The Sun.
London, England, 1825-01-07 00:00:00

[MORNING HERALD.]

One of the most remarkable moral phenomena
in the history of society, is undoubtedly the
rapid extension of education and knowledge in
this country among the people at the present day.
The vast increase not merely of publications of
various kinds sent forth from the Press, and espe-
cially of periodical publications and newspapers,
incalculably exceeding the increase of population,
within a few years, proves how that the habit as
well as the faculty of reading has gained upon
what may be called the multitude. A
new impulse has recently been given to the
popular intellect, by the establishment of
schools of Science and the useful Arts.—
It is unnecessary to point out to any person
who has at all attended to what is going on in
the world the rapid progress of these institutions,
and the progress especially of scientific education
among the working artisans in the large towns
of England and Scotland. But the working people
are not merely acquiring knowledge—they are
communicating it, and to those in a condition
above them. Look at the cheap publications,
conveying knowledge of science and the use-
ful arts, published in London ; and look at the
merit and character of their contents. They
not only have the merit of ingenuity, and
of useful and curious information, but are distin-
guished by a grace of style and a propriety of
tone which shames and rebukes works and au-
thors of much higher pretension. In fact, the
common people are rapidly usurping that know-
ledge which used to be the prerogative of those
who are regarded as not of the common people.
We find the working artisans appropriating the
theory and practice of arithmetic, geometry,
mechanics, physics, and chemistry—and what
remains after this but poetry, speculation, and
the mere luxuries of literature ? Upon this
aspect of society we shall offer but one remark.
Social superiority is not maintainable without a
certain superiority of knowledge and intellect.—
It is therefore clearly incumbent upon the upper
classes, or those who are above manual labour, to
look about them, or they will be pushed from
their pre-eminence. The alarm has already been
taken in France. A committee of the Deputies,
in the last summer, advised the suppression of
schools of Arts supported by the Government,
from an avow ed apprehension of the mischiefs of
education among the working people.

[MORNING CIIRONICLE-]

The unfortunate turn which affairs have lately
taken in the East Indies, arising, in a great measure, out of
the inability of the individual at the head of the Government
to plan and direct extensive military operations, has naturally
led to considerable dissatisfaction with the appointment of Lord
Amherst. In the case of Lord Charles Somerset, it was con-
sidered that the worst that could happen was the destruction of
a thousand or two of Englishmen, by the irruption of Kafres,
or location in districts unsuited to ,cultivation ; and as the
its
fair of Beaufort, in virtue of its boroughs, has a right to
fair share of colonial misgovernment, the Cape was deemed as
convenient a field for the exercise of the talents of a Lord
Charles as any that could be chosen. But the magnitude of
the stake at issue in India, it was thought, ought to have se-
cured for that portion of our dominions, an exemption from the
evils of a mere parliamentary appointment, without reference
to talents or fitness. We hardly, however, think the censure
of Ministers which this implies, fair. We are neither disposed
to give them much credit for the appointment of a clever man,
nor to revile them for the appointment of an inefficient
,man.
By the nature of our Government, certain families must be
provided for, and if the possessor of a certain number of votes
has the power of giving himself, or his relations and friends,
certain offices, it would be very odd if he, of all men, should
start any objection on the score of qualification. It is
very easy to say that Ministers ought not to name an unfit
person, just as it is very easy to say that Mr. Barrow -of the
Admiralty, who succeeded in making the important discovery,
that the drifted ice from Greenland prevented the Kentish
wheat from ripening some summers ago, and who discovered
so many things at the Cape which no man ever discovered be-
fore or since, ought once more to cultivate the acquaintance of
some witch, and ascend by her aid to the moon, to ascertain
whether the cities in that planet are really so magnificent as
M. Gruithausen, of Munich, alleges they are. Men in all
situations must be governed by circumstances, and it would
be just as unreasonable in us to demand that Ministers should,
in spite of the circumstances by which they are governed, dis-
cover virtue or fitness to command, through any other specta-
cles than those of Lord Lonsdale, the Duke of Beaufort, &c.,
as it would be in an American Journalist to complain that we do
not subscribe to his opinion that a Republic is preferable to a
Monarchy. Reason is very well in its way; but reason, when
matched against powor, is very often beaten. To contend
with arguments against power, is rowing against a rapid stream.
You might as well hope to persuade an Alderman to abjure
turtle, and conform to the dietics of Cornaro, as to persuade
men who have the power to do mischief that they ought to re-
linquish it. We have been ourselves Don-Quixoting it a little,
by endeavouring to satisfy our unpaid Magistrates, that it is
better to have few criminals than. large prisons, and that.some
ten thousand commitments every 3rear more than would other-
wise be necessary, merely to familiarize Country' Squires
with the praCtice of the Criminal Law, is not absolutely ne-
cessary to the existence of the country. We question if
there is one of them, even Socrates himself, were he to rise
from the dead, would succeed in persuading that any amount
of power to their own body is too great, or that ever since
a Justice of Peace, could flog a peasant at a cart's tail, the
whip was ever improperly applied. If we succeed in satisfying
others, that the peculiar glory of England, an unpaid Ma-
! gistracy, has, like many other descriptions of glory, been very
dearly bought, we shall be satisfied. .Hume thought the
world had not had sufficient experience in political matters
to be able to speculate with any chance of a satisfactory re-
sult. If we had not had experience, however, we have had
abundance of writing ; of stupid factious writing; loud rail-
ing against imaginary evils, while real evils were overlooked.
At one time luxury was driving the nation, post haste, to
ruin, and one would have imagined British virtue was inse-
parably bound up with the use of linsey woolsey. At another,
a Dr. Brown succeeded in persuading the nation that English
courage was quite extinct among us, and that the island was
ready for the first invader who thought it worth his while to
take charge of it. Doctor Price gave a turn to the apprehen-
sion of calamity, for, in the midst of the Norfolk and Essex
agricultural improvements, he saw nothing but a rapid decay
of people, and being unaware of the ability of our neighbours
the Irish, to assist us in a strait of this kind, he contemplat-
ed the extinction of the British name in no long period of
time, from the inability of our propagators to find mouths
for the food. Among the amusing discoveries made in the last
century, was that of a majority of the House of Commons, that
the power of the Crown had increased, was increasing, and
ought to be diminished. When we call to mind this vote, and
at the same time the lectures read by the House of Commons to
his present Majesty, the Dukes of Cumberland, Clarence, &c.,
we are tempted to think of the Hindoos, who, when their gods

