The Sun.
London, England, 1830-03-29 00:00:00

understand little.- To move them material or moral
interests must be suffering. lam not blind, how-
ever, as to the state of a society, in which opposite
and heating doctrines are everywhere broached. I
do not blame the doctrines; but I see in this the
evident manifestation of an interest aggrieved, which
finds a vent in words. Thus with us, rightfully or
wrongfully, the Monarchical interest is alarmed ;
and I see the proof of it in the language of the M -
narchicat writers. The Liberal interest is uneasy,
and I see the proof of it in the language of the
r:riters devoted to the cause of liberty. These two
interests are in presence, and, like two powers about
to declare war, they begin by an appeal to their
rights; they publish their manifestoes. This is la
grave situation—a situation which it is for the Go-
vernment to observe, but which you, Gentlemen, are
unable to cure. What, in short, is demanded from
you ? Not to satisfy one of these interests by mea-
sures which appease it, which would he above
your means, but to punish the voices which are
raised for its defence. If, however, there is one
thing which ought to be held more sacred than
mother, it is, that he who conceives himself op-
pressed should be allowed to complain; if there is
one thing which more than any other irritates men,
it is the continuance of oppression and the punish-
ment of complaint. Then the imaginations of men
kindle ; then martyrdom is sought for, is demanded ;
the most pure, the most noble martyrdom, because
it is the most disinterested species of glory. Hence,
look at these writers under accusation; how they
face you; how they defend each other ; how they
persist in their political faith. Opinion sustains
them against your rigours; it consoles them, and
your judgments are powerless with regard to it ; a
few evil, a serious evil for society, when punish-
'extent ceases to be deemed disgraceful, when the bar
of the accused is no longer humiliating, while it ag-
grandizes, when it honours. To an authority more
elevated than yours it belongs to find the remedy.
Instead of condemning, Gentlemen, join your voices
to ours; let us raise them together to the God of
our country; let us demand of him to enlighten and
protect France."—(Strong sensation.)—ln the
course of his speech M. Margin entered into a long
disquisition, in which he attempted to show that
Monarchy and Aristocracy were incompatible with
each other; that down to the Revolution the great
object of all the Kings of France had been to
weaken and destroy the Aristocracy; and that it was
impossible that the authority of the Government
could be otherwise than weakened by the existence
of an Aristocracy. "Is it not obvious (he said)
that if a strong Aristocracy was placed alongside of
the public Functionaries, there would be a constant
struggle of authorities, and that the Throne would
lose a part of its power? Assuredly, if the Revo-
lution has produced good, it has been in destroying
all the petty subaltern powers, and throwing them
into the hands of the Prince, to be afterwards dis-
tributed and withdrawn by him at pleasure." At
this sort of irritating warfare the Government must
lose, for the Press, which it is attempted to put
down, is the Press of the nation.—Morn. Chron.
There are persons, we understand, who give out
that Ministers are not only not annoyed, but upon
the whole are rather gratified by being out-voted the
other night on the question of the reprehensible pen-
sions bestowed on the sons of two of their own
body. If this be so, though we rather doubt it, it
is an instance of Spartan virtue, which, in this age
of grasping selfishness, would be quite refreshing.
There is one circumstance, however, which not only
strengthens our credulity upon the occasion, but
which converts the defeat in question into one which
they must have most unwillingly sustained, and it is
this--that it was easy to have avoided the defeat
by not doing the acts which have led to it. The
Rouse of Commons has deliberately declared the
grant of those two pensions to two sons of Cabinet
Ministers' to be an improper, we were going to say
a profligate, waste of the public money ; and we ask,
can a Ministry meet with a more decided and more
galling defeat than this, that a House of Commons
Which the country has seen sanctioning so many
acts of useless and wanton expenditure which it
ought to have condemned, finds this Ministerial job
so rotten as to be beyond the reach of even its all-
complying sanction ? We trust that this vote will
not turn out to be a mere tub thrown out to the whale,
but that having begun this work of retrenchment in the
families of the Ministers themselves, the House will
have both the virtue and the courage to look at home,
sad purge some of its own Members, who are not
Cabinet Ministers,'" the much larger and not less
objectionable drains which they possess upon the
public purse. It would be a curious document,
could it be produced accurately made up—a list of
the number and amount of the Members of both
branches of the Legislature, who are, by themselves
and their relatives and connections, quartered in some
way or another upon the public crib. Various at-
tempts have been made to do this. Formerly even
the Red Book used to tell us something about the
matter; but that kind of uncourteous information is
now withheld; and every man moving in the world
is left to fish out the information from his own re-
sources. Suffice it to say that the amount is enor-
mous, to say nothing of the large head of expec-
tion, and of " hope deferred," which has so pow-
erful an influence on the actions of all men. The
country, we are persuaded, would be delighted to
see the Ministers take up the vote of Friday night
in the true and honest spirit of retaliation—not
against those who voted in the majority, but those
who left them in a minority upon the occasion. It
was the stayers•away who took the 9001. a year from
the two scions of the Cabinet. How many thou-
sands might the same persons, with equal justice,
be made to disgorge, if the Ministers were to say to
them, " You thought the pensions to our two sons
too objectionable to support; so give back to the
country the ten times more objectionable sinecures
and pensions whch some of you and some of your fa-
milies and connections derive from the public taxes.
As your spirit of economy has begun with u., let
us, in return, demand that it should reach your-
selves." Language and practice like thin would be
both wholesome and just, and the best result which
could ensue from the majority of Friday last.—
Morning Herald. •
It must seem rather extraordinary that the very
moment when so large a grant from the national
purse has just been made for the annual charge of
the British Museum, should be selected by the
Trustees, and followed up by an announcement, for
altering the hours, and thereby circumscribing the
convenience of those who may wish to resort to its
public library. We should rather have thought that,
instead of contracting the few facilities the public
possess in this respect, they would have been en-
larged ; and that the best return that could have
been made to his Majesty for the munificent done,-
tion of the late King's library to the nation, would
be to open its treasures to the public, whose pro-
perty it has become, at all reasonable hours, and in-
deed under as little possible restraint of every kind
as its secure preservation would require. It is true
that, by an intimation, the Reading-room of the
Museum shall, after the 25th inst., be open from 11
to 5, instead of from 10 to 4; the number of hours
remain the same, but the convenience to many is far
otherwise. Observing, by the way, that it is pecu-
liarly mel apropos in the Managers of this place to
fix the commencement of the literary day later just
at the period when the natural day is earlier, we ob-
ject decidedly to confining the hours to those which
may do very well for mere idle loungers, but which
are totally opposed to the convenience of real stu-
dents and such as wish to resort there for useful and
profitable literary purposes. We do not ourselves
see why the hours might not be greatly extended—
viz. from daylight to dark, or at any rate from six to
six in the summer, and from nine to four in the win-
ter half-year. And if this impose a greater labour
upon the attendants than the present number can
",undergo, there could be no great difficulty, we should
think, in providing one or two more out of the nu-
merous men of talent wanting employment in this
great metropolis. An annual charge of from 2001.
to SOW. would wholly cover this. At present there

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