The Sun.
London, England, 1831-12-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The attempt of the Dutch Government, in
the note to the London Conference which wa
published on Wednesday, to open negotiations
which we had conceived for ever concluded, and
to alter arrangements which had been declared
definitive, suggests the propriety, or rather im-
poses the duty, of recapitulating a few facts in
the history of these diplomatic transactions, and.
of describing exactly the present state of the
question, that the document alluded to may be
the better understood. The Plenipotentiaries of
the Five Powers, in their thirteen or fourteen
months' operations, ha\ e dug a kind of diplo-
matic labyrinth, to escape from which the care-
less observer may sometimes require a guiding
thread. From the bombardment of Antwerp on
the 27th of October, 1830, after a long series of
alleged grievances, it will readily be allowed that
a reunion of the Dutch and Belgic provinces
under the same sceptre—and that sceptre held
by a Nassau—became nearly impossible. The
National Congress, on the Bth or 10th of the
following month, confirmed the worst apprehen-
sions of the friends of peace and of Orange as-
cendancy, by decreeing the expulsion of the dy-
nasty, and the entire independence of the Belgic
provinces. From that moment the separation
might be considered complete, and the preten-
sions of the Nassau family superseded. The
Duke of Wellington's Ministry was as decided
on this point as that of Lord Grey, and
th© Emperor of Austria entertained no more
doubt of its necessity than the King of the
French. We say this without desiring to iTty
compliment to the Belgians for their determit*v
tion to separate themselves from a neighbouring
people, who might have added to their power
without abridging their liberties, and without
either reproaching the Dutch Government for
any harshness in driving them to rebellion, or
for any weakness in not recovering thri,r allegi-
ance. We even allow the extreme probabilit:Y
that the Belgians would never have rebelled' Ams
all, or that their insurrection would have spee-
dily been put down, had they not been encou-
raged by the example of the French revolution-
ists, and conceived that they could fight safely
from behind the shield of the French Govern-
ment. In this calculation the Belgic insurgents
were right. France from the beginning declared
both to them and to the great Powers that shy
would consider any aggression directed by them
igainst Belgium as an attack on herself; and as,
from the state of disorganization in which the
Dutch army was left by its expulsion from Brus-
sels, the Belgic volunteers were threatening even
the Dutch frontier, the King of Holland was
unable to do for himself what his allies in any
other circumstances would with alacrity have
executed for him. Nothing, therefore, remained
but to allow the treaty of Vienna, so fat as Bel-
gium was concerned, to be deemed waste paper,
and to concur in a separation already in fact ac-
complished. Here, then, the office of the great
Powers begins. They had proclaimed the
banns and effected a forced union between the
parties in 1815. Out of that union obligations
and interests had arisen, which it was necessary
to adjust at their political divorce, but which
the parties themselves, in their mutual rage and
common feeling of injuries, could not be ex-
pected amicably to settle. Besides, whatever
alteration in the balance of the international
power the division of the Netherlands into two
States might produce fell within the domain of
diplomacy, from the concern, immediate or re-
mote, which the great Powers might feel in such
a new distribution of force. But above all,
every nation had an interest in preventing, by a
friendly adjustment of differences, the continu-
ance of hostilities, which must sooner or later
have involved them all. On these grounds, which
involve no supposition of interference in any
affairs of domestic government or internal ar-
rangement, the great Powers interfered between
the belligerents, and demanded a suspension of
arms (which took place on the 21st of No-
vember) with a view to negociations for a final
settlement. The King of Holland had pre-
viously applied to the Allies for that assistance
against his rebel subjects which he thought was
in " the bond" which guaranteed his throne, but
both parties were now heard, and an equal obli-
gation to keep the peace was imposed upon
both. The separation was, in fact, considered
as complete, though its terms remained to be
settled. The Belgians, giddy with their newly
acquired independence, and secure in the pro-
tection of France, proceeded, in the first in-
stance, as if they were the only nation in the
world, owning no past obligations, and re-
fusing to pledge themselves to any future en-
gagements. They made their Constitution, de-
posed their former dynasty, settled the number
of their provinces, incorporated with their new
State every piece of ground that they could call
Belgic, asserted their rights of navigation, and
released themselves from their debt, without any
reference to a higher tribunal than their own
omnipotent National Congress. They sent, in-
deed, an envoy to the Conference of London,
