The Sun.
London, England, 1839-07-22 00:00:00

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LONDON :
MONDAY, JULY 22, 1181.

The House of Commons met on Saturday, and a
smart discussion ensued on the Bill for continuing the
Poor-law Commission. Some instances were stated
of the proceedings of the Commissioners, which seemed
to have an effect on the House, though they were
ably defended by Mr. 13atscoE, who may be considered
an impartial man. The House divided on the ques-
tion, that the Order of the Day for committing the
Bill be read, which was carried by 86 to 2.7. Mr.
DARBY then moved that it be an instruction to the
Committee to introduce a clause to give r&ief to
widows and able-bodied men with: families, who were
married before the passing of the New Poor law
This important motion—for the amendment trenches
deeply on the principle of the New Law—
was strenuously resisted by the Ministers, but was car-
ried on a division by 69 to 46. Lord JOHN RUSSELL
Immediately postponed the further consideration
of the Bill. The amendment makes so material
an alteration in the present law, that we are not sur-
prised at the Ministers being resolved, as we presume
they are, to ask the opinion of a fuller House on the
question. So many Members, however, have now left
town, that any decision on such an important question
by one-fourth of the House of Commons, whichever
way it goes, will be most unsatisfactory. The
House seems in something like a dilemma. The
Ministers cannot allow such an important altera-
tion to be carried into effect without asking
the opinion of a fuller House ; and it is now im-
possible, we are afraid, to collect such a House as will
give anything like validity to its decision. That is one
of the results of the House having been occupied, for
five months, with little more than factious speaking and
brawling, which has caused all real business to be so
long postponed that the House has melted away, and
its decisions now, let them be what they may, will have
little or no authority in the country.
A considerable number of Bills, however, were sub-
sequently forwarded a stage, as if there were a desire
to pass a great number of laws, when the absence of,
Members must necessarily deprive the decisions of the
House of all weight in the House of Lords, and of all
respect in the country.
Add

resses from different bodies to one another
and to the people at large seem at present very
much in vogue. We consider that to be a good
sign, indicating in all a desire to attain their ends
rather by reason than violence ; though some of the
Addresses, we regret to see, throw in a terrific
threat or two as a make-weight to the argument.
Our Correspondent at Birmingham sends us one
specimen, which we publish, because, as he says,
it is extensively circulated in the North, and it
teems right to make all classes aware of the opinions
which prevail amongst the bulk of the community.
On the same principle, if we could find room for
them, which we cannot at present, we should insert
several addresses which are now lying before us.
There is one which the Carlisle Radical Associa-

tion has addressed to the shop-keepers and trades-
men of that town, in which they quote a celebrated
passage from one of Mr. OA STLER'S letters, saying
that our " boasted manufactories will perish by an

agent soldiers cannot cope with nor policemen
avert ;" in which they call on their townsmen for
assistance to carry on their present movement, con-
cluding by saving—
" Call not this an idle threat,
Crimson tears may follow yet."
There s another which Mr. ATTWOOD has sent
to the Peace, Law, and Order Society of Birming-
ham, in which he refers very emphatically to a pla-
card issued by the Convention against paper-money,
and which Lord J. RUSSELL exhibited to him in
the House of Commons as a complete answer to
his statements ; he admits that it is, so far as the
Convention is concerned—he declares that the
Delegates of the industrious classes, the members of
the Convention of which he is the author, have
turned against him—he asserts that the doom of the
country is sealed, and oppressed with difficulties—
he declines to attend a great meeting at Birmingham
for the purpose of restoring harmony and reconci-
liation amonest the different classes of his towns-
men. Mr. ATT WOOD then gives up the task of pre-
serving peace as hopeless, and resigns his townsmen
and the country to the military rule which seems
ready to be adopted.
We should also insert, if our space would permit,
an Address to the Chartists which has been circu-
lated in the North, it is said with considerable
success, of which the object is to point out the
impropriety of their violent language and proceed-
ings, and demonstrate to them that they only affront
and outrage the middle classes by the threats they
continually use. There is also lying before us, and we
shall endeavour to publish it when we can find room,
an Address from the General Convention of the in-
dustrious classes to the middle classes, the object
of which is to induce the middle classes to join
the industrious classes in obtaining the Charter, to
disclaim for the body the violent language used by
some individuals, as the middle classes generally
disclaim the insulting language which the Tory
journals apply to the working classes, and to con-
vince the public at large, that the present demands
of the Chartists arise from no temporary ebullition
of feeling, that they are the result of the progress
of knowledge, and that sixty years ago such a de-
claration of principles was made, almost indentical
with those embodied in the People's Charter. We
regret that we cannot at present find room for these
documents, for they would throw much light on the
present disposition of the people, and might in-
dicate to reflecting minds the manner in which
future events are likely to shape themselves.
We must content ourselves now with saying
that all these Addresses indicate an activity
in the national intellect, a great and Sampson-like
after something
yet unattained, which
striving
threatens, like the might y exertions of his blind
strength, to pull down the pillars of the social edi-
fice, burying the destroyers beneath the ruins.
It is a just and philosophic remark of Mr.
CARLISLE that no great movement ever takes
place in society which is not founded on some im-
portant truth.
He might have added with pro-
priety, we think, some
permanent instinct or affec-
tion of the human race. That there is now such
a great commotion in society, does not admit of a
doubt ; and it would be more rational in our states-
men to ascertain the truth which is at the bottom
of it, or the main-spring of affe.:tion flout
which it flows. It behoves those who are at
the head of society—it is the duty of our rulers_
and of all men deservine: the name of statesmen or
Philosophers to find out this great secret, and not
seek to stifle that truth or suppress that affection,
whatever it may be, by, the brutal arm of vio•
lence. It lies on the surface that the whole
contest turns on property ; one is struggling to
keep, :lid the other to acquire ;, and we must
warn the landowl_ers, we must warn all
classes, that the sit-retinesqnf proqerfv-is destroyed
beingmingled up. with taXat-irbn
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