The Sun.
London, England, 1836-11-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We supply further proofs of the spirit of the people
in our reports of Municipal Elections. In Wigan,
though thy: most beastly drunkenness prevailed in the
quarters of the Tories, six Reformers were returned
and four Tories. In Maldon, all the Reformers were
re-elected. In Stockport only one of the six wards
was contested by the Tories ; and one Tory, and one
dou'otful, have been replaced by two good Reformers.
In Cambridge there was no opposition. In Plymouth
ten Liberals to four Tories have been returned, giving
a majority of one on the Reform side in Council. In
Exeter victory has declared in favour of the Reformers,
eight out of the twelve returned being Reformers.
Two-thirds of the Councillors are Reformers, and,
but for the Lords' Aldermen clause, Exeter would
now be wholly free from Tory domination. At pre-
sent parties are equally balanced. In Dartmouth the
Liberals have entirely prevailed. In Totnes three Re-
formers have been returned to one Tory. In Warwick,
Boston, and Lincoln, the Conservatives have either
made no attempt, or failed. In Swansea two Tories
and four Reformers have been returned. In short,
with but few exceptions, the Reformers have been
everywhere successful. In all the great towns they
have been great gainers. In Liverpool the majority is
only less than in other great towns, but the Council
has still an overwhelming majority of Reformers. This
is the answer to the Tory calumnies against the people
of England.—Morning Chronicle.
The speech of Lord Wharncliffe, the other day, at
the Halifax Conservative Festival, is worthy of another
passing notice. Notwithstanding all his bluster and
assumed bravery, as the mouth-piece of the Tory Peers,
it is clear their Lordships are by no means pleased
with their prospects. The truth, like something else,
which must not be named to cars polite, will out. It
is apparent enough through the flimsy veil which the
Noble Baron throws around the fact, that the Con-
servative Lords have their misgivings as to the wisdom
of the course they pursued last Session. Hear Lord
Wharncliffe's own words :—" We must not disguise
from ourselves that the House of Lords is placed just
now in the most difficult position in which any assem-
bly similarly constituted was ever placed." Very true :
the Noble Baron is right for once. But why does
lie not ask himself, who placed the House of Lords
in this most singular and perilous position ? Not
the people certainly. The House of Commons ?
Assuredly not ; for that House is only a reflection
of the people's sentiments and people's wishes.
Who then ? Why, the Lords themselves. It is be-
cause they have deliberately and pertinaciously op-
posed themselves to the people's wishes, as embo-
died in the measures sent up to them by the Lower
House, that the Peers now find themselves in that si-
tuation of danger to which Lord Wharncliffe so becom-
ingly alludes. It is the knowledge of this fact that
annoys and stings them. It were a great consolation
to them in the hour of their adversity if they had not to
reproach themselves with being the authors of their own
misfortunes. But that consolation they can never enjoy
—the still small voice uithin them whispers a different
tale. To be sure the Tory Lords might yet extricate
themselves from the perilous position in which they
have placed themselves. Are we asked how could
this be done ? Why, by retracting their steps. But will
they do this ? Not they. Lord Wharncliffe tells us in
plain terms that they mean to pursue the same course
next Session as they did last. They have too much
pride to confess their own error, and retrace their steps.
};Lather than that they will run all hazards. Well,
then, let them take their own way of it, and abide the
consequences. When they have entailed complete and
irretrievable ruin on themselves, they will, most pro-
bably, repent of their folly. That, however, is their
affairs, not ours. Throughout the whole of his speech
Lord Wharncliffe assumes that the parties opposed to
the House of Peers are the Whigs and Republicans.
The Noble Lord knows, as well as we do, thit this is
a misrepresentation. There is a very large proportion
of the people of England opposed to that House, as
now constituted, who are neither Whin nor Republi-
cans. A majority of the people belon-gine• to no poli-
tical party, nor,call. themselves by any particular name.
