The Sun.
London, England, 1830-02-15 00:00:00

mind amid more titan ordinary complaisance to power
and desertion of the people, appears the steady, vi-
gorous, uncompromising conduct of the Kaye,. of
Blandford. He was at his post when a subject more
important than the consideration of the vague and
illusory statements in the loyal Speech was to bc
entered upon. Yes—when the order of the day fot
the House going into a Committee of Supply was
read on Tuesday night, the Marquis of Blandford
was prepared to perform his duty to his country,
although the Whig benches were nearly deserted,
and the Treasury did not think it necessary to re-
tain their forces in the field. It was the custom of
our ancestors, previously to voting supplies, to de-
mand a redress of grievances. This custom had be-
come nearly cbsolete—the courtesy of modern days
had superseded the stern virtue of antiquity. It was
perhaps the barbarism of our forefathers that made
them exercise a jealous vigilance over the pubhe
purse, and refuse the voting supplies upon either the
solicitations or threats of a Minister until grievances
were redressed. In their simplicity -they believed
that the power of the purse conferred all other power.
and therefore they were rude and unaccommodating
enough to refuse to fill the coffers of Government
until they vindicated the rights of the people. In
modern times this 'vantage ground of the public
cause has been generally surrendered without a
struggle, in consequence of some courteous " ar-
rangement" in accordance with the temper of an
age of polished innovation. The Marquis of Bland-
ford, who, as a Member of the House of Commons,
appears to be more conversant with the ancient his-
tory of Parliament than its modern code of manners,
remained, as we have stated, at his post, to move
an amendment on the House going into a Commit-
tee of Supply. In doing so, he used the old-
fashioned but very expressive language, that "he
felt himself called upon in duty to oppose in limine
the granting of one shilling of supply to his Ma-
jesty." Why ? His reasons were—" the dis-
tresses of the country were so great—the cries of
the people for relief so loud, and the promises of
his Majesty's Ministers so unsatisfactory." This
language was certainly more energetic than polite;
and, in a spirit equally congenial with the charac•
ter of our ancient " gothic" institutions, he moved,
as an amendment, " that this House will not vote
any supply or estimate until the grievances of the
people be talien into consideration, and relief for
their distress be granted." A proposition so con-
trary to modern practice, and built on such obso-
lete precedents—precedents only to be found in the
" old almanack" of history, and not at all admitted
among the " rules and regulations" of the refined
patriotism of modern days, absolutely astonished
the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ile gave utter-
ance to that astormislunent by saying" he did not come
to the House prepared for any such amendment as
the present. The Noble Lord had certainly adopted
a novel course towards the House, and one which
was not likely to produce a very favourable effect
on the public generally." Now, when the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer called this a novel course, he
must have meant it as such, in the sense in which it
has been said that " all novelty is but oblivion"—
for it was so ancient, and so long disused, that it had
pretty well gone out of Parliamentary remembrance,
and, like a revived old fashion in dress, returned
upon us with all the freshness and originality of
invention. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had,
however, a more secure protection than in the
" novelty" of the practice against the constitutional
rudeness of such a proceeding. What was that ?
the paucity of numbers in the House ! • Will it be
believed hereafter, that, at such a crisis as this—a
crisis of unexampled national suffering and calamity
—the desertion of their posts by the Representatives
of the people was the best security of the Minister ?
The Chancellor of the Exchequer met the amend-
ment, when argument was wanting—when appeals
to polite usages and complaisant customs failed—by
declaring that no division could take place, as there
were not sufficient Members to constitute a House.
Yet there were enough to make a Committee of
Supply, and to vote away the money of the people ;
and often have millions been voted, and the most
important business of the country transacted, by as
small a number as were then present. The reply
of the Marquis of Blandford to the observations of
the Minister of Finance deserves to be remembered,
and, at the next general election, it ought to be re-
called to the particular attention of every Member
of Parliament by his constituents. The Chancellor
of the Exchequer had alluded to an arrangement
respecting an amendment which the Ministers had
received notice would be moved in the Committee
of Supply on Friday (yesterday). " lam no party,"
said the Noble Marquis, " to any arrangement of
business on Friday. If Hon. Gentlemen are not in
their places it is their fault, not mine. Here I am,
and here I am determined to remain, and do my
duty." This was an answer worthy of the spirit of
the best days of the English House of Commons—
those days associated with the proudest recollec-
tions—when stern, unyielding, and intrepid public
integrity, laid the foundation of that national gran-
deur and prosperity which the courteous and sup-
pliant patriotism of later times had not the virtue to
preserve—those days when the dread of being sup-
posed to " embarrass the measures of Government"
did not shake from its firm purpose the honest reso-
lution of the Representatives of the people.—elloen-
lag Herald.

