The Sun.
London, England, 1839-06-19 00:00:00

tainty of its defeat. The country therefore has
gained little or nothing by the Cabinet having
made this an open question. Whether it may gal.'
any thing hereafter or not we cannot foresee, but this we
at once know and can say, that not from the Mi-
nisters, not from the Commons, and still less from
the Lords, will the Constituencies ever get the
Ballot unless they numerously, vigorously, and stub-
bornly demand it. We have gained Mr. MACAULAY'S
eloquence and vote, which are something on our side,
but we have gained little more.
The House sat till past Two o'Clock.

Our anticipations of yesterday morning were
realised by last night's debate. The friends of the
Ballot have gained little or nothing by its having
been made an open question. Ministers, as was
avowed by Lord Joull RUSSELL, did not however
resort to that alternative till they could not help
themselves. He had used all his efforts to per-
suade his friends to vote against the Ballot, and
gave up attempting to influence them, when he
found that two hundred of them refused to follow
his advice.

The Noble Lord has, we have no doubt, sincere,
conscientious, and well-weighed objections to the
Ballot, but his reason for not throwing it as a
shield over the voter, given by a person in autho-
rity, is as strange a one as we have for some tune
encountered. . He admits all the evils of intimida-
tion, he admits it is a crime, but he looks for a re-
medy, mirabile dictu, to the progress of public opi-
nion. Now such a reason,. given by a person who
thinks, as many persons begin to think, that legislation
is altogether from first to last a great scheme
of iniquity, would seem very rational ; but given
-by a Noble Lord who is a Minister of the Crown,
who asks for 'power and holds it to correct abuses,
strikes at the root of his own authority and of all
legislation. If the influence of public opinion be re-
lied on to correct intimidation, may it not he equally
relied on to put an end to every social evil, and
every crime, seeing that they `are all reprobated, as
well as the crime of intimidation, by the common
and natural sentiments of mankind.. But then in-
timidation is a crime only, or chiefly practised by
the rich, and while the Noble Lord will not rely on
public opinion to put dovvii the smallest vice or
offence in the poor, while he published proclama-
tions to prevent them carrying a club, he will
trust the crimes of the rich to be repressed
by public indignation. This is, however, only an-
other specimen of that general system of legislation
which prevails in this country, of which the princi-
ple is that Late is merely an instrument to promote
the advantage of the rich at the expense of the
poor. To •resist the Ballot on such pretexts is to
strengthen the hands of the enemies of all law.

Another Minister (Lord Ho WICK) was equally
sincere with Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and avowed
that he consented to make the Ballot an open ques-
tion, with the expectation of bringing it into dis-
repute. He allowes his friends to embrace it that
may be strangled. But if that be Lord HowicK's
wish, why have not he and his friends taken that
line before ? Why, if he have such strong opi-
nions on the Ballot, has he not left a Ca-
binet, which, according to himself, has been
promoting its success by closing their ranks
against it ? Why has he been a party to de-
lude the, Reformers for months and years, by
teaching them to hope, as all the Cabinet have
taught them, by their silence, if not by their words,
that the Ministers would make the Ballot an open
question when they could, not with a view to stifle
it, but to give it a chance of success ? Well might
Mr. GROTE say that the Reformers owed the Ca-
binet no gratitude for a concession which one Minis-
ter admitted was extorted, and another said was
granted to impede the views of their own friends.
We should be more amazed at such conduct of
the Ministers if we did not find something in the
proceedings of the Opposition equally or still more
reprehensible. Sir JAMES GRAHAM and his
friends resisted Mr. GROTE'S motion because the
Reform Act was a final measure. He and some other
Statesmen had agreed to make it so, from which
it appears that the insolent cad of a Pembroke
Knight treats the liberties of the country as the
property of a few wretched tricksters of Statesmen.
What business had he or any man to bargain
away our right to be rescued from the crime of
intimidation for a small extension of the fran-
chise? Sir ROBERT PEEL took still higher
ground as his argument against open questions, and
claimed for the gentlemen who barter away the liber-
ties of the people, for their mutual convenience,
the right of leading the public mind on matters of
legislation. He defended in substance the prin-
'ciplc and the practice that the Ministers for the
time being should alone have the means and the
power of passing measures through Parliament.
To that end they must remain united, and
the Cabinet, that is to influence the Legisla-
ture as well as administer the government, can
tolerate no open questions. We see such opinions
as those we have adverted to propounded in Parlia-
ment with some astonishment. They cannot fail
to strengthen the power of the Chartists, by show-
ing on the one hand that law is a mere instrument
for punishing the poor, arid by showing on the
other that the means of making the law is to be
placed under a Cabinet which can only last as long
as all the members agree to exercise a despotism over
each other, so that they may also exercise it over
the nation.