do 'not prove so pliable as they wish them to be, give them a
whipping now and then.. There was a time, and that not very
remote, when the Crown was really powerful in England.--
The Duke de Rohan, who visited this island in 1660, was
struck with the immense difference between the power of the
King of England, with reference to the Aristocracy, compared
with that of the King of France, with reference to his.—" I
confess," he says, " that the people of England are more happy
than the people of France, for when civil wars are kindled
among them, they are terminated by battles, whence they do
not last so long, and, besides, the cruelty is exercised against
the great, and not against the people. In time of peace, also,
they are not so oppressed with taxes and impositions as our
people. But as to nobility, that of France, in my judgment,
is far more fortunate than the English, both because the
English pay taxes, like the people, and also for the rigour of
justice, which is so ordinarily exercised against them, that
there are some who deem it an honour, and estimate the gran-
deur of their houses by the number of their predecessors,
who have had their heads cut off, while that is very rare among
us, and therefore we consider it a great ignominy when it hap-
pens, except it be for the name of God (the Duke was a Cal-
vinist). And besides that the privileges of the nobility in
France, the liberty, the familiarity of the King with them, in-
stead of the superstitious reverence which the English render to
theirs, would lead, no doubt, any stranger to prefer the French
nobility to the English." Such were the relative situations of
the Kings of France and England two centuries, ago, and such
the superior power of the French Aristocr The French
Aristocracy now are upheld merely by r.7:•,655 ins ; while the
English are the masters of thei- .id perhaps of the
world. Amidst the stophl "i3_(7s7lllets and treatises
which issued in such —3'4; ', e press, during the 50
or 60 years before
3,1)63 .ution' there are several
in which the autho' aye had glimpses of the real
state of things. " An Essay on Republican
13,049
Principles, and 4 ;nt'%;-eniencies of a Commonwealth in
a large Countr7,4=-Nation," by Dr. John Andrews, published
in 1784, the principle that Kings are often zealous for the
happiness of the lower orders, but a pure aristocracy never, and
that the greatest danger to a country arises from the increase of
the power of the aristocracy, is distinctly laid down.--" The
Emperor, the Kings of Prussia and Sweden," he says,
" have given illustrious proofs of their just concern for the
happiness of the lower ranks of their subjects, and of their
earnest desire to protect them front the ill-treatment of their
superiors. But we cannot dismiss this subject without ob-
serving, that notwithstanding the known benevolence and hu-
manity of the present King of Poland, it is utterly out of his
power to imitate them. Ile may exercise these virtues as
much as he pleases towards those who dwell on his he-
reditary lands and estates ; but he must not dare to
extend them beyond his own patrimony ; lie would exas-
perate a Nobility, which, however humbld on all sides,
through means of its internal divisions, is, nevertheless, re-
solutely bent on the unhappy preservation of that tyran-
nical and tempestuous aristocracy which has been, and will in
all probability continue to be, the bane of that nation till it has
totally subverted it
sively govern, their rank anti prerogatives are ascertained and
are inserted and exercised in a manner explicit and avowed ;
but when the people have an indiscriminate right to rule, and
no distinction of families and hereditary dignity is allowed,
such persons as have through dint of artifice found means
to engross the direction of affairs, and to confine it with-
in the circle of their associations and relations, are obliged to
do it in a surreptitious and indirect manner. Not that thy are
able to disguise it to the public ; their cunning and contri-
vances are always seen through ; but such is the temper of
men, that while the authority thus acquired is acknowledged
to be accidental, and as much their own right to obtain
as that of such as possess it, they are usually falsified ; and
please themselves by feeding their expectation, that they may,
in their turn, make part of their number: thus, by degrees, the
management of the State centers at length in a fixed and
limited rotation of families, who become as jealous of in-
truders as if they had an hereditary claim to the places they
fill, and as if' it were a real injury to give them new Associates.
Let us on this occasion advert to what passes among ourselves ;
and learn to be vigilant in guarding against that monopolizing
spirit of power which steals imperceptibly even on men of the
best and most upright intentions. It has been of late years a
very common complaint among the ancient families of the
gentry throughout England, that they have lost much of their
Parliamentary Interest, as it is called ; that strange innovation
have taken place in the choice of Members. What is this '
but an implied avowal that they would, if possible, exclude
all representation but of themselves? Nothing being clearer
than that he whose influence is such as always to be sure of his
election, cannot, in the strictness of truth, be said to represent
any body but himself. So far, therefore, as any man pos-
sesses a seat in Parliament, founded upon such a tenure, he is
to every essential purpose, title alone excepted, a Peer of the
realm, and contributes as much as in him lies to convert the
Democracy of this kingdom into an Aristocracy." We do not
mean to say that the Illinisters of the Crown ought not to be
controuled; but when we see them opposed by the ignorant
selfishness of the Aristocracy in their liberal views respecting
trade, and determined that the industry of the country shall
languish, rather than that the people should import corn, from
people who have nothing else to give us for our manufactures,
we say that the Aristocracy require to be controuled still more.