The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Malice, folly, and falsehood arc the chief components of an
article in the Tir?:c.,7 tiatnrday, on the subject ofthe Inch Mu-
nicipal Corporation Bill : but as these are commonly " the
ingrottents oF is. caul.lron," a fresh instance excite no
surprii,. It [,.:glos tiiu :—" Aft,:r the ir,i;es he out,
ail the prot'esiions put forth on the subject of the
Municipal Corporation Bill, by the Ministers of the
Crown, the country will hardly believe the fact, that they
have once more thrown it out." We should be astonished
if the country did believe it, seeing that the Lords sent it
back to the Commons with a provision regarding the fran-
chis~ which they intended to he fatal t the measure, and
which tii,v knew wouti hn t;) (-)y twn ye.ors

ago they said that Ireland should have no Corporations
at all, that the people were not fit for them ; and this
year they say that if Ireland be allowed Corporations,
they shall only he such as 'sill preserve the ascendancy of
the Orange minority, and perpetuatu all the abuses which
that minority has created and fostered. By insisting upon
the high qualification the Tory Lords have thrown out
the Bill, and it was their wish that it should be thrown
out. Then, as to " hopes held out," and " professions
put forth," who held them out, and who put them forth ?
Who talked of the time having arrived when `Vice" and d
oonciliation" should be the order of the day ? sai
that "this exciting question had been too long pending, and
that it was fit at once and for ever to settle it ?" Were
not these the words of Sir Robert Peel and of his party in
both Houses ? Did they not speak of amicable adjust-
ment ea! peace often enough to make people doubt their
sincerity wit'out the aid of experience ? "Is it peace
Jehu ? What bast thou to do with peace ? Turn thee
behind me ;" and then Lord Bacon, -quoting this well-re-
membered passage. adds, " Peace is not the matter, but
following and party." We might add, continuing the sa-
cred text, "It is treachery !" The professions of the
Tories wereintended to mislead, they never wished to grant
Corporate Reform in Ireland ; they came with pretences
of peace, ise;t. the result shows that they meant trea-
chery. As to tii;'
folly of the article in the Times, can
there be stronger proof of than that it adopts the position of
Mr. Shaw ? " There had sine --: no idea," observes our
on Bill was among
Contemporary," that the Irish Corpopt.:-.;
the business of Thursday night ; there had he&.: no notice
from the Government," &c. Why, it was in the list of
the orders of tbe day of the House of Lords, and all the
world was informed that a conference was to be required,
because on Wednesday the Peers had publicly come to
that determination. The Times and Mr. Shaw alone were
ignorant of the fact, and not a single Member on the Tory
side of the House could be found to back the Honour-
able and Learned Member in his assertion of surprise. But
what says the Times to the precedent of 1836, when this
very Bill was treated in this very manner? Let the reader
mark that the complaint is that due time was not allowed;
yet the argument of the Times is that it was June
svisep the Lords' amendments were unceremoniously
rejectOd in 1836, and August when the same course
was pursued with regard :to them in 1838. If
notice be so necessary in August, tlB3B, when
the Session is near its close, surely it was doubly proper in
June, 1836, when, as our Contemporary states, " the at-
tendance of Members was regular and unremitted," and
when abundance of time was allowed, because the Session
was not near its close. Yet no notice was then given by
Ministers any more than in the case which has just oc-
curred ; so that if the argument of the Times proves any-
thing, it proves that no notice was required, and that no-
body was or could be taken by surprise. Dryden tells us
That still there goes some thinking to ill-nature;
but the Times is of a contrary opinion, and obviously hopes
to be ill-natured without thinking. Now we come to
the falsehood of the article, the base and deliberate false-
hood : we dislike hard words, but we can call it no-
thing brit base and deliberate falsehood. It is con-
tained in the following sentence :—" But the case of
1836 and the case of 1838, materially as they differ
from each other with respect to the season of the
year, differ yet more toaterially with respect to the substance
of the transaction. In 1336 there had been no delusive
declarations of a design to aelept the amendments of the
Lords." When and by whom sswe "delusive declarations"
made of "a design to accept the amendments of the
Lords" ? Were they to be found in the spirited assertion
of Lord John Russell, which drew down the cheers of the
whole House of Commons, that " he would not .submit his
neck to the yoke of the House of Lords," and that " he
would not insult Ireland by inflicting upon her a bight"
qualification than was required in England or in Scot-
land"? The very amendment of the Peers to the fran-
chise was at that moment under consideration ; and do the
words we have quoted from the speech of the Ministerial
leader look like " delusive declarations of a design to accept
theamendruents of the Lords" ? The statetnent in the Times
is not only false, but deliberately, and therefore basely,
false ; and when that paper went on to maintain that
" on Thursday morning not a man beyond the confidential
circle of Ministers themselves could have told what recep-
tion the qualification clause was finally to receive," it well
knew that not only every Liberal, but every Tory in the
House of Commons was apprized of the fact, that by per-
severing in the qualification clause the Lords had rendere I
it certain that the Bill could not be passed in the present
session. The Opposition Members stayed away for no
other reason ; and though tile Times trusts so fir to the
simplicity and credulity of its readers as to affect to say
that if notice had been given and a division had occurred,
" it would be difficult to say with any certainty on. which
aide the victory would have fallen," the Tories were well
aware that they had no chance, and that, had they wished
it, they could not have forced such a mockery of a Bill
upon the people of Ireland.—Morning Chronicle.