They seek to effect that reform in the institutions of
the country wh',elt is admitted by all not personally in-
terested in the perpetuation of abuse, to be so urgent
as to bear d'seetly on the safety of the Constitution it-
self. It is e. serious charge against the Administration
of Lord -Melbourne, in the estimation of the Noble
Baron, that it acts so little on its own views, and so
much on the views and wishes of others. This is its
greatest recommendation. It certainly has hitherto
proved its only safeguard. Had the Ministry not listened
to the popular voice, it would not have existed one short
rnonth. Why are the people so much attached to the
Administration of Lord Melbourne ? For no other
reason than its concurrence with their views. And so
long as his Lordship, instead of acting on mere party
views, acts with and for the people, so long may he
rely on the cordial support of the country. Let him
continue to identify his Government vet more and
more with the popular interests and the popular wishes,
and there is put a power on earth—no, not all the
poweis on carth combined—that can, in the slightest
degree, drake the stability of that Government. The
Tory Peers may conspire, and the Conservatives, in the
Commons, may become as factious as they please—
and the Court party may plot and intrigue as long and
as much as they choose ; but it will all end in their
own discomfiture and mortification. Lord Melbourne
may, in such a case, smile defiance at Tory malignity
and Tory machinat;.ons.—Morning Advertiser.
The conduct of the present Government has for
some time past been of so mixed and muddling a cha-
racter that many sedate and sagacious lookers-on at
public affairs have been at a loss .to make out the
real object of the administrative policy. A grave au-
thority has, however, come forward to solve this diffi-
culty. One of the most philosophical—in pretension
at all events--among the supporters of the Govern-
ment has declared, with all the formalities of a ma-
thematical statereeent, that the object of the present
Ministers is " 'to bring the House of Lords to the test
of good measures." This may seem at first sight a
little obse.ure, but it is made quite plain by the subse-
quent explanation of the philosopher who gives this
announcement to the public :—" Without reform of
the }louse of Lords," says he, " good legislation can-
not be had." " Without bringing the Lords to the
test of good measures the public would not be made to
feel the necessity for Peerage reform." " With-
out a liberal Administration the Lords would not be
brought to the test of good measures." We need
scarcely add that the conclusion drawn from these
scientifically-stated propositions is, that the present
" liberal" Administration, having brought the House
of Lords to the test of good measures, has acted
in a commendable manner, and is better than any
other Ministry which could be formed in the present
circumstances of the country. We think that any one
who wishes very much to put the Ministry on good
terms with the people, takes the right course, when he
endeavours to give to their proceedings of the last
Session, an intelligible and definite object ; for the ge-
neral impression undoubtedly is, that Ministers merely
laboured to adapt themselves to circumstances as they
arose, de die in diem, and that they did so in no very
creditable or graceful fashion. We cannot, however,
say that the ingenuity of the defence, above quoted,
has been very happily applied. The manner is doubt-
less very imposing, but as it suggests the idea of a
test, we apply it to the test of a little cool analysis, and
the unsoundness of its matter presently appears. In
the first place, it must go for nothing with all but those
who are prepared to admit two assumptions, which they
who have not the confidence that belongs to superior
philosophy would hardly have ventured to put forth
to the public in general as postulates, a proof of which
would be superfluous. These assumptions are that good
legislation cannot be had without a reform of the House
of Lords, and that all the measures proposed by the
Government to the House of Lords in the last Session
were good measures. He would indeed be a valuable
defender of the Ministry who could make these propo-
sitions be assented to by the people at large—but to
take it for granted that they are assented to, is more
likely to make the defence easy than succesful. Sup-
pose we say that a reform of the House of ords is not
necessary to good legislation, and that the measures
which the Lords rejected in the last Session were bad
measures—and we surely have as good a right to as-'
some this, as any one else has to assume the opposite

—what then becomes of the scientifically-stated " ar- '
gument" which we have quoted above ? But look at
this argumentative defence in another way. We have
seen that it rests upon the assumption of the impossi-
bility of good measures while the House of Lords
remains as it is, and upon the conviction in the minds
of Ministers on that point. They having made up
their minds that no good could be done without
a reform of the House of Lords, have been employed
solely in a cunning scheme for bringing the pub-
lic to the same conviction. Now, .if Ministers had so
fully made up their minds upon this great subject so
long ago as the early part of last Session, how does it
happen that they as a Government shrink from the
avowal of that opinion ? Has any member of the
Government ventured to declare openly that the object
of the Ministers, or of any one of them, is to cause to
take place a Reform of the House .of Lords ? Was
it to vex the Administration that Mr. O'Connell did
not bring forward the motion of which he had given
such long notice for a Reform of that House ? These
questions must have a satisfactory answer before the
scientific " argument" in defence of the Ministry can
he considered satisfactory. The matter stands thus :
The country complains of a Parliamentary Session in
which the Ministry seemed to be constantly busy, but
was in the end, able to accomplish hardly anything ;
and it complains that there is no prospect of a better
result in the next Session, under the guidance of the
same Ministers. Upon this, a great philosopher, who
thinks proper to defend the Ministers, steps forward and
says, " You are wrong—the Ministers did a great deal in
the last Session. They saw that the first step towards
good legislation was a Reform of the House of Lords,
and to that they directed their energies. It was neces-
sary to bring the public to the same opinion which
they entertained, and therefore they proposed good
measures for the purpose of having them rejected by
the unreformed House of Lords, and thus disgusting
the public with that House." The philosopher being
courteously listened to, the public sets about comparing
his statement with the events of the session, and they
find that this conviction of his Majesty's Ministers Was
never mentioned by them, but, on the contrary, they
very carefully avoided giving any opinion in favour of
reform of the House of Lords. What sort of Minis-
ters are they who, during a whole session, studiously
conceal the grand object of their policy ? Is this the
plain and candid dealing of a " liberal" Administra-
tion with a reformed House of Commons ? There is
yet another view presented by this defence of the Mi-
nistry, which it is well to contemplate for a moment.
