The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Now that the Session has been concluded, and many
Members must necessarily return to the country among
their constituents, it is a matter of curious and not altoge-
ther unprofitable speculation to consider in what way some
of the Tory representatives will meet those who were cha-
ritable enough to end them into the House of Commons.
It is a novelty with these gentlemen to be expected to give
any account of themselves ; formerly they either had no con-
stituents at all, or as good as none, for nobody,thought that a
Tory Member of Parliament was responsible for his votes ;
but the Reform Act has wrought such a general change in
this respect, that even electors of a strongly Conservative
turn of mind begin to follow the example of Liberal consti-
tuencies, and entertain a sort of expectation that the Mem-
ber they have chosen will favour them, in due time, with a
brief sketch of what he has done, and of the motives by
which he has been actuated. Here the reader will be good
enough to let his mind revert to a period at least ten
zionths ago, about a fortnight before the two Houses
assembled, in November last, for the dispatch of busi-
ness. What was then the state of parties, and what were
the anticipations industriously encouraged by all who were
hostile to those Ministers who were selected by her Ma-
jesty for the direction of public affairs in the commence-
ment of her reign ? A general election had taken place
in the summer, and it was thought by the most impartial
observers that votes on each side in the House of Com-
mons were not very far from a balance. The Tories, in-
deed, at first insisted that they had the majority,. but as
as the day of meeting drew near they began to give out
hat the Ministers had just the advantage, but only by a
few Irish Members, while they were still so weak that
after less than a month's struggle they must inevitably
relinquish office. Was the prophecy fulfilled ? All the
hopes the Tory newspapers had held out, reliance upon
which Tory Members had promoted by speeches on
the hustings and by printed addresses, were utterly and
ludicrously disappointed. The Session opened with a Whig
Administration , it has closed with a Whig Adminis-
tration ; and the Tories are notoriously, and by their
own confession, further from power pow than at any pe-
riod since the memorable hundred days of Sir Robert
Peel and the Duke of Wellington. Well, then, when Tory
Members happen once more to find themselves in the midst
of their constitunts, as they may do in a very few days,
they must attempt some explanation or other of this, to
them, melancholy condition of affairs. They will be sadly
put to it, but your true Tory is a very confident as well
as obstinate animal, and it is not a little will deter him ;
and though he may find that some of those who voted for
him, discovering at length that they have gone on the
wrong side, are now disposed to change for the right, lie
will put a good face upon it, and do his best to convince
the incredulous that he has not been in fault ; if the worst
come to the worst, he can tell them that, if the Whigs
are not out of office, they ought to have been. First he
will say that in fact the Opposition Members of Parliament
have governed the country, and that the only real differ-
ence is, that whereas in former times the Ministers used
to sit on the right hand 'of the Speaker, they now
sit on his left. Here an inconvenient question may
be interposed by some expectant Tory exciseman
or Custom-house officer, to whom an appointment
had been promised in case the Ponservatives were rein-
stated : he may ask whether the Opposition who so govern
the country have the disposal of places in any of the public
departments ? To this inquiry the Tory representative
must necessarily answer in the negative, because if he did
not it might be followed by even a more inconvenient in-
terrogatory. It is true, he will say, that the Whigs still
keep possession of the offices in Downing-street and White-
hall in spite of the Opposition, and, moreover, that they
receive all the emoluments of office; but he will add, that
the Members of the Opposition, who govern the country,
are the most disinterested and magnanimous beings in the
world, and that as the poor Whigs want the money which
they are paid quarterly, they are generously allowed to
receive and pocket it. The Tory Member whose case we
are supposing may very fairly calculate upon the enlarged
gullibility of his Conservative auditory, but we have
serious doubts whether the expectant Tory exciseman
or Custom-house officer will be quite satified with this
ingenious explanation. Indeed, we hesitate to believe
that the individual giving it is in his heart a jot
better satisfied than his place-promised supporter.
But if this do not answer his purpose, the Tory
representative may go farther, and assign a reason which
has, more than once during the last nine months, been
publicly given in their places by Tory Members for actually
voting in favour of a Whig Administration. They told
the country that they could not help supporting particular
measures because they were Conservative. In the same
way the Tory Member, who is attempting to explain to his
constituents why the Whigs continue in office, and
in the receipt of the fruits of office, may allege
that most of the Bills they introduce were, in the true and
enlarged sense of the word, Conservative. If they were
not as really Conservative as a Liberal Government,
wishing well to the great institutions of the country, de-
sired, the fault wits in the Tories. Tike, for instance, the
Irish Tithe Bill : the Tories would not permit the intro-
duction of a clause which, by rendering the Protestant
Church of Ireland less objectionable to the Roman Catho-
lics, might render them less eager to overthrow it. Again,
the Irish Poor-law was a strictly Conservative measure ; and
the whole administration of the affairs of Ireland by the
Marquis of Normaoby has been eminently Conservative.
