The Sun.
London, England, 1830-12-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF Tim PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The-proceedings of the late election at Liverpool
were marked by, perhaps, as large en amount of
coarse, barefaced, and desperate
,bribery, as ever oc-
curred in England during the worst of times. The.
gross expense: of the parties has been calculated at
little short of 100,000/ 1 nearly the whale of which
went in the mere beying of votes. Of the electors
it is said, we believe, that there were between 4,000
and .5,000 polled on this disgraceful ocension, It is from
Nevi like these that *do and reasonable inferences
may be drawn as to what ought to be considered
the real vices of our present Parlirtmeetury system.
Liverpool, it is clear, cannot he reckoned among
those close boroughs, against which a great portion
of the national outcry on the subject of Reform has
been most justly raised. There are voters quite snfe
ticient; taking numbers only into account, to afford
a tair criterion of public feeling with regard to the
respective candidates. But, unfortunately, there
are characteristics besides that of number, not less
necessery, to insure for the country an honest and
valuable repre.entation. It is plain, • from the pre-
valence of bribery, and the success of it in this case,
that- no sound Reform of the elective franchise cell
be eccomplished by a mere demolition of the close
boroughs, and the extension of the franchise to even
ten times as many voters throughout England as
• have hitherto enjoyed it. Qualification is of more
ire portatice than any eidurgement of the pri-
vilege. What would be gained, for instance, by
adding to the 4,000 or 5,000 Liverpool freemen,
10,00 t) or 1:4000 more, but that the price of votes
would be lowered by their increased Abundance, and
the majority bring perhaps 8,000 instead of 3,000,
the current bribe would be instead of IN. or
20/.? We are not to be scared by any risk of un-
popularity from affirming, that if there be, as un-
doubtedly there must he, a great reinforcement to
the combined property and numbers which exercise
the right of seeding repre4entatives to Parliament,
there ought to be annexed to the newly-admitted
numbers some elevation of the standard of property
which governs the power of voting. The electors
ought to' be at once so numerous, and by their sta-
tion and circumstances so respectable, that corrup-
tion out a large settle would be wholly out of the
question. In fact, the property of the kingdom
ought ail to he repre‘ented, real as well as per-
Rend; and not merely tangible and material articles,
as lend, houses, Re. bute other and even more
perfect modes of property, ,as education, intelli-
gence, and general character, the evidence of which
might be drawn at once from the qualifications
esienthd to whole classes of men in. society. On
this principle, all barrister', clergymen, physicians,
graduates of•Aie Universities, and retired officers of
the army and navy; ought, in our humble opinion.
to be admitted to vote, without regard to any other
totalitivet;ons, for the places where they had fixed
their abodes. It is ridiculous that apprenticeships
to ordinary trades should confer the elective flame
cider, for the presumption it affords of a certain
ainonnt of character and attainment, while the highest
testa of both may be adduced by large bodies of edu-
cated gentlemen, whose intellectual and moral power
is wholly without consideration in an enlightened
state. NVe were moved to something less respect-
ful towards the Home of Commons than admiration,
on seeing the loss of time and ingenuity incurred
items the aletclicd question about suspending the
writ for Evesham on Friday evening. The trans-
position of Whigs and Tories on that night must
have seemed extraordinary to people who had not a
key to the performance, .end were thence without
means of knowing that the grund object of the
Tories is to, obstruct by nil human mewls within
their reach every plan of general or effective reform
of Parliament. With such men it is a favourite ex-
pedient to throw sops to the people, and thus di-
vert the national desire. " Let us open East Ret-
ford, and discuss Penryn, and inquire Into Eveshatit,
anti thus keep the old crezy machine together, anti!
• this doMestic storm has passed away. Circum-
stances will then get up for tot a. foreign. war; and
Neigh for fresh patronage, and down with Reform 1"
The Minieters, we are happy to believe, will not
lend themselves to any such paltry fraud upon the
empire. They will not be satisfied with disfron-
thisng or modifying a miserable hole like Evesham
or East Retford,—ne, nor Liverpool itself, which
merits such a visitation, perhaps more than either.
They will—they must—give us abroad and deep
Reform.— rimer.

