The Sun.
London, England, 1837-08-14 00:00:00

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LONDON
MONDAY EVENING, AUGUST 14, 1837.

A day or two will put the public in possession of the
final result of the general election. That it will not
be apparently so favourable to the cause of national
improvement as was at one time anticipated, we rea-
dily admit. There will be a greater number of Tories
in the new Parliament than there ought to be, or than
there would have been, had more strenuous exertions
been made on the Liberal side. The want of organiza-
tion on the part of the Reformers has, in many cases,
proved fatal to the return of Liberal candidates ;
while, on the other hand, the Tories have had the
benefit of a perfect system of tactics, in addition to
their other less reputable means of success. Nu-
merically the Tory party may, perhaps, not have lost
much, nor the Liberal gained a great deal ; but when
it is considered that the greater part of the English
counties are now reduced to the state in which the
rotten boroughs were before the passing of the Reform
Bill—that is to say, that the franchise though osten-
sibly in the occupier, is virtually in the proprietor of
the soil—and that the grossest bribery and other
base means have been resorted to to corrupt the
electors in the small boroughs, it is not to
numbers merely that we are to look in estimating the
weight due to a majority in the House of Commons.
When Sir ROBERT PEEL gave way upon the great
7-estion of the abolition of the Test and Corporation
Acts in 1828, there was a majority of only forty-four
in favour of the measure. Did the Right Hon. Ba-
ronet think this too small a surplus to turn the scale
on so important a point of national policy ?
Far from it. He said, as every sensible man would
have said in that and similar cases, that we must not
look only to the number of members on a division, but
to the :numbers of persons whom they represent. Sir
ROBERT then stated that on examining the merits of
of the division in this way, he found that all
the Representatives of populous places were in fa-
vour of the proposed measure, and that as this
was a test of the public opinion which he be-
lieved to be, if not infallible, at least the best that
could be had, be could no longer justify it to his con-
science to oppose it.
Now what do the present elections say as to this
matter ? Can the Tories boast of having the
voice of the people with them when Sir ROBERT
PEEL'S criterion is adopted ? Can they bring for-
ward the million and a half of inhabitants comprised
within the metropolitan districts—can they bring for-
ward Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, the
West Riding, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Greenock, Perth,
as proofs of the popular enthusiasm in their favour? Or,
to turn to Ireland, can they show that the great constitu-
encies there are more partial to them and their politics ?
No—there matters are, if possible, worse. Ireland returns
seventy-five Reformers, and eighteen of these repre-
sent places containing TWO MILLIONS AND A HALF
OF PERSONS. May we not, under these circum-
stances, ask the organs of Toryism to show us their
proofs of reaction—or at all events to account, upon
that principle, for the astounding facts which we
have stated ?

Sir JAMES GRAHAM has published an address to
the electors of East Cumberland, in which he says .‘ I
have redeemed my pledge. Every elector has had an
opportunity of recording his vote ; and when I con-
sider the number of those who have honoured me with
their individual support, and sum up the promises of
split votes between me and one of the candidates, I
still feel that I was justified in my anticipation of suc-
cess. These promises have been broken ; I have
been deceived, and am defeated." It is very easy—
nothing more so—for a defeated candidate to attribute
his defeat to bad faith on the part of his supporters ;
it is a sort of breaking of his fall—a letting of himself
down gently ; and accordingly we find that in almost
every instance in which a Tory has been re-
jected, he has made a point of comforting himself by
some such reflections as the Right Hon. Baronet has
here thrown out. But was Sir JAMES " deceived ?"
Most assuredly he was, but not by others, but by him-
self. His own self-complacency played him false. He
imagined that he had only to offer himself, to be ac-
cepted with gratitude and humility by the electors of
East Cumberland; that no matter what chance might
have taken place in himself, they would be still un-
changed, for they had neither the sense to perceive, nor
the spirit to resent, any dereliction of duty on the part
of their former representative. Thinking thus of the con-
stituency, Sir J. GRAHAM made sure of being returned
for the Division ; consequently, so far from being de-
ceived by others, he is, in reality, the victim of self-
mofleception. Had he been true to his old creed, and
not desethe ranks of the Reformers, he had still
been Nlemkg., or East Cumberland ; but he preferred
4.(4( *`,,,fl-. instead to ean apostate, and heap up abuse on

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