The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-27 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING ADVERTISER,

Sts,—My attention has been called this day to a
paragraph in the Morning Advertiser, of the 14th inst.,
which states—" That if these noblemen (Lord Stratford
de Redcliffe and Lord Westmoreland) were called on to
state what had passed in writing between an illustrious
personage and themselves, relative to the Eastern ques-
tion, and to produce the correspondence, we have no
doubt that disclosures would be made that would startle
the people of England from their propriety."
I lose no time in informing you that there is not the
slightest foundation for the supposition therein contained.
I have not had any communication directly or indi-
rectly with the "Illustrious Personage" alluded to
since I first came to Vienna. I never received a letter
from the Prince containing one word upon politics,
public men, or public affairs. The only letters with
which his Royal Highness has honoured me, have re-
lated to matters of art and benevolence.

I feel satisfied that you will take an early oppor-
tunity of giving publicity to this contradiction of the
report circulated in your paper..
Your obedient servant,
Vienna, January 22, 1854. WESTMORELAND.

THE CORONATION OATH, AND THE ACT OF
SETTLEMENT.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING ADVERTISER.
SIR,—It oftens happens that, in the discussion of a
topic, an incidental point arises of more real interest
and importance than the matter whence it arose. It
seems to me that such has been the case, at the present
time, as regards one of the statements that have at-
tracted such wide attention, with reference to the
Prince Consort.
His rightful position as Privy Councillor has been
disputed, and has been defended. I am not going to
enter the lists on that subject. I will only remind all
whom it concerns, that every resolution taken in the
Privy Council is bound, by the law of England, to 1)e
" signed by such of the Privy Council as shall advise
and consent to the same ;" which rather simplifies
some disputed questions. The point that has attracted
my particular attention has been the extraordinary
nature of the answer that has been set up, by those
who have maintained the legality of the Prince Con-
sort's seat in the Privy Council. That answer amounts
to an announcement to Englishmen, that all our most
cherished constitutional guarantees are worthless. Let
me try, in a few words (for its full development would
take a volume) to make this understood.
Few countries are content to have a sovereign installed
without some obligatory form of coronation oath. Fer-
dinand of Austria and Hungary had hence a twinge,
which led Jesuitical statesmen to substitute Francis Jo-
seph, who had taken no oath to Hungary, for the old
King of Hungary who had taken such oath. The law
and custom of England have always required such oath
to be taken. Has that oath less meaning and reality,
as a pledge for the maintenance of our English laws and
liberties, than the oath of Ferdinand of Austria had ?
The Coronation Oath Act (1689) expressly requires
the King or Queen to "solemnly promise and swear to
govern the people of this kingdom of England, and the
dominions thereto belonging, according to the statutes
in Parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the
same." A reference to the older forms of the oath, as
well as the express separation of the parts of this clause,
show that here was a distinction intinded to be drawn
between the temporary regulations made by Parliament,
and the great constitutional landmarks. Are a Cab Act
and a Gas Act to be put into the same category with
the statute de tallagio non concedendo, or the Bill of
Rights?
The Act of Settlement (1700) again expressly requires
the same coronation oath to be taken, by every King or
Queen occupying the throne under the act ; and under
which act alone it is that Queen Victoria now sits on
the throne.
I cannot conceive that any person can do otherwise
than recognise it as a fact that the acts of 1689—" de-
claring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, and
settling the Succession of the Crown," and of 1700—
" for the further limitation of the rown, and better
securing the rights and liberties of the subject," are fun-
damental acts and laws of the realm, to be altered only
under circumstances analogous to those under which
they originated. It is, these acts only that exclude a
Papist from the Throne' Of England, and deelttre that
" the people of these realms shall be and are absolved
of their allegiance" to any heir to the throne who shall
be or become a Papist. Is such a provision to be altered
as glibly as a London Cab Act ? Verily, Englishmen
must look about them if' such is to be the teaching.
And unquestionably such is the teaching now.
The provision as to Privy Councillors is even more
emphatic, in one respect, than that as to a Papist filling
the throne, though part of the same act. The same
parties who would evade the former would assuredly
evade the latter. It is expressly declared, in the Act of
Settlement, that "it is requisite and necessary that some
further provision be made for securing our religion,
laws, and liberties." Prominently among these "requisite
and necessary further provisions," comes the one " that,
after the said limitation shall take effect [by which,
having taken effect, Victoria is Queen of England] no
person born out of the kingdoms of England, Scotland,
or Ireland, or the dominions thereunto belonging (al-
though he be naturalised and made a denizen, except
such are born of English parents), shall be capable to be
of the Privy Council."
The difference between a constitutional monarchy and
an absolute one consists mainly in this—that under an
absolute monarchy the crown is personal and dynastic ;
under a constitutional one it is representative—an im-
personation of the unity of a people. Hence the former
fixes all responsibility directly on the occupier of the
throne ; the latter maintains always the principle of
impersonation, and rightly reckons the advisers of the
Crown as, except under very special circumstances, the
responsible parties. The Lord Chancellor is called
" Keeper of the Crown's conscience." The occupier of
the throne takes the Coronation oath, as a pledge that
the embodied power of the State will be used to uphold
the Laws and Liberties of the Realm. If the Corona-
tion Oath is violated, every one well knows that it is the
Ministers of the day who are responsible. It behoves
every one, then, who thinks any guarantees of our Laws
and Liberties worth preserving, to ask what is the mean-
ing of the plea set up, that the provisions of the Act of
Settlement, as to Privy Councillors, are avoided by any
later act, brought in by a courtly minister, and passed
by Parliament,—probably unheeded,—certainly with the
consciousness that any opposition would be construed
into personal hostility to " illustrious personages ?"
Surely there is revolution enough floating about in
these days, without those who should be our teachers
setting before us the lesson that our finest constitu-
tional guarantees are waste paper, and the Coronation
Oath a mere delusion. Our dearest institutions are
being daily undermined. Continental notions of cen-
tralisation are, step by step, annihilating the manliness
and the spirit of our nation. Is theie to be no hold left,
to which we may cling—no guarantee that we can re-
gard as sacred ? " NO," say the sycophants of courts.
If Acts of Settlement, Bills of Rights, or Coronation
Oaths, stand in the way of Juggernautish servility, they
may all be scattered to the winds by five lines of a mo-
dern smuggled act of Parliament I
I will only say, in conclusion, that our fathers must
have been a very different set of men from our contem-
porary (so-called) statesmen, when Lord Coke could de-
clare, as he does, that, "in many cases, the Common
Law will control acts of Parliament, and sometimes ad-
judge them to be utterly void ;" and when it could be
L proclaimed, as it is in the noble language of the last
clause of the Act of Settlement itself, that "the laws of
England are the birthright of the people thereof ; and all
the kings and queens who shall ascend the throne of this
. realm ought to administer the government of the same
_ according to the said laws ; and all their officers and
Ministers ought to serve them, respectively according to
the same."—l am, Sir, your obedient servant,
TOULMIN SMITH.
Highgate, Jan. 26, 1854.