and received envoys from France and England
at Brussels, but it was chiefly with a view to
protest against all protocols and to resist all ar-
rangements. Meantime the King of Holland,
who, being a legitimate Sovereign, had his Ple-
nipotentiaries received in London on better
terms than the refractory Provisional Congress,
found the benefit of his diplomatic prudence and
experience in the Conference of time Great
Powers. Accordingly, an arrangement was
concluded, and consigned to two protocols be-
fore the end of January last, in which his Dutch
Majesty was guaranteed in all the territory to
which he had thought himself entitled, includ-
ing the Gland Duchy of Luxemburg, and
was to receive front his rebel subjects the pay-
ment of 16-31 of the joint debt. The Belgic
Congress protested against this order, ordered
their volunteers to put on their smock-frocks,
threatened the Dutch dikes, and threw down
the gauntlet to Europe in arms. The protocols
were peremptory ; but the peculiar situation of
Belgium, which made this resistance safe, pre-
vented them from being executed by any other
power than the French Government, which,
having entered the Netherlands as an umpire,
might remain as a conqueror. In the, midst of
these protests the Belgians fell to King-making,
hoping to have greater success in their negotia-
tions with their rivals, when they could present
themselves at the doors of the Conference with
a Sovereign at their head. In their first attempt
in this way, they were unfortunate ; but-the in-
clination towards France, which they evinced in
their election of the young Duke of Nemours,
was afterwards useful to their pretensions, in
showing those whose minds were perpetually
alarmed at the idea of a French union that they
could not be neglected or opposed with impu-
nity. While in a state of war with the Confer-
ence and the protocols—but feeling the ne-
cessity of some arrangement, which would end.
their domestic agitations, and admit them

into the community of acknowledged States—
they fixed their eyes on their present Sovereign,
Prince Leopold, and elected him for their King.
An obstacle as strong existed to this nomination
as to the last. The King elect could not ac-
cept of a throne which would place him in hos-
tility with Europe. But after his election,
which was regarded as a pledge of peace, the
Conference changed their ground, and then be.
gan their war with their old ally the King of
Holland. Instead of the Protocols to which we
have before alluded—and of which the Dutch
Government was incessantly demanding the ex-
ecution—the Plenipotentiaries of the great
Powers, having heard both parties, drew up
eighteen articles, which they called preliminaries
of peace, and to which they peremptorily re-
quired the assent of the Dutch and Belgium
Governments, whhout permitting any change or
modification. In these stipulations the tables
were turned on the Hollanders. Luxemburg
was to be given to Belgium on a promise of in-
demnity ; and, besides other alterations, the di-
vision of the joint debt was left to be settled by
the parties. This new basis of separation,
which bears date the 26th of June, was imme-
diately communicated to both ; and to both
at appeared iniquitous and tyrannical. It
spread alarm and indignation at the Hague.
Brussels the political dubs denounced
es a display of insolent despotism. In
three or four days after it was subscribed in
Downing-street, it was submitted to the Belgic
Congress t which, after a week of stormy debate
svn bin and threatened insurrection without,
adopted it on the 9th of July by a considerable
majority. The news was immediately communi-
cated to the Conference—and the King elect
was row enabled to mount his throne with their
concurrence. His Majesty hemediately pro-
ceeded to Brussels, where he was inaugurated,;
or, in other words, took the oaths to the consti-'
tution, on the 21st of July. The King of Hol-
land, determined not to accept of the 18 preli-
minaries, made immediate preparations for the
invasion of Belgium, to enforce better terms ;
and on the Ist of August broke the armistice
which he had formed, not with Belgium, but
with the Conference. his Dutch Majesty had
previously refused to accede to the preliminares
of June, and the Conference, willing to open
negotiations anew, under the better auspices
of a settled 13eigic Government, had invited
the mission of a Belgic negotiator on the
25th of July,—an invitation which was re-
fused on the 28th of July, on the ground,
that till both parties accepted the preliminaries,
it would be in vain to discuss the consecu-
tive arrangements with either. The Dutch in-
vasion—the defeat of the Belgians, and the de-
monstration of their military weakness—the
entry of the French troops, and the epprehen-
eions of their stay—together with the various
events and discussions to which they gave rise
—induced the Conference to recall their irre-
vocable and unalterable decrees, and to invite
the parties to a speedy adjustment of their dif
ferences, or rather to form themselves a fresh ar-
rangement on the new information and reason-
ings which the parties might supply. The
Belgian Sovereign could now obtain admission
for his Plenipotentiaries as well as the Dutch.