Behold a British Ministry with so many great national
objects, not involving either party considerations, or
" organic changes" to be attended to—behold them en-
deavouring to play upon the public feeling by the re-
coil of " good measures" wherewith they have been
pleased to pelt the naughty and obtuse House of
Lords ! Is not such a scheme as this more worthy
of the plot-fanciers of dramas for the minor theatres,
than the direct and honest course of British Ministers?
Perhaps because it is so, it is the more likely to have
been adopted to Lord Melbourne and his fellow-mana-
gers.--Morning Herald.
Since M. Mendizabal has thought proper to deny
that Messrs. Ricardo and M. Ardouni were autho-
rised by him to offer bills on Cuba as a settlement for
the November dividend on Spanish stock it will be ne-
cessary for these gentlemen to come forward, and de-
fend their mercantile honour, thus assailed. Either
they or M. Mendizabal have played a most shuffling
trick, and the sooner they give such an explanation as
will relieve them from the odium now attached to the
transaction, the better we shall be pleased. Indeed,
we cannot imagine that persons of their consideration
would lend themselves to a speculation so totally at
variance with every principle of mercantile honour.
We hope that this satisfaction to public opinion may
shortly be given, and that the Stock Exchange will
take advantage of it, to mark the conduct of the Spa-
nish Minister of Finance pith some decided reproba-
tion.—Morning Post.
When we entertained an honest conviction that the
possession of pocket boroughs by Noble Lords gave
them an undue preponderance in the House of Com-
mons, we exerted ourselves to the best of our humble
ability in favour of Parliamentary Reform. The en-
croachments which the hereditary branch of the Legis-
lature had made upon the independence of the elec-
tive one met with our relentless and uncompromising
hostility ; and, in like manner, conceiving that the
Whig nobility, whose Reform Bill seems to have been
only a crafty contrivance for securing their own ascen-
dancy in the Lower Chamber, showed by their Irish
Coercion Bill that their despotic instincts were un-
changed, Ave turned upon them on the instant, and
marked our reprobation of the more tyrannical parts of
that measure in the strongest possible terms. There
were, indeed, other things about their Government
which savoured strongly of party avarice, and a mis-
chievous disposition to put everything out r! f place
except themselves. Still, it did not appear to us that
such suspicions, founded perhaps on what might be
mere errors of judgment on their part rather than sys-
tematic flagitiousness, afforded at that time a sufficient
ground for entirely withdrawing from them our confi-
dence : nor was it ere we became convinced of their
deliberate and persevering determination to fling over-
board all our national interests and institutions, for the
mere despicable purpose of courting the mob breeze,
which they habitually whistle for, to keep them afloat
in power, that we at length pointed our guns against
their treacherous expedition, and raked them fore and
aft, both in hulk and canvass, till they arc little better
than a shattered and sinking wreck. The truth is, it
is now but too evident that the hypocritical policy of
the Whigs has all along been to work the powers of
the House of Commons in such an artful and service-
able way, as, while substantially securing to their
party all the undue influence of the old borough-
mongering system, without any of the advantages
which it sometimes conferred on the country, shall
transfer to the lower branch of the Legislature
that unconstitutional supremacy over the upper one,
of the supposed possession of which, in reference to
the Commons (though the evils thereof were not
always of a practical or dangerous kind) the Peers
were summarily deprived by the passing of the Reform
Act. Nor has this attempt of the Whigs to render
the one House of Parliament available for their party
purposes at the expense of the other failed to attract
the observation of several of our able Contemporaries,
indeed, it is too manifest to pass unnoticed. The
whole reign of the Melbourne Ministry has been one
uninterrupted effort to degrade the Peerage of Britain
into a set of valets to the Commons. They have been
made to wear their robes and coronets like showy li-
veries and armorial buttons. Bills have been sent up
up to them as their " orders of the day." In short,
an impudent and unconstitutional endeavour has been
made to throw them into the position of mere passive
attendants, whose business is to hear what their supe-
riors want, and to set about it without further ado.
