The Sun.
London, England, 1839-08-27 00:00:00

settling the question of how far the Executive Go-
vernment ought to interfere with legislation, which
must nevertheless be settled before Lord MEL-
BOURNE'S Administration can be condemned be-
cause it has not added a great many laws to the
Statute Book.
The inference which Lord LYNDHURST drew
from the failure of the Administration to influence
the Legislature was, that the former had not the
confidence of the latter ; but though the House
of Commons might reject the new laws proposed
by the Ministers, it does not follow, as in fact the
vote on the Irish Government proved, that the
House of Commons had not full confidence in the
Ministers in administering the Executive Govern.
ment. In truth the Ministers have two sets of
functions completely distinct, one as Ministers of
the Crown, the other as leaders of the Legislature,
and, generally speaking, though both Houses might
repudiate their leadership as Legislators, they re-
posed confidence in them as the Executive.
Lord LYNDHURST, being quite incapable, ap-
parently, of getting beyond routine, and framing a
conception of a new and just line of policy adapted
to circumstances, evidently forms his idea of what
a Government should do by what it did when
it was the mere organ of the Aristocracy, and the
House of Commons was also under its command.
Because Mr. PITT, Lord CASTLEREAGH, Lord
LIVERPOOL, and the Duke of WELLINGTON,
who administered the Government for the behoof
of the Lords and the borough owners, could con-
trol both Houses, Lord LYNDIIURST jumps to
the conclusion that Lord 'MELBOURNE ought to do
the same. Unfortunately he is kept in counte-
nance by his opponents. The Ministers seem, like
him, to be incapable of forming an idea of what is
their duty under these new circumstances, and they
have made themselves obnoxious to Lord LYND-
HURST'S censure, by blindly following the prac-
tice of the Ministers, who were the creatures of the
borough-mongers. They have sought to monopolize
legislation as well as to possess the Government.
No independent Member has at any time much
chance of getting a measure through the House of
Commons, because the leading Minister of the Crown,
supported by the majority, occupies it almost
exclusively by party questions and the busi-
ness of the Crown. Not a few public Jour-
nalists give into the same routine idea, and
continually speak of the Executive Government as
doing nothing when it is- not forcing new laws
through the Legislature. We hold that not to be
its duty. We should have thought much better
of the Ministry had they abstained from bring-
ing in and promoting the new Police Act,
and the other twenty or thirty Bills they
laid on the table of the House of Commons
at the suggestion of some meddling, officious town-
clerks, some silly underlings of office, or some theo-
retical, dogmatical Members of their own party,
within the last two months. We should in that
case have felt much more confidence in their judg-
ment, and should have been better able to defend
them. To us it always appeared that it was their
business, after the events of May, to have
wound up the Session as speedily as possible,
to have proposed no measures but those
which were absolutely indispensable, and not to
have encumbered themselves with a load of nonsensi-
cal and absurd legislation, under which they have
broken down. While we, therefore, should have
been disposed to praise them more had they added
fewer laws to the Statute Book, we must admit that
by their conduct in practically undertaking to con-
trol the Legislature they have rendered themselves
obnoxious to Lord LYNDHURST'S censure.
But there is yet another side to this question. If
Lord LYNDIIURST think it the duty of the Exe-
cutive Government to influence and control the Le-
gislature—if the working of the two in harmony be
essential to preserve the authority of either and
both—if he and his friends could not form a
Government, then, on Lord LYNDHURST'S
own principle, it becomes a high crime and
misdemeanour on his part to throw obstructions
in the way of the Ministers, and he and his friends
have been guilty of the very offence for which the
Chartists have been punished—conspiring to bring
the Executive Government and the Legislature into
contempt. When he scolded the Ministers for
doing nothing, did he forget that the Tories,
by long speeches, by fierce opposition, by almost
endless cavilling, by needless motions, were the
great causes why the Ministers could do nothing?
The Noble Lord, as-Lord BROUGHAM said, when
he called the Tories Obstructives, stopped the
Ministers, and then with tones of impudent mockery
reproached them with not going forward. If it be
a fault in theNlinisters not to have made three-score
new laws, with which we reproach them not, that
fault more properly belongs to Lord LYNDHURST
and his friends, than to them ; for the Tories, though
unable to do any thing themselves, always pre-
vented their opponents from doing ally thing. We
have been made by late events heartily sick of the
reciprocal abuse which the two parties heap on
each other, but that must not prevent us from doing
justice to both. With this view we have endea-
voured to state impartially some respects in which
we think both have been wrong.