It must have been satisfactory to the country to
find Mr. Peel and the President of the Board of
Controul di-claiming on the part of his Majesty's
Ministers all predetermination and prepossession of
every kind, with regard to the East India question.
But it would doubtless have been in no degree less
grateful to perceive, in the accompanying acts of the
Administration, some indisputable evidence of the
sincerity with which such disavowals had been
made. Two committees have been appointed,—
indeed selected by the King's Government,—for
examining into the facts connected with the com-
mercial monopoly in the east of Asia, and reporting
thereon to the Houses of Lords and Commons. We
are well enough aware that the reports of these
committees will not be binding on the bodies from
which they emanate, for that either House may vote
directly in the teeth of its own committee. But it
is nevertheless desirable that a Committee of In-
quiry should be so hauled as to produce informa-
tion and reasonings upon it, of a nature to facilitate
the subsequent labours of the House which ap-
pointed it, and to aid the judgment and satisfy the
conscience of the Legislature, by an unbiassed and
enlightened use of materials adapted honestly to the
illustration of important truths, and to the sugges-
' tion of equitable measures. There are the names of
many excellent men in the lists of both East India
Committees. In some particulars there are none
more respectable than those of certain noblemen
and gentlemen, who have pledged themselves, or
are tied by their position—although the Ministers
who appointed them have abstained from such
pledges—to one class of opinions, which we need
not name, on the subject of the Indian trade and
charter. Mr. Astell and other East India Direc-
tors, gentlemen of unquestioned respectability, have
(to our astonishment we confess) been chosen
Members of the Committee in the House of Com-
mons. Instead of saying that such appointments
are dipeult to justify, we shall merely hint that it
is pot easy to understand them, except by taking
for granted that among the improvements meditated
for the judicial system of India, there is one, pro-
viding thet every man shall henceforth be judge in
his own cause If it by a virtue in the King's
Ministers that they have gprpe to the great ques-
tion of the charter with minds altogether unpret-
judiced, it follows that every other Member of Pare
liament must be eligible for the same office of in-
vestigation, just in proportion as he enjoys a similar
exemption from bias. In that respect, therefore, we
require to be informed what are the aptitudes of a
Director of the East India Company, wielding its
immense patrotiage, and identified with its inte-
rests, and n4rsp4 up in the notion that the
unimpaired existence of the charter is as
necessary to mankind as a law of tha nniverse?
And ought to be no less eternal,--rive beg to

know in what respect, or by what exception to all
the rules of wisdom and justice,the Directors of the
India Company are to exercise,orcontroul,or advise,
the proceedings of a parliamentary committee, whose
business is to prepare the nation for judging whe-
ther a monopoly, of great personal benefit to those
individual gentlemen, ought or ought not to be re
newed ? It is Ahmed that the Directors poisess
a knowledge of the subject which could not be Ob-
tained from any other quarters, and that they may
be valuable counsellor to their colleagues. The
Directors have knowledge which would undoubt-
edly render them most valuable witnesses, if called
upon by the Committee : so do many subordinate
officers of Leadenhall-street possess much solid in-
formation. All these functionaries, as well as the
Directors, are competent to answer questions, when
interrogated; but their own interest in the result of
the investigation disqualifies them from deciding
what sort of questions shall be asked, or in any
manner meddling with the form or course of the in-
quiry. It is somewhat melancholy to reflect how,
even as witnesses, the most distinguished men act
under the corporation spirit. Let any one take the
trouble to compare the real opinions of the late
Sir rhomss Monro, as disclosed in his private and
confidential correspondence, with the testimony de-
livered by that able servant of the Company before
the Committee of 1813, arid then ask himself whe-
ther mere knowledge of any subject, apart from the
cstisideration of its influence on the passions of an
individual is of itself to be regarded as qualifying
him to direct the views of others. When Mr.
Astell inquired—rather angrily, as it appeared to us
—why he was not a fit person to be on the com-
mittee, he ought to have been told distinctly, be-
cause you are a party, and cannot therefore be a
disinterested judge. The nation is the only party
by whose rights, and for whose welfare, this quei-
don ought to be determined. The India Company,
on the expiration of its leasehold interest, is extinct.
The question whether the tea sold at Hamburg or
in Leadenhall-street is the better and cheaper article,
we conceive to he quite foolish and impertinent.
A demand for the creation of a fresh monopoly, in
1883, must stand on higher ground than the assumed
capacity of an old monopolist to take the British
merchant's business out of his hands, thus treating
him as one who is utterly incompetent, and the
people of England as a nation who are not entitled
to purchase their own breakfasts where they please.
But, we repeat, the Committees in both Houses
must be wholly above suspicion of all preliminary
bias, or the professions of those two Ministers who
hare spoken on the India question will not have ad-
ministered their full measure of satisfaction to the
publ c.—Tinzes.