Both parties again submitted their claims—both
parties founded their pretensions on the previous
decisions of their judges, the Dutch claiming the
execution of die protocols of January, and the
Belgians that of the preliminaries of June ; and
both parties were again disappointed by a final
departure from stipulations which had succes-
sively been declared to be final. Out of these
contradictory and clashing pretensions and in-
terests grew the twenty-four articles, which, by
varying the name, have been called, not prelimi-
naries of a treaty of peace, but the treaty itself.
On the 15th of October the "final and irre-
vocable" decision, requiring, in the words of
the Plenipotentiaries, a " full and entire ac-
ceptance," and allowing no separation of parts or
change of condition, issued from the Conference,
and on the 20th it was submitted to the Belgic
Chambers by their Sovereign, with expressions
of sorrow and regret that Belgium had been so
hardly dealt with. Again, after angry debates,
the new articles were accepted by the Belgians,
only as a sacrifice to peace,—a concession to ne-
cessity,—and with feelings of mournful resigna-
tion. Having received the sanction of his Le-
gislative Chambers, King Leopold ordered his
Plenipotentiary at London to agree to the con-
version of the 28 articles into a treaty with the
Five Powers, which was done on the 13th of
November. By this treaty each of diem engages
to guarantee to Belgium " the execution of the
24 stipulations," and to give them all the force
" of a solemn convention between themselves
and his Belgic Majesty." No alteration can
therefore now be permitted at the instance of
Holland, without breaking the faith of " a
solemn convention" with her rival. Thus has
Belgium twice accepted of conditions ref Used by
Holland. A month having passed after this
solemn engagement," the Dutch Plenipoten-
tiaries presented on the 14th instant time protest
to which we have alluded, and which in the cir-
cumstances cannot alter the determination of time
Allied Powers. It is needless to say that the
24, articles are less favourable to Holland than
the protocols of January, but his Dutch Majesty
ought to reflect that they give him advantages
which he could not have derived from the
18 preliminaries of June. Articles 9, 10,
and 12 may appear objectionable to people
of other countries, because they sanction a
right of passage to the Belgians through
Dutch territory ; but that rase occurs only when
the road, time river, and the canal have been com-
mon to both. The adjustment of the debt would
appear to us to have been made upon a basis
which must appear reasonable to every man who
knows the origin of its different portions, and
who considers the circumstances rn which the
countries were united. As negotiations of this
kind arc never likely to be conducted to a satis-
factory conclusion by third parties, and as the
King of Holland has now a regular Belgic Go-
vernment with which to treat, why does be not
accept of the present irrevocable decision, and
wait for modifications or changes for mutual ad-
vantage in a separate convention with the hlng
of Belgium ? We have stupidly and malignantly
been accused of hostility to the people of Hol-
land and their excellent monarch, because we have
incessantly called upon them to remain at peace.
To betray any such feeling—any disrespect or
hatred to such a nation and such a Sovereign,
would argue an insensibility to the blessings of
regulated freedom, and to time glories of consis-
tent patriotism. But while we say thus, We are
not disposed always to admit the disinterestedness
of the one, or the tractable disposition of the
other. On the present occasion his Dutch
Majesty must be imprudent to resist the award
of Europe, if he believes the Conference to be
united and sincere ; and his conduct would de-
serve a harsher epithet, if, trusting in their divi-
sions, he smashes to convert his particular interests

into an apple of discord, and, by holding out
against the treaty of separation, hopes again to
provoke a general war, and to envelop the Ne-
therlands with hostile armies.—Times.

