The Sun.
London, England, 1836-09-03 00:00:00

traitors to the Constitution in Church and State could
- muster patience, to go through so many proCesses,
which assuredly they would not. Suppose, hoWever,
that it were possible for them to allay the itching of
their palms for the power and the plunder that attract
them, still the result, though delayed, would be achieved
at last—the crown would be flung into the kennel—
the Lords banished, and the people enslaved, by an
oligarchy of irresponsible Commoners of the vilest
order. Are these Vain imaginings ? Do we ingeni-
ously conjure up hideous phantoms which real life
never knc' ? No ; the scene for which the Ministers,
a majority of the Commons, and the Ministerial press,
are now preparing, has been acted in this country. In
the pages of our history its rise, its progress, and its
end, are written in characters of blood. Let us re-
peruse it as a warning. The celebrated Parliament of
Charles 1., called the " Long Parliament," commencci
well. The HOuse of Commons passed ineasui es,
. which, even to this day, are numbered among the
strongest safeguards of our liberties. Had that assem-
bly stopped there, its honour and renown had flourish-
ed to all ages in the memory of a grateful posterity
but, intoxicated with success, it earned to itself the dis-
graceful fate that sooner or laterawaits all patriots that
degenerate to parricides. It began to encroach first
upon the legislative power, then upon the executive.
It made its own duration, so far as an act of Parliament
could make it, as long as its desire of power might
last, thus rendering itself independent both of the King
and of the people. It assumed the functions of the
Crown. Still it was not satisfied. Even the existence
of a minority within its walls became unendurable to
the swoln and sensitive vanity, or to the. seared con-
sciences of the majority, and the more able and honest
men among that minority were committed to the Tower I
So, not to dwell here upon particulars, this Whig-
Radical majority went,on to usurp also the judicial
functions, to punish even those who humbly presented
petitions that did not please it, to expel the Bishops
from the House of Lords, to vote the House of Lords
itself useless, and a nuisance, and at last to murder the
King I As this example of the' Long Parliament".
ii "the only test our own history affords by which we
may try the deserts of that sort of Government which
the Whigs and Whig-Radicals now seek to establish
among us—that is to say, the tyranny of a majority
of the I-louse of Commons—we make no apology for
quoting from a Whig historian a short description of some
of its enormities,in order that our readers may have a fore-
taste of the blessings which " Peerage Reform" would
bestow upon each of them individually, and upon the
community at large i—" But, on the other hand, the
House of Commons presented still less favourable
prospects. We should not indeed judge over severely
some acts of a virtuous indignation in the first mo-
ments of victory, or those heats of debate, without
some excesses of which a popular assembly is in dan-
ger of falling into the opposite extreme of phlegmatic
security. But, after every allowance has been made,
he must bring very heated passions to the records of
those times, who does not perceive in the conduct of
that body a series of glaring violations, not only of
positive and constitutional, but of those higher prin-
ciples which are paramount to . all immediate policy.
Witness the ordinance far disarming recusants passed
by both Houses in August, 1511, and that in November,
authorising the Earl of Leicester to raise men for the
defence of Ireland without warrant', under the Great
Seal ; both manifest encroachments on- the executive
power; and the enormous extension of privilege, under
which every person accused on the testimony of
disparaging their proceedings, or even of introducing new-
fangled ceremonies in the Church, a matter wholly out of
their congnizance, was dragged before them as a delin-
quent, and lodged in their prison. Witness the outrageous
attempts to intimidate the minority of their own body in
the commitment of Mr. Palmer, and afterwards of Sir
Ralph Hopton, to the Tower, for such language used
in debate as would not have excited any observation
in ordinary times ; their continual encroachment on
the rights and privileges of the Lords, as in their in-
timation that, if bills thought by them necessary for
the public good should fall in the upper house, they
must join with the minority of the Lords in represent-
ing the same to the King ; or in the impeachment of
the Duke of Richmond for words, and those of the
most trifling nature, spoken in the upper House ;
their despotic violation of the rights of the people, in
imprisoning those who presented or prepared respectful
petitions in behalf of the established Constitution, while
, ,
they encouraged those of a tumultuous multitude at tneir
bar in favour of innovation ;—their usurpation at once
of the judicial and legislative powers in all that related to
the Church, particularly by their committee for scanda-
lous Ministers, under which denomination, adding re-
proach .to injury, they subjected all who did not
reach the standard of Puritan perfection to contumely
and vexation, and ultimately to expulsion from their
lawful property." This historian holds, in another
"place, the following language respecting this House of
Commons:—" It may be said, I think, with not greater
severity than truth, that scarce two or three acts of
justice, humanity, or generosity, and very few of poli-
tical wisdom or courage, are recorded of them from
their quarrel with the King to their expulsion by Crom-
well." And this brings us to notice the fate of the
Whig-Radicals of the time of Charles I. After de-
luging England with blood—after banishing from their
number every man of honesty and respectability, the
rascals were almost kicked out of the House by Oliver
Cromwell, who held the reins of Government till his
death. Such was the issue of the first attempt at
" Peerage Reform" in this country. What may be
the success of the second attempt that is now being
made, we know not—but we think that the good sense
of this age, sharpened and improved by the experience
of the past, will prevent successful traitors ever rearing
their heads in this country again, by sending in time
the Lords John and the IoW Josephs, with the whole
of their braggart and beggarly train—to the treadmill.
—Times.