He has given the Roman Catholics what they never had
before---t motive for pr serving tranquillity, and for pay-
ing obedience to the laws, because they find tranquility
and obedience productive of prosperity and happiness.
The comparatively few measures Ministers have been able
to bring forward relating to Great Britain have been of the
same character—all strictly Conservative, while the foreign
policy of the country has been directed to maintain our
own rights and interests, without intermeddling need-
lessly with the rights and interests of other nations.
Therefore a Tory Member may very properly tell his
particular friends and supporters, consistently with his
first allegation regarding the supposed power of the
Opposition, that really and truly the Whigs, formerly
denounced as Destructives, are after all nothing but
Conservatives, and that they did not give their
enemies any of the opportunities of attack which
those enemies at the opening of the late campaign had
ardently hoped to enjoy. Upon some points the so-called
Conservatives went far beyond the Liberals in their " zeal
to destroy," for not long since they were for exterminat-
ing all the Irish Corporations, and even now they resist
the reform of them, as if they wished them to fall by the
mere effect of internal corruption and decay. Thus the
Session has been one of severe vexation and disappoint-
ment to the Tories, for not only has the Whig Govern-
ment been gradually gaining solidity and firmness in the
House of Commons, but it has acquired throughout the
country the reluctant confidence of many who a year ago
looked upon it with distrust, and even with terror.
Those who, in the vacation, will have to employ them-
selves in accounting for not having fulfilled their promise
of turning out the present Ministers, will be compelled to
admit that the utmost they could accomplish was the
establishment of what the Tories are pleased to call a
Government Opposition, or an Opposition Government.
Long may it continue established !—Morning Chronicle.
The circumstance of Mr. Grote having on Wednesday
night carried his motion compelling the Factory Inspectors
to make certain inquiries and returns in rgard to the edu-
cation of the labouring children under their supervision,
induces us to publish in another column an interesting re-
port upon the same subject, drawn up by Mr. J. T. Rey-
nolds, Honorary Secretary di the Home and Colonial In-
fant School Society. Amonfik many evasions of the pro-
fessedly protective Act undeP which the injuries of these
helpless beings seem rather to be increased than mitigated,
it appears that in many cases the school clauses are almost
reduced to a dead letter. Having put himself to the trouble
and expense of visiting the principal manufacturing esta-
blishments in Lancashire, for the twofold purpose of ascer-
taining—first, the actual state of education among the
youthful operatives, and then the :local encouragement
that might be counted on for the introduction of
infant seminaries, Mr. Reynolds declares, as an im-
partial observer, that the provisions of the existing
Factory Act are, in most cases, entirely abandoned ; that,
unless the better disposed manufacturers followed
the unlawful example of their less scrupulous neighbours in
employing children under the proper age, and in working
them beyond the statutory hours, they could not ,
the
compete with their rivals in the market ; that h
children were tottering to the manufactories one poorlegs
scarcely able to support them, as ignorant and uninformed
for every purpose of good as when they first entered the
world ;" that it is alike the interest of parents to deceive,
and of employers to wink at such deception, in regard to
the ages of their infant victims, who (says Mr. Reynolds)
"do go to work before 9, and, I may safely add, before 8
—nay, in many cases, as early as 7 ;" and that as far as
concerns the education of factory. families, the national
schools, as well as those of the British and Foreign Society,
" have entirely failed—in most instances, they are not half
full, and when, from the efficiency of the master or mistress,or
from the activity of the Managing Committee, an attendance
has been procured, it will invariably be found that the
older children are not the children of factory labourers,
but of little tradesmen and the more respectable mechanics,
who could well afford to pay the ordinary school charges."
The reason why the children of factory operatives are sel-
dom to be found in such schools is given by one of the
parents in the following terms:—
. When work isbrisk, I can get 2s. or 35. a week for my
child's labour; and when work is not brisk, ! cannot afford to
pay for his schooling—it is enough then if I can keep myself."
While it thus aPpeiirs thatafrom the sordid counterac-
tives engendered by the present execrable factory system,
the National and Bask oohoola wholly foil to overtake the

educational necessities of the mill-dependent families. Mr.
