The Sun.
London, England, 1838-10-09 00:00:00

t

WITH WHICH
THE « TRUE SUN " IS NOW

INCORPORATED.

LONDON:
TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 9, 1838.

At a public dinner given to Lord JOHN RUSSELL,
on Wednesday last, at Liverpool, his Lordship, in al-
luding to the Universal Suffrage Meetings that have
lately taken place in different parts of the country, oh-
served, " There were some, perhaps, who would put
down such Meetings. But such was not his opinion,
nor that of the Government with which he acted. He
thought the people had a right to free discussion. It
was such discussion that elicited truth. They had a right
to meet. If they had no grievances, common sense would
speedily come to the rescue, and put an end
to these meetings. It was not from free discussion, it

was not from the unchecked declaration of public
opinion, that Governments had anything to fear. There
was fear when men were driven by force to secret corn-
binations. There was the fear—there was the danger
—and not in free discussion." How different is this
language from that held by the Tories when they were
in possession of office I Then, public meetings were
neither more nor less than " arrant farces ;" and if not
that, something much worse, and to be discounte-
nanced accordingly. Then, if large bodies of men
met in a peaceable and constitutional manner, to
discuss their grievances, and petition for a re-
medy, they were told that they were acting ille-
gally—horse and foot, the military and civil
power, were assembled in imposing force to over-
awe them ; and if this significant hint did not effect
their dispersal more active means were resorted to—
as in the memorable instance of the Pete'rloo-massacre,
where men were slaughtered like sheep, and those who
escaped, told that they ought to be grateful for the le-
nity shown them. Had the Ultra-Radicals met in as
great numerical force, as they did the other day,
when the Tories were in power, does any man
doubt that they would have been interfered with by
the civil authorities, and perhaps treated as their
brethren were at Peterloo ? And if the Tories were to
return to power, does any man doubt that the same
tyrannical game would be played over again ? We are
no very warm partizans of the present Ministry ; we
believe them to be timorous and vacillating ; and like
Fear, in COLLINS'S Ole, " scared at the sounds them-
selves have made ;" but let us do them justice ; let us
remember that the system of Government they have
established, is a thousand times more liberal than was
ever known in England during the Tory regime ; that
they have formally and explicitly sanctioned the right
of the people to speak out boldly and to the point, on
all matters affecting legislation ; and that Lord JOIIN
RUSSELL, in particular, has expressed himself to that
effect—in the quotation which we have just given—in
terms which, had any of the more liberal members of aTory
Ministry used them, would have caused him to be
instantly cashiered. True, his Lordship's observations
do not amount to much ; they are merely to the effect
that the people have a right to meet, which no one
ever thought of denying ; still, truisms as they are,
they are such truisms as no Tory Minister would ever
have dreamed of promulgating.

We have had occasion recently to animadvert of
the unbusinesslike arrangement made by the Customs
for the examination of the baggage of passengers who
arrive in the port of London by steam-boats from the
Continent, and we have censured the extortionate
practice of extracting from the pockets of the unfor-
tunate travellers a sixpence for each package, for the
purpose of favouring a particular class of porters, in
terms sufficiently strong. We had hoped thereby to
induce the higher authorities to suggest a better ma-
nagement and to suppress this unfair demand for mo-
ney : how far our exertions in either respect have been
successful we have yet to learn. Our readiness at all
times to bring before the public abuses of a like cha-
racter, has induced a Correspondent to address a letter
to us (which we publish in another column) exposing
a description of trickery rarely surpassed in effrontery
by might against right. We could hardly have brought
ourselves to believe that any party, much less men
holding the well paid and exalted public stations of
c
Commissioners of Customs, could have been guilty of
the jaw which this letter alleges
the contempt of
against them, had not our correspondent W-K. re-
the veracity of the
ferred to official documents for
Our
1 whuliar
statement. Nor can we refrain from exproseessing
ec
astonishment that the Board of Trade, p
province it is to protect the manufacturer against such
illegal innovation as the letter pourtrays,
should, bein
cognizant of the fact, have permitted this fraud to be
g
practised even for a single hour. We trust our Corres-
pondent will act with the spirit and determination he
eirrops
.e 44,5:., for most assuredly he will obtain the redress
~.;.* merits at the hands of a British jury.
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mns of this day will be found a long,
,eresting article from the Times, on the
railways in Ireland, which, after making

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