The Sun.
London, England, 1830-05-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

More has been done this Session in the way of
making the working of our matchless Constitution
intelligible to the meanest capacity than in any other
Session for half a century. The Motion of Mr.
D. W. Harvey on the subject of the Crown Lands,
and the Motion of Sir J. Graham to obtain an Ac-
count of the amount of public money sacked by the
Privy Council, have placed before the people much
valuable information in a tangible shape. Of a truth
the English Aristocracy, whose estates, according
to Mr. Hallam, are chiefly the spoil of the Church,
are most constant in their predilection for a liberal
appropriation to themselves of public property. At
the Revolution the taxes, at the highest computa-
tion, produced but 2,061,8.561. 7s. 90.; and yet,
says the author of the History of the Taxes," With
this revenue King James 11. supported his Civil
List, kept a formidable navy ready to put to sea, an
army of near 30,000 men at land, and saved money
yearly, if we can credit the account of the issues
of his revenue, which amounted to no more at a
medium than 1,699,363/. 2s. 9d." These were
hard times for a high minded aristocracy. It is
pretty clear that after paying for a formidable navy,
and an army of 30,000 men, and defraying the ex-
pense of the Civil List, little would remain for
Privy Councillors. The Nobility were then reduced
to the necessity of taking' pensions from Louis XIV.
—They must, of course, receive pensions from some
quarter or other; but no doubt the Revolution,
which enabled them to take thv money of their
countrymen, was hailed as a great change ter the
better. Scarcely had the Revolution been effected,
when we find the Commons (for Boroughmongering
had not yet identified the Lords with the Com-
mon.) objecting loudly to the appropriation by the
Privy Council of the Irish forfeited estates to them-
selves.

" The dispute upon this occasion (says the above-men-
tioned writer) seems to have been whether the forfeited
estates in Ireland should be applied towards the ease of the
people who had made those estates become forfeited, by
defeating the rebellion, or towards glutting the insatiable
MAW' of Court sycophants. And upon such a question, it
was very natural for the Representatives of the people and
the Courtiers to take different sides. If a majority of the
former had been Courtiers, or tools of Courtiers, there
could have been no such dispute ; but as the majority of
this House of Commons seems to have been truly the
Representatives of the people, they not only forced the
pissing of the Forfeited Estates' Bill, but on the Sth of
April (1700), they resolved that the procuring or pass-
ing exorbitant grants by any Member now of the Privy
Council, or by any other that has been a Privy Council..
for in this or any former reign, to his own s'e or benefit,
is a high crime sad misdemeanour.' A resolution which
every such future House of Commons, if any such should
ever be, will certainly approve of."