A Morning Contemporary of Wednesday has
the following observations :
" The doctrines of the modern lace of political econo-
mists, with regard to accumulated cap tal and large farms,
have very much tended to promote the mischievous delu-
sion under which the great landed proprietors had fur some
irne acted, in throwing several farms into one, and dis-
continuing the letting of small portions of land ; but this
error is now, in some parts of England, correcting itself—
,he fdlure of a considerable proportion of the great farmers
has thrown so much land upon the hands of some of the
treat landed proprietors, especially where tl-e farms were
held by tenancies-at-will, that several landlords have an-
nounced that they are ready to let small parcels of land, of
one, two, or three acres, who, some years ago, would have
considered it a degradation to have treated with any but
a man of capital,' or a farmer who kept his hunter, and
who thrught it a worthier occupation to follow the tail of
a fox fur a day than to follow his own plough."

The practice of throwing a number of farms
into one, is, we believe, of much older date
than the publications of IDodern political eco-
nomists. The controversy respecting the rela-
tive advantages of large and small farms was car-
ried on with little intermission during the
greater part of the last century. The landlord
threw several farms into one, for the same rea-
son that he will now throw one large farm into
several small ones, namely—to obtain a higher
rent. There was a saving in the expense of
keeping up farm-buildings ; there was a saving
in labour; for the number of men and horses
on a number of small farms was proportionally
much greater than on one large farm ; and the
occupant of the large farm being often a man of
intelligence, he introduced a number of improve-
ments which the small farmer never would have
thought of. Add to this, that in many districts
of the island, hill and valley arc so distributed,
that a farm must be large, in order to have a
command of turnips and other green crops in
winter for the cattle. The large farmer was not
only able to pay more rent, but he paid his rent
more punctually. One most mischievous moral
consequence of the throwing a number of small
farms into one, and the extinction of all small
possessions was the degradation of the labourers.
The small farmer and the labourer were nearly
of the same class, had their meals together, the
labourer profited by the conversation of his
master, and if he were a sensible and well-dis-
posed man, there was nothing to prevent his
being one day a small farmer himself. In this
way his labour was cheered by hope, and he had
a strong motive for self-denial and economy. It
has been well observed by Dickson, the judicious
author of the Husbandry of the Ancients, that
though gentlemen farmers may be most likely to
introduce into a country in which agriculture is
at a low ebb improved processes, when once these
processes are introduced they can be followed by
small as well as large farmers. Accordingly it
is now found, that i❑ many districts of this island
there is as perfect a system of agriculture with
small farmers, as in districts where the farms are
large. In the Netherlands and in Switzerland,
and in the North of Italy and Tuscany, the most
perfect agriculture prevails with small farms. In
Flanders, the farmer, like the old English
farmer, sits at the table with his servants, and
looks carefully into every detail. He is at the
same time, according to all accounts, a much
better farmer than the English farmer. Radcliff,
who was sent by the Farming Society of Ireland
to the Netherlands, and published a report on
the agriculture of East and West Flanders, in
1819, thus describes the manners of the Flemish
farmer and labourer :
" It is a pleasure to observe the laborious industry of
the Flemish farmer recruited by intervals of decent and
comfortable refreshment, and not less agreeable to perceive
the farm servants treated with kindness and resp-ct.
