The Sun.
London, England, 1837-08-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is no doubt true, as the Conservative writers
• urge, that extensive reforms can only be effected when
the people show, by the interest they take in them,
that they are determined they shall be carried. When
the Ministers of William the Fourth proposed their
plan of Reform, it was so received by a grateful and
enthusiastic nation, as to satisfy the most bigotted
Tories that the voice of an united people was against
them. Lord Wharncliffe, we remember, was much
laughed at for referring to the tradesmen in Bond-
street as opposed to the Reform Bill ; for next day
there was hardly a tradesman in the street who did not
give a written contradiction of the statement. But
a nation cannot be often excited to make such de-
monstrations as the people of this kingdom made
during the crisis of the Reform Bill. Politicians
ought, therefore, to do their-work well when the op-
portunity favours. The mariner cannot always have
a trade wind when he wants it. It is now gene-
rally allowed that the Reform Bill, though an im-
mense improvement of our institutions, is far from
yielding all the advantages the people expected
from it, in consequence of the facilities which are
still afforded to those who wish to enter Parlia-
ment, not through the people, but in spite of them,
and in consequence of the unprotected state of those
who exercise the suffrage. But the enemy has en-
tered horse, foot, and artillery, through the breaches
which he has discovered in the charter of our liberties,
and it depends on Reformers themselves to determine
when the evils shall be remedied. Blackwood, a re-
doubtable Tory organ, tells us that these evils shall
never be remedied.
" The Conservative party," he says, "seek to put a veto
upon organic revolution, or encroachments upon the Church
and Constitution as by law established. Their aim and and
is, in these points, to maintain the status quo. They say
on these vital questions as the Barons of old, nolumusleges
,nutari. They insist merely that Government and legisla-
tion shall be carried on within the ancient limits of the Con-
stitution, with every latitude for practical improvement,
but with an utter and everlasting exclusion of structural al-
terations. They say that the Church shall be protected in
its property—they say that the House of Lords shall be
upheld in its privileges. . .
In communi cause potior semper est •conditio prohibentis.
Fundamental innovations ought not to be thrust upon a di-
vided nation or a divided Legislature. Existing institu-
tions and organic principles ought not to be swept away
without an overwhelming preponderance of opinions in fa-
vour of the change."
The everlasting exclusion of structural alterations,
after all, then, merely means that the Tories will only
yield them, as they did the Reform Bill, upon com-
pulsion. But the Reformers may so far profit by the
declaration of this Tory organ as to renounce all hope
of structural change -favourable to popular liberty,
which they are not prepared to demand in an irresisti-
ble manner. Some Reformers think that the ballot
is one of those changes whiols, ere long, Tories them-
selves will be as eager to carry as their opponents. For
there can be no question that tradesmen who vote for
Tories do not always rest on a bed of roses any more
than tradesmen who vote for Reformers. Besides,
the middle classes, who suffer most from intimida-
tion, are shrewd and skilful in adapting means to ends.
It is ridiculous to suppose that this class of men will
patiently submit to the evils they now suffer from
exercising their right of franchise without attempting
to organize means of retaliation. In truth, if some mode
of protecting the voter be not adopted, the Tories, and
all who seek to persecute voters, will soon find they have
had enough of it. Englishmen are not naturally
vindictive ; but they have their feelings for their
homes and families, and they will not suffer themselves
to be trampled on. The oppressor may rest assured
that his victim will turn on him. In Tait's Maga-
zine for September, in an article on the Scottish elec-
tions, the writer, adverting to Lord John R ussell's
declaration, that the Committee to whom the framing
the Reform Bill was confided suggested that the vote
by ballot should be adopted, exclaims :
" Alas ! what a world of tyranny on the one hand, and
falsehood on the other, might have been saved to the na-
tion had this most salutary measure not been rejected!
