The Sun.
London, England, 1853-08-01 00:00:00

NORTH DERBYSHIRE ELECTION.

(From the Derby Reporter.)
On the day of our last publication the closing scene of
the North Derbyshire election was being enacted at
Bakewell. Mr. W. Pole Thornhill, our new Liberal re-

presentative, was escorted to the hustings by a body of
electors who were welcomed by the triumphant Tory
squires of the division ; and was greeted by the entire
absence of the Liberal country gentlemen of North
Derbyshire. Ancient Tories who had hitherto been seen
at Bakewell only in the hubbub of a nomination, and
never before at a declaration of the poll, flocked round
their protege ; and the " lo pceans" of our member,
zealous for an extension of the suffrage and pledged to
Free Trade, were sung by Mr. Palmer Morewood, and
echoed in chorus by his Protectionist followers.
A fortnight since we said that Mr. Thornhill's return
would be considered a Conservative triumph. And why ?
Mr. Thornhill had done his best to create a division in
the Liberal interest, He has succeeded by gaining the
votes of the Tories and of the tenantry of the great Libe-
ral proprietors who were directly (but Ive believe unwar-
rantably) canvassed by Mr. Thornhill's friends in the
names of their landlords. And having coalesced such in-
fluence, and having carried his election against thegreat
bulk of the Liberal constituency, undoubtedly Mr.
Thornhill was entitled to the gratitude of his Conserva-
tive friends and supporters—and they certainly gave him
their countenance to the utmost ?

The same assembly that listened to Mr. Thornhill's
maiden speech was indulged also with his printed ad-
dress ; and as the literature of the one and the eloquence
of the other are much upon a pas, we will devote a few
paragraphs to the first published exposition of Mr.
Thornhill's political sentiments.
" You have vindicated your independence. The victory
you have achieved is your own, it is not mine !"
How the independence of the Liberal electors can be
vindicated, by the minority of their party coalescing with
the Tories ,a nd returning a candidate whom the majority
of the Liberal electors were not prepared to support—is

a question far beyond our limited pOwers of comprehen-
sion. Had Mr. Thornhill congratulated the Liberal

party on being the victims of a somewhat unprincipled
coalition, he would have been more just if not more for-
tunate in his sympathies !
But what are we to say to Mr. Thornhill's self-gratu-
lations in the following paragraph ?

" Faithful to the pledge I made to Mr. Evans, I have
taken no part, directly, or indirectly, in the late contest,
Prior to Mr. Evans' acceptance of the Chiltern Hundreds.
I purposely went up to London to warn him of the state
of the state of feeling which I thought would be created iu
the county by the nomination of his son. He regarded
me not. He has now been emphatically told by the elec-
tors themselves, that my surmises, expressed to him then,
were quite correct."

•-
"First. Can Mr. Thornhill be said to have taken no
part, directly, or indirectly, in the late contest ? He
received the deputation ; accompanied them back to
Chesterfield, where they strove to induce Mr. T. W.
Evans to resign. Although he could not come openly
forward, he (Mr. Thornhill) allowed his friends to snake
what use they thought proper of his name. He was
among his committee within an hour after his nomina-
tion. He has contributed, or is reported by his friends
to have contributed, largely to the expenses of his own
election. Running over these few facts, sufficiently no-
torious, we are at a loss to understand the precise mean-
ing which. Mr. Thornhill affixes t., the terms in which
he asserts his entire non-interference.
Secondly. What did Mr. Thornhill tell Mr. Evans
in London ? That a minority of the Whigs, coalescing
with the Tories, would unseat his son ? No such thing !
He yd.:died Mr. Evans to believe on the authority of
" an anonymous person," that the majority of the Liberal
party would not be satisfied with his son, but would
prefer Mr. Thornhill. The result has proved exactly
the reverse of this suggestion. The great majority of
the Liberal party voted for Mr. T. W. Evans, and the
minority for Mr. Thornhill. Had not therefore Mr.
Evans the first claim to the candidature ? And would
not the more honourable course have been for Mr.
Thornhill, who was supported by the smaller section of
the Liberal party, to have retired altogether, and to
have attempted to heal the breach instead of aggravating
it by lending his name to the opposition, and floating in
upon the tide of Toryism ? Though Mr. Evans did
" regard him not," when he assumed the " Sir Oracle "
and told him on anonymous authority that the Liberal
electors had a distaste for his son—the result has proved
that the Liberal electors had a greater distaste for Mr.
Thornhill, and it was the Conservatives only, who always
opposed Mr. Evans, who were united in Mr. Thornhill's
support.
Mr. Thornhill proceeds to tell us that he is a Minis-
terialist so long as the Government will do equal justice
to all parties ; but, if not—what then ? " When they
cease to do that, I will cease to uphold them."
Mr. Thornhill is "alive to the necessity of a sound
moral and religious education to the people at large"—
"an extended suffrage," (hear that Mr. Morewood 0—
" Parliamentary Reform at once liberal, wise, and
moderate !"—" legal reform,"—" stringent economy in
the public expenditure,"—and " equal justice in taxa-
tion."