Thus early do the ^Privy Council figure in the
character in which they were exhibited by Sir Jas.
Graham on Friday night. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer told Sir James that he knew of no pre-
cedent in which the Members of the Privy Council,
as such, had been called on for an account of their
emoluments. A resolution of the House of Com-
mons against Privy Councillors' procuring or passing
exorbitant grants to themselves or to any who had
been Privy Councillors, grounded on the known
mal-practices of Privy Councillors in this way, if
not a precedent, is, at all events, holding up Privy
Councillors in as invidious a light as that in which
they were held up by Sir James Graham's motion.
" They are a body (quoth the Right Honourable
Gentleman) comprising persons who, undoubt-
edly, receive emoluments from the public,
in the whole, perhaps, to a very large amount.
(Hear, hear, from the Opposition.)—To bring for-
ward a motion for the emoluments of the Members
of the Privy Council was not, as it appeared to
him, treating with sufficient respect a body compos-
ing the Council of the Sovereign, and a high Judie
cial Court; it was treating them in an invidious
point of view, and it was not adviseable to depart
from precedent, and to establish the principle that
all classes of men were to be held up to obloquy ?
But why held up to obloquy ? Is this backing
your friends ? Of course the emoluments to a large
amount, received by the Privy Council from the
public, are not beyond their deserts. Why then
assume that the enabling the public to see in what
manner those whom the King delights to honour
are provided for, is holding them up to obloquy ?
Obloquy forsooth ! What ? and is the sense of
what is due to the splendour of the Monarchy sunk
to so low an ebb in Parliament, that the Chancellor
of the Exchequer even associates obloquy with the
rewards bestowed on the principal body of the State ?
This is not loyalty in its high and palmy state. 1 he
statement of Sir J. Graham will certainly, however,
surprise many, who were not aware of the extent of
national gratitude to the Privy Council. 650,1GV.
is no doubt a large sum to be shared by 113 mem-
bers of that body, exclusive of the Royal
The sum divided among the 47 Peers of this body,
namely, 378,8401., is not to be despised. The
whole of the private estates of the House of Peery,
have been calculated at about two millions a-year. But
t hen, what treasures the British Constitution yields to
them! What are the private estates to the places
in the State, and in the Church, the sinecures at
home and abroad, the pay in the navy and army !
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is beginning to be
a little too honest, we fear. Stung by the insinua-
tion conveyed in the remark of Sir James
Graham, that the insurmountable opposition to which
he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was com-
pelled to yield when he gave up his Super-
animation Reduction Bill, was composed of the
Honourable Members for Lincoln and Dover, for
Bristol, his Gallant Friend the Member for South-
wark, the Honourable Member for Inverness, the
Honourab!e Member for Newcastle-under-Lyre, arid
the Vice-President of the Board of Trade,--the
Right Hon. Gentleman told the Hon. Baronet that
" lie ought to know that it is not always the
strength of the Opposition that decides a question;
it is frequently the weakness of the support that
leads to the abandonment of the measure. I have
not been so long in Parliament without knowing
something of the manner in which the measure of
the evening is likely to be decided, and not only
was my opinion founded on my own experience,
settled as to the impossibility of their carrying that
measure, but I received and acted on the assurance
of my friends around me to the same effect." No
support is to be expected when retrenchment of this
nature is proposed. Dog does not eat dog. This
is the second time this Session that Parliament has
been told by Ministers that they will not allow them
to be honest. Ott the former occasion, the speaker
was Mr. Herries. It used to be the boast of the
public men in Holland, before the French Revolu--
tion, that the men who filled high offices, served al-
most gratuitously. "It is notorious (says a writer
of that country in 1759) to all those who have any
knowledge of the affairs of our country, that there
is not a state in the world, in which rulers and
officers have such small allowances as in our re-
public. There are in the whole provinces of Hol-
land scarcely ten offices which give a decent sub-
sistence to those who fill them." The celebrated
John de Witt did not even keep a coach. What a
contrast between the frugal expenditure of the
Dutch and the rapacity of our Aristocracy !--
Morning Chronicle.

The doctrine of a certain class of pseudo philo-
sophers, which refers all the distress of the people to
a super-abundant population, is a very convenient
one for the " powers that be," as it throws upon
Providence alone the evils that result from the mis-
government of man. It must be exceedingly grati-
fying to the rulers of the nation to know that the
misery and sufferings of the community intrusted to
their charge are not the consequence of their own
want of wisdom, but the visible and fatal proofs of
an original error in the calculation of Omnipotence
itself. With such a comfortable assurance of being
exempt from blame, the worst Statesmen that ever
reduced a flourishing empire to the verge of ruin
may stretch their limbs in careless enjoyment on a
tied of roses, or revel without anxiety of conscience
pestilence among
in all
ut,lhleileludxitsutiroeuess arapgpelisanleikese oaf prosperous arobi-

