The Sun.
London, England, 1837-08-23 00:00:00

any ordinary estimate of human motives, they could be
supposed likely to do. They fill the House of Com-
mons with men who have been ever the determined
enemies of their supposed projects—with men prompted
by every motive of honour, of consistency, of duty,
of habit, and of interest to oppose such projects
and put down their promoters ; and they do all this in
the hope that Ribbonism, thriving without advocates
and against enemies multiplied by the efforts of its own
Members, may husband its fuel for the flames of ge-
nerations yet unborn. Philanthropic conspirators !
generous, self-devoted enthusiasts !—you little know
what is in store for you I You shall be caught in
your own toils. The. very fact of having returned a
majority of men of rank, and wealth, and intelligence,
and station—firm Protestants, sincere Unionists—to
Parliament, shall be made the foundation of a Parlia-
mentary impeachment against Lord Mulgrave, Lord
Morpeth, and Mr. Drummond, and upon the inquiry
consequent on that impeachment, we shall have dis-
closed such scenes as no one ever dreamed of until
now i Does the reader think that we arc laughing at
him ? No, no. Let him but spell the Standard of
the last week, and he will find—not evidence of any
writer's credulity—but proof that scribes are to be
found in this country who pretend to believe in the
existence of credulity so capacious in their readers, that
no food is of a quality and magnitude too gross for
them to swallow.—Morning Chronicle.
When general assertions are made on one side of a
question, and contradictions as general opposed on the
ether, those disputants who trust not in the trial by
wager are wont to propose the more logical test of a
specific instance. Wherefore, though not unamused
by the vague and droll gravity with which the
friends of the Government assure us that the recent
elections have not only made no abatement in its
strength, hut have actually left it even stronger than
before, we will take the liberty of putting the case, that
a couple of divisions be taken in the approaching Ses-
sion upon two principal questions of the Ministerial
policy, one Irish and one English—the Tithe Appro-
priation and the Church-rate Abolition. In the last
division upon Irish Tithe (which was on the 4th of
July in last year) the Ministers mustered 318, and the
Conservatives 292, so that Ministers had a majority of
26. By the recent e'ectious (after deducting from the
Conservative gain of 24 in Great Britain, the nine scats
which in Ireland have been transferred to the Destruc-
tives) we shall find the total gain of the Conservatives
to be 15 seats. Now, how is this to work in the next
division ? Why, it takes 15 votes from the majority
of 318, which will then sink to 303 ; it adds 15 votes
to the minority of 292, which will then rise to 307 ;
and the whole division is reversed, the 'Ministers being
thus no lonser in a majority of 26, hut the Conservatives
in a majority of 4. And this is the question, be it
remembered, on which these Ministers came into office;
their unalterable opinion having been recorded, that
without an appropriation of tithe to national education,
no finial and eatisfectory adjustment for Irland can be
effected, and that without such final and satisfactory
adjustintnt for Ireland, no Ministry ought to be tole-
rated in -office. Now, then, will they bring on this
issue in the approaching session ? If they do not,
there is an end of the sole pretext on which they were
admitted to office. If they do, they are beaten on
their own ground, and have no longer even the name
of a majority in the House of Commons. Again, in
the late division on their plan for the abolition of
' Church-rates (23:1 and 24th of May last) the Minis-
ters mustered 287, and the Conservatives 282 ; so
that Ministers had a majority of five. In the next di-
vision the effect of the votes for the 15 seats trans-
ferred by the last elections to the Conservatives, will
be to reduce the 287 of the Ministers to 272, and to
raise the 282 of their opponents to 297, giving to the
Conservatives a majority on the Church-rate question of
25 votes. Such are the circumstances under whichovith
a grave generality, time friends of the Government assure
us that the elections have left it stronger than ever.