" They uniformly dine with the farmer and his family
at a clean trble-cloth, well supplied with spoons, with
four-pry nged forks, and every thing necessary for their
convenience. In Flanders the gentlemen are all farmers,
hut the farmers do not aspire to be gentlemen, and their
servants feel the benefit. They partake with them of a
plentiful and orderly meal, which varies according to cir-
cumstaneeF Tl•e clothing of the peasnatry

is warm and comfortable—good shoes and stockings, and
frequently gaiters of leather or strong linen, which are sold
very cheap Their comfortable supply of
linen is remarkable: there are few of the lalosuring classes
without many changes With respect to
tie farm-house, the exterior is, for the moat part, orna-
mented with creepers or fruit trees, trained against the
walls; and within, the neatness which prevails is quite
fascinating. Every article of furniture is polished—the
service of pewter displays a peculiar brightness, and the
tiled floor is purified by frequent ablutions. The cottage
of the labourer, though not so well furnished, is, however,
as clean ; a frequent and periodical use of water and the
broom pervades every house, great and small, in the country-
and in town." _ _

NV hat our contemporary says with regard to
accumulation of capital is irrelevant. The ca-
pital ought to be suited to the farm. A large
farm requires a large capital—a small farm, a
smaller capital. If a man takes a farm which
he has not capital to stock sufficiently, whether
the farm be large or small, he will labour under
difficulties. What is wanted is Not that men
without capital shall take farms (for the mis-
chievous consequence of this is felt in Ireland,
where a man without a farthing will take a
farm), but that there should be farms of sizes
suited to the capitals by which they can be ad-
vantageously cultivated. We believe that after
the first great improvements of embanking and
draining, &c. have been made in a country, if
things were left to their natural course farms
would constantly diminish rather than increase
in size. . The small farmer can observe all the
most improved practices, and he can better at-
tend to minute details—an immense matter in
farming. The difference, too, between the ex-
ertions of a hireling and the man who labours for
himself is not to be disregarded. Accord-
ingly, it has been found that during times
of difficulty the small farmer has strug•
Bled through, while the large farmer has
sunk, from inability to keep down his expenditure.
The small farmer and his family will toil early
and late if necessary, and cheerfully submit to
privations, in the hope of better times ; but the
hireling has no interest in the prosperity of his
master, and no motive for encountering priva-

tions for the sake of one who, if prosperous,
would never bestow a thought on him. The
tendency to multiply farms is retarded by the
necessity for an outlay on buildings, and still
more by the manner in which the poor laws have
been abused in a great part of England. The
man who cultivates a small possession by his own
labour and that of his family is made to pay the
wages of the labourers of the great farmer. In
many parishes the rates are as high as thirty
shillings a pound merely through the labourers
receiving their wages in the shape of rates.
Wherever this system prevails, there can be no
small farmers. It they were to pay no rent,
they would be ruined by the rates. As great
farmers hate to have small farnis in their neigh-
bourhood, and hate to see labourers possessed
of small allotments of land, or any means by
which they can escape from absolute dependence,
the poor-rates were often raised with a view to
work the destruction of the small farmers and the

more complete dependence of the labourers,
We never can think of the manner in which the
Magistracy lent themselves to schemes to reduce
the labourers of England to parish slavery, with-
out a feeling of deep indignation. We are ready
to admit that, in recommending the system of
paying according to the number of children, they
might not be aware of all the consequences to
which it would lead. But that institution is
necessarily a great curse to a country which has
the power to do the mischief which the Great
Unpaid have done. The Justice played with the
labourer as with a football, One year one
overseer would induce him to fix the wages of a
parish at 9s. a week ; next year, a succeeding
overseer, who has different notions of parish
government, would induce to fix the wages
at 12s. a week. In short, the labourer was made
a complete slave. The picture drawn by Mr.
Wakefield of the relation in which the rich and
the poor stand to each other in England is a most
hideous one ; but who will say that it is not a
faithful one ?

..... - - - - - -
" Is nothing done by the ' Nobility, Clergy, and Gen-
try,' to conciliate the affections of the purer mass, by
whose toil all their own wealth is produced? Charity!
The chatity of the poor laws, which paupers have been
taught to consider a right, which operates as a curse to
the ab'e-bodii d and well•disposed, whilst it but just enables
the infirm of all ages to linger on in pain and sorrow.
Soup ! Dogs'-ine It, the paupers call it. They are very
ungrateful ; but there is a way of relieving a man's neces-
sities which will make him hate you ; anti it is this way,
eenerally. that soup is given to the poor. Books, good
little beoks, which teach patience and submission to the
powers that be ! with which such paupers as obtain them
usually boil their kettles, when not deterred by fear of the
reverend donor. Of this gift the design is so plain and
offensive, that its effect is contrary to what was intended,
just as children from whom obedience is very strictly
exacted are commonly rebels at heart. What else ? Is
nothing else dune by the rural rich to win the love of the
rural poor ?