The Ministers (if we should not rather say the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER) were left last
night in a very small minority on the subject of the
Danish Claims. Even with the support of Mr.
GOULBURN, and perhaps of two or three other
Tories interested in defending a former Tory Go-
vernment, the Ministers could only muster 32 sup-
porters, while against them there was a majority of
95. To be beaten 3to 1 would, under any cir-
cumstances, be disreputable, but to be left in so
small a minority on a question in which jus-
tice was against them, and above all to
to be left in such a minority, when they
were endeavouring to gloze over a piece
of gross Tory negligence, if not a profligate
Tory job, is, we are bound to admit, highly dis-
graceful
to them. The circumstances under which
they risked and encountered this defeat, were as
follows :
When England found it necessary in 1807, to
make a sudden war on Denmark, in order to mask
her designs she allowed her merchant ships to
proceed thither as usual ; and when some mer-
chants, alarmed at the rumours which were in
circulation, applied to the Government to know
if they might send their ships to Denmark,
they were assured there was no danger what-
ever----no chance of war. Accordingly they sent
their ships, laden with goods, to Denmark, and
soon afterwards England made an unexpected,
and many writers maintained at the time, an unwar-
ranted attack on Copenhagen, seizing and confis-
cating the Danish fleet, and half destroying the
Danish capital. In all other parts of Denmark,
wherever English property was found, it was seized
and confiscated ; and from that time to this the
persons whose property was so confiscated have
claimed compensation from the British Government.
We think their claims just. Whenever a community,
for some purpose of general good, exposes some
of its members to extraordinary losses, it is bound.
to make them good, or distribute the losses as
equally as possible over the whole, so that one or
a few shall not be ruined for the common be.
nefit. If that rule be at all times good, it must
apply with great force to such a ci:se as that under
consideration, in which Great Britain was the ag-
gressor, anti in which she had encouraged her
people to pursue their usual commercial enterprises.
For about thirty years, however, did the persons
whose property was confiscated appeal at intervals to
the Government in vain ; till at length, in 1834,
after repeated attacks, Lord ALTHORP admitted the i
justice of the claimi, and in pursuance of that ad- t
mission and subsequent attacks, a sum of 295,0001. t
has been voted in satisfaction of the demands of ,

I those whose property was seized and confiscated in
1807 ; but some distinctions having been made
between the different classes of claimants, those
who claimed on account of ships and other goods
afloat, were refused compensation. Last year Mr.
CrtEsswcu.hrought those claims under notice, and
carried an address to her MAJESTY to have them
examined, in spite of the Ministers, by a majority
of 34. It pleased the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
however, Mr. RICE—for it is in his department,
and we will not class all the Ministers with him—
to render this address of non-avail, by ordering the
Commissioners to report on the cases of individuals
claiming, without adjudicating on them. Mr.
RICE, therefore, took it on himself to defeat the
obvious intention of the majority which out-voted
him ; and, to meet that, Mr. CRESSWELL last night
moved another address to the Crown, to direct the