The Sun.
London, England, 1836-09-12 00:00:00

Till: SUN, LONDON, MON

the labour
h
°t. population—and what portion of
this do Lords represent ? Owing to the law
er
.Lis
of entail and primogeniture, which protects the pro-
perty of the Peer from the claims of his creditor,
and, by cheating the yotnisser thildren of their
natural hilietitances gives the heir a perpetuity of the
estate, an undue portion of the land 'of the kingdom
rests in the handS of the Afistooacy Nvo if they pos-
sessed every acre in d othinions, it is not
they but th'e Industrial classes—agricultural, manu
facturing, and commercial—which would represent the
property of the nation. And, as to intelligence, it is
almost an insult to the common sense of the country
to reply to the assertion, that it is represented by the
Lords. If it were not for the supply of intelligence
which they occasionally draw from the House of
Commons, the intellect of the Lords would be at zero.
If, therefore, the Lords neither represent the people,
nor the property, nor intellioence of the nation, what
do they represent ? They represent the despotic prin-
ciple, the remnant of a corrupt and oppressive sys-
tem i its prejudice, bigotry, and intolerance. Where-
ver an abuse exist—whatever is evil in the State—is
sure to find sympathy and support in the Lords. Wit-
ness their opposition to a reform of the House of
Commons—witness their opposition to the reform of
the English Corporations—to the reform of the English
Church—to the reform of the Irish Church—of the
Irish Corporations—of the various abuses which we
have not space to enumerate, and which, but for the
Lords would have long stsice ceased to defile our insti-
tutions. The Lords have had a fair and patient trial,
but inetZad of endeavouring to excuse, they have gloried
in their outrages on public liberty : justice now demands
her due, and the public interests and safety require
protection from oligarchic invasion. The advantages of
reform must not be sacrificed to an institution which,
originating in barbarous times, is inapplicable to the
existing relations of society. It is downright madness
to suppose that the Lords can stop the progress of a
people awake to the blessings of popular institutions,
and determined upon the assertion of their rights. If
they stand in the way of the tide of public opinion, they
will be ingulfed for ever : as it is, but one means of
escape remains to the Lords—that is, Peerage Reform.
It is an old and stale trick with the enemies of the
people, whenever questions of reform are mooted
which are so manifestly consonant with justice and
necessity as to preclude the possibility of rational op-
position, to coin some mystic and unmeaning phrase to
alarm the fears or appeal to the prejudices of the
timid and unreflecting. While Catholic emancipation
was being agitated it was endeavoured to stun the
public mind with the din of " No Popery." - The
qUestion of Parliamentary Reform was met by an ap-
peal to " our glorious constitution." When the esta-
blished religion is to be purified of the profligate and
disgraceful abuses which alienate the affection of its
members and disgust the public, the holy cheats cry
out " Church in danger." And now the demand for a
reform of the House of Lords is responded to by the
political Matvtvorms with a grave shake of the head
and the cant of " Beware of organic changes." The
time is past for such cabala to influence the public
mind, farther than to excite its ridicule anti contempt.
To deny organic changes is to deprecate the Reform
Act, and endeavour to escape its best results. The
Reform of the House of Commons was but a first
step, and even if that Reform were sufficiently ex-
tensive, which it is not, while the House of Lords
is left unreformed, the work is but half done.
What rendered a Reform of the House of Com-
mons necessary ? What was the evil to be remedied
by the change ? The influence of the House of Lords
in nominating its Members. What good then have
we obtained by achieving that reform, at such risk and
cost, if we suffer the Lords to do now, in their own
House, what before the passing of the Reform Act
they did by proxy in the House of Commons,—deny
to the people a fair participation in the government of
the State ? What would be thought of a man who
would enter into a contract and sell a house or estate,
and when the bargain was concluded put the keys in
his pocket, place a guard to prevent the entrance of
the purchaser, and exclude him from possession ?
