The Sun.
London, England, 1838-09-07 00:00:00

society, may admit of cavil, though indisputable as
regards abstract right; but let them choose a position
which, founded on right policy and expediency, must en-
list the support of all just and rational men ; and, having
chosen that position, let them immovably abide by it.
There is one question upon which all their energies should
be most fixedly concentrated—we mean the Corn-laws, to
the abolition of which no honest politician can offer a pre-
text of opposition. This would be a practical legislative
reform, which would ease the oppression of the people,
while the process of admission of universal citizenship, and
the other reforms insisted upon, were advancing to their
accomplishment. Hitherto numerous popular assemblages
have been regarded with apprehension—in future we ex-
pect that from the calmness and judicious discernment
which will mark their proceedings, they shall be regarded
merely as a medium of ascertaining the state of public
opinion, and that no more anxiety will be felt as to their
results than as to a vote of the House of Commons,
exe, pt that their decision will be more conclusive
of the progress of legislation. To assist in this most
desirable consummation shall be our chief object, until
the meeting in Westminster give, as we expect it to do,
a decisive direction to the objects of popular pursuit.
—Morning Advertiser.
The signal and utter discomfiture of the plans of the
Christino General Oraa for the subjugation of the strong-
holds occupied by the Carlists in Lower Aragon, affords
conclusive proof that in other places than the Basque pro-
vinces and Navarre the mass of the people are decidedly
favourable to Don Carlos. Great as is the energy of
chartteter,—daring and intrepid as is the zeal—active
and vigorous as are the talents of Cabrera, it would
have been utterly impossible for him to have preserved
Morella, and put to confusion and rout a veteran
army of 25,000 men, with a numerous artillery, unless
he had the voluntary and hearty co-operation of the
people—aye, " the masses" whom our " Liberals" at
home call the " sovereign people," but to whom they
deny the right of choosing their own Sovereign in Spain.
With an army not one-third of the number which the
Christino General-in-chief had collected for the reduc-
tion of 'Morella, Cantaviej Calanda, and Belchite, the
youthful leader of the Carlists not only stopped the
career of promised conquest in its very first step, but drove
before him, in ignominious flight, the redoubtable " army
of the centre," whose glorious success had already been
circulated throughout Europe by the French telegraph,
and celebrated in triumphant paeans by the journals of loan-
mongering liberalism in Paris and elsewhere. By what
miracle did Cabrera, with means apparently so inadequate,
achieve so great a victory ? There was no miracle in the
case, although the " Blessed Virgin" be the acknowledged
patroness of the Carlist arms. The secret of Cabrera's suc-
cess was in the popularity of his cause—the cause before
which the soldiership of the " British Legion," headed
by the martial genius of an Evans, perished miserably,
leaving nothing but rags and wretchedness, and the
memory of its defeats as a legacy to its country.
It was the popularity of his cause which enabled Ca-
brera to execute the plan which he had conceived
for the defeat of Oraa's projects, for that plan, how-
ever skilfully designed, could not be carried into effect
without the popular co-operation. To cut up roads in
all directions, and make the country a desert round the
besieging army, required the aid of the inhabitants. Had
they been hostile to the cause of Don Carlos, instead of
friendly, any attempt of Cabrera to lay waste the country
would only have facilitated his ruin. Between the over-
whelming Christino force on the one side, and the hatred
of the people on the other, his small army must soon have
come in reality to that state in which the correspondents of
our Liberal Journals had frequently represented it to be,
when their veracious pens have recorded its " annihila-
tion." Lord Palmerston and some of his colleagues
have from time to time endeavoured to persuade the
British public, as they have persuaded themselves, that
the Spanish nation is in favour of the daughter of Fer-
dinand VII., because the Carlists possess so few towns
or fortresses of any great consideration. Yet we find
that in all towns, even the most republican, there are what
are called " Carlist factions," which excite alarm, while
nowhere do we find throughout the rural districts the
Queen's party has any supporters whatever. Thus it is
clear a portion of the town population and all the country
population are in favour of Don Carlos, which accounts
for such a successful march as that of Gomez from north
to south, and back again, with little loss and with much
spoil. Once more we observe, the Palmerston " non-in-
tervention war" is at work to protract Me miseries of this
civil war, the crew of a British vessel having been landed
on the coast of Valencia to protect Castellon de la Plana
from Cabrera's victorious bands. Has not England reaped
enough of disgrace, and her Government of infamy, from
such proceedings already ?—.Morning Herald.

