The Sun.
London, England, 1836-12-21 00:00:00

SPlit!..T OF TILE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

. A Correspondent suggests that means should be "
taltea to diffuse as extensively as possible throughout
the 'aation the astounding fact, communicated in the
Tir.ecs of Saturday last, that the people of England
are indebted to that paper for " Roman Catholic
Emancipation, the relief of Dissenters from obnoxious
tests, Reform of Parliament, the correction of ecclesi-
astical abuses, and the effectual permanent commuta-
tion of tithes ;7' and as not one of these measures would,
Dave passed " had the Times been one (if its oppo•
nests," he recommends that meetings for the purpose
of expressing their deep sense of gratitude to that
Journal for its forbearance should be universally held.
We have all escaped a great danger of which few of us
were probably aware. If civil and religious liberty be
the greatest of blessings, we no doubt are indebted for
that blessing to the Times—but then we might also
be now Ivithout it if it had so pleased our Morning Con
temporary. A mine might at any time have been sprung
beneath us, and the stoutest heart must
.quail at the
thought of what might have become of us had the
Times chosen to apply the match. With unparalleled
generosity the Thaw/o'er delayed its alliance with
the Conservatives till the Reform cause was out of
danger. During the critical period when praise of the
Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Lynd-
hurst might have Iceen fatal to liberty, the Times
showered down a copious stream 'of abuse on their
heads ; and now, when praise is thrown away on them,
they arc overwhelmed with it. Still there is some-
thing mysterious in this avowal of the Times, espe-
cially as we are told " truth, not wanton arrogance,"
dictated it. It must appear to many somewhat odd
that it should seek to ingratiate itself with the Duke,
Sir Robert, and the alien Leader of the Peers, by tell-
ing them that they owe their present sorry plight to its
power of moving the people of England at will. This
is some such consolation as would be offered to a farmer
'whose stacks had been consumed by Swing, were a
man coolly to inform him that it was in his power to
have prevented the mischief had he chosen. The
Conservative leaders may well exclaim on learning from
the Times what it could have done, but did not do—
" Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful beard to beard,
And beat them backward home."
But may there not be more in this announcement
than meets the ear ? It has been observed by Humc

that, when a Government is overturned, the successful
party, having more power than that which it succeeded
is more formidable to liberty. The Times, perhaps,
means to proclaim to the Conservative leaders that as
it defeated the Tories in 1832, it has now more power
than they possessed before that defeat, and if they only
come down handsomely, it will exert it for the destruc-
tion of our liberty. The Times, we know, dictated
the political opinions of three-fourths of the people of
England. Is the Times less powerful now than 'it
was ? Certainly not. Sir Robert, and the Duke,
and Lord Lyndhurst are left in the lurch, because the
Times chooses to leave them in the lurch. The devil
does not help those who enter into a contact with him
111 they perform their part. The Reformers must
not halloo, then, till they are out of the wood. The
power which could have prevented the passing
of the Reform Bill may any day destroy it. The
people should reflect on what the Times told them,
that they were only Reformers because it chose to
make them so. It might have made them any thing
vise just as easily. There is a fell' band of magicians
in Printing-house-square. That place must be well
watched. It was the cradle of the' liberties of the

people of England ; it may be their grave. The Con-
servatives, however, must not place their hopes in ma-
jorities in the House of Lords, but in the Times.
When the Duke of Wellington was fool enough to
imagine that he could defeat Reform by the Peers,
the Times told him (March 30, 1832)
" It is impossible for the Duke, or for any man in his
right senses, to fancy that the introduction of a solid reform
into our institutions can depend upon the miserable- chance
of a majority or minority in the House of Lords. Ask where
is the Reform Question ? What space does it occupy ? By
-what power is it sustained ? Aud by what force sent
onwards ? Why, every schoolboy will inform his Grace
that it exists not within Saint Stephen's Chapel, or the
tapestried Chamberthat it is not confined by the
walls of the old Palace of Westminster, nor will it be
governed merely by what passes there—that it is not
buoyed up or dragged forwards by 360 Members of the
House of Commons, nor will it be sunk by the pressure,
nor driven from its course by the adverse breath, of 199
lay and mitred Lords. It is everywhere—in every cot-
tage, in every shop, on the mountain, in the dell, in the
village, the factory, the city ; in the breast of every Eng-
lishman, Scotchman, Irishman ; that it spreads over, per-
• vades, inflames, propels the whole community ; that it
forms the atmosphere, and the food, nod the lifeblood
of Britain ; that he who destroys the ration, and he alone,
can rob us of a full, effective, and permanent reform of the
constitution of Parliament."