The exposure which the Earl of Haddington submitted
to the House of Lords on Friday night, respecting a late
extraordinary augmentation of Justices of the Peace for the
city of Edinburgh, discloses an instance of political favour-
itism and party exclusiveness which no apprehensions of our
being committed for contempt shall deter us from charac-
terizing as singularly, nay, let us rather say, systematically,
unfortunate and offensive. -That the exalted Judge whose
province it is to manage such 'matters can have permitted
himself to be unduly biassed either this case or in the
Yorkshire one of a similar character which recently pre-
eeded it, is what we cannot for a moment believe.
Whether our suspicions as to the parties by whoa) these
transactions are unhappily fathered upon the Lord Chnn-
cellor ,be correct or otherwise, it is not for us to say ; hut
assuredly, after the inculpatory details adduced by Lord
Haddimtton, and corroborated by Lord Lyndhuret
with great additional aggravations, the learned and dis-
tinguished functionary to whom these noblemen addressed
themselves will feel it an imperative obligation, as
well for his own comfort as for the sake of that public jus-
tice- over which he' blamelessly presides, to take instant
measures for ascertaining and ejecting from his confidence
the persons who have so irreverently abused it. Were it
not that the multiplicity of the Lord Chancellor's avoca-
tions must often disqualify his Lordship for bestowing any
very tninute attention upon such matters as the present,
we should certainly express surprise that the peculiar
c:rcumstances under which the objectionable list of Edin-
burgh justices was submitted for the Learned Lord's ap-
proval did not awaken his suspicions. In the first place,
any person acquainted with the northern metropolis must
know that a proposal to appoint 90 or 100 Justices in ad-
dition to the Sheriffs and regular Magistracy, for a popula-
tion consisting of only about 150,000, is utterly prepos-
terous, as being wholly disproportionate to the judicial
necessities of the city. According to the sate ratio.
London and the suburbs would require nearly two
thousand Justices of the Peace ; while, in order that
the absurdity of this Edinburgh business may be still
more apparent, we would respectfully remind the Lord
Chanc ,Ilor, not only that that city, though rapidly increas-
ing in crime, has much less occasion for a formidable Ma-
gistracy than London, but that the capital of Scotland,
where such an augmented Justiciary bas been deemed ne-
cessary, is one of the very places to which his Lordship, in
common with his Cabinet Colleagues, has refused to grant
the addition of a single Clergy man ! If the poor of Edin-
burgh require no additional religious superintendence (as
Lord Cottenham and his Colleagues affirm) it seems diffi-
cult to understand upon what principle, if not a party one,
this enormous multiplication of Magistrates can be justified.
