of its history, the in-
veterate champions of abuse, the unrelenting enemies of
humanity, truth, and light, now presume to as!; for
public confidence in their professed determination to
carry Reform into every cranny of the State. Such
they are as Reformers, let us regard them in the light
Jof new converts to the principles of religious liberty ;
and let us see whether, if they believe 'one atom of
those assertions they advance, they are not hound,
without the respite of a day, either to demand a repeal
of that Emancipation Act which they now declare
themselves ready to uphold and execute, or to submit
to merited execration. First, then, they tell us that
the Irish Catholics are bent upon the subversion of
the Church and the dismemberment of the empire ;
that every fresh concession has only tended to in-
flame that passion, and to invest them with new
power to fulfil its dictates ; moreover, that every oath
framed for the security of the state has proved a rotten
bond that snaps before the influence of a creed which
justifies and enforces perjury. Well, then, if all this
he true (and with what other assertions do the columns
of the Tory organs teem ?), if seven millions of
Papists are zealously intent upon the ruin of the state,
if no concessions can woo them from their guilty pas-
sion, if gratitude by a plant that grows not in a Popish
bosom, if solemn asseverations pledging them to loyal
ends be a jest and mockery, what are we to think
of those who, knowing all this, are now determined
to fulfil the provisions of an enactment which ad-
mits within the very bosom of the state, and arms
with all its powers, men bent upon its overthrow ?
Such, then, is the party now aspiring to power,
convicted upon their own professions of total incapa-
city ; convicted upon their own assertions of a readi-
ness to sacrifice the best interests of the country to
their own selfish aggrandisement. " There never,"
says the Times of yesterday, " was a charge so un-
principled as the charge against Conservatives of being
adverse to Reform." Now this a high authority, but
we think we can oppose to it one equally strong. The
Times, in 1834, thus describes the party now seek-
ing for power under the mask of Reformers—" What
are the Conservatives, but the most inveterate obstruc-
tives ? What do they seek to gain but power, at the
expense of honour, justice, and the welfare of the
people ?"—Moining Chronicle.
In our report of the proceedings yesterday, at Christ-
church, Surrey, will be found some interesting parti-
culars of the progress of the Church-rate question.-
On the motion for the imposition of the rate, among
th: items of which appeared 51. 18s. for a surplice, an
adj3urnment to the 12th of -October, 1838, was pro-
posed ; but, after an animated discussion, the Rector
of the parish, who presided, refused to put the ques-
tion of adjournment, and also an amendment which
was subsequently moved. The motives of these re-
fusals may be easier explained than justified. The
original motion was rejected by a large majority ; but
a poll being demanded, it will be necessary for the
parishioners to give effect to their wishes by recording
their votes. We have no doubt, however, of the result
being similar to that manifested by the show of hands,
and that the parson shall either have to pay for his
own surplice, or be indebted for it to the voluntary
contributions of his own flock. Little, indeed, must
they respect their religion, who would shift the burden
of its support upon the shoulders of others who dis-
sent from its doctrines ; and weak must be the faith of
those who denounce the voluntary principle as destruc-
tive of their own Church I What can be more con-
trary to the principles of Christianity than to attempt
to uphold its tenets by coercion, instead of by convic-
tion Did its Founder attempt to exact contributions
for the propagation of his System ? Did he recom-
mend the employment of the bayonet or the sword, or
similar stimulants, to the dissemination of the word ?
It was not a sword, but a scrip—not force, but faith,
on which he desired his disciples to place their confi.
dence. Were coercion essential to the diffusion or
support of opinions consonant with the truly reli-
gious dispensation, it would not have been left to
man, and above all to the fanatic and ferocious men

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at present arrogating exclusive claims in behalf of