" Speaking generally, since all rules have exceptions,
the privileged classes of our t oral districts take infinite
pains to be abhorred by their poorest neighbours. They
inclose commons. They stop foot-paths. They wall in
their parks. They set spring-guns and man-trar. They
spend on the keep of high-bred dogs what would support
ha f as many children, and yet persecute a labouring man
for owning one friend in his cur. They make rates of
wages, elaborately calculating the minimum of food that
will keep together tlee soul and body of a clod-hopper. They
breed game in profusion for their own amusement; and
havine: thus tempted a poor man to knock down a hare for
his pot, they send him to the tread-mill, or the Antipodes,
for that inexpiable offence. They build gaols, and till
them. They make new crimes and new punishments for
the poor. They interfere with the marriages of the poor,
compelling some, and forbidding others to come together.
They shut up pauptra in workhouse,, separating husband
and wi'e, in pounds by day, and wards by night. They
harness poor men to carts. They superintend ale-houses,
decry skittles, depreeste beer-shops, meddle with fairs, and
otherwise curtail the already narrow amusements of the
poor. Evt nin church, where some of them solemnly preach
that all are equal, they sit on cushions, in pews, horded,
matted, and sheltered by curtains from the wind anti the
vulgar gi:ac, whilst the lower order must put up with a
bare bench on a stone floor, which is good enough for
them. Everywhere they are ostentatious in the display
of wealth and enjoyment ; whilst in their intercourse with
the goer they are suspicious, quick at taking offence, vin-
dictive when displeased, haughty, overbearing, tyrannical."

Englishmen, who visit other countries, are
struck with the contrast which many of them
present to their own, in as far as regards the
mass of the people, by no means to the advan-
tage of England. Mr. Inglis, a traveller through
many lands, and who, as a pedestrian, mixed
with the people, and entered their cottaFes, de-
scribes, again and again, his painful feelings
on perceiving the superior condition of foreigners.
" During my residence in Berne," he says, "
never passed through the market without re-
ceiving new gratification, though mingled with
some painful reflections. The healthy and ro-
bust appearance of the country people, well
clothed, and evidently well-fed, busy, and
seemingly contented, could not but recal to my
mind the half-starved population," &c. " In
every direction around Berne, proofs are abun-
dant of the great industry of the Bernese pea-
santry, and of the easy and comfortable condition
in which they live. I everywhere saw a fertile soil
about to repay well the toil of the labourer. Every
cottage appeared substantial ; and the little gardens
attached to it carefully dressed and neativ arranged."
Speaking of the people of France, he says—" I
think it only just to record here my belief in the
great honesty of the French people, who cannot
be charged with that disposition towards petty
theft, which so disgraces the people of most other
countries. This superior honesty may be partly
owing to a natural virtue ; but I suspect that
the difference in morals, and especially in the
prevalence of robbery, is, in most cases, to be
attributed chiefly to the difference in the condi-
tion of the people. This sufficiently explains
the difference between France and England in a
comparison of the quantity of crime in the two
countries." In another place, he says—
" Country labour is generally to be had ; and
its rewards, though small, are sufficient to supply
the comforts, and even the little luxuries of a
peasant's life. In France, too, a great propor-
non of the land is the property of the peasantry,
who {cm a class almost unknown in England,
and who are happier than the same class in
other countries. The Swiss peasant is indeed
as much a proprietor, and generally a richer pro-
prietor, than the French peasant ; but his life is a
life of labour, because his climate renders labour
necessary." If the goodness of a Government
is to be estimated by the physical and moral
condition of the great mass of the inhabitants,
we fear that of England, at the present moment,
would not rank very high. The incendiarism
prevailing throughout a large extent of the coun-
try, indicates a dreadful want of sympathy be-
tween the rich and the poor. A good municipal
police might do something to arrest the progress
of crime, especially of arson. And this leads
us to observe, that we never can have a good po-
lice with an unpaid Magistracy. What is the
complaint at present I" That the Magistrates
are afraid to act. No man chooses to make
himself conspicuous, lest his house or yards be
fired. The unpaid are admirable for driving and
harassing the peasantry in peaceable times ; but
they have too much at stake to act rigorously in
times of difficulty. They interfere in every thing
where interference can only do mischief ; but
where they ought to interfere they hang back.
Were the stipendiaries in the different districts
charged with the peace of the country,
and the public prosecutors responsible for
the state of their different divisions, they
would be obliged to exert themselves to check
the arson. But a police cannot, of course, im-
prove the condition of the English labourers.