The irregular scions of a certain illustrious house
ore becoming troublesome. We do not wish to be
particular : we trust that the young men and women
to whom we allude are not so blinded by infatuated
conceit as not to take u hint.
,Is this a time to
Mae elaimi without service? Ts the mere acci-
dent of leftehanded birth to be a ground for honours
or wealth ? One thing we cart confidently predict :
if, as it is said, the elamoions progeny have put
forth pretensions *bleb ought not to be listened to,
the parent who has magnatarsou,ly and patriotically
refused the appeal, will have acquired a fresh title
to public admiration and affection. It is a maxim
of law, that the King can do no wrong. %at a
noble moral, as well as political comment, on this
maxim, would it be, " that' the King will do no
wrong."—Times.
The Lord 'Chancellor, when the Common Law
Commissioners were first uppointed,objected to them
on the ground of the probability of their being soon
ellled to the Bench, and Judges ought not to be on
Oe Commission. The Commission expired with

his late Majesty ; but we observe, that though the
Qommissianers have 'actually become Judges, the

Gazette announces theirre.appointment. We
suppose the renewal is for sonic temporary object.—
Afern ing Chronkle.
'Though is true that Lord Grey, in forming the
present Adminixtretion, has filled several important
anal confidential situations with members of hie own
and persons connected with him by other
ties, yet al many false arid exaggerated statements
have appeared, from quarters too where the partiei
are enjoying in sinecures more titan the whole an.
mud revenue accruing to the persons against whom
they ere intleevouring to raise a public clamour,
‘yti willingly insert a Statement we have received
from a tillaftef, on the accuracy of which we Can
fully rally; as foriestanes, his Atwell-dew, Mr.. Wood
acts, it is itive, as his Lortlehip'st Private Secretary,
but ink& of drawieg Pram the Treasury, as
his predeeessor tliel,performs the most arduous set-
vices attached to it gratuitously : but even if he
did receive a salary, who in lit for is cotifiden.
tial post as oft e so nearly connected with
Earl Grey ? Again, as to Lord llowick the'
post he- fills has invariably been considered as a
frefalcoy step for the sons and connections of
families ding,' political considerations, in order to
tit them for the fulfilment of more important offices.
Again, doe lion. IL Grey (son of Earl Grey), in.
stead of being a Member of Board, as re•
ported in the Afornieg Nail, it it lad under 15 years
of cagey, and bolds no official eppointment whatever;
anti as to. Dr. Gee), Load Poosoliby, the Hon. Her-
:board Geey, Colonel of the 13th Dragoons, relatives
of Berl Grey, they were all appointed years since
tinder; Mr. Canning and the Duke of Wellington's
Atiminietretions, Sir W. Gordon is no relation or
no eoneection whatever of Lord Grey'', and was
'also appointed by the Noble'Puke; and cut sly Mr.
Ellice noist be considered fully equal to the fulfil-
ment of duties which Mr. Hama formerly filled ; and
the Hen. 11. Barrington a very old towel family
who have often distinguished themselves in uphold.
)tig the honour and character of the British navy—
triestbe considered as a. fit representative—as elle,
vitt than only bee of the Lords of the Admiralty coe-
riveted with tyre family of Earl Greye—Aforn.Chr
A Ili" ballle, we enu see, is likely to be made
by the lavere tif good things," ugeinst any en.
CrOleiffiltnt on grand preserve of place, pen ion,
and Court petronege, hitherto etijoyed by a Certain
dealt of British kubjeetse-,...we might say, intleed,by
a certain coterie of ladies end gentlemen, and their
dependants, to the exclaimer of all the rest of the