But who put Reform into all these mountains,
dells, villages, and cities ? Who made it pervade,
inflame, and propel the whole community ? The
Times. Were the sun to withdraw its face from us
the earth would be a dull inert -mass. Had the Times
and the Duke been then on a good understanding with
each other, the people of England might have been de-
livered over, bound neck and heels, to the Tories. The
House of Commons, the Palace, and its inhabitants,
were nothing, for the Times breathed Reform into
the people. Wondrous power I Stupid Duke, not
to understand the force of it ! " Well, my. Lord
Duke, and what
,of revolution ?" was the bold and
Spirit-stirring language of our Contemporary. " The
overthrow of episcopacy was a revolution in Scot-
land ; yet the nation willed it, .2.nd in spite of the
abusive epithet revolution' the sound frightened no-
body." . . . . " We tell his Grace, and his
crotchety ally, Lord Carnarvon, and his somewhat
zlippeiv friends the Bishops, that the people will have
this reform, the value of which consists in its extensive,
that is what the Tories call its revolutionary, character.
But the people desire that it should be a revolution
without victims, if Noble Lords will permit." The
people desired, that is, the Times desired, to have a
revolution, and, at a word from the People-Times,
the Bishops would have dangled beautifully from lamp-
posts, and the brickbats and bludgeons would have
soon made very pretty victims of the Peers. We can
almost conceive that the man who never blanched at
the' sight of the hosts of Napoleon must read with
something like horror this announcement of enormous
power. However, they who make bargains with the
evil spirit must abide the consequences. If the great
ally of the Tories can crush us, it can also crush them.
We all exist by sufferance.—Morning Chronicle.
It is difficut to say whether Sir Robert Pees ac-
ceptance of the proposed Glasgow dinnerinb,oi.ru..g.hhis,
re-
spectful and reluctant refusal of the Ed
affords the better illustration of his admil7 :ole taste and
judgment. In both of these decisio,:,s the Right Hon.
Baronet has evinced unquestio!:.ahly a sound and di,...
niiied discretion : nor have lye a doubt that, while his
presence at a festival 'ledicated to his honour by the
Conservatives of thq West of Scotland, will be pro-
perly apprcciatoL both as a testimony of their con-
fidence in Sir Robert's political principles,-and as a
public ratification of the recent choice of their sons
who selected him to the Lord Itectorship of their
renowned University, our countrymen will rightly
value, on.the other hand, that elevation tit character
whereby, declining without disparaging another
equally flattering invitation, not immediately iden-
tihed with his sole object in visiting Scotland, this
distinguished statesman has put himself into an ad-
vantageous contrast with your Whig... Radical dinner-
humus, whose civil way of iiiddirin• themselves to
a feast by " having s;.r
niFcrl
,neir intention to be
at
their Pallia;nentary stewardship," has almost always
fondled into existence those stewardships of a different
sort, which are essential to the organization of parties
In such House,z, of Commons as " the Golden Fleece"
or " the CA Boar," especially in purveying the ne-
cessary rounds of applause and beef usually deside-
Mita therein—the former rounds being yours at any
price yon choose, and the latter at two and sixpence
ft head. Whereon we may observe parenthetically,
that, as retards public indifference about seats in these
Houses of Whig-Radical Commons, there has been
of late, among most of their former Members, a pretty
general acceptance of the Chiltern Hundreds. But,
to return from this digression, we frankly own that
'the anticipated Glasgow fest:yid is not more creditable
to Sir Robert Peel than likely, if conducted with ordi..