Would he not be denounced as a common swindler, or
something worse ? And what else is the conduct of
those who covenanted with the people for Reform, and
yet by refusing the Reform of the House of Lords, on
the pretext of its being an organic change, exclude
them from the key of all satisfactory amelioration ?
Away with such mincing and deceitful politicians.
The people reject their support, and despise their dupli-
city.—Morning Advertiser.
It is in the recollection of our readers that at the
period when the Irish Tithe Bill was about to be sent
up from the House of Commons to the House of
Lords we intimated the probability that the measure,
with the anticipated amendment of their Lordships,
might be accepted by his Majesty's Ministers, and as-
serted the fact that some of the Irish Roman Catholic
Members of the House of Commons, including Mr.
O'Connell and Mr. Sheil, had spontaneously commu-
nicated to the King's Government their readiness to
acquiesce in this prudent and salutary course. We
distinctly averred that some Members of the House of
Commons, from whom the most determined and vio-
lent resistance was generally expected to the excision
of the appropriation clause, were prepared to abandon
that nefarious and ill-omened portion of the Ministerial
measure, and were most anxious for the Tithe Bill, with
or without this excrescence, because they had already
sustained severe loss, and felt that they must suffer still
greater, in that conflict with the law which their politi-
cal position would compel them to maintain so long
as the law remained in its present state. It will be
recollected also that, in laying this information before
the public, we stood absolutely alone. Our statement
was not repeated, unless our memory deceive us, by
any of our Conservative nor contradicted by any of
our Ministerial contemporaries. The latter, if they
were entrusted, which we doubt, with the secret of
what was going on, thought it imprudent to provoke
any discussion upon the subject, while the former
might, reasonably enough, be deterred from echoing
our statement by its apparent improbability. It is
very satisfactory to us, even after so long an interval
of time, to have the means of proving by evidence
wholly unexceptionable that the statement we offered
to the public three months ago was in all respects
correct—not merely correct in substance, but accurate
in form and detail. Mr. O'Connell and the Examiner
have, luckily for us, " fallen out," and accordingly (for
the excellent old proverb is verified here to the letter)
we "come to our own." The Examiner is not
pleased with Mr. O'Connell. The latter in describing
wa•lrieichheldhibsy porloejepcetsoplaendof thoseitnioisntraitnion
otifichisesAtidmma
Eng-
land has for once spoken the truth, which our Radical
Contemporary deems very impolitic 3 V ery unnatural,
and withal very offensive, lit is, however,
Mr. O'Con-
nell's unseasonable
A.,,monition to Lord Melbourne re-
specting " the
ia ut' ,7
of the ee
" short Parliaments," " reform
Ls'
to -sts, &c., which has provoked the Examiner
.nat revelation of the secrets of the Whig-Radical
party in which we are especially interested. This im-
portant disclosure is made as follows :
" These suggestions are all in the right direction, but
they come with an odd grace from Mr. O'Connell, who was
in the past session the ready apologist for the most unpo-
pular policy of the Government, and whose promptings on
one most important occasion, had they been heeded, would
have committed the Ministry to an infamy unpafalleled,
and to certain ruin. It is notorious that he wished Mi-
nisters to accept the. Irish Tithe Bill without the appro-
priation clause, and thus to waive the principle, by holding
which to be indispensable they had broken up the Govern-
ment of Sir Robert Peel."
It is painful to an honourable mind to lay under the
suspicion of having- on any occasion, or in any circum-
stances, contributed or attempted to deceive the public.
From this painful and injurious suspicion we arc now
vindicated most fully. Mr. O'Connell and other Irish
Roman Catholic Members of the House of Commons
(for Mr. O'Connell is never deserted), did wish, as
we stated, and expressed the wish (or how could it
have be'come " notorious"), that :Ministers should ac-
cept the Irish Tithes Bill without the appropriation
clause. And there was a strong probability (which is
exactly what we said) that Ministers, who had done so
much, and were still willing to do so much more, of
what is pernicious to the country, in compliance with
the wish of Mr. O'Connell and his partisans, would
not thwart them in the single particular in which their
personal wishes and interests coincide with the public