nation, and, at its expense. Having declared our
opinion pretty feely against unmerited pensions,
lucrative sinecures, and a needless multiplication of
commissioners, secretaries, and so forth, as nuisances '
which ought to be got rid of, on every consideratiop
of deference to public feeling, of exemplary economy,
and of political justice, we find ourselves wailed by
the polite, though anonymous, protests of sundry
correspondents, for saying many things which we
never wrote nor uttered, and for entertaining views
of niggardly and shallow saving, which no words
that we did employ could ever by possibility have
imported. A gentleman, for such his language be-
speaks him, who signs himself " A real Economist,"
reproaches us with " constantly crying out for re-
trenchment, and proclaiming it the panacea of out
erievances." This, taken as our correspondent puts
it, is not correct. We never pronounced retrench-
ment to be the panacea for our grievances, but one
merely among the sine quibus non, to be resorted to
as virtuoss, honest, and rational expedients for dimi-
nishing the pressure of those grievances; Parliamen-
tary Rernm is unother ; Law Reform a thin!;
revision of the poor laws, an abolition of the game
lew,, a total repeal of the corn law, a better &std..
bution of nearly the whole body of our taxes, and
an entire release from some of them, with an over-
throw of all vile monopolies which enable indivi-
duals or knots of teen to rob the community in a
mariner et once insulting to the rights of commerce,
and ruinous to its solid interests--there we have
long and consistently represented to be, in their re-
spective bearings and consequences, part and parcel
of what our correspondent thinks fit to denominate
our "panacea." Ile asawnes, in the easiest and
most complacent manner. possible, that we and our
brother editors desire to pinch and starve the men
who do the work of the public offices, and then slides
away to foreign countries, and descants on the mis-
chief of underpaying the servants of the State,
thereby exposing them to eorrupt tetnpta ions from
every *quarter, and the Government itself to the con-
stant risk of being sold end betrayed by its own
agents. Now, to do the daily press but justice, we
do not know a single member of it who has ever
given the mean and stupid advice to the Govern-
ment, that it should under-pay the efficient servants
of the public. If they who actually do the business
are not so remunerated as to maintain themselves
and families in a degree of respectability, becoming
the station and pretensions of educated men, the
obvious result will be, that men of education
and capacity will not enter the public service. If,
again, the clerks in our public departments be penu-
riously and miserably paid, they will degenerate into
knaves whenever the opportunity presents itself.
This gentlemen boasts, that in the department of
the Customs, within these seven years, 2,000 places
have been totally abolished, and a saving thereby
effected of 100,0001. per annum. Aye, 50/. a year
each place ! But how many offices have been left
of front 1,4001. to 2,000/. per unman, three-fourths
of which ought to have been swept away altogether,
and the remaining ones cut down by at least one-
fourth of the salary ? When so many wretched
clerks were sent adrift, why were such squadrons of
commissioners still saddled on the country ? That
indeed, the spirit of " retrenchment" which has
• too commooly animated the minds of our official
economists. Multiply the magnificent plunderers if
the revenue,—decimate the poor and unprotected ?
No, our plan of retrenchment had no grinding in-
humanity among its features. 'We denounced the
black catalogue of depredators on 1,000/ a year
and upwards,---of those who swallow up 2,000,0001.
• (nearer three, if the truth were known, as it will
be) of the pubic money. Let them be made to
disgorge their prey, or at least take care that they
shall devour no more. Why, what a humbug
is this of the " Real (real !) Economist," who
asserts that the efficient departments of the state
" are nearly reduced to that condition in which re-
trenchment ceases to.be economy." Then we say
cut down the inefficient—for of them he seems to

fight shy. Look ut the pension list,-..that shameful
r►'cord of iniquity in the Ministers, end /ow-minded
beggary iu the creatures of their corrupt bounty.
When a public board—that of Stamp—was broken
up, and its members, with one exception, cashiered,
through some management of Lords Melville and
Wallece,—,on the footing, too, that they were all

guilty of conduct which inside it necessary for the
public service to dismiss theme—what happened ?
Why, these condemned ex-Commissioners were
puni;bed with pensions of 6001, u-year per man!
And n new board at the former salaries wasap-

