The Sun.
London, England, 1837-11-16 00:00:00

E SUN, LONDON, THURSJAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1837.

batch of politicians of his own kidney in the City of
Londonderry, and we are only doing an act of jus-
tice in saying, that the report of the proceedings afford
satisfactory evidence of two things of nearly equal
importance—first, that Lord LONDONDERRY is as
able as ever to perform the functions of his office ;
and, secondly, that he is sure of finding a successor in

his own family.
Our readers are aware that Lord LONDONDERRY'S
eloquence is of that not very peculiar style, called the
rambling ; and that he is the first reasoner of the non-'
sequitur school now in existence. The two speeches
of which he delivered himself at this dinner are
choice specimens in these respects. The mental
operations of this Noble Lord are so different
from those of other persons, that you can by no
possibility anticipate either the order in which the
ideas are to follow each other, or the conclusion
which is to be drawn from the premises. That which
should come first is put last, and the last first—there
is neither beginning, middle, nor end—all is higgledy-

•
piggledy.
We are a good deal struck with an observation
which fell from his Lordship. When lie was requested
by Mr. CANNING to retain the post of Ambassador
at the Court of Vienna he refused, and stated that
" a man's best guide was the instinct GOD AL-
MIGHTY placed within him." There is some
novelty in this remark. Reason has been ge-
nerally supposed to be man's best guide ; but
we confess we are now persuaded that there
are cases in which it is safer to trust to instinct.
Reason is liable to error—instinct is unerring ; and,
besides this, much puzzling of the brain is spared.
FALSTAFF was a coward by instinct ; why should
not Lord LONDONDERRY be a statesman by instinct ?
There is nothing like instinct.

A communication on the subject of Ir ish Nationa
Education is inserted elsewhere in our Paper, 'which
will be found interesting at the present time when so
much ignorance prevails on this subject, and so much
pains are taken by rogues and fanatics to work upon
that ignorance, and thus to impede the operation of
the National System in Ireland. Happily for that
country the beneficial effects of the plan of education
against which so great a clamour has been raised are
too clearly seen, and too highly appreciated by the
people, to be effectually assailed by its and their ene-
mies. We hope ere long to see a similar plan adopted
in England and Scotland.

Despite of all that has been said, or urged, or ar-
gued, to establish the.un-Englisliness of the Ballot,
the advocates of that measure are rapidly increasing in
numbers and in influence among all classes of the com-
munity. Tire Tories are manifestly a doomed race.
Their crimes are so notorious that they cannot expe-
perience a partial triumph in any quarter where the
true principles of representative Government are recog-
nised, without impressing the people with the convic-
tion that there is something radically wrong in the re-
presentative system. 'We are here supposing the evi-
dences of direct criminality to be wanting—that the
people are left to infer the cause from the effect. Thus
at the commencement of the last election the mal-
practices of the Tories were So well known, that the
Ballot would have been deemed necessary on the first
report of their partial success, had direct charges of
open bribery, intimidation, and corruption not have
been preferred against them. Their boasted majority
would have established the fact that there was some
thing wrong—" Something rotten i❑ the state of
Denmark." But when with this boast of a Tory
majority are coupled proofs the most irrefragable
of Tory bribery and intimidation, we can be at no
loss to account for the popular shout which is now
raised in favour of the Ballot. It was well observed by
Colonel CHURCHILL, in a speech delivered at a public
meeting held at Lincoln on the 26th ult., for the pur-
pose of petitioning Parliament in favour of the Ballot,
that " when a grievance is so generally felt that the
people. meet together to petition Parliament for its re-
moval, its.doom is already fixed." In that speech—
which we are happy to observe has been reprinted in
a cheap pamphlet form—the objections to the Ballot
are so ably disposed of, that we cannot render a greater
service to the electoral body than by making a few
quotations from it. We begin with the fact of the
Ballot's being a necessary vindication of the spirit of
the British Constitution :