the industrious classes of society, and the people
call for . assistance_ in vain. It was, no doubt,
a find conceit of less, enlightened times which
estimated the 'capacity and virtue of a Go-
vernment by -the comfort and prosperity of those
who were under its dominion. To make the con-
(Edon of a State the criterion of the qualifications
of its rulers is a notion which it is the pride and
triumph of modern " philosophy" to explode; and,
therefore, we continually hear from the " public in-
structors" who illuminate the minds of the ignorant
f,!i this subject that the people, whose sufferings
AVerC ascribed to the selfish ambition and vicious
pr !icy of their Governors, are the authors of their
own misery, by most obstinately and foolishly con-
tinuing to obey the Divine command, which bade
them " increase and multiply, and go forth and re-
plenish the earth." In the present circumstances
of England, this doctrine of the " economists" is an
invaluable acquisition to the Government : without
;t, we do not know how they could meet at all
the responsibility of their situation; with it,
we do not know how they can possibly be to
blame. It is acknowledged on all sides that the
great mass of the peasantry and manufacturing po-
pulation are in a most deplorable state of poverty
and debasement; and, though some persons are
so unreasonable as to charge this upon the head of
Government, and factious enough to call upon
Ministers to change the measures and abjure
the policy which they suppose have led to so me-
lancholy a result, yet, if their friends, the Malthu-
sian philosophers, are to be believed, it is quite cer-
tain that Ministers can de nothing for their relief,
unless they can roll back the wheels of Nature, and
correct, according to the superior light of human
wisdom, the Divine economy of the universe! Why
should they substitute frugality and prudence for
extravagance and profusion, when they are con-
vinced that the nation is enfeebled, not because the
Government is prodigal, but because the people are
superabundant ? Why should they cut down taxa-
tion to the level of the currency, when they are
convinced that distress does not arise from the taxes
being too great, but from, the people being too
many ? Why should they restore the wholesome
policy of the navigation laws, and get rid of the
legislative folly of the " free-trade " theorists,
when they are convinced that popular misery is
not aggravated by a declining market for British
produce, but by a perverse increase of the Bri-
tish population ? Thus we see that to every
imputation of misgovernment a ready answer can
be given, as long as the disciples of Malthus can
prevail upon human credulity to believe in the
errors, not of Princes or politicians, but of the
Creator of the universe! Impious pretenders to
superior sagacity ! they tell us that the people in-
crease beyond the means of subsistence, and there-
fore, believing them, we should believe that the
quantity of food raised in this country is insufficient
for the demand ; from which it would follow,
that the demand being greater than the supply,
all sorts of produce necessary for the nourishment
of man would be extravagantly dear. Let them
leave their stools of philosophy and go to the market
places—there they will find instruction. Let them
ask the farmers of England whether the prices of
corn and cattle, and butter and cheese, and all sorts
of agricultural produce, are exorbitantly high, they
will receive an answer which would be sufficient to
convince all but those whose minds are as absurd
as their doctrines are impious, that the people have
riot increased beyond the means of subsistence, but
that a vast portion of them are prevented from pro-
curing their share of the bountiful supply which
Providence intended for their support by a vicious
system of Government, which exhibits to the world
the practical anomaly of a population starving in a
land of plenty.—Morning Herald.
The Bill for throwing open the trade in beer
passes into a Committee this evening; and much as
we have already observed upon the subject, we
trust that our readers will forgive us once more for
praying the Legislature to pause before it yields its
consent to a measure pregnant with injustice and
ruin to individuals, and no less pregnant with mis-
chief to the public generally. There never was a
measure brought forward or discussed, on which so
much ignorance has been displayed. We do not
blame the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the
former; for, we are fully convinced that he has
been merely made the organ of interested motives,
and is, in every respect, the victim of delusion. But
what can be said of those who advocate daily the
throwing open of the beer trade, on the ground that
jobbing has existed to a great extent between the
brewers and the licensing Magistrates ? That the
licensed victualler has had nothing to do with the
jobbing, every one must be aware; yet it is never-
theless proposed, that the licensed victualler should
be. sacrificed for the sins of the former ? Such, at
/east, is the language of those who advocate the
course pursued by the Government ; but, in reply
to all such observations, we beg to state—

1. That punishment, if it is to be inflicted, ought to
light on those who deserve it.
2. That no new licences are required for the sale of
leer or any other exciseable commodity—the numher of
public-houses being already too great, instead of too small,
3. That the public will have no security against fraud,
adulteration and mal-practices of all kinds, in case the
present Bill should pass into a law, in consequence of the
parties embarking in the beer trade alone, having neither
character or property to lose.
4. That by the Bill proposed to be passed into a law,
it will ha lawful for every one who can produce two gui-
neas to obtain a licence for the sale of beer, and to esta-
blish a beer-shop, if likely to be profitable, in any quarter
whatever, however much it may injure private property.
5. That every beer-shop established under the proposed
Act must, necessarily, not only prove a great injury to pri-
vate property, but give rise to disorders, which even the
new police would not be able to control.
We could add many other items to this account,
of the evils likely to arise from this measure, but we
refrain. The case, we think, is too plain to be mis-
undertood ; and the arguments urged against it too
foolish to deserve a reply.—Morning Advertiser.