A number of causes have concurred in placing
them in their present deteriorated condition ;
and to extricate them will require both time and
exertion. An improved administration of the
Poor Laws will go a great way. The poor will
then be able to employ their sm,all capitals in
land without fear. The tithe system must be
altered ; for no labourer would think of bestow-
ing labour on a piece of land, if the parson were
to take the tithe. In cases of poor land, the
tithe would be seriously felt. Local Courts and
stipendiary Magistrates, without the power to
oppress derived from overwhelming property,
and without local connection, would also contri-

bute greatly to the independence of the poor,
Any man who knows any thing of Scotland can
be at no loss with regard to the evil produced
by an unpaid Magistracy in England, in destroy-
ing the independence of the peasantry. Much
is wanted, but without the labourer is rendered
independent of parochial despotism and tithes,
allotments of land cannot be held by him with
much advantage. But we have exceeded our
Emits, and must stop for time present.—Morn-
ing Chronicle.
The state of France, which it must be admit-
ted has been any thing but prosperous since the
glorious days" of July, is frequently adverted
to by the Anti-Reform orators as affording a
practical illustration of the dangers and evils re-
sulting from popular change and revolution.—
Sir Robert Peel has been very solemn and
didactic on this subject, and Mr. Croker has
been no less facetious and satirical. But a gross
fallacy lurks at the bottom of the political ser-
mons of the one, and blunts the point of the
taunting jokes and gibes of the other. The
fallacy consists in attributing the present condi-
tion of France to the effects of popular change
in the Government ; whereas that popular change
was itself the result of a despotic subversion Of
the Constitution. It is convenient enough for
Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Croker, and other orators of
that stamp, when adverting to the history of the
French revolution, and converting it into an
argument in terrorem populi, to omit the
most important part of that history—namely,
the issuing of the flagitious and fatal ordi-
nances. The issuirtng of those ordinances
was an act of regal revolution. It con-
verted in an instant a limited Monarchy
into a despotic one. The Charter, to which
the Monarch was morally and legally bound, as
much as the meanest of his subjects, was, by a
dash of the pen that signed the ordinances, can-
celled. The liberties of the people had no lon-
ger any existence. The title-deeds of that most
valuable of all property, a nation's freedom, be-
came the spoil of regal rapine. The ancient
tyranny of the house of Bourbon was restored,
and nearly half a century of political struggles
and vicissitudes left France at the point from
which she started. The despotic revolution was
complete from the moment that the ordinances
appeared in the Moniteur ; and the people
must have acknowledged themselves the slaves
of a Bourbon Sultan, or immediately reclaimed
their political rights by a counter-revolution.
They chose the latter alternative—a bitter
necessity, indeed, but still the only means
of escaping something worse—and we hope
the day will never come when Englishmen
would not do the same. What France would
have become, had the despotism, been quietly
established, we may infer from the condition of
Portugal or Spain, or from the state of France
itself before the revolution of 1789. But it is
said the revolution has not advanced its pros-
perity. We admit it ; but we deny that the re-
volution has been the cause of the miseries which
now press so heavily on France. Some of these
are only the accumulated consequences of pre-
vious misgovernment, under the profligate and
priest-ridden reign of the Restoration. Others
are of more recent origin; and their curse has
come upon France, not because the revolution
happened, but because the principles of that re-
volution have been jalstfled. It has been
said, with less sarcasm than truth, that France
has changed nothing by the revolution but
her colours. She did in the first instance, in-
deed, change a great deal. She changed the
throne of a despot for a popular one. She
changed a sullen system of persecuting bigotry
for civil and religious freedom. She changed
the ordinances for the Charter. Scarcely,
however, had the national will placed upon the
throne a Prince of the house of Bourbon, when
the nation might have elected any body else, or
have abolished Royalty altogether—scarcely, we
say, had the national will placed upon the throne
a Prince of the house of Bourbon, when that
Prince evinced symptoms of the incurable weak-
ness of understanding of the Bourbon race. He
taught his Minister to talk of the nonsense of a
quasi legitimacy ; as if being raised by public
acclamation to a vacant throne was not the