" The immediate result of tendering a vote in secret is
the enabling the voter on the day of election to give effect
to his own will, to the exclusion of every other. If this re-
sult is obtained, as it unquestionably would be, under such
a process, the efficacy of the Ballot is confirmed beyond a
possibility of being shaken. That the vote of the elector
may be afterwards discovered or suspected—(discovered it
never could be)--through his own indiscretion, is a consi-
deration which does not in the least degree affect the effi-
ciency of the Ballot. His vote has been recorded. If,
under the veil of secrecy, that vote has been given con-
scientiously, against the will of a superior, which, bed it
been tendered openly, must have been given according to
his dictation—then the Ballot is vindicated—it has per-
formed its object—it has rescued a vote from illegal in-
fluence—it has enabled a vote to be given according to the
spirit of the Constitution, which would otherwise have
been given in violation of it. A law enacting the Ballet,
undertakes to give the elector protection. It succeeds most
fully and unequivocally. If the elector wilfully, or through
thoughtless indiscretion, renders that protection nugatory,
blame not the law, but the man. The system stands unaffected.
The individual has destroyed its efficacy as regards himself
—but the country has reaped the benefit of a conscientious
vote. Now the first object of the Ballot is to vindicate the
spirit of the law. A man of a suspicious mind may suspect
anything, a word, a gesture, or a look. Against the ven-
geance of such a man as this, no law, human or divine, that
we have yet he ,rd of, can protect a tenant or a trades-
man. The Ballot pretends not to affect such whims as
them It grapples with the system of intimidation, and
of punishment in the main. If it does not slay the giant
outright, it reduces him to an infant's strength. No rule
is without an exception. 7'he rule at present, where a
landlord and tenant differ at heart in politics is, that the
one coerces the other to vote against his deliberate convic-
tion : the execution is, that the tenant chooses to exercise
his own discretion, and to brave all consequences. Under
the Vote by Ballot, the rule would be, that the tenant
would exercise his own discretion, and the exception, that
tl e landlord might, upon a very strong case of suspicion,
harshly dismiss his tenant. See, how the tables are
turned To the beating down of tyranny—to the exalta-
tion of justice—to the benefit of the country."
Col. CHURCHILL'S exposure of the Tory fallacy
that the elective franchise is a trust, not a right, and
therefore ought not to be secretly exercised, is equally
pointed and convincing. The object of that fallacy is
to excite the passions of the non-electors against the
Ballot, by flattering them into a belief that the electors
are responsible to them for the use they make of the
elective franchise. Preposterous as is this assumption,
we have known many well-meaning honest Radicals to
be completely carried away by it. They could not
perceive that the elective franchise is as much the
right of the elector as the money in his pocket ; and
that the non-elector has, in reality, no more claim to
dictate the side on which to give a vote than he has
to meddle with the outlay of the money. Colonel
CHURCHILL truly says :---
" The elector is no more responsible for the discharge of
his duty to the non-elector, than he is to his landlord or
employer. The Legislature, in selectinc, him to vote for a
representative, has declared its belief that he is fit to exer-
cise his judgment upon political affairs in general, and calls
upon him to exert his individual intelligence accordingly,
without in the remotest degree insinuating that he is to do
so in reference to any other individual, or number of indi-
viduals. Let not, then, the householders here present, or
any other non-electors, be carried away with the idea, that
because they themselves have no voice in regulating the
affairs of the country, they can claim a jurisdiction over
those who have. Let them hear the undisguised truth,
however, that they are unrepresented. *
How long such a state of things will continue, it is not for
me to say—or rather, I may say this, that it will continue

as long as the people arc content with it, and no longer.
But this has nothing to do with the question before us.
If the electors were responsible to the non-electors, the
advocates of the Ballot. would have to lay down their arms,
and cry surrender at once. But as such a doctrine is re-
pugnant to common sense and reason, and is nowhere
sanctioned by law—the Ballot again cometh forth un-
scathed from the attacks of its antagonists."
The question of the effect which the Ballot will
have upon _ the present syste:n of open and corrupt
bribery, is well handled by the Gallant Officer. He
says truly that the Ballot does not undertake wholly
to eiadicate bribery,- because it cannot make wise and
prudent men of fools and spendthrifts ; but it will
rendtr the consequences of bribery so precarious that no
man who knows the value, and can feel the want of a
shilling, will have recourse to it. But this, after all,
is a point of very secondary importance. It is the
vote, not the bribe, that the country is chiefly interested
in. At present we denounce the bribe and the menace,
because they are necessarily followed by the ruin of the
elector, or a bad vote. Were the Ballot established,
the vote at all events would he free ; and, therefore, in
nine cases out of ten, honestly given.. No elector
would be such a simpleton as to consider himself bound
to betray his country, because some scoundrel of a
landlord had basely exacted from him a promise to that
effect, any more than he would commit a murder
which, to save his own life, he had promised
to perpetrate. Landlords would hence soon learn •
that nothing was to be gained by intimidation ;
that to be influential it would be necessary for
them to conciliate the affections of their tenantry.
This is what the Tories really dread. As to the
un-Englishness of the Ballot it would have, some
weight with us, could we but convince ourselves that
Englishmen reckon bribery, intimidation, perjury, and
drunkenness national virtues. But until it can be
proved that an Englishman would deem it a greater
disgrace to record in secret a vote for upholding the
liberties of his country, than to suborn an elector,
pocket a bribe; oppress a tenant, commit perjury, or
sell his birthright for the indulgence of a beastly ap-
retite, the advocates of the Ballot must carry with
hem the virtuous sympathies of the British people.

By the arrival at Liverpool of the packet-ship
United States, from New York, we have received
American papers to the 27th ult., inclusive. The ex-
traordinary Session of Congress was closed on the
16th, although neither of the financial schemes recom-
mended by the President had been adopted. Trade
was fast improving. As the rates of exchange are
quoted in our City article, it is unnecessary here to
repeat them. The loss of the steam-packet Home, of
which the details are given in another part of The Sun,
created a great sensation in New York. Seventy
passengers and twenty-five of the crew, in all ninety-
five persons, lost their lives.
The packet President, from London and Ports-
mouth, with J. S. B UCKINGH AM, Esq., and family
on board, arrived at New York on the 20th ; on the
same day the ship Independence, NYE, from Liver-
pool, and the St. Andrew, from Liverpool, also
arrived at that City.