NEW CHURCH AT READING, IN BERKS.—In the centre
of the Castle-hill estate, fronting the Bath-road, in Read-
ing, a plot of ground had been apportioned by the ori-
ginal proprietor of the property for a square, which was
surrounded by a very handsome iron palisading, with
large gates at each corner. The land having been re-
cently purchased for the Conservative Land Society, the
executive committee have decided that the ground in the
centre of the square shall be given for the erection of a
new church, the increasing population of Reading ren-
dering this gift very useful and beneficial to the locality.
This is the second grant of land for the building of a
church by the Conservative Land Society.
THE GRAVE-YARDS.--Dr. Sutherland, one of the medi-
cal superintending inspectors of grave-yards attached to
the Home Office, has been seriously indisposed from the
effects of inhaling, the gases arising from decaying corpses
in a vault visited by him. He is now in a fair way of
recovery. Dr. Waller Lewis has also suffered from a
similar cause.—[Mr. George Alfred Walker, the pioneer
in the cause of suburban interment, and unrecognised
" medical superintending inspector, of grave-yards," has
often perilled life and health in the prosecution of his
inquiries into the state of London grave-yards.—ED.]—
Leicester Chronicle.
How ABOUT A GREEK EMPIRE ?—What it would be
may be imagined from the following anecdote :—A Greek
gentleman returning to his country after some years
spent in America, proposed the establishment in his na-
tive city of a debating club. Several young men ex-
pressed their willingness to join, and a meeting was held
to settle preliminaries. The first thing to be done was
the selection of a president. The ballot-box was pro-
duced, and each member placed in a paper with the
name of his nominee. On opening the box it was found
that no man had a majority of votes, but that each name
had one vote. Every member had voted for himself as
president I—Speculations on the Eastern Question. By
a Soldier.