highest of all titles, while in point of " legiti-
macy," under any aspect, he could never be re-
garded but as a usurper. The real legitimate
must always have a higher claim than the quasi
legitimate ; or, in other words, Henry V. must
always have a better title than Louis Philippe 1.,
as long as the latter relies upon any other title
than that of the public choice; which, among
ourselves, gave William 111. the sceptre that had
fallen from the hand of the tyrant James 11., and
elected the house of Brunswick in preference
to nearer relatives of the exiled dynasty. Louis
Philippe had, however, the bad taste, and worse
judgment, to make himself a quasi legitimate as
to title, and to qualify himself ever since to be
considered a full and genuine legitimate by his
conduct and policy. Hence the revolution has
retrograded, until it has pretty nearly reached,
in every thing but time tri-colour and the dynasty,
the state of the " restoration ;" and it makes
badly enough for the argument of the Anti-Re-
formers that, in proportion as the revolution has
retrograded, the difficulties, dangers, local dis-
turbances, and distresses of France, have in-
creased and multiplied. Are we asked for proofS
of the falsiiication of the principles of the revolu-
tion ? Here they are :—France was promised
an adequate representation. She has been de-
ceived. Less than half the number of those who
elect our unreformed House of Commons elect
the Deputies of a nation consisting of a popula-
tion of upwards of thirty millions, while our own
is something less than twenty millions. France
was promised a cheap Government ; but the
Civil List of a King who engaged to surround
the throne with republican institutions is extrava-
gantly large, and proves that the mind of the new
Sovereign is far more enamoured of gold than
glory. In this respect he has proved himself as
genuine a " legitimate" as if he were one by
birth ; but the establishment of his claim has
been a costly one to the nation. Again, France
was promised many internal ameliorations, such
as the thorough reformation of her penal code,
of which reformation the leading principle was
to be the abolition of the punishment of death:
but the King and his Ministers, though they
appeared so favourable to the abolition of capital
punishment when the lives of Polignac and his
fellow-criminals were at stake, have not showed
the same repugnance to the infliction of the pe-
nalty of death since the armed citizens of Paris,
with the blood of the revolution yet fresh upon
the streets, allowed them to spare the lives of
the traitors. It is true the code is now under
revision, and we admit that some progress has
been made in its amendment, though the good
that has been done falls very short of what had been
previously promised. France was also promised
the liberty of the Press—a real liberty, such as
an honest Government fears not, and without
which no Government long continues hottest.

How this promise has been kept will be found
written in the records of those Courts where all
political freedom of opinion has been, ever since
the revolution, bitterly and incessantly prose.
cuted. Not a fragment of liberty would now
have remained to the French Press if it had not
been for the manly integrity of Juries. Then
look at the foreign policy of the French Go-
vernment—the mean retractation of the proud
boast to make the other Powers observe the
principle of non-intervention—the betrayal of
the revolutionized States of Italy, given up
to be crushed by the iron hand of Austria,
after having encouraged their revolt—the com-
bination with the Holy Alliance in a partnership
of arbitrary principles, and protocols fulminated
against the independent States of Belgium and
Holland—the cruel treatment of the Spanish
patriots, who were made a sacrifice to propi-
tiate the " pious" Ferdinand, and mitigate
the scornful hostility with which he treated the
new dynasty of Orleans, and insulted the flag of
France, but, worse than all, the shameful and
treacherous abandonment of heroic Poland to
the desolating sword of the barbarian—the re-
fusing the Polish exiles the rights of citizens—
and truckling in every thing, with coward sub-
serviency, to the presiding genius of .Russian
barbarism. Call we speak of these things, and
not prove that the evils under which France
labours do not result from the revolution, but

from the principles of that revolution having
beenfalsXed ? What then becomes of the ar-
gument of the Tories drawn from the miseries
and discontent of France ? Could Casimir

Feder act with more zeal and consistency for
the interests of the confederated despots of,Eu-
rope if he were the appointed Minister—not of
France—but of the Holy Alliance? Could the
Holy Alliance, as long as they tolerate a French
Government not founded on legitimany, wish the
affairs of that Government to be administered by
a more obsequious partisan of their principles
than Casimir Pericr ?—Morning Herald.