When Lord LYNDHURST and the Duke of
WELLINGTON first made their objections to the
Chartist Mayor of Bolton, we at once stigmatized
their conduct as introducing a new test into our
manners, if not into our laws. Such conduct was
indeed nothing unusual for them, because the
Tories have held, both theoretically and prac-
tically, that no rersons but Tories were qua-
lified for office, and for many years they
systematically and studiously excluded men from
the Magistracy, and from every public office, be-
cause they held Radical opinions, or were Dis-
senters. They made, in fact, their own creed the
test of fitness for all offices, and to differ from their
faith on'matters of Government and religion, was to
be a disloyal subject and an immoral man. The
Whigs, to our satisfaction, talked, at least,
against this principle, and denounced the Tories
lustily for excluding Dissenters from the Ma-
gistracy and Radicals from political power. But
now the Whigs are pursuing the Tory
course, and are prosecuting and punishing the
Chartists for their political opinions. Not a
crime have these men committed ; they have
merely talked most foolishly. The present Chartists
are only the Radicals of the period antecedent to
passing the Reform Act. The Tories take advantage
of this conduct of their opponents and make out a
good case against the Ministers when they accuse
them of creating a Chartist Mayor and Chartist Ma-
gistrates at Bolton. We have read with some disgust
the long tirades which Lord LYNDHURST and the
limes have pronounced against Mr. DERBYSHIRE,
the Mayor, and some of the Magistrates of
Bolton, because they have espoused the opi-
nions and favoured the cause of the Char-
tists. Surely Chartism is quite as honest
and as patriotic a political creed as Toryism.
What the Mayor ought to do in our opinion
is to avow his Chartism, and bid defiance to the
Tories. He would at once disarm them. But he
cannot do that without also flying in the face of
the Whirrs, and thus it is that the Whigs, by act-
ing on Tory doctrines, and by being zealous to en-
force Tory laws, give arms into the hands of their
opponents, and crush their own friends and sup-
porters.

We have already noticed the "charge" which
that fine specimen of Episcopacy the Bishop of
EXETER, is delivering in the course of his triennial
visitation. To promote the cause of intolerance,
and to screw up the pretensions of the hierarchy to
the full Romish pitch, seem to have been the chief
objects which Dr. PHILLPOTTS had in view when
he composed the charge which he is hawking about
his diocese. There are, however, some rebellious
spirits among the clergy over whom he claims the
right of domineering. One of these rebels has ac-
tually had the boldness, not only to think for him_
self on some points of doctrine, on which the
Bishop had referred him to the Liturgy and the
Canons, but has proceeded to such a height of
audacity—not to say impiety—as to publish in the
newspapers a counter-charge in the shape of a letter
to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of EXE-
TER. The Reverend person who has done this
deed is HENRY ERSKINE HEAD, A.M., Rector of
p
niten, and Chaplain to his Majesty the King of
H ANOV ER, a gentleman who, our readers may per-
haps recollect, has before now incurred the displca•
sure of his Diocesan, and felt the lash of his un-
governable tongue
ownfor presuming to have an
opinion of his
PHILLPOTTS
for.mer occasion, at a
confirmation, if we remember riht ineigled the
Rector of Feniton into ane attendance. in church
hai7inc,
on
aln religious matters.
to hear his address, on the understanding that no