Now, we cheerfully admit that their Lordships have
borne themselves under this contumelious treatment
with great wisdom and forbearance. They have taken
no pet at it ; and though little else has remained in
their legislative province than simply to receive from
the Commons a set of measures which they have been
virtually defied to alter, instead of disdaining to bestow
a moment's attention on matters so rudely and insult-
ingly flung down to them, they have postponed the
mere question of what was due to their dignity for the
more urgent consideration of what was beneficial to
the country, and have examined, approved, modified,
or rejected such measures, according as they were
fitted, or otherwise to promote the public good. But,
notwithstanding the temper and ability with which
they have performed this excellent service to the State,
it is quite clear that chiefly through their own delicate
abstinence as regards the exercise of an initiative
power, the Government has been allowed to involve
them in the partial and temporary odium of being no-
thing better than a negative agency, a gaudy and inju-
rious impediment in the path of useful legislation.
therefore, their Lordships wish to stand right with the
country, it is now high time that they should firmly
assert their independent privileges, and exert their active
legislatorial functions in the origination of such well-
considered measures of reform in the church, colonies,
courts oflaw, and other departments of the public ser-
vice, as will not only show the nation the soundness,
efficiency, and extent of the practical ameliorations
which they are prepared to recommend, but will de-
volve upon the Commons, in their turn, the responsi-

bility of approving or rejecting them. What the Lords
will not do in the way of revolution they have shown
with abundant explicitness. What they will do in the '
way of safe and seasonable reform remains, as far as
definite measures are concerned, an important deside-
ratum. Concurring then, as we do, in the shrewd
suggestion of a writer in Blackwood for this month,
supported by our able and vigilant Contemporary,
the Standard, we would respectfully recommend
their Lordships to alter their position nett Session—
to exercise a primary and positive power in legislation
rather than a secondary and negative one—in other
words, to send down to the Lower House of Parlia-
ment such Bills of their own preparation, with regard
to various important questions now agitating the pub-
lic mind, as will at once manifest the identification
of their order with the more urgent interests of the
country, and minister to their Whig-Radical opponents
either the wormwood of accepting these Bills, or the
disgrace of factiously rejecting them. And it will be
seen from the following passage in a speech of the
great Lord Hardwicke in 1756, that what we have
thus pressed on their Lordships' attention is only a
proper resumption of those powers which have too long
lain in abeyance :
" The method of law making most agreeable to the na-
ture of our Constitution, must appear from the very words
of the writs of summons to Parliament ; for the writs of
summons to the members of the House of Lords arc ad
consulendunt,' whereas the writs for the other House are
only ad consentienduin: But this method seems now to
be quite altered ; every member of the other House takes
upon him to be a legislator, and almost every new law is
first drawn up and passed in the other House ; so that we
have little else to do, especially towards the end of the
session, but to read over and consent to the new laws they
have made—nay, some of them are sent up so late in the
session, that we have hardly time to read them over, and
consider whether we shall consent or no, which is remark-
ably the case with respect to the Bill now under considera-
tion. My Lords, by this new method of law making, the
business of the two Houses seems to be so much altered,
that I really think the writs of summons ought to be al-
tered ; those of the other House ought now to be ad con-
sulenduns, and those to the members of this ad consen-
tiendu M."

To this forcible passage, so applicable to the pre-
sent times, we can scarcely add anything that would
not injure its effect. We trust the Lcrds will ponder
it well ; and, in the exercise of that courage and dis-
cretion which constitute the brightest quartering on
their shield, will show their steady determination to
leave the ad consentiendum to the lower legislative
body, who seem to be restricted to it by the theory and
letter of the Constitution.—Times.