pointed. This is a job which we venture to eflitin
ought even now to be made the subject of a Par-
liamentary inves►igation. But to return : it is not
only the 60,0001. or 100,0001. per annum alluded to
-by our, " heal Economist," the possible amount of
saving, accord rig to him, from the abridgment of a
cerium number of overgrown salaries, which would
constitute the great object of public desire or ex-
pediency,—it is not that the muney so misapplied
has been wasted—it is that the waste was bribery :

that the amount of national income thus diverted
hi been diverted for the enlistment of enemies to

the national tvelfirre,—that a vote purchased by the
Minister for 1,000/. per annum would help to carry
schemes in either [louse of Parlisment, of more in-
jury to the realm than an hundred times the sum.
The money squandred in corrupt sinecures and pen-
sions is nor, therefore, to be measured by its own
nominal amount : it is the retainer of so many mer-
cenary minions in the general cause of bad govern-
meat, the price of perennial guilt, and the nest-egg
of manifold treasons against the commonwealth. We
do not hesitate to aver, that of all the duties which
Lord Althorp and his colleagues have now to dis-
charge, the most pressing is retrenchment.—Times.

SECOND EDITION.

SUN OFFICE, Seven a' Clock,

I NI. PEItIAI.4 PA IMAM ENT

THIS EVENING,

HOUSE Of LORDS.

The LORD CHANCZI.LON. di ,1 not take hie eat till nearly
Ilelf-past Fire o'clock en the Weoleack.

NEGRO $L VERY.

Petitions against Negro Sh►very were presented by the
Earl of Shaftesbury, the Earl of Roslyn, the Earl of Car.
narvon, Lord Stanhope, and the Duke of Cumberlend.
The Esrl of ROSEBERRY. presented a petition from
the Provost, Town Council, and Magistrates of Linlithgow,
praying fur Parliamentary Reform and a Repeal of the Ay-
atased Taxea, in doing 60 the Noble Earl took that opportu •
pity of stating, that ❑o mistake was greater than that which
had recently been in circulation, that the people of Scotland
had not a strong desire to see improvement in the repre-
sentation of that country. No persons were more anxious
than they were for a temperate Reform. The present peti-
tion came from persons wilo were interested in keeping
things as they were, which he (Lord 'Roaeherry) coml.
dared a- great proof that they wished, and that there
ought to be, a change.

'Cher NOULZ Bala also presented a petition of a similar
nature from the borough of Linlithgow.
Lrird DUNCAN supported the petition, end at the same
time wished to correct a mistake which had gone abroad
as to what he stated some few nights ago relative to the
election at Renfrew. lie bad been represented as
having stated that one of the Members% from that
place had been elected by a majority of three, he had
no doubt the mistake arose from .the low tone in which he
spoke, but what be bad then stated was, that the Alember
for Renfrew, to whom be referred, had been elected by
a majority of 33 instead of three.
Lord STANIIOPE presented several petitions against
slavery ; the petitioners at the same time complaining
of great agricultural distress, which they believed WAS
a visitation of Pi ovidenee in consequence of negro slavery
being allowed to exist. The Noble Lord considered it
extremely probable that for the speech he had now made ha
should meet with the admonition of the Noble and
Learned Lord on the Woolsack, as he had done on a pre-
vious occasion. Ile should, however, not be regulated by
any person in that House, not even by that Noble Lord
in the speeches he thought proper to make at the times or
places of making there. He should act as he always
had done as be thought best, notwithstanding any remarks
that Noble Lord might think himself justified in making.
The Nonfat E.tatn also presseuted 4 petition from a gen.

tleman named Burgoine, praying for the employment of
Labourers on Waste Lands.
Lord NAPIER presented a petition for the lowering of
duties on West India produce. The Noble Lord ohm
moved for pipers relative to the constitution of Scotch
Burghs ; which, after some observations from the Earls of
Roseherry and Rosslyn, were ordered.
The LORD CHANCELLOR then rose to move for
certain returns relative to lunatics, and was addreosing the
llouse when our reporter left.