The Sun.
London, England, 1836-02-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The people of England, whilst they are anxious
that the empire should continue united, are no less
desirous that the union should be a real bond of af-
fection and of common participation in the advantages
of liberal government, and not a mere legal junction
of parties governed upon different principles, and kept
together only by force. There can, therefore, be no
difference of opinion among Englishmen who are not
entirely blinded by party and religious prejudices, that
the extension of the benefits of responsible local go-
vernment to Ireland, is recommended by- every motive
of policy, liberality, and justice. It is perfectly clear
that any measure of Municipal Reform which would
meet the views either of Irishmen or of Englishmen,
must be founded on the same equitable principles as
those contained in the English and Scotch Corpora-
tion Bills, and following as closely as possible the
the provisions and details of those salutary measures.
The bigoted enemies of Ireland, who are no less the
real enemies of the rights and liberties of English-
men, perceiving it impossible to defend, or even
to palliate, the iniquities which have flowed from
the old system of close Corporations in Ireland,
and which the Reports of the Municipal Commis-
sioners so abundantly supply, are willing—rather than
good government should supersede corruption, and the
inhabitants be gratified by having an effective control
over their own affairs through their ()pent), elected offi-
cers—rather than this boon should be extended, and
the Irish people be thereby conciliated and gratified,
they are willing to throw overboard the friends and
champions of corruption who have fought in their
cause, and to swamp and destroy the whole of the ex-
isting Corporations, provided only that no others are
established in their places. Was ever party and fac-
tious motive so nakedly displayed as in the arguments
to this effect which have lately disgraced the pages of
the Tory Journals? What ! the sticklers for existing
privilege—the friends of the poor man !—the inspired
defender of Charters !—are these the parties who, ra-
ther than rights should be enjoyed by the people, who
under a free election may return liberal councillors, and
here and there, perhaps, ultimately supersede a Tory
representative—are these the parties who ought to ad-
vocate a sweeping disfranchisement, and abolish char-
tered rights which have existed for centuries ?
Upon what pretext should the inhabitants of towns
which have received their charters from the Jameses
and Charleses be now deprived of the privileges of ap-
pointing their own officers, and enjoying the advan-
tages of effective local government ? Is it because a
few families of a dominant party and a favoured sect
have, in the course of time, usurped the rights of the
many, and monopolised and abused privileges originally
Intended for the citizens at large ? Is it upon the fact
that the offending Corporators are Orangemen or To-
ries, and the bulk of the citizens Reformers and Li-
berals, that the Tory prints will build up a case which
can be made by any ingenuity a fit argument to be put
before the eyes of the people of England ?—of that
people, just emancipated themselves from a similar
thraldom, and able to sympathise with their Irish
brethren in their efforts to rid themselves of the
abuses which prevail in Ireland to an extent
which would be incredible, were the facts not so
completely. authenticated, and to substitute, in
return, a system based upon the same principles
which they themselves enjoy ? The public will
oscvaerrcely thesy
pmrioi abtahhie w
isij
y i toho r the :Ftrre
transference"
in their
sference,, of
fliii)niolrivgesr
taking place under the operation of the new Act. If,
by a strange coincidence, Tories arc always found to
be so mixed up with abuses, that when open popular
election is substituted for close election a " tranf erence"
of power to liberal hands must be the result, we may
lament over the inherent depravity of the faction which
has met with its reward ; but no one but a most im-

'indent and unblushing Tory can make it a ground for
serious reasoning against free election itself. And
unless justice is to be confined to one side of the Irish
Channel we cannot conceive how the Tory faction can
muster a single plausible argument against a measure
of Corporation Reform for Ireland founded on the great
principles" of the English Bill, that is to say, secur-
ing to the inhabitants an efficient and responsible Go-
vernment, based upon open and popular election.—
Morning Chronicle.