Then do we now say, let the pel-tle rise and rail out for
the ballot, with that voice which they already know haw
to make heard. They will find that the intimidatioa
used in these elections has gained it many friends, and
that among these are not a few Members of the new Par-
liament. . • • • • . We are must
certainly convinced that it must now daily and hourly
gain ground, until the loud and resistless voice of tile
people shall carry it triumphantly through, as it for-
merly did the Reform Bill itself. This would, indeed,
be carrying the Reform Bill a second time—or rather it
would be producing a restored copy of it—since the first
has been so riddled through and through by the pestilen-
tial perforations of the Tory worms as to have been
rendered nearly altogether useless. With such a remedy
before us, then, are we, after all our exertions, tamely
to submit to see the very essence of the Reform Act eaten
out by these Tory vermin, and nothing left to us but the
dry, shrivelled, and sapless rind ? Alittle while ago we
were full of expectation and panted with hope to see
the flowers and fruits of Reform speedily and abundantly
springing up in our path before us ; and now the cry in-
strument by which they were to be produced is in a fair
way of being rendered rotten and unserviceable in our
hands. Are we to bear this with asinine patience ? if
we do, we shall well deserve to have the pack-saddle put
upon our backs—the bit and halter in our heads—and so to
he subjected again to endless Tory domination ; a fate that
most assuredly will await us."
This is stating the case fairly. The people may he
assured that it resits with themselves whether or not
they shall obtain this great improvement. It may at
the same time be questioned whether, important as the
change is, the people will rise for the Ballot alone, in
the way likely to give effect to their demands. How-
ever this may be, they ought certainly to be prepared
to take advantage of the first favourable conjuncture
for effecting their object. The Tories imagine that
by means of the fifty-pound franchise, by their inanmu-
vring in the smaller boroughs, and the venality of the
freemen, they have obtained a secure lodgment under
the Reform Bill ; but sufficient power still remains to
the people, should the occasion rouse them to ex-
ertion, to triumph once more over the Tories. They
should bear in mind that one great effort in favour of
the Ballot may save them from endless persecution.—
Morning Chronicle.
A Cornish paper informs its readers, that Sir W.
Molesworth " is entertaining a distinguished party at
his seat near 'Bodmin," among which party are men-
tioned as the most distinguished Mr. Leader and Mr.
C. Buller ; while the Gruntide, who is never to be
outdone in impudence or folly, beats the Cornish-
Court-Circular-man hollow, by holding up to the no-
tice of the pUblie an address of Lord Palmerston to
his constituents " as affording a view of the opinions
of a Cabinet Minister as to the course which the Go-
vernment intend to pursue." Heaven help us ! What
a party must that be in which Mr. Leader and Mr. C.
Buller are " distinguished"—what a condition of state
affairs that in which the opinions of such a Cabinet
Minister as Cupid are worth the foolscap which his
protocols convert into waste paper ! When, how-
ever, the thorough-going hack of every Tory Ad-
ministration for the last thirty years is thought good
enough for one of the leaders of a " Liberal" Go-
vernment, it can surprise no one to find that in
the estimation of " Liberal" scribes the opinions
even of such a person as Lord Palmerston are con-
sidered of consequence. Besides, as some folks
think that " a reformed rake makes the best hus-
band," so the wiseacres of the " Liberal" press may
have persuaded themselves that a reformed Tory makes
the best Whig-Radical. Let us endeavour, then, to
discover what new light has broken in upon Cupid's
blindness. In the first paragraph of this address to
the electors of Tiverton, his Lordship thanks them for
the great honour they have done him ; bids them be
assured that he will strive to show himself worthy of
their confidence, and speaks of them as the " intelli-
gent and active community" he has the " good for-
tune" to represent. There is little worthy of notice
here. As he has all his lifetime until now been
striving unblushingly to show himself worthy the
confidence of every political party that has ever
had anything to give, there can be no doubt that
the Tiverton electors may rely upon his Lord-

. . .
ship's assurance for the time to come. They may
find nothing to. complain of in the description " in-
ofEws ptelli,ent and active community," though we con-
(dSrattt we should have thouoht it more a tro-
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.„
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prtate if his Lordship had applied it to the " in-
:=.7-;', , . " dustrious fleas." We are not so sure that the words
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