nary judgment, to confer important benefits upon the
Conservative cause. Inferior to London only iu
And population, Glascrow, A.
is second to nom in Ile erreL4e lit livoinf
and influence. With an immense inass of ithabita.!'!t3,
who for the most -pint are educated, reflecting,
practical, and religious, 'theft) is perhaps scarcely any
community that exerts a more commanding i4vt; ti
th
large eircumjaccnt territory, or at Wilt ttig'h with more
sobriety of judgment 'any tst'atements which may be
made to them. We observe, that nearly 3,000 torrit;
have already intimated their intention IA; lie present at
this great public demonstrfttiVii ; and as some previous-
knowledge of their general sentiments on political sub-
jects may ,tlmw, the country not only the extreme insig-
nificance of the points on which encellent men Are 'Oc-
casionally divided, but the chief grounds *whereon so
large a number are likely to unite in this magnificent
tribute, we lay before our ro.derS the following short
analysis, which approximates as near to we
chilli:, as circumstances admit of. Conservative as the
approaching festival will undoubtedly be, it were a.
mistake to suppose shat all who mean to attend it are
Tories, or even favourable to the refutto principles of
the Conservative party. There will be present, we
doubt not, certain bitter enemies of our existing In-
stitutions. in Church and State, who being willing and
interested accessories to the O'Connell conspiracy
against both, arc only desirous to convict Sir Ro-
bert Peel of pleading for their improvement and their
permanence. Others, apprehensive that the Right
Hon. Baronet may possibly propound sounder and
sincerer views of reform than they can endure to give
him credit for, will go to the banquet, if for no other
purpose than to get that equivocal quietus for their
fears which consists in their " knowing the worst."
With not a few, the feeling of mere curiosity will, for
the time at least, het the better of their languid libe-

ralism ; and these, in common with some who may be •
otherwise neutral, will come to the dinner rather to see
and hear the distinguished guest than to give their
senction to those views of state policy which they may
probably. expect he will develope and defend. Now,
allowing that at least 2,000 of the expected company
are decided Conservatives, we have good reason to
believe that the greater number of the remaining
1,000 will consist chiefly of the curious arid the neutral,
who are in a highly promising transition-state towards
Conservative Reform, or at least maintain, in conjunc-
tion with reform biasses, the great Conservative prin-
ciple of church preservation our belief of this being
founded on various recent indications in connection
with the fact, alike indisputable and anomalous, that by
far the larger proportion of the Glasgow voters who
returned Mr. Oswald and Lord William Bentinek are
members or professed supporters of the established
• church of Scotland. Connected, however, with the
reform predilections of the transition-party,- whose
sentiments arc concurred in by many thousands, who,
though not able to be present at the festival, will
doubtless be swayed in one direction or another by its
proceedings, we may mention further (what, indeed,
is universal among ourselves), that even the stanchest
Conservatives of Scotland are decidedly favourable to
such a thorough and wise amendment of our national
institutions in cases of incontrovertible need, as, by
removing accidental or inherent evilsrmay promote their
usefulness and-stability : and as the Church question,
with its municipal ramifications, constitutes, even
perhaps to a greater extent than with us, the principal
bond of union among the Scottish Conservatives, so,
being habituated to an extremely simple, economical, un-
secular, and efficient church establishment, allowing of
neither pluralities, nor curates, nor non-residence, nor
disparity of clerical rank, nor state' interference of any
kind in her purely spiritual concerns, whereon she is
constitutionally her own supreme and independent le-
gislator, there can be no question that these popular
peculiarities dispose our Scotch friends to conceive that
the churches of Ireland and England may demand in
several respects those steady, practical improvements,
which, with a pardonable nationality, theirown Presby-
terian establishment, they think, does not so urgently
require. In short, the northern Constitutionalists,
though possessing the good sense which knows how to
make all prudent allowances for the danger and diffi-
culty of introducing even plausible speculative experi-