Lord Holland moved a resolution in the House of
Lords on Friday night to the effect following—viz.:
" Resolved—That no pacification or settlement of Greece
will appear to this House permanently advantageous to
the interests of England, or honourable to the British
crown, which does not give to that country a territory
sufficient for national defence either by land or sea, and
does not establish there a Government with full powers to
adapt its laws and institutions to the wants and wishes of
the people, and to protect its subjects from all interference
in their domestic concerns."

The noble Lord's motion was prefaced by a
speech in which his Lordship went over, with talent
awl spirit, a great deal of ground, ingrafting on his
solicitude for the greatness and freedom of Greece a
narrative interspersed with observations, many of
which were striking and entertaining, upon the con-
duct of the British Government for the last tiro
years towards Turkey, Greece itself, and the Allied
Powers. Lord Melbourne supported the noble
mover, and was answered by the Duke of Welling-
ton in an able and effective speech, ending with a
recommendation to Lord Holland to withdraw his
motion, the grounds of which appeared to us, we
confess, completely undermined by the reference to
facts and dates wherewith they were combatted
by Ministers. The fears of the noble mover
must have been roused, we take for granted,
by circumstances wholly unknown to us, and,
so far as might be judged from the debate,
not apparent on the face of any authentic docu-
ments, or he would hardly have pressed forward
a motion tending to disparage beforehand those ar-
rangements of the affairs of Greece, which, in the
Speech from the throne, had been announced as then
on the eve of their accomplishment, and as almost
ready for official disclosure to the public. But it
would have been perhaps more regular, had Lord
Holland waited until the Royal pledge should be
fulfilled, since it would have been equally open to
Parliament to condemn the policy of Ministers, after
ascertaining what it really was, and thus to avoid the
risk of misrepresenting facts, and of fighting with
mere chimeras. Lord Aberdeen stated an important
fact, that the settlement of the Greek question con-
tained rrovisions more favourable to the Greek na-
tion, both as to territory and to independence, than
had ever been dreamed of by Mr. Canning himself,
with whom the Greek treaty originated ; and in
reply to some hypothetical charges of Lords Holland
and Melbourne, who had accused the British Go-
vernment of first encouraging and exciting Turkey
to resistance, and then pusillanimously deserting her
in the hour of defeat, it was powerfully urged by
the Duke of Wellington that the hostle spirit and
most outrageous acts of the Grand Seignor had pre-
ceded the accession of the present Ministers to of-
fice ;—that Mr. Stratford Canning's departure from
Constantinople was not the measure of those Minis-
ters ;—that the inquiry into the conduct of the British
Admiral was the act of their predecessors;—that the
famous Hatti Sheriff, which was almost a declaration
of war's), the Porte against Russia, had been delivered
before t he Duke of Wellington's Cabinet was formed;
—that instead of Catidia being, by the treaty of July,
or by the last year's protocol, transferred from Turs
key to the hands of Greece, such a transfer was
wholly impossible under either, because, to be trans-
ferred, it must first he conquered from the Turks,—
an enterprise which was never once contemplated by
the treaty, the protocol, or their authors. The
Duke of Wellington went on to assure the House,
that so far from encouraging the Turks to resistance,
he and his colleagues, foreseeing from the outset
what must be the issue of a contest between two
such ill-matched powers,—and, indeed, as the
Noble Duke declared, his own opinion being that
one campaign ought to have finished the war, with-
out the necessity of a second,—the utmost efforts
had been employed, both before hostilities took
place and at every stage of their continuance, to
prevail on the Turk to give satisfaction to his Im-
perial Majesty, who had right, undoubtedly, on his
side. That as for our policy being " pusillanimous,"
as described by Lord Holland, the Duke of Wel-
lington said there were two questions to be resolved
by statesmen before we should have been excusable
for becoming parties to the war under consideration.
First, would the war have been just ?" To
which his Grace gave a decided negative, declaring,
us we have already mentioned, that it was Russia
who had received the injury. Secondly, would the
war have been ".politic ?" To this a negative
answer was also given, independently even of all
the considerations of justice, inasmuch as the
influence of Great Britain and France would be
equally effective in moderating the views of Russia as
any application of force could have proved ; and
then everything was gained on the side of peace and
humanity. A most gratifying assurance was given
by the Duke of Wellington towards the close of
this very able and successful speech, that so far from
England fearing war, or having reason to avoid it
from any motives bat those of conscience and inte-
grity, there never was a period of our history, even
at the most triumphant moment of the last great
war, when this country and every other part of
rope were in arms, at which the military and naval
means of England were se abundant, ell the depart
ments of the national force so efficient and complete,
or all the public resources of men, and stores, and
money if required, so inexhaustible. In truth, a
country of such gigantic power may afford to be
patient, from generosity and benevolence, but can
never truckle from more unworthy motives. We
have ourselves but little doubt, that when the
'Greek arrangement shall De made publiel the friends