With the exception of pursuing one undeviating
couise injurious to the interests and institutions of the
country, it is the cardinal vice of Lord Melbourne's
Cabinet, ,that being anxious to purchase from all quar-
ters the toleration which they cannot merit from any,
they are perpetually trimming to the passing hour, and,
like their great Irish tutelary, are everything by turns,
and nothing long. Determined to cling to office, if
not for the sake of its pelf and patronage, at least for
the glutting of their vengeance against a King whose
patriotism justly estimates them, they will run or
tack, according as the wind on their weather-quarter
compels them to beat about, or emboldens them to
persevere. As we repeatedly remarked, they have no
steady or determinate principles of action. Where
they cannot bully they will beg. Swagger and syco-
phancy are alternately resorted to, as their interest
or conveniency may suggest ; and their insolent bray
of defiance scarcely reaches its top note, till it dies
away in a whine of the meanest obsequiousness.
Hard words and heavy charges these unquestionably
are. How far we have proof to sustain them will appear
in the sequel ; and, recollecting that an unsubstantiated
indictment tends only to the triumph of the accused,
we now proceed to adduce our evidence for the pre-
mises, content that Lord Melbourne's Government
shall have all the benefit, and ourselves the odium,
accruable from its insufficiency and fhilure. Consi-
dering that the Premier, with Lord John Russell and
some others of the present Cabinet, were prominent
members of Earl Grey's Ministry, it is not too much
to assume that they are fairly responsible for whatever
inconsistencies are discoverable between their former
and their present measures. As an illustration, then,
of the weathercock policy of the existing Government,
let our readers recur for a moment to the Diisenteri
Marriage Bill, brought in, two years ago, by Lord J.
Russell. When that piece of legislation was submit-
ted to the country, his Lordship stated, that without
expecting to reconcile all interests and to satisfy all par-
ties on so difficult a subject, his proposed Bill was; upon
the whole, the best which Ministers could devise, or,
in other words, it went as far to meet the views of
Dissenters, without prejudice to the Established
Church, as he then thought expedient and proper.
The Noble Lord's Bill, however, was bitterly exclaimed
against, by the parties for whose relief it had been
framed. But our readers will remember that the op-
position given to it had had no effect in extorting from
his Lordship any serious or beneficial alteration in its
principles or details. It was to no purpose that poor
Mr. John Wilks, then in opposition with Messrs,
Hume and O'Connell, declaimed against its provisions.
It was to no purpose that the Board of Dissenting
Deputies passed their hostile resolution ; while, as far
as regarded any satisfactory advance on the question
in dispute, it appeared that as the Noble Lord and his
colleagues were at that time strong enough in the
House of Commons to resist any combination of Pa-
pists and Radical Dissenters, so neither speeches nor
protests, nor deputations were able to goad the Go-
vernment forward by a single jot. All that they
would consent to was a petulant withdrawal of the
Bill. Now, that they entertained no intention of
proposing a new measure on a different poocipie
is evident from this—that though they had all the
remainder cf the ges69l-4 and much of the subsequent
recess to have prepared such a measure, yet, confi-
dently reckoning on the continuance of those Parlia-
mentary majorities which made them careless of Dis-
senting or Radical support, such had been their con-
temptuous neglect of this question, that having arranged
nothing on the subject, it was not till compelled by
their weakness in the new House of Commons that
they gave promise of another MaTriage till, for the
mere s;lic of pwellaqii\g tha,t support which, in the
YYa;ltOnnesa of their. former power, they had insolently
held so cheap, Meanwhile, Sir Rohea Peel
during
his h 1.41 Ad!nitti4r4tim. h,ad ced
u marriage
measw, 41010; we feed only 4437 that Llm liberality
of its Kmeiplel
a9l9lAwlqigo And adiniped by
40 the simplieitfel its details, were
everybody gacept the
then eX-Ministers an,l `l,tose Godly- Dissenting
preachers whose ambition to be equal with the established
clergy smacks so scandalously of this prseqt yyciji(l, Irn '
fact it was itaile4 with occrs b.y all parties in Parlia-

ment,•except such as happened to be sitting on the ex-
Ministerial Bench ; nay, it was loudly lauded by the
Dissenters' Parliamentary agent, even by Mr. John
Wilks himself. This, to be sure, was a reasonably queer
predicament for the noble leader of the Opposition to
be placed in. " What ! a bill by the Conservative
Reform Government receiving that general approbation
which- had been scornfully denied to the measure pro-
posed by my ex-colleagues and myself ! A pretty pass
to be brought to—just on the top of one's marriage !