We have been struck by the perusal of an article
in the Constitution—an Upper Canadian Journal—
entitled " The Democracy of Upper Canada," which,
we understand, has attracted a good deal of attention
on the other side of the Atlantic. The complaints of
the Upper Canadians might be transferred to our
columns as the complaints of the labouring population
of Great Britain and Ireland. We are not a jot better
off than the Colonists on most of the poi►its upon
which they lay so much stress. We are governed,
taxed, and judged by men over whose conduct the
working classes can exercise no sort of controul, in
influence either direct or indirect. Six out of every
seven Englishmen who pay taxes are denied the exer-
cise of the right of franchise ; and as for the high and
profitable posts in the army, the navy, and the diplo-
matic service, the aristocracy claims them as a sort of
hereditary perquisite. Here we are on equal terms
with the Canadians. In England the poor sow ; the
aristocracy reap—the poor build palaces ; the aristo-
cracy inhabit them—the poor want necessaries ; the
aristocracy superabound in luxuries—the poor have
not hovels in which to hide their heads ; the horses
and dogs of the aristocracy are lodged in castles—the
poor die of hunger, or diseases brought on by want ;
the aristocracy of maladies engendered by repletion.
Have the Canadians greater evils to.complain of ? Are
they more the victims of aristocratical monopoly and
oppression than are the people of Great Britain and
Ireland ? They shall speak for themselves. We
quote the article to which we have referred above, that
their fellow-subjects here may have an opportunity of
becoming acquainted with their sentiments and feelings.
For their complaints of the mischievous policy of the
Colonial Office there is, we confess, ample grounds.
We think, too, that Lord MELBOURNE is not alto-
gether blameless in not taking more pains to correct
the errors of his subordinates in office. His Lordship,
as head of the Government, is bound to insist on unity
in its political action, both at home and abroad. Of
the conduct of the House of Commons in voting Lord
JOUN RUSSELL'S coercive resolutions, we have al-
ready spoken in language not to be Misunderstood. We
may therefore spare ourselves all further allusion to it,
till we see what course Ministers propose to take when
the question is again brought before the Imperial Par-
liament. In the meantime we can tell the Canadians
that they have the sympathies and—were occasion to
demand it—will have the voice of the working classes
of Great Britain and Ireland in their favour. Haviiig
premised thus much, we shall allow them to state their
own case—to run over the catoloaue of their own

grievances :--
PEOPLE ! LOOK ! ! LOOK ! !!--•THE DEMOCRACY OP UPPER

CANADA.

The present is truly an alarming time to the people. We
see, on the one hand, the great mass of the people op-
pressed, intimidated, and deprived of their rights. On
the other, we see the Colonial Government with its Go-
vernor acting in the most tyrannical, partial, and unjust
manner, surrounded by all the officers of his patronage—a
set of dependent tools—men without principle, holding
office at his will. In other words, we see the great mass
of the people of this Province living under a Government
falsely called free—and absolutely ruled, taxed, and judged
by men over whom they exercise no controul—by men
who are alone responsible to one man—that is, the Gover-
nor of the Province. The Government of Upper Canada
is now and has been for some years a compact between an
English Governor, a stranger in the land, and a band of
officials whose constant aim is to aggradize themselves—the
few at the expense of the many. The first thing tl.e Go-
vernor does when he comes to Canada, is to enter into a
league offensive and defensive with this band, or in other
words, the Aristocracy of the land for his and their mu-
tual aggrandizement, and the upholding of abuses and
misgovernment in this Province. Ramifications of this
aristocracy stretch themselves from the Government House
to the extremities of the Province in the shape of magis-
trates, sheriffs, clerks of the peace, registrars, judges, com-
missioners, and other office-holders too numerous to men-
tion—all holding their offices and their livelihood at the
will of a foreign Governor from England. You may add
to these a pensioned Clergy of Government, poisoning the
minds of men by their hireling preaching. Herein consists
the power of the Government of Upper Canada, all is
centered in the hands of one man, and he a stranger to
the people and the country. This executive has the power
at any moment (if he people even dare choose an inde-
pendent House of Assembly), of dismissing it and calling
another by intrigue, intimidation and other ways, chosen
from among its own officials and dependents, like the pre-
sent House, where every other man is an official, or con-
nected with them in some way or other. This, People of
Upper Canada, is your Government! In the name of
God! I ask, is this a Government fit for freemen or en-
lightened Englishmen or Americans ? Can the people have
no better Government ? Can the majority of the people
ever flourish under a Government whose sole object is op-
pression, monopoly, gross partiality, and individual perse-