TILE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE.—THE FOURTH
ESTATE.—The apathy manifested by the majority of
the London papers on the subject of the general taxes
on newspapers, and also on the subject of the pro-
posed increase of the taxes on Irish newspapers, has by
no means escaped the notice of a considerable portion
of the public. One opinion we have heard ex-
pressed as to the cause of this apathy is, that as the
increase of the price of the Irish Papers to that of
English, by the assimilation of the stamp duties,
will probably occasion an additional number of
English papers to be sold in Ireland, the probable
gain of some additional pence per diem by the
change is a sufficient motive for the London journals
to view with complacency the progress of opera-
tions which, in their accomplishment, will be at-
tended with the destruction of a considerable por-
tion of the Irish Press. But why, it may be asked,
do the Metropolitan journals remain so inactive, so
patient under their own burthens ? The common
answer is, that they are apt to believe that these
burthens fall entirely upon the public, and, to a
considerable extent, secure to the existing papers
a monopoly, by enhancing the expense of all at-
tempts to establish new papers. The views of the
greater proportion of the newspaper proprietary are
indeed sufficiently narrow; but their fears, we be-
lieve, are strong, and their covert hostility is decided
against any reduction of the taxes. The expence of
establishing new papers, which consists mainly of
the annual literary and other engagements, is not,
however, materially increased by the stamp duties,
since the expence of the stamps only arises, part
passii, with the increase of sale; and with the sale
the returns of course increase. By a proper reduc-
tion and better adjustment of the taxes (not to speak
of their remission) there can be little doubt that the
total sale of newspapers would be tripled, and even
quadrupled. But this increase of sale would enable
the smaller existing papers to compete with the more
powerful, and the extension of the field would make
room for new comers. The expence of setting up
new papers would notlie, materially diminished, but
their chances'•orsiieisa'Would be augmented, and
many might succeed without doing any pecuniary

injury to those already established. The latter
Might be stimulated to make new exertions to main-
tain their stations; but, in competition, they would
start with all the advantages of an established name,
long standing, previously acquired skill and charac-
ter. Yet we commonly find that the fear of losing
the reputation for ability attendant on success (a re-
putation generally gained by the merest accidents of
situation, and the absence of deserving competitors)
together with the consciousness of the want of
stamina to sustain complete competition, will pre-
vail against the strongest evidence of extensive ad-
vantages to be obtained in new courses of action.
Now, as the proper reduction of the duties would
certainly be attended with a great increase of
the sale of papers, by which increase it is pro-
bable the whole of the existing papers would pro-
portionately benefit, it is evident their hostility can
only arise from misgivings that, on the points we
have mentioned as their advantages, their strength is
not great ; and that, if the proposed reductions were
made, superior papers might and would arise. These
grounds of opposition on the part of the Newspaper
Proprietors are grounds which call for support to the
proposed measure from the public. The tacit
acknowledgments of the Proprietors of the Metro-
politan Newspapers, as to the want of any security
in their own merits, coincide with the impressions
entertained by a large proportion of the public. In
the course of the important discussion to which we
lately adverted, Mr. Knapp said—
. . _

" He expressed the feelings of a considerable portion of
the mercantile community when he stated, that the greater
number of the Daily Papers, while they displayed their
virtue by attacking interests in which they had no concern,
protected others more noxious to the public. There being
now but few daily Morning Journals, and those not being
always in the hands of the most pure or the most en-
lightened persons, they ►ere constantly directed by mo-
tives of the lowest and most sordid description. Ex-
ceptions there were, of course; but the smallness of the
number of the daily Morning Papers enabled them to sup-
press important facts, and there was scarcely a department of
news in which those most conversant with the real facts had
not to complain of mischievous errors and mismanagement,
arising from ignorance or corruption. This was especially the
case in commercial matters. Now, if the monopoly in news-
papers were abated, suppression or perversion would not
i.e so easy ; there would be increased secutities for the full
and fair publication of truth, and the journals themselves
would be of a character to do more credit to the intellect
of the nation."—(Hear, hear.)
Paul Courier, in speaking of the number of pub-
lications in America, adverts to the security which
the unlimited variety gives to the public against
combinations for the suppression of useful truths:—
" La tout s'imprime ; rieu n'est secret de ce qui importe
chacun. La presse y est plus Libre que la parole
ailleurs, et l'on en abuse moins. Pourquoi ? C'est
qu'on en use sans nul empechement, et qu'une faussete,
de quelque part qu'elle vienne, est bientot dementie par
les interess4s que rien n'oblige a se taire."

