The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOUILNALs

Our readers will see from the answer returned by Lord
Durham to the Westminster Reform Association, that his
Lordship has declined receiving their address. The rea-
sons assigned by his Lordship will at once undeceive those
who imagined that " they could make use' of him for the
furtherance of their own objects." He does not object to
the principles of the address ; but " the address says one
thing, the meeting (at which it was adopted) intended an-
other ; and the whole of the proceedings, taken as one act,
abounds in evidence of gross insincerity. I cannot be a
party indirectly or remotely to any such mode of dealing
with public affairs. As lam ever ready to declare frankly
what measures I think desirable, so will I always state my
objections to purposes of which I conscientiously disap-
prove. If I had merely responded to this address, know-
ing, as I do, that many from whom it proceeds enter-
tain opinions, and seek objects which I utterly repu-
diate as destructive to the peace and very existence of
society, I should have shared in misleading, not to
say deceiving, the public. And that is what I will never
do, come what may." The speakers at the Westminster
Reform Association meeting formed a very low estimate of
Lord Durham's judgment, when they supposed that he
would become subservient to the purposes so openly avowed
by them. They had the frankness to admit that they saw
nothing in the political conduct of his Lordship to induce
a belief that he was up to their mark ; but then they
supposed him so far blinded by the relation in which he
stands towards Ministers, as to be disposed to make common
cause with any men who had it in view to break up the
Ministry. The extreme Radicals or Tory Radicals, as is
well known, deem a Tory Government more favourable for
their purposes than the present. Under a Tory Government
they think that the general discontent might provoke a re-
sistance to authority, through which the People's Charter

might be carried. Lord Durham must have been blind
indeed to have lent himself to the purposes of such a party.
The answer of Lord Durham fully justifies the Examiner,
which confidently predicted—
" That Lord Durham, while doing all that is necessary to
the justification of his own conduct, will do nothing calculated
to make a division and a breach in the Liberal ranks. What-
ever may be his feelings towards Ministers, we are thoroughly
convinced that he will neither lead nor encourage, nor sanction.
any attempt to overthrow them, and so let the Tories mount
the breach upon the ruins of the Liberal party We are sure
that Lord Durham will never put himself at the bead of a
thoughtless, splenetic section; and if they choose to follow
him, it will be with an understanding of the ends which he
has in view, and the ends which he has not in view, and of
the means he proposes for the attainment of his objects. For
no one knows better than Lord Durham, what the conse-
quences would be of turnings the arms of the Radicals against
the Whig Administration. In such an event, in all the towns
of Great Britain the Whigs would be against the Radicals,
and the Radicals would desert the Whigs, and between the
dissension of the two the Tories would quietly possess them-
selves of a majority. We should then see the number of the
Ballot in Parliament reduced probably one half by the wise-
acres, whose ostensible design was the promotion of that
question."—Morning Chronicle.
Whatever may be our opinions, and we certainly have
not taken any pains to conceal them, of Lord Durham's
. conduct in Canada, or of his qualifications for the high
and important office in that country, by his appointment
which the Whigs contrived to get rid of him, we cannot
withhold the expression of our sincere approbation and our
hearty thanks to the Noble Lord for his manly, honest,
and straight-forward rebuke of the miserable Radicals of
Westminster, who insulted his Lordship in his misfortunes,
by an address, adopted avowedly in the hope that they
might " make use of him." Lord Durham, degraded as
he is, does not yet feel himself sunk so low as to be a fit
tool for Mr. Prout and Dr. Wade and the other statesmen
:and patriots of the Westminster Reform Association to

" make use of," and his Lordship accordingly turns upon these
persons and denounces in good set terms their insolence and
:heir hypocrisy. The Noble Lord not only rejects the address
of t,t.we
,Radicals of Westminster with indignation, and repels
their aputation with withering scorn, but he says to them,
moreover, what may, without any violence of interpreta-
tion, betaken to import that for the rest of his Lordship's
life he intends to have as little as possible to do with either
Radicals or Whigs. " The address," observers his Lord-