In the second place, it turns out that the first list of Jus-
tices which his Lordship had received from the Ex-Lord
Provost of Edinburgh (who, though a decided Whig, is a
highly respectable and impartial man) was afterwards aban-
doned, and another substituted in its place, in deference to
an application from the present Provost, whose services to
the Wbigs have lately procured him a Baronetcy. That
the substitution of a huge list for a probably much
smaller one, which had previously emanated from an
equally respectable quarter, should not have induced the
Lord Chancellor to institute certain inquiries respecting
the cause and propriety of the change is scarcely credible ;
and as the Lord-Advocate (who, albeit first law officer of
the Crown for Scotland, is chiefly known in this country as
chairman of the Roxburgh committee) is the only official
adviser of Government in all such cases, it seems natural
to conclude that the offensive political and party com-
plexion of the adopted list, as well as the strong assurances
which Lord Cottenham received about it being unobjec-
tionable, and so forth, may be laid presumptively at that
thoroughgoing functionary's door. In truth, we have no
more doubt of this than of our own existence. Nor could
li I present Lord Provost of Edinburgh have ventured
either to prepare or present his new list of Justices, apart
from the sanction of the Lord-Advocate, any more than be
could have obtained his Baronetcy without that officer's
patronage. But while this explanation -must be held as
completely exonerating the Lord Chancellor from all in-
dividual blame in regard to the exclusive and party
character of these appointments, our readers will

doubtless feel that the Ministry who can con-
tinue to confide in inferior functionaries capable
of being implicated in such transactions are by no
means so excusable. Tl.c. Ju.itices
who have been palmed upon the Lord Chan-
cellor's acceptance are, with only three or four
exceptions, violent partisans of the 'Whig faction. The
Shallows and Greedys who hive been passed of under the
respectable name of " erellantsr are discovered (to the
confessed surprise of the Lord Chancellor, who doubtless
thought they were the Barings of the North), to be nothing
better than little retail shopkeepers, whose absolute insigni-
ficance renders their Magisterial promotion not more a
topic of public scandal than an ifle edible wonder to them-
, selves. Really, my Lord- Advocate, three Conservative
Justices tit 87 Whigs—why, the Roxburgh case was moon-
Ititar. to iris, i;at, finally, the Lord t :hanceilor must also
have been grievnitsl imposed en in regard to the designa-
tion and profession of another class of persons (chiefly
sturdy Whigs, mind), whom his Lordship has been made
the instrument of investing with the commission of the
peace. It appears that about twenty of these are " Writers
to the Signet," which in Edinburgh is just another
name for attornies. Now, the idea of making men jus-
tices who gain their bread by conducting law suits, and
whose judicial favour may by possibility be conciliated by
flinging jobs in their way, in the same manner as an Edin-
burgh merchant may he expected to oblige a customer, is
certainly something novel. Nor is the Lord Chancellor by
any means insensible to such an incongruity. On the con-
trary, his Lordship on a recent occasion (as we learn from
a Glasgow paragraph which appeared in Saturday's paper)
positi%ely refused to appoint certain Conservative free-
holders as Justices Gf the Peace in Argyleshire, on the
express ground that they follow the profession of writers
or attornies. No doubt one of the Justices appointed to
sup-rsede these gentlemen happens to he not only a
" writer" also, but, awkwarder still, a regular canvassing
agent for Mr. Campbell, the Whim Member ; and al-
though the Lord Chancellor has inadvertently been be-
trayed once more into the creation of a large batch of
writer-Justices, being Edinburgh Whigs, we feel com-
forted in the conviction that his Lordship's vigilant exer-
tions to guard against abuses must have been shamefully
evaded, otherwise no such anomalies could have occurred.
We strongly recommend Lord Haddington to move for a
return of any correspondence that may have passed upon
the same subject between the Lord Chancellor and the
Lord Advocate, and also between the Lord Advocate and
the Home-office.—Times.

A triumphant vindication of the national system of edu
cation in Ireland against the calumnies which bigotry has
levelled at it, is now publishing in the form of a pamphlet,
containing " A Speech of the Lord Bishop of Norwich,
with an Appendix of Letters on the Causes of the Oppo-
sition made to the System in Ireland, and on the State of
the National Schools in Liverpool." Perhaps the strongest
evidence which could be adduced of the impartial manage-
ment of the Board to whom this important object has been
confided, is the fact of its being assailed at the same time
by the Right Rev. Prelate of Exeter, and Dr. M'Hale,
the titular Bishop of Tuam—the one accusing it of en-
deavouring to undermine the Established religion and pro-
mote the interests of Popery ; the other charging it with
the diffusion of " pernicious volumes," which must over-
turn the whole system of the Roman Catholic religion.
Thus accused by both parties, the impartial management
of the Board may be more fairly inferred from the
conflicting accusations made against it by its Right
Rev. assailants, than from the most direct and positive
evidence. This combined assault on the national system of
education in Ireland by two individuals, apparently so
diametrically opposed in opinion, will not excite surprise
amongst those who consider the powerful influence which
education exercises in abolishing all manner of abuses and
intolerance. The Bishop of Exeter, as a Tory and a
Churchman, sees in the diffusion of education the destruc-
tion of privilege and ascendancy. Bishop M'Hale recog-
nises in it the emancipation of mind from priestly thraldom.
Botb, therefore, considering their interests compromised by
the system, put forward an anxiety for the maintenance of
their religious opinions as a pretext for denouncing it.