But that the House of Commons is the last place
in which experience will work conviction, even in
matters which affect the interests of the Members
themselves, they would never consent to the conti-
nuance of the taxes on knowledge, every penny of
which tends to narrow the sphere of their own in-
fluence, and to sustain a species of monopoly and a
mischievous power from which they, in common with
the people, are always liable to suffer. The taxes
in question limit the circulation and profit of the
media for the communication of the knowledge of
their proceedings ; they prevent the full and power-
ful competition by which the mode in which the
accounts of those proceedings would be improved
and perfected, and their fidelity be secured. The
monopoly which the taxes creates secures to two or
three journals (which, in practice, govern the rest)
the power of deciding what part and how much of
the proceedings shall be made known to the public;
it subjects public men to the caprice of an irresponsible
tribunal,;to which Windham and Canning were com-
pelled to submit. Men of all parties are subjected
to the pains and penalties of this body, and we are
informed that several do now suffer as its victims,
though they suffer in silence. Does a public man
venture to denounce a wide circulating journal,
its familiars soon understand the mode in which
he is to be dealt with, and, as the first operation, his
speeches are cut : the reporters of the other papers,
having a strong motive to adopt a relaxation of the
labour which only competition can sustain, follow
the example ; and the unfortunate offender is made
to appear to his constituents and to the world as
having advocated his principles inefficiently, and he
incurs the disgrace of having made a failure. Let a
Member of less degree than a Prime Minister give
offence to " the gallery," and when he speaks he
will be voted inaudible, or his speech, even from
the involuntary operation of indifference or aversion,
will be rendered inconsequential and pointless, whilst
the arrows of any adversary will be sharpened,
barbed, poisoned, and aimed with deadly precision.
If an adversary " flings back the imputations on their
contemptible authors," by the mere elision of the s
—accidentally of course, from " the noise Mat pre-
vailed in the gallery," or "front the tone in which
the Hon. Member spoke"—a public insult is made
to appear to have been inflicted on " the con-
temptible author." The House may entertain pro-
ceedings on a subject interesting to the whole of Eu-
rope, but unless " the gallery" think fit to entertain
them, the proceedings of the House are to very little
purpose so far as regards the immediate influence exer-
cised abroad. In fact, a new and Fourth Estate is now
added to the Constitution, and the proceedings of the
Legislature should be recorded as having been sanc-
tioned by the Kings, Lords, Commons, and Reporters
in Parliament assembled. Sir Manasseh Lopez is now
a far less important personage, as to constitutional
influence, than a Newspaper Proprietor who sends
to the House, not one or two, but eight or twelve
Representatives, whose seats are duly paid for.*
The nominees of Sir Manasseh may indeed speak
and vote, but whether the immediate influence of one
word of what they say shall extend beyond the Mem-
hers of the Third Estate (or those of it who may
chance to attend and listen) to the millions out of
the House who read, depends upon the nominees of
the patrons of newspapers who compose the Fourth
Estate—the new check and balance in our Consti-
tution ! An anecdote will show how much the
property of the latter is respected. A session or
two ago, whilst the House was sitting, its delibera-
tions were interrupted by a tremendous knocking
or kicking at the gallery-door. The usual oblique
request of the House, when it wishes to be per-
mitted to proceed without interruption in its
business—" Order,
.order ! at the bar" (etiquette,
we believe, does not permit any of the other estates
to be directly named in its proceedings) was made
but was not regarded. The thundering at the door
was redoubled, and it became absolutely necessary
to take strong measures. In ignorance, we presume,
as to the person who occasioned the interruption, an
order was given that the disturber should be taken
into custody. The order was obeyed, when it was
discovered that the person was no other than an
honourable and much respected Member of the
Fourth Estate, who had been endeavouring to gain
possession of his seat. We forget for what paper
he then sat, or who was his patron, but the Hon.
Member expressed great indignation at the breach'
committed upon his privileges and the privileges of
his order—first, by keeping him out of his seat,
and next, by taking him into custody. He
threatened that, if he were taken before the House,
he would assert his right, and put it to their feelings
whether a gentleman who had paid for• his seat
should be disturbed or impeded in the possession of
it. He was not taken before the House, but was
immediately liberated. The officers must have been

* A certain sum of money is paid each Session by the
proprietor of every Morning Newspaper for the privilege
or right of the admission of the Reporters to the gallery.
Each of the seven daily newspapers has always one repre-
sentative present, so that in each House there is always a
perpetual committee of seven members of the fourth estate,
sitting to determine what the people shall know of the
transactions relative to their affairs in Parliament. The
Irish members, from Trinity College, Dublin, predomi-
nate. Two or three members, the representatives of the
principal papers, lead the rest. Virtually, therefore, a
committee of three may be said to form the Executive in
each House,