Reynolds is of opinion (though we think he states it too ab-
solutely) that these schools are, to a certain extent, " inju-
rious ; for by educating the children of parents who can
afford to pay, they absorb charitable funds, for which there
is other and ample employment." The worthy Secretary
is grieved to find also, that in almost all the seminaries
in factory districts there is little or nothing of that system
of " moral training" which, originating with Mr. David
Stow, of Glasgow, has in many places been so success-
fully grafted of late upon what used to be deemed
the more important branches of ordinary schooling.
In all this Mr. Reynolds discovers both an urgent
call and a favourable opening for the establishment of infant
schools, to whose extension and usefulness he is so disin-
terestedly devoted. The point we are about to mention is
not very distinctly brought out in that gentleman's me-
morial ; but, if we do not mistake his meaning, the general
drift of his conclusions seems to be, that, since " it will be
very difficult to frame any Act that will not be greatly
evaded" (quoad factory education), a corresponding effort
ought to be made for the instruction of mere infants while
they are of an age which necessarily precludes their intro-
duction into factories by any practicable abuses whatever ;
and that for this purpose the buildings now used for
National and British schools ought (where these have
clearly failed) to be given up, and a sound system of infant
instruction organized therein—Government being required
to provide funds for training suitable teachers, and " the
weekly payments of infants going a great way to pay sala-
ries," deficiemies in this respect being supplied by the existing
Societies. Now, we confess we are not very clear about
the propriety of such an arrangement. To our view, this
plan has a tendency, though far from intentional with the
proposer, of diminishing the responsibility of masters and
parents in regard to factory education, and of unduly cir-
cumscribing its range and continuance. Let the manu-
facturing districts be supplied with infant schools exclu-
sively, andalthough they will probably be well filled with
children under seven years of age, a notion will naturally
be generated that at that age a factory child's education
may be considered as finished. Advantage, we fear, would
thus be taken of Mr. Reynolds's initiatory tuition to make
it pass in full discharge of further and higher obligations,
which would thereby become relaxed and invalidated. We
throw out these observations with no unfriendly feeling, but
with the view that the whole question may be comprehen-
sively and cautiously considered.—Times.
We have received the " Thirty-second Report of the
Commissioners for inquiring concerning Charities ;" but as
it would be impossible, in our limited space, to enter upon
its analysis, we must content ourselves with directing the
attention of those locally interested to its consideration.
Its contents refer chiefly to the charities of North and
South Wales, comprising, under the first head, the coun-
ties of Denbigh, Flint, and Montgomery ; and under the
second, the counties of Brecon, Glamorgan, and Radnor.
The schools and almshouses established in each of these
counties, and the charities by which they are supported,
undergo a most strict scrutiny in these Reports. The
management of the schools, the proficiency of the pupils,
the arrangement of almshouses, the condition of their in-
mates, the intention of the charities by which they are
supported, and the tenure under which those charities
are held and appropriated, are detailed at a length
and with a precison, which would be uninteresting and
irksome to the general reader, but which must prove of
the utmost importance to those locally interested in the
efficient management of these Institutions. As might be
anticipated in an inquiry of this nature, a considerable
amount oflabuse, encroachment, and malpractice is exposed in
the Report, but it also bears gratifying testimony of the good
which has been effected, and the excellent mode in which
the Institutions referred to are in some instances conducted.
As improvement, however, is, and most properly should
be, the order of the day, we shall leave the good to speak
for itself, and direct attention to those parts of the Report
upon which Reform may advantageousiy employ itself. By
this we, mean not to cast any reflection on the general
system of the charities, but merely to interest public at-
tention upon them so far as to make them productive of the
utmost possible amount of good of which they are capable
under the most efficient management. It appears by the
Report that in some instances, which we shall not particu-
larize, for the reasons already stated, as it would be impossi-
ble to examine each case fully upon its merits, the property
granted for charitable objects has been encroached upon,
or misapplied ; in others the institutions themselves have
been neglected or mismanaged ; and in few cases has the
good effected proved commensurate with the anticipations
which might fairly be founded on the means available for
its accomplishment. We should most strongly recommend
the vestries of the several parishes referred to in the Report,
to have the minutes of the Commissioners placed in some
locality accessible to any of the parishioners, to consult
them at their leisure. By these means those most,
deeply interested would be able to acquire a correet know-
ledge of the local charities; and wherever mismanagement
exists, the opportunity would be afforded of applying a
corrective. The subject is one to which we would ear-
nestly call the attention of the local Press. The details are
too various and minute to be severally examined by a me-
tropolitan journal ; and even if they were examined, unless
in a limited degree, they might not come under the obser-
vation of those whose more especial business it would be
to enforce the correction of abuses ; but if our country
Contemporaries were to examine the Report so far as it re-
lates to the sphere of their circulation, and place before
their readers the abuses to be remedied, there is scarce!.;
any mode in which they could more serviceably employ
themselves during the recess of Parliament. The attain-
ment of political rights is a slow, though certain process to
the promotion of practical good, but the just employment
of chatities brings its advantages immediate onits accom-
plishment. For this reason we emphatically reiterate our
recommendation to our country Contemporaries.—Morning
Advertiser.