But Peel shall not put our craft in danger after such a
fashion as this. The liberality of these measures of
his, in which he is only following out his law reforms,
will utterly destroy us with the country. Wherefore,
out he must come, at whatever sacrifice." And such
having been the natural soliloquy of the Noble Lord,
the sequel was in all respects worthy of it. A bargain
was im.nediately struck between the Melbourne candi-
dates for office and the extreme party of the Papists and
Radicals, in virtue of whose-support the what-you-please
policy was henceforth stipulated to be the order of the
day. The appropriation principle, which Lord J. Tkus„ll
and his quondam colleagues had so lately refused to as-
sert, was forthwith forced by theta dole
We throat of
Parliament. Sir Robert Pserg D4sentere I?eliff.
whose very liberality had incurred their hatred in pro-
portion as it endangered their popularity, they would
neither permit him as a Minister to carry through, nor
would they conduct it themselves. Their own pre-
vious measure on the marriage question had been
declared by them to be the best and properest they
could devise: and yet, within this day or two, we are
told that, excellent as was Sir Robert Peel's Bill, they
are now about to bring in a measure which Sir
J. Wrottesley said) "goes further than atl" nay,
more, that it is to be better than their own former best
—and though its details are rtvi yet sufficiently before
the public, to ell:11110 US to give a decided opinion on
the particular privileges now to be disposed of to the
Dissenters—enough of the veering and accommodation
policy has been manifested to show, that as place and
poundage are the main considerations with our Trea-
sury auctioneers, so if even their new marriage catalogue
should fail of satisfying the purchasing propensities of
their Dissenting bidders, their hammer will never stop
till the sale of the Constitution is completed. Exa-
mine, too, their recent procedure with regard to the.
Scotch Church Commission. A plainer case against•the
fitness and fairness of the working meinbers of .Whorn it
was originally composed, could not possibly have been
submitted to them than was drawn by some of their own
partisans. Even one of their favourite evening prints
could not conceal its chagrin that Mr. Earl Monteith,
Mr. Roger Ayton, and, above all, Mr. James Stuart,
had not been put upon the Commission in question ; and
when the Earl of Aberdeen complained in Parliament
of its grossly iniquitous composition, it pleased Lord
Melbourne to declare that that composition was unal-
terable. A smart breeze, however, has lately changed their
tack. Terrified out of their wits by various recent ar-
ticles on this subject by some of their contemporaries and
ourselves, they have at length given orders that the 'Scotch
Church Commission shall receive several additional
members. They are afraid, we suppose, of the accounts
from Scotland, in case of some unlooked-for dissolu-
tion of Parliament. But even the new members whom
they have appointed are only demonstrative of their
own selfish apprehensions, without contributing by a
single iota to regain them the confidence of the Scot-
tish people. ith the exception .. of young Tom
Webster, there is scarcely one of them whose sense qt
justice towards the establishment would not y icld to
their political partizanship and their hopes of prefer-
ment. Now, what can be inferred from this, except
that the King's 'Ministers, proctriing upon no steady
or honourable principle, are desirous to compass by a
mean and worthless ruse those treacherous objects
which, while apparently depriving the church of any
right to complain, may satisfy, nevertheless, the de-
structive designs of their Dissenting abettors ? A
more temporizing and faithless crew were never em-
barked on the political deep. How long their voyage
is to continue, a very little time will show.— Times.