The impartiality of the system being thus established,
its efficiency becomes the next subject of inquiry, and
considering the great difficulties to be encountered on
its introduction, its success has been such as not only to
equal, but even outstrip anticipation. One of the most
serious of these difficulties was the hostility with which
the system was regarded by the local Clergymen of both
denominations, who were irritated at not being each per-
71itted to pervert it to his individual purpose. The Pro-
testot Clergy especially carried this opposition to such an
extent,
in many instances to be unwilling that the Ca-
tholic religion
sho lto have the schools conducted as if there
sioners, but wishe....l
was not a single Catho.l.;° to participate of their instruction.
The prejudices of both pa:.tiel, so far as they are sincere,
and not affected merely tor slot:ter and selfish objects, are
daily subsiding before the temperate and enlightened ma-
nagement of the Board. Many of the slanders concocted
against those to whose care the schools have been con-
fided, are' in the letters before us clearly demonstrated to
have arisen from a spirit similar to that which induced the
Bishop of Exeter, in a circular to certain clergymen of
Ireland, to request them to give him information " espe-
cially of any instances of the abuses of the system, and
the perversions of it to the purposes either of Popery
or agitation." This hint of course served to 'stimulate
the inventive faculties of those who wished to conciliate
factious and intolerant prejudices, and accordingly the
instances of improper management
_alleged against the
schools prove on investigation to exist only in the jaundiced
imagination of their assailants. The correspondence on the
National Schools of Liverpool reveals similar schemes for
the dissemination of false accusation, which is, however,
convincingly refuted even by the contradictory evidince of
the conspirators themselves. The truth is, the general
diffusion of education, under any auspices, is regarded with
fear and trembling by all who derive advantage from the
subjugation and debasement of their fellow-men. An edu-
cated people can never remain an enslaved people. The
cultivated mind instinctively revolts against oppression, and
having intellect to give effect to its will, no prestige nor
power of tyranny can resist its enfranchisement. education
is as esential to the assertion as it is to the enjoyment of
political liberty. Even the universality of the suffrage, un-
less accompanied with universality of education, would fail
to guarantee the fruition of popular rights, and wily serve
to unsettle exiting tustitutions without securing the esta-
blisi)nent of better. Therefore it is that even if the sys-
tem of eti,:eation in Ireland be not so .perfect as might be
wished, we r,gar 'd it as the most certain instrument of ef-
regeneration.—Morning Advertiser.
fecting that country.`.'
of all the difficulties
The present aim of the Whigs, in Parliament and out
of it, is to log the responsiby
and disasters which are likely to• ,2pcur in Canada
upon the Conservative party. It is necessary ....I.lat the
pudence and untruth involved in this attempt shouLlim-
be
fully exposed, and happily there is nothing required for
this exposure beyond a plain statement of the case be-
tween the Government and the Opposition, as that case
now stands. It is alleged that the Conservative Opposi-
tion has interfered with the policy of the Whig Govern•
meat for restoring peace and good order to Canada, and,
therefore, the Government ought not to be held respon-
sible for what hereafter may happen. One direct, and, as
it seems to us, conclusive answer to this allegation, we
have *already laid before the public, namely, that the Go-
vernment is not compelled to continue in the adminis-
tration of the affairs of Canada, or of any other part
of the empire, and that if a Government be interfered
with to an extent which renders it impossible that
its views of good policy should be carried out, it
ought to resign. By that method, but by that method
alone, can it throw the responsibility upon those who have
interfered. To say that there is a Government which is
not to be held virtually responsible for the acts of Govern-
ment, is to say that which is utterly nonsensical. It is the
grossest contradiction of the plainest principles of Ministe-
rial accountableness. Whether a Minister act from his
own judgment or from the views which others force upon
him, he is equally in the eye of the Constitution and of the
law responsible, so long as he continues Minister. It would
be no answer to an impeachment to say that the acts with
which the Minister was charged were acts of which he did
not approve. This, indeed, would rather he held an aggrava-
tion of the offence, for however criminal it may be for a Mini-
ster to act with such folly as to brit, his country into diffi-
culty or danger, it is far more criminal to act with such mean
sordidness as to hold his place of Minister, while the Go-
vernment is compelled to do that which he believes to be
wrong. The man who consents to execute a public wrong
with his eyes open to the wrong, is undoubtedly a
worse villain than the man who errs through blameable ig-
norance. But what is the kind of interference of which
the Conservatives are accused, and which is (as their ad-
versaries say) to draw upon them, the responsibility of Ca-
nadian misadventures ? It is simply that they demand that
the affairs of Canada shall be managed according to law.