From the bass of their braggadocio, however, the
Ministerialists break, ever and anon, into the treble of
lamentation and fear. That they should have lost, on
the whole election, fifteen seats, making the difference
of thirty votes against them, where they were so sure
of winning twenty-five, which would have made a dif-
ference of fifty in their favour i Hard fate i Harsh
disappointment ! Heavy reverse ! Was it for this
that in the newness of his nobility a grateful partisan
subscribed his dozen of thousands for Norwich, and
his handful of thousands for Norfolk—all to be
beaten ? Was it for this that the officers of the
Government, in so many various departments, exposed
themselves, by ;heir spirited alternation of promises
and threats, to be shown up, if not actually prose-
cuted, by the busy, impertinent Tories ? Was it for
this that, neglecting those real and useful reforms
by which some permanent credit might haply have
been secured, they employed so many anxious even-
ings in working out an English Municipal Corpo-
ration Bill, that was to gain them fifty-seven seats,
over and above that other gain which (when enacted)
the Municipal Bill for Ireland was sure to yield ?
Was it for this that the Bobadils of Brookes's took
• the trouble to change their tone a dozen tunes in every
Session—now blandly returning the Radical pat-on-
the-back, now gathering up the dignity of their ancestors
and acres in a manifesto upon moderation, and then
I once again,in the terror and frenzy of threatened expul-
sion, throwing temperance to the winds, and launching
the desperate (the ducal ?) war cry—" Anarchy ra-
ther than Peel ?" Was it for this that, abandoning
the principles of their better days, and deceiving and
at length deceived by the open-mouthed many, they for-
feited the respect and alienated the support of the no-
bility, the clergy, the gentry, the professions and the
property of the country, and left themselves at once
dis4-monoured and unpitied ? These are bitter reflec-
tions for a losing party ; and, as we can see no conso-
lation for them, we disdain to aggravate their misfor-
tune by pretending to suggest any. Instead of ascrib-
ing their defeat to a hundred causes that have nothing
to do with the matter, we think it a more merciful way
of dealing to be plain and tell them the truth—that
they are defeated because the country is tired of them.
" The fact is," said one of their confidential subalterns
the other day, " the fact is, there was no subject we
could raise an excitement about." There was much
good sense in the reason he gave : it may be another
question whether there was much good sense in his
giving it. Long may his friends look in vain for such
a subject of excitement. Long may Great Britain, as
now, aloof from all the madness that incitement in-
duces, continue, by the wholesome, resolute exercise of
her constitutional franchise, tranquilly and steadily to
exterminate her mischiefs : and first and worst—be-
cause prolific of so many more—the mischief of a
Whig Administration.—Times.

For the next two months public interest must ne-
cessarily concentrate itself on the prospects of the ap-
proaching Session of Parliament. That Ministers will
adhere to the policy to which they are indebted for
the investiture of office, no doubt is to be entertained.
The great question is, whether they shall be able to
carry that policy into practical effect, or—as in the two
previous sessions—be foiled of their liberal and patrio-
tic purpose by a factious and corrupt minority of the
Commons, assisted by a still more factious and corrupt
majority in the Lords. This is the problem which ab-
sorbs the interest of all minor topics of public discus-
sion. On one hand there is a profligate and despotic
aristocracy, opposed to every improvement in our insti-
tutions, as an infringement on their long-enjoyed pri-
vileges of oppression and plunder, and supported in this
opposition by the hereditary branch of the Senate, and
all the natural or hireling instruments of faction, which
by fair or foul, legitimate or illegitimate means, they
have been able to force into the seats of popular repre-
sentation. On the other, is the people ; comprising
the wealthy—for labour is wealth—the industrial, in-
telligent, and honest class of the community, with a
Government formed in direct opposition to the wishes
and intriaues of the former Court, but now approved and
sanctioned by a Sovereign desirous of co-operating
in the great and glorious work of national regeneration.
These are the opposing powers, and looking dispassion-
ately at their relative strength, we see no cause of ap-
prehension as to the result. The wishes of a Sove-
reign, a Liberal Ministry, a majority of the House of
Commons, and the great body of the people, are not
to be defeated by the machinations of some two or
three hundred Peers, and the minority of false and
spurious representatives whom they have most unfairly