The Sun.
London, England, 1837-06-12 00:00:00

SPIRT'!' (IF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

" in

There has been so long what men call " a crisis
the country, that it seems stale and hackneyed to re-
cur to the same term. Besides, we have alwav
thought it a terra, rather exaggerated, because we have
always clearly seen a sure and a peaceable way through
the difficulties by which we may at different periods
have seemed beset.- We knew that the Reform Bill
would be carried peaceably and quietly, and that it
would neither be carried by civil contest, nor followed
by' 'evolutionary confusion. We knew that slavery
would be abolished quietly and peaceably, and that it
would be followed neither by the ruin of our colonies,
nor by the insurrection of our subjects. We knew
that the mono-poly of the East India Company could
be ahrogated without the destruction of our trade,
or the subversion of dint body of enterprising mer-
chants to whom we are indebted for our splendid
dominion in the East. 'We knew that the English
Municipal Bill would become law, withcnt the gene-
ral confiscation of property on the one hand, or the
erection of a parcel of petty turbulent republics, as
was then predicted, on the other. In fact, there are
two grounds on which we base all our judgments—
the intelligence and the property accumulated by the
industry of the nation of which we ate citizens. The
one insures our onward progress, the other guarantees
us for that progress being safely and tranquilly made.
We are not thrown into a state of fury and surprise,
because change meets with opposition—it is the natu-
ral result of change in a free country. llegpotiem
effects its great revolutions suddenly and by blood.
Thus Peter carried reform in one empire, and Mali-
moud is carrying it in another. But amidst liberty and
civilisation the course of things is different. Prejudice
is destroyed not suddenly, because it is act destroyed
by massacre, but slowly because it is destroyed by
discussion. We do not foam at the mouth, then, be-
cause every thing has not been done in six years ; but
we look behind us and we look around us. By look-
ing behind us we see what public opinion can do ;
by looking around us we see what public opinion is
certain to be. Nations do not stand alone in the
world. Each era has its ideas, which are uni-
versal. The ideas of our era are as distinct
and as general as those of the feudal era ever were.
There are certain notions which prevail amongseall the
intelligent men and leading Statesmen in Europe,
Every step which is made in any part of the world,
every change which takes place, is in favour of those
notions. Whatever form of Government is outwardly
established, those notions inwardly and practically per-
vade it. " Out upon the idea of governing men ac-
cording to their religion ! out upon the idea of esta-
blishing classes to be marked by creeds, of privileging
or oppressing any body of men because they worship
God differently from ourselves." This is the language
held everywhere ; the course followed is in conformity
with it. In Prussia, the Protestant monarchy of Ger-
many, the Catholic of Silesia stands on the same foot-
ing as the Protestant of Brandenburg. In Belgium,
"the Catholic" state of Europe—the only state, per-
haps, in which Catholicism is fervently maintained—
the Protestant priest finds his salary in the budget by
the side of that allotted to the Catholic pastor. At
this moment, while we write and look around us, we
see nowhere still upstanding those prejudices which we
are combating in England. Nowhere throughout
Europe at this moment arc there Statesmen, hold-
ing the same opinions as Sir Robert Peel and
Lord Lyndhurst. Can we, then, fear that those
opinions will prevail ? Can we believe that human reaL
son is to traverse the world with the exception of our own
shores—that there is a line drawn round our own land,
and our legislature, which says " here religious equality
is not to prevail " ? No ; we believe no such thing.
Unshaken and unchanged by the terrible wars and
great convulsions which for twenty years overspread
the rest of Europe, we were not placed in the neces-
sity, by all old things being destroyed, of -at once
establishing everything new. Our old system has
been regenerating itself piece by piece, our antiquated
prejudices have been dropping away one by one. We
passed the Catholic Emancipation Bill ; we passed the
Test and Corporation Act ; still our minds could not
take in at once all the consequences of those principles