We are • not -so much enamoured of the House of
Commons as our Ministerial contemporaries generally
affect to be. Nor do we by any means concur in the
opinion they take, or make, such frequent occasions to
.express, that this Assembly has been materially im-
proved by the change which has recently been effected
In its constitution. It is refreshing, therefore, to find
one of the Ministerial journals speaking of the cha-
racter and habits of the House of Commons in lan-
guage less remote from that of candour .and truth
than we have of late been accustomed to hear from
such quarters. The Morning Chronicle has the dis-
tinguished honour of having expressed opinions of the
House of Commons which, as they are manly, honest,
and independent, are not by any means calculated
to exalt that branch of the Legislature, constituted
as it is, in the estimation of the 'British people. We
have -great satisfaction in quoting the expressions of
')ur Ministerial contemporary upon this subject, and
in pointing out how far we can give, and in what par-
teaorndr.
y
ticulars we must withhold, our assent to s testimony.
Our candid contemporary says that it is
possible to conceive a body worse adapted for le-
aislation than the House of Commons ; ' and this is
quite true, however strange it may seem that such
an opinion with respect to the reformed House of
Commons should have found its way into the prin-
cipal morning journal of the present i Reform Adminis-
tration. The Reform Ministers, indeed, must have
made a strange blunder, for, we suppose, it will not he
denied that they intended their Reform Bill to produce
a House of Commons not the worst adapted for legis-
lation of all imaginable assemblies. "efore the
union with-Ireland•it was far too numerous," continues
our contemporary, " and, a hundred additional Mem-
bers could not improve it." True, again. Bu
then in all conscience, did the Members who
w I i)
set
-
about to reform the House of Commons altogether
overlook this evil in its constitution ? So far were
they from ever thinking of any diminution of the num-
ber of its Members, that, as we all know, • their first
crude schemes of reform comprehended some additior.
to its already inconvenient and unmanageable numbers.
To what does this assertion of the Ministerial journal
really amount ? Does it not say in terms perfectly
distinct, however circumlocutory, that the men who
undertook the reform of the House of Commons
either did not know what they were about, or did not ,

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care that the House of Commons should be so re-

formed as to become a body well adapted for legisla-
tion "Twenty-five or thirty years ago," however, it
seems, " the great bulk of the Members were pos-
,;pessed, of no eslitteity for business, and did not pre-