The Sun.
London, England, 1837-08-05 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 1837

himself is a monument of the necessity of Itcfoym.'
Morning Advertiser.

The ascendancy of Conservative principles in Eng-
land becomes more and more obvious every day, if we
may judge from the county returns to the new Par-
liament, which already assure us that the representa-
tives of the property and intelligence of this kingdom
in the House of Commons will consist almost exclu-
sively of Conservative Statesmen. We forbear for the
present any general analysis of the returns before us,
because that of our own county alone, the metropoli-
tan county, is sufficient to convince the most incredu-
lous that the rage for change, the disposition to favour
revolutionists, experimentalists, adventurers and charla-
tans has passed away. Mr. Hume is ejected from the
county of Middlesex, the representation of which he
has disgraced for several years, and is succeeded by a
stanch friend of the Constitution, an honest, upright,
and honourable man. This single fact speaks volumes
—volumes of distinct instruction and eloquent admoni-
tion. But this is not the only fact connected with the
late contest for the county of Middlesex which powerfully
addresses itself to the understandings and consciences
of mankind. We see the triumph of Conservative
principles almost as clearly in the majority of Mr.
Byng as in that even of Captain 'Wood. Why should
Mr. Byng be at the head of the poll, and Mr. Hume,
notwithstanding the coalition, so deplorably near to its
tail, but that there is much about the former that is
allied, and nothing about the latter but what is hostile,
to the principles of Conservatism and stability. Mr.
Byng is a considerable landed proprietor of the county,
and has represented it for a period beyond which the
memory of few of the existing electors can reach. Mr.
Hume is a composite adventurer, demi-Scotch, demi-
East Indian, and has represented the county
for a period comparatively short. These two
grounds for the preference of Mr. Byng over
Mr. Hume, which in the record of their polling
books the electors of Middlesex have distinctly
recognised, are both essentially Conservative grounds.
Again, Mr. Byng, although of late he has been
properly classed among the destructive party, has
been a Destructive, in defiance alike of his per-
sonal character and his social position, merely be-
cause being, unfortunately, a very weak man, be,
like many other Whigs, was attracted to what he
supposed was the strong or more popular side. Mr.
Hume, on the contrary, is essentially a Destructive.
He must be that or nothing. His temper, his habits,
his talents, and his position in the social scale all
combined to suggest to him the selfish expediency of
pulling clown all that is exalted—defiling all that is
pure—degrading all that is noble—and desecrating all
that is holy. When we regard the two late Members
for Middlesex under this aspect, and it is the true one,
there can be no doubt that the cordial acceptance of
one of them, and the contemptuous rejection of the
other, is among the strongest of the various proofs,
in which we ought to rejoice, of the growing power
and extended dominion, among the people of Eng-
land, of constitutional and Conservative principles.
We adopt without hesitation the substance of a re-
mark which we find in the Morning Chronicle of yes-
terday--" Were this man (Mr. Hume) to be thrown
out by the supineness”—(eve should say, by the
active patriotism)—" of the electors of Middlesex,
public spirit”—(by which, of course, our contem-
porary means the Radical democratic spirit)—
" would receive an irrecoverable blow." This
blow, and many other formidable blows, public
spirit has received (that spirit in which the Meibouree
Government uniformly acted). and the highest Minis-
terial authority pronounces it to be irrecoverable. We
hope and believe that public spirit, in the sense ill
which the Ministerial party have been accustomed to
apply these words, has, by the present election, re-
ceived not one, but many, irrecoverable blows. Thus
it becomes a curious and interesting question what
Ministers will do, now that the kind of public spirit,
in deference to which they have uniformly acted, since
their last accesion to power, has received these re-
peated and irrecoverable blows. Will they abandon
their places, or renounce their alliance with this spirit?
The question int,t at this moment occupy much of
their attention, and they find it, we have no doubt,
a most embarrassing one. We would wager, if it were
ours, " Lombard-street to a China orange," that they
do not. abandon their places. We would bet odds
almost as great that the next Parliament will hear
from Lord Melbourne or Lord John Russell very
little about the Church-rate abolition scheme ; very
little about the Appropriation Clause, or any other
scheme for the robbery of the Irish Church ; very little
about any Irish Corporation project, tending to the
establishment of " normal schools of agitation ; ' very
little, except in the way of severe rebuke, about the
Ballot scheme, the short Parliament scheme, the Re-
form of the Peerage scheme, or the other thousand
end one schemes of their former allies. One thing,
and one thing on 1), is likely to prevent the present
Ministers of the Crown from being converted, in the
new circumstances which the English elections have
produced, into decided Conservatives—we do not
mean conservative of place, for such they were already ;
but conservative of the institutions of the country, for
sake of place. The one thing to which we refer
is the O'Connell tail. This is the great Ministerial
embarrassment. What arc Ministers to do in a House
of Commons decidedly more Conservative than the last
(and that it will be so is now unquestionable), with
Mr. O'Connell and his tail to propitiate ? We sincerely
wish that the agitator may be less powerful ill the next
Parliament than lie was in the last. But we now give
utterance to this in the full and perfect conviction °that
our desire and that of the administration are, for once,
entirely in unison. Nothing can be more certain than
the proposition that the formation, in the next Parlia-
ment, essentially Conservative and Protestant as the
British portion of it will he, of a powerful and inde-
pendent O'Connell party must be fatal to Lord Mel-
bourne's Goveroment. We have good grounds for
asserting that this is strongly felt, and that it has been
already officially expressed by the Ministers of the
Crown. We wish that Mr. O'Connell and his con-
federates could obtain a view of the secret and confiden-
tial despatches which have been sent from Whitehall to
Ireland within the last day or two. They would, we sus-
pect, see in them much which, if it did not excite their
surprise, would at least rouse their indignation. There
is nothing, we believe, in the actual position of Mini-
ters, which theylament so much as the fact that Govern-
ment influence in Ireland has been irrevocably given to
reinforce that of Mr. O'Connell. We speak advisedly
when we say that there is nothing which Ministers
now dread so much as any increase in the House of
Commons of the O'Connell retainers. It is gratifying
to the people of England generally to perceive that at
the Dublin election Mr. O'Connell and his nominee
are at the bottom of the poll. But in no other part of
England does this circumstance afford so much gratifi-
cation as at Whitehall. The lowest clerks in office,
catching with prompt subserviency the tone of their
superiors, already begin to speak of Mr. O'Con-
nell as a person whom it would be excellent po-
licy and exceeding merit on the part of the
Administration to shake off; and we have even heard
of overtures having very recently been made to at least
one of the retired Members of Earl Grey's- Govern-
ment, with a view to his resumption of office, in the
hope that he may bring with him some small portion
of Conservative support—the temptation being dis-
tinctly held out that in the event of his compliance,
O'Connell and his tail shall be unequivocally repu-
diated and abandoned.—Morning Post.

The termination of the Middlesex election has been
indeed a triumphant one for the Conservative cause—
it bodes well for the safety of the Constitution. Mr.
Hume has lost his seat for the metropolitan county by
a majority of 269, as compared with Mr. Wood, the
Conservative candidate. The state of the poll at the
close was as follows :
Byng
wood
Hume
Pownall 4,321
There is a slight difference in numbers between the
statement of the two Committees, but they both give
the same result, viz., the defeat of Mr. J-lume. After
this, we suppose that some credit will be given to the
assertion so often stigmatized as false and ridiculous
by the Whig-Radicals--we mean the assertion that
a re-action has taken place. The returns of the
last few days spoke pretty plainly to this effect ;
the general character qf the elections, so far as they