ments into institutions identified with the higher inte-
rests of men, as well as intertwined with their hearts
and habits, are nevertheless at one with the English
Conservatives in support of sober and rational reform ;
and it is just because they have perfect confidence not
only in Sir Robert Peel's accordance with these views,
but in his pre-eminent qualifications to carry them into
area, that they arc about to hail and honour the Right
Hon. Baronet's visit to Scotland with such a splendid and
enthusiastic welcome. From the state of feeling prevalent
at present among ths serious and intelligent people of
that country, we arc quite sure that the approaching fes-
tival will be productive of incalculable good. According,
to a Scotch newspaper we learn that the spurious liberal-
ism of the Whig-Radical Archbishop of Dublin, as ex-
emplified in his recent-endeavours to support the O'Con-
nell Government by persecuting converted Catholic
priests, and putting an interdict on sermons against
Popery and Socianism, is viewed by religious persons
of all parties in Edinburgh with unqualified disgust—
a sentiment this which cannot fail to be applied with
at least equal force to the Popish Government leader
in Ireland, whose favourite time for haranguing his
Trades' Unions is "on &Way after mass." Al-
ready, too, the testimony of Feargus O'Connor is
Working its inevitable elect wrong the Scotch Radi-
cals, who, as we learn from a recent Glasgow print,
are flinging O'Connell, as they ought to do, to the
dogs. These symptoms, with many others that might
be adverted to, are of the most encouraging kind ; and
if Sir Robert Peel failin giving the Conservative cause
a complete and permanent ascendancy in the West of
Scotland, it will be only because the partial accommo-
dation which the most spacious structure can afford
must necessarily exclude immense multitudes from wit-
nessing his earnest and manly bearing, and from hear-
ing his lucid and powerful advocacy of the common
interests of the empire.— Times.
We observe, with much concern, that some of the
journals, especially the weekly ones, professing to be
the most cordial among the various advocates of Re-
form, arc again labouring, with all their might, to di,
vide the friends of the people. It is true that avow-
edly their object is to strengthen the union which has
heretofore existed among the Reformers. But what
avail their professions and protestations, when the in-
evitable tendency of the course they arc pursuing is to
detach the friends of Reform from each other? That
is the direct way again to consign over the people of
E.neland to. the tender mercies of oligarchical faction.
The alleged ground of quarrel which these journals
have with the Melbourne Ministry—a Ministry, be it
observed, they have heretofore most lavishly praised—
is, that they do not mean to make the ballot an open
question. On what foundation, we should like to
know, does the assumption rest, that the ballot is ran
to be an open question? There is not, so far as we are
aware, .even the shadow of a. foundation for such an
assumption. The Ministry, in their collective capacity,
have made no declaration adverse to the ballot's being
an °Pm question ; neither has any member of that Mi-
nistry, in his individual capacity. Is it not, then, a
most preposterous course for any liberal journal to
adopt, first, to make an assumption altogether unsup-
ported by fact, and then proceed to attack the Go-
vernment, as if the offence with which it is charged
were as notorious as its own existence ?- So far from
the conclusions to which so many of our Contem-
poraries have leaped with such wonderful haste, being
justified by anything which has yet transpired in the
Cabinet,. we can state most
positively that that Ca-
binet have not yet come to any decision on the subject.
It is therefore, we repeat, equally unreasonable and uns
to
generous to make an assumption altogether unsup-
ported by fact, which has a tendencyexcite
preju-
dice against the Ministry, and then
to abuse a
and
at-
tack that Ministry on the assumption, just as if the
fact had been officially proclaimed. The proper course
for the - Reformers to adopt, under existing circum-
stances, would doubtless be to wait patiently until Par-
liament again meet, when the views and intentions of
Ministers will be ascertained. That will require no
great exercise of patience. Parliament Will meet in
little more than five weeks. If it should then be found
that Ministers do not evince a disposition to make
the requisite concessions to the popular demands—if
it . should be found that they shrink from acting
with the decision and energy which the existing crisis