This is the amount of their interference, and for this it is,
that political men, who affect to be fond of political li-
berty, dare to fiad fault with them. Now substantial
political liberty as contra-distinguished from the vain rant
knaves, declaimers,
in the absolutism
deceitful pretences
osuffi f noisy
Ytofthoef self-
sufficient
so that every man who knows the law may say thus far
and no farther can the hand of power be
extended over
me. The Conservatives concurred
great powers to the Governor of Canada. They
con-
sented
to make it lawful for such Governor toex-
ereise authority quite unknown to the ordinary circum-
stances of British subjects, and this they did in considera-
tion of the very unusual and very difficult and dangerous
state in which Canadian affairs were found to be. But
within these unusual legal powers the Whig Government
is not content to contain itself, and it does in fact proclaim

to the whole world, that notwithstanding the extraordinary
powers which it legally possesses in Canada, it finds a poli-
tical expediency in going beyond them, and governing con-
trary to law ! And shall we be told that in a country where
the blessings of freedom are felt and understood, this will
meet with approbation ? Shall it be proclaimed by men
roressing " liberality" and hatred of arbitrary power, that
to " interfere" with such illegal proceeding will be looked
upon as an offence by the people of England ? Shall the
public be insultßd by hearing it asserted that they would
rather have illegal government, while Whig-Radicals are
their governors, than have this illegality called in ques-
tion by the political opponents of these Whig-Radicals.
Surely the Whigs must consider the British people
to be sunk into something worse than Turkish abasement
and stupidity, when they venture to make such representa-
tions to them as they have done touching these Canadian
affairs. The case of the Whigs, if stated plainly by them,
would be this :—" We have very great powers granted us,
by Parliament, but they are not exactly the sort of powers
which suit us. If we are to arrange these perplexed affairs
in the best. manner, we must violate the law in so doing ;
and if you Conservatives are so scrupulous as to interfere
with our violation of the law, upon your heads be all the
consequence-8. We shall continue in our places and re-
ceive our salaries, but we wash our hands of our respon-
sibility ; and you Conservatives, who have nothing to do
with the Government, yet interfere to hinder the Govern-
ment from acting illegally, shall bear all the odium which
may arise from misadventure in our legal administration
of Canadian hilliness. You shall either allow us to
infringe the law, or you shall bear our responsibility."
We venture to affirm that nothing so monstrous
as this was ever before submitted by Governors to a ra-
tional and free people. It cannot be conceived that such a
statement. should be propounded by public men unless in
the last and very worst stage of political depravity, or in
that desperate condition .of utter helplessness, that they
rave any extravagant nonsense that comes uppermost with-
out being conscious of what they say. Viscount Mel-
bourne, in that peculiar phraseology of his, which seems
to be imitated half from fashionable novels, and half from
fanatical sermons, acquaints the House of Lords—at the
very moment, too, when he admitted the utter illegality of
what Lord Durham had done—that he feared the disal-
lowing of the illegal ordinances " would go to the root of
authority in the Canadian provinces." By this he doubt-
less means that it would be a heavy blow and a great dis-
couragement to the personal weight and authority of his
Excellency the Earl of Durham. We agree with him
that such would seem to be the natural result, but
we certainly look with no great apprehension upon
that' event. Bad effects may, and - probably will,
flow from the misgovernment of Canada by the silly and
arrogant Lord Durham ; but no effect resulting from a
conviction of his erroneousness could be a thousandth part
so bad as tile recognized endurance of illegal government
for a single day by the British people. This is the mon-
strous thing which dastardly place-loving Whig-Radicals
defend, and seek to maintain. Servile and sordid in heart,
as they are vain-glorious and boastful in speech, they would
let public liberty be trampled upon by the Earl of Dur-
ham because he is of their faction. The Whig-Radicals
would teach the British people (whose glory it is that they
can only be constrained by laws in the making of which
they themselves have a voice), that this privilege is to be
sacrificed, because an upstart lordling of yesterday, who
with profuse hand scatters places among his minions, finds
it more convenient to break the law than to hold it in re-
verence. This is a fitting consummation of Whig-Radi-
calism. Begotten in vanity and spite, and nurtured in the
hateful shades of craft and calumny, it comes forth at last,
in the full maturity of abjectness and absolutism—a hideous
monster, in which the baseness of the slave and the bruta-
ity of the tyrant are curiously intermixed.—Morning Post.