Parliament was prorogued yesterday ;—the Queen's
Ministers may, therefore, hope to enjoy place and pay, for
six months to come. Our readers will find, elsewhere, the
speech which these worthies contrived to manufacture for
their Royal Mistress ; and, meagre as such documents are
apt to be, the meagreness of the speech in which the
Whigi have chronicled their official doings during the Par-
liamentary Session of 1838, surpasses, in all probability,
that of any similar effusion on record. The Whigs know
that their movements require delicate handling ;—they
therefore (although they enjoyed, yesterday, the privilege
of telling their own story, without risk of contradiction)
shrank from touching on a tithe of the ingenious con-
trivances by which they have contrived to wriggle through
the late Session, without forfeiting official existence. Minis-
ters may, in fact, be declared to have passed through the
perils of a stormy year, without sustaining loss of any kind :
—for they have kept their places—and, for many a long
day, they have had nothing else to lose. Principle, honour,
official pride have long been strangers to the present occu-
pants of office ! Contemptible as was the Whig speech of
yesterday, still there may be found in it some points not alto-
gether undeserving of notice. In the second paragraph,
for instance, Ministers made their Royal Mistress state,
" that the civil war in Spain forms an exception to the
general tranquillity." It may, undoubtedly, be true,
literally, that war does not rage in any European country,
except Spain ;—but to speak of the state of Europe, or,
indeed, of the state of what is, usually, styled the civilized
portion of the world, as a " tranquil" state, is to trifle
with the import of language, Is Belgium, languishing
under the consequences of its mad and stupid revolution,
tranquil ? Is Poland, writhing under the despotism of
Nicholas, tranquil ? Is France—filled as it is with parties,
bent on forwarding schemes of revolution, based on prin-
ciples more comprehensive than any ever yet brought into
action—France, in which. are engendered, almost every
month, fresh attempts to overthrow the ruling dynasty--
is France, let us ask, tranquil ? Is Portugal, divided into
factions, and labouring still under many of the worst re-
sults of a disputed succession to the Crown, tranquil ? Is
Turkey, compelled to witness, without daring to resent
them, the daily-increasing- encroachments of Russia on the
rights and privileges of the Ottoman empire, tranquil ? Is
Russia itself, with its schemes of universal conquest, in that
state which plain men understand as indicating "tran-
quillity ?" But the Whigs declare, in the same paragraph
of their yesterday's speech, that England " receives from
all foreign Powers, the strongest assurances of their desire
to maintain the most amicable relations" with this coun-
try ! Of course, such declarations are received. When
the Russians were in full march towards Constantinople,
their " assurances" towards the Sultan were couched in the
most " amicable" terms ;—and if a Russian fleet were in
possession of the Thames, we entertain not the slightest
doubt, that the desire of the Emperor of Russia, to
strengthen his "amicable relations" with us, would be as-
signed by him, as the sufficing reason why his fleet had
taken possession of our coasts ! The third paragraph of
the Whig speech is curious. We quote it, without mu-
tilation :
" The disturbances and insurrections which had unfortu-
nately broken out in Upper and Lower Canada have been
Promptly suppressed; and I entertain a confident hope that
firm and judicious measures will empower you to restore a
constitutional form of Government, which unhappy events have
compelled you for a time to suspend." 9
The Canadian disturbances have been, undoubtedly,
suppressed, through the energy of the loyal inhabitants of
Canada, and of Sir John
anot Colloorne—to whom, by the way,
it might have been
ungraceful act, on,
But what
the part of
Ministers, to return their a
may the Whigs mean, by causing acknowledgments
esntos .ere
ex-
press " a confident hope that firm and vign to
ree a
judiciousto measures
will enable you"—the Parliament, oi—
. constitutional form of government ?" The task
oefst effect.
ing the various results hoped for is now taken out of the
hands of Parliament, and intrusted to Lord Durham—the
first of whose " firm and jtdicious measures" has just been
disallowed by the legislative authorities of this country!