Then follows a courageous effort :
" As one who has ever supported freedom of trade for
those engaged in it, I have a right to demand freedom for
those connected with the land."
What can this possibly mean ? Unless it be prophetic
of the abolition of rent, game laws, malt tax, tithes
and settlements, and a return of those halcyon days
" When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

The addrsss closes with a metaphor of the country
placed on a pinnacle--an inconvenient, not to say pain-
ful position, in which we regret that Britannia should
have been left unprotected.
On Friday last the Daily News devoted an article to
the North Derbyshire Election, from which it would ap-
pear that an exuberant and virtuous sense of untraml
melled Liberalism has led to Mr. Thornhill's return.
Alas ! our contemporary knew nothing of the Tory depu-
tation from Chesterfield which drew Mr. Thornhill from
his retirement--nothing of the tenantry brought up in
waggons to the poll by their Conservative landlords, as
if they were voting for a zealous Protectionist—nothing •
of the use that was made by Mr. Thornhill's canvassers
of the names of the great Liberal landowners—nothing
of the demonstration of the Tory landowners which
greeted Mr. Thornhill's return on Friday last—nothing
of the marked absence of every leader of the Liberal
party on that occasion ! Our contemporary has been
wont under similar circumstances to speak plainly and
indignantly of coalitions like the one which has just
been successful ; and if he could refer to the poll book.
of North Derbyshire he would probably subdue his con-
gratulations, and become eloquent in his regrets.
A
moral may be drawn from the recent coutest— but it is
not the one which our contemporary has pointed.
And now what is to be done by. the great Liberal
e circumstances
prevent
tile
Liberal
Mr.eral
Thornhill'sparty of f Northreturn
Deill rbyshire
undoubtedly
interest from placing in him that entire and cordial con-
fidence without which the e relationship of member and
constituent cannot happily exist. Mr. Thornhill says
he shall " take his seat in Parliament untrammelled by
party ;" but that is exactly what the hero of every
coalition has said almost in the same words—this true
interpretation being, "You can never be sure of me !"
We would seriously and ea; nestly advise a meeting of
the leading Liberal electors from every district of the
division, to consult on the best measures that can be
adopted for healing the existing'brancli, and organizing
the Liberal party on a firmer basis for the future. Such a
meeting, we think, should originate from thedistricts which
at the late election, were most zealous on Mr.
Evans' behalf ; and, as Glossop has always been
honestly devoted to the Liberal cause, as she re-
mained true during the last contest, and as among
the towns of Derbyshire she now ranks second
only to Derby in wealth, population and intelligence—
we would point to Glossop as the district in which the
movement should begin. The meeting, if arranged,
should be held at some central place—central in respect
of railway communication as well as merely geographi-
cal position ; and the objects of the meeting should be,
to consider the present state of the Liberal party, the
danger of the representation falling into the hands of the
Conservatives, the propriety of appointing a permanent
Liberal Committee for the division, the necessity of at-
tending year by year to the registration, and the best
means of introducing Liberal candidates to the electors,
as vacancies occur. A committee emanating from
such
a meeting, would soon have a recognised position amon
' the party it represented ; and as it would spring from
the people, so it could only maintain its influence and
effect its object by consulting constantly the wishes
feelings and opinions of the Liberal electors of North
Derbyshire.
of

RELIEF OF BRITISH VESSELS IN THE DANUBE.—
Letters from Odessa state that the British Governmen
has sent three steamers to tug the corn laden vesse on
of the Sulina mouth of the Danube.

THE RAJAH BROOKE INQUIRY.—Our Singapore cor-
respondent writes James Brooke arrived here by
the last mail steamer from Europe, and has departed
for Sarawak and Bruri, for the purpose, it is said, of
getting up his defence for the commission of inquiry
which Ministers have ordered into his conduct and
proceedings.
THE METROPOLITAN POLICE. —On Saturday after-
noon an adjourned meeting of the second and third-
class constables of the C division was held at icLecture
Hall, Denmark-street, Soho, for the "purpose of consi-
dering the best course to be adopted by them, in order
to procure an advance in their present wages, which are
wholly i'adequate, according to the price of provisions,
to their support. The pay of a second-class constable
is 18s. 70., and of a third-class constable 169. Bd.,
liable to deductions, which is not sufficient remunera-
tion for the duties they have to perform. After the
meeting had been addressed by several of the officers,
it was resolved to present a memorial to the Secretary
of State. The memorial having been read over to the
meeting, it was subscribed by about 90 constables, after
which the meeting brok up