which we were forced to acknowledge. But ask any
person without the sphere of those feelings which the
inveterate prejudices of ages has stamped in our minds
too strongly to be at once effaced—ask any man ac-
customed to study the government and the history of
of mankind, and the sequence of events, which by a
strange necessity make one circumstance the natural
consequence of another, he will tell you that Canute,
when he said to the waves, " Stop here I" did not more
bitterly mock the flattery of his courtiers than the
Tory chiefs are mocking the ignorance and stu-
pidity of their adherents when they say, " Rest
satisfied; we will save you from all the further en-
croachments of the doctrines of that age you live in."
We do not fear the voluntary principle ; it maintains
itself nowhere but on the other side of the Atlantic,
in a country differing altogether from Europe and
ourselves ; but we know that Church-rates will be
- abolished, for we know no other country in Europe
and like ourselves where, under similar circum-
stances, they would he for one moment maintained.
We do not fear Catholicism in Ireland usurping a
civil exclusive power, because in no Catholic country
in our times do we find that to have taken place. But
we know that municipal institutions must and will be
given to Ireland, because they have everywhere—yes,
even in Lombardy, under Austria ; even in Rome,
under the Pope—been wisely established and eminently
successful. We do not fear that Protestantism in
England will be uprooted by the attempt to Protes-
tantize Ireland by the sword being abandoned, because
we find the Protestant faith quite as vigorous and
as healthful in one part 0, Prussia as if the
Catholic faith were trampled under foot in the other.
But we knos that the attempt to maintain a hostile
Church Establishment, which will make no attempt
to conciliate, and seeks every way to irritate, the great
bulk of the people among it is placed, must fail ; for
there is no friend to civilization and true Christianity
who does not deplore, and no person (we meen out of
the sphere of mere party politics) acquainted with the
means of governing—not only well and justly, but at
all—who does not condemn it. We come, then, to the
struggle which is now impending with a good courage.
The voice of Europe cheers us on, and the voice of
the majority of the people of England is in our favour.
Against us stands not the aristocracy, but a part of the
aristocracy, with that daring man at its head, who,
possessing many of the atteibutes of his predeces •
sor, Shnfteshury, seems resolved to ruin or to rule
the State ; but even in his language is artfully in-
troduced a quailing tone, though so disguised as
to persuade the stupid of his party that he still
remains obstinate, while it tells the more intelli-
gent he is becoming reasonable. More reason-
-0
able we know tie will become, for the force of events
compels it. The Irish Municipal Bill, that great and
healing measure, the first stable foundation for social
improvement in Ireland, will, eve say it With conviction,
be passed this Session. If this Act is the only one ut
this Session for Ireland, which we trust it
~ea not oe,
still this Act will be a centtuy of ic"..station. We say
we are certain that this Act pa'ss both Houses of
Parliament this Session--that the LoTrds will concede
this year, in that s;rit of certain and tranquil progress
to which we have
alluded, and which we constantly
predicate, wAiat they refused last. Yet still we may
be alloy%
:ed to express a regret that Lord John- Russ
sell. who speaks, he will remember, not as an indi-
vidual, but as the leader of a great party, should
have taken an occasion the other evening to compli-
ment, for the words went near a compliment, a body
the majority of which, in the person of their leader,
Were at that very moment receiving so severe and eo
well merited a chastisement from Len! Melbourne.
The conduct of that body has been reckless, has been
mischievous, not only to the interests of the country
in general, but to the interests of their own order in
particular. They have evinced a factious and party
spirit in all their resistance, and it will be from party
motives (for they never, as a party, could govern the
country without concessions,) that all their concessions
will he made. The House of Lords is note as a por-
tion of the State, to be wantonly attacked ; but it is
1NT,41,,Tt4.9 the other hand, looking at its conduct of late
_yeAtisiato be unnecessarily defended; and we must ex-
--.,
4$- Ige&Q as\our opinion that Lord John Russell went out
•