Although there be nothing new in the observation that
the grand Whig measure of revolutionary selfishness, called
the Reform Bill, has utterly failed in realising the benefits
or diffusing the satisfaction which were confidently antici-
pated as its results, it is yet, in our opinion, a useful service
to point out from time to time the fresh manifestations
which come forth, of the complete disappointment of them
who so recently contended that for such an excellent mea-
sure the nation could not make too /*Tat a sacrifice. And
why is this a useful service ? Because those very persons,
who insisted with the most obstreperous fierceness that the
Reform Bill must abolish all political evil and establish all
political good, not only are already among those who most
violently condemn its operation, but they are almost
equally dogmatical and truculent in insisting upon further
and more revolutionary changes, on no other ground than
their opinion of the national good which would necessarily
follow. Now it cannot be too often nor too clearly set before
the public mind, that these people havingbeen so egregiously
mistaken as to the results of the Reform Bill, are by no means
to be believed, but scorned rather, when with reiterated
impudence they come forward, tendering advice as if they
had the reputation of wise men, when the experience of
every day, and even their own statement, proclaims them
to be fools. The Whigtaadical organs now tell us that the
public has been extremely disappointed by the Reform Act,
and that the beneficial efllEcts upon the representation of the
people in Parliament, which were so confidently expected,
have by no means taken place. But whose fault is it if the
public be thus disappointed? Who was it that taught the
public to look forward to those beneficial effects which have
not taken place ? To whom is the general expectation, so
ignorantly and falsely entertained, to be attributed? Is it
the fault of the Tories? Did they say that the public had
a right to look for admirable results from the Reform Bill ?
No ; it was these same Whig-Radical organs which now
with such an air of confident wisdom publish the total failure
of the Reform Bill, and the alleged public disappointment,
that did some years ago mislead the public upon the matter,
and lay the foundation of the disappointment by putting forth
statements as destitute of sense as the babble of an idiot,
and as full of violence as the ravings of a maniac. This is
a fact which no one can gainsay, and yet these pompous
promulgators of error make no apology. They proclaim
that a mistake has been made ; but instead of humbly ask-
ing pardon for the grossness of their stupidity, or the vio-
lence of that coarse revolutionary zeal which led them
astray, and caused them to lead the public astray, they
write as if they had all along been correct in their views,
and the public in error : as if they had not been them-
selves the producers of the mistake, but had warned the
the people against it, and thereby entitled themselves to
credence and confidence in the schemes of revolutionary
change which they now advocate. And while they pro-
ceed in this fashion—which they must do upon calculation
that the people they address are either the most forgetful,
or the dullest people in the world—they say much about
the intelligence of the people! We cannot believe it possible
that any portion of the English public, with the experi-
ence of the last seven years, can be duped in this way.
Surely it is not by two or three flattering epithets,
accompanied by statements which show that these
epithets are not used in sincerity, that Englishmen are to
be beguiled from the exercise of their sober senses. Such
shafts of Whiggery may do well enough for the Romanist
masses in Ireland who have no common sense, or for the
self-adoring Whigs of Scotland whose common sense in
political matters is utterly croaked by the thick-springing
weeds of a preposterous vanity ; but the general mind of
the British people, which Addison beautifully described in
his day as " modest, thoughtful, and sincere," will surely
not be carried away by flattery so clumsy, and impudence
so monstrous. It is but justice to observe that some of the
more argumentatively-disposed Journals which advocated
the Reform Bill, did not prophecy so absolute a content-
ment from its operation as others ; but it so happens that
precisely the same Journals which were least reserved, and
most obstreperous in crying aloud for " The Bill, the whole
Bill, and nothing but the Bill," are now the most pe-
remptory in denouncing- it as a failure, and the most
flippantly confident. in proposing reforms of the Reform
Bill which are to set everything right. The weekly
papers which spoke doubtingly of the Reform Bill, whileY
they recommended it, now seem most disposed to give it
credit for having accomplished political good, while the
violent diurnals which would permit no doubt of the ab-
solute perfection of the Bill, now toss it aside without the
slightest ceremony, as a mere delusion, which has given
nothing but unfounded hopes to the people. The dif-
ference between these two classes of Journals is most pro-
m-lac ntly this—that while the violent daily organs of Whin--
Radicalism appear to be the mere hacks of the Adminis-
tration, insisting that every thing is faultless which favours
the present interest of the Ministers—(a very different
thing, be it observed, from the interest of the nation)
and abusing every thing—even that which they have pre-
viously praised—as soon as it ceases to operate for the in-
terest of the Ministers—the weekly organs on the same
tide seem rather to consult the ultimate interests of demo-
cracy.
These latter may be argued with—the former can
only be exposed. It appears at present, however, to be the