There are few greater deceptions practised upon the
public than that miscalled economy, which lays on with
the one hand a greater load of expense or taxation than
that which it takes off with the other. This, we ap-
prehend, is pretty largely the case with the favourite
Commission-mania of our Whig Ministers. We lay
out of the question the state of servility and depen-
dence to which it is calculated to reduce the Bar—
though that is no small evil, and look at it for the pre-
sent merely on the ground of expense. Any Member
of ParliaMent who would move for and obtain a suc-
cinct account of the number and cost of the various
Commissions now in existence, would be doing a
great public service, and would produce a result which
—we have little doubt—would go far to show the
fallacy of the specious economy which dismisses, or
cuts down useful clerks, to make way for new and
expensive appointments, most, if not, all the objects
of which might as readily and effectually be obtained
through persons already maintained in indolence, at
the public expense. But of all the economical delu-
sions to which the public is at present subject, that
connected with the new Poor Law Ac't is the most
questionable, and therefore laboured with the greater
earnestness. Here again we lay out of the question
for the presant all considerations but those immediately
connected with expense. Every one knows, and hears
with satisfaction, that there has been a great and very
general fall in the amount of the poor rate in most
parts of the kingdom ; but those who would have us
believe that this reduction is wholly, or even principally
attributable to the operation of the new law, state that
which most of them know to be a palpable delusion.
In the first place every one at all acquainted with the
subject knows that a better management of the poor
and a reduction of the rates was coming very generally
into operation before the Poor Law Bill had left the desk
of its projector. They know, too, that emigration and an
increased demand for labour in railroads and manufac-
tories have very considerably lessened the number of
applicants for relief ; and above all, they know that
the rapid fall and unprecedented low price of provisions
must have had a•greater effect in reducing the ,smount
of parochial relief throughout the kingdom, than
all lather causes put together. Now, if the combined
amount of the reduction in the poor rate, which justly
belongs to these several heads, were deducted from the
aggregate, and from that aggregate the enormous ex-
penses brought upon the country by the expense in
salaries to Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners,
Secretaries, Auditors, Relieving Officers, and the
capital and interest of money borrowed for building
workhouses, were then deducted, the public would
have fairly before them the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, as to the actual saving brought
about by this otherwise 'questionable measure. And,
returning to the point at which we set out, they would
see the actual amount in numbers and pounds sterling,
of that enormous patronage of which, under the vari-
ous classes above enumerated, as well as many others,
it has become. and is the daily increasing source. The
rotten borough patronage will prove to have been as
nothing compared with the centralising system which
is now making such rapid and effectual strides. The
patronage of the whole of the turnpike roads of the
kingdom is, we see, to be the next object of its grasp.
—Morning Herald.

GLASGOW MANUFACTORIES.—Among the nu-
merous extensive manufactories, the following arc unequalled
for ingenuity arid extent :---Messrs. Henry Montieth and Co.'s
dying, discharging, and printing works at Dalmarnock ; Messrs.
Charles Tennant and Co.'s chemical works at St. Rollox, for
the manufacture of sulphuric acid, chloride of lime, soda, and
soap. This manufactory, the most distinguished and exten-
sive of any of the kind in Europe, occupies ten acres of ground
and within its walls there are buildings shich carer thirty-one
thousand three hundred and forty-six square yards of ground.
There are upwards of one hAndred• furnaces' retorts, or fire.
places. The platinum vessels in one Apartment alone cost up-
wards of 041(194-'
AURORA BOREALIS.. IVI. Arago has announced
to the French Academy of Sciences that during the proving
of the instruments destined for the Bonite, it was remarked
that the compass was extremly irregular in its movements on
the 17th, 18th, and 19th of November. It was during these
three nights that the aurora borealis was visible, which con-
firms the opinion that the magnetic needle is influenced by the
northern lights.—Athenceum.
A portrait of Queen Elizabeth, at " •ge of 17 was
.tie a
recently discovered in an ancio- •
was erected in the
finished - mansion in Yorkshire,
h whichil
• .arty part of her reign.
.0 6114 % characteristic likeness of that celebrated
wopciaA, and exhibits her under far more
•
favourable
circum-
stances of feature and expression than any likeness of her that
38 ICACIITA tO CAiSt,