ship, " says one Ching, the meeting intended another ;and
the whole of the proceedings, taken as one act, abounds in
evidence of the grossest insincerity. I cannot be a party,
indirectly or remotely, to any such mode of dealing
"with public affairs." This is a noble resolution, and
we hope Lord Durham will cleave to it. In announcing
it the Noble Lord proclaims himself the enemy not
of the Wades and the Prows only, but of the O'Connells,
and the Mulgraves, and the Russells, and the Rices also.
If Lord Durham will never be a party to any mode of
dealing with public affairs, which involves " the grossest
insincerity," he incapacitates himself equally as a leader of
Radicals and as an associate of Whigs, and must have de-
termined to bid a final adieu to public life, unless he medi-
tates entering upon the new and honourable career of co-
operation with Conservatives. Lord Durham's letter,
which appears in another column, will be read with
pleasure by all the Conservatives and honest men in the
country ; while it cannot fail to annoy the offensive insects
against whom it is directed, as much as they were annoyed
a few months ago, when Sir Francis Burdett called them by
their right name.—Morning Post.
Some of our Contemporaries have recently evinced
great excitement in respect to an intention, said to be en-
tertained by the Lords of the Treasury, to order a Post-
office delivery in London on Sundays ; one party in nervous
alarm denouncing the intention as of " godless" and " in-
fidel" character, and another lauding it as one calculated
to conduce much to the convenience and benefit of the
community, while a third, as it were, admitting the immo-
rality of the proposition, earnestly repudiate on the part
of the Government the imputation of having ever enter-
lained it. With regret we must observe that so much dis-
cussion has no more practical basis than misconception
and unfounded rumour, the report having originated only
in the recommendation of a Committee of the House of
Commons last Session, to the effect that " forward
letters" arriving in London on Sunday morning in
transitu to other places, should not, as now, be de-
tained until the mail of Monday nights. This recom-
mendation was the sole ground of the " infidel"
and " godless" accusation ; and next to our regret, that the
Government have not made the order in question, is that
of perceiving, from the anxiety manifested by their organs
to repel the imputation of such intention, that they con-
sider it one of an objectionable character. We had hoped
that the days of such cant and pharisaical twaddle had
passed away. It is not necessary here to discuss the theo-
logical portion of the question ; on this, as on all of a
similar character, differences of opinion may exist, though
t.L.ere can be no doubt that they who consider the delivery
c.r perusal of a letter on the Sabbath as impious and irre-
ligious are but a very miserable minority indeed. It is one
of those acts as necessary to the well-being of social and
commercial relations as cooking a joint of meat is to ph3'.
sical comfort It is an operation that cannot be dis-
pensed with without detriment to the interests and feel-
.ings of social man—a result never contemplated in the
institution of the Sabbath, but always denounced in dis-
tinct and emphatic terms by the Founder of Christianity,
whenever attempts were made to pervert it to such a pur-
pose. Looking on the theological view of the subject
as decided in all rational minds, we would appeal to the
Government, on the score of consistency and common
sense, not to array itself against a proposition the adoption
of which would operate so much to the convenience, interest,
and comfort of the inhabitants of this metropolis. In al-
most all parts of the country, we believe, letters are deli-
vered on Sundays, and why, as regards morality and reli-
gion, should one practice obtain in one part of the kingdom,
and another in a different? Why, if it be not immoral and
sinful, should the metropolis be excluded from having its
letters delivered on Sundays ; and if it be immoral and sin-
ful, why should the Government sanction the Sunday de-
livery of letters in the country ? Is it that they are willing
to connive at sins on a small scale, which they shrink from
encountering in the gross • or is "t,tihnhaatbtihey are less care-
ful of the spiritual welfare of thel 2
Ortants of. the pro-
vinces than of those of the metropolis
the senseless outcry raised by fanatics and
feat! it be that
o . age c toat.
fo
propositiontn
hi s
ets could
have the effect of scaring them fromad
which would tend so much to the convenreninc
inhabi-
tants of the metropolis generally, and to the expedition and of its mercantile transactions with distant places aes ?
Morning Advertiser.
In commenting last Thursday upon the hostile designs
as
t IN7 of eholas against England, with the system
and perfidious machination by which for of malignant years
p
be bad endeavoured to work out their accomplishment, We
stated that Great Britain needed only to turn upon her
enemy, and administer a sharp kick or two, when he would
put his tail between his legs at once, and crouch and
cringe, and supplicate our forbearance, and cry out that be
meant no harm. In illustration of this spirit of Muscovite
truth and honour, we stated, on the authority of corres-
pondents well entitled to credit, that the symptoms
lately exhibited by Great Britain of her seeing through
ihe schemes of Nicholas—the fact of her having re-
ceived full evidence of the conspiracies fostered by his
Tatar Majesty for the overthrow of British power in
all parts of the world, and the consequent measures
for her own security which Great Britain had lat-
terly begun to adopt, bad metamorphosed the bold bully
into the sneaking apologist, and wrung from the tyrant of
Persia, Circassia,- and Turkey, a barefaced " disavowal of
one and all the designs imputed to him by the Press and
Government of this country." Our assertion that the
"Russian Cabinet had " struck" as completely as the fleet of
h'isssia would do, if the navy of England were kept (which
it h, not been) in serviceable fighting condition, was fully
confil
-nod by a weekly paper of yesterday, known to speak,
with re
,d to foreign affairs, just what is set down for it

by Lord Palmerston, and nothing more nor less. The
paper in question displays the following paragraph—viz.,
" It has within these few days been put forth, that Russian,
intriguers were busy in fomenting the Canadian insurrection_.
We cannot pretend either to deny or to affirm the truth of
that statement ; but we are enabled to declare that thy:
Emperor of Russia has recently given to our Government
the most frank assurances" (for " frank" read "fraudulent")
" of his pacific feeling towards this country, and the
most positive denial of his having had recourse to
any measures, either open or secret, tending to the in-
jury of British interests in any quarter whatsoever.
We doubt not this assurance must be most gratifying to oer
Government, and cannot but meet with all the credit it
deserves." ( Yes, exactly, " all the credit it deserves."'
Now, we acknowledge that it must be gratifying both to
the Government and the nation that such assurances
should have proceeded from Russia at the present crisi.e
because they amount to a clear demonstration—of what ?
of the veracity of Russia in giving such assurances? Not
the least in the world. They demonstrate or indicate no
such thing. They go for nothing more than a confessitai
—and so far a satisfactory one—that Nicholas does not
just at present feel any stomach for a war with England
—that he is not strong enough—that he is not yet quite
ready. These " frank" (Lord Palmerston is laugh-
ing ouright at the innocent Russian)—these " frank"
assurances are obviously meant to throw England off
her guard—in homely parlance to bamboozle her—
to imply that she ought to relax her measures of
precaution—to forego her defensive preparations—to
suspend the equipment of ships, if there be any in forward-
ness—to shut up again the rendezvous lately opened for
seamen—to prohibit the enlistment of any more troops—to
countermarch the Eastern army now crossing the Sutlri
and the Indus ; and, in fine, to fling away the shield which
we had just begun to handle, opening the naked breast of
England to a sudden death-stab from the most treacherou
and remorseless power that ever disgraced the name of
Government, outraged the principles of justice and nation it
freedom, or threatened the best interests of public morality,
and the most sacred institutions of society amongst c;.
vilized men. If we are told that the " assurances" of
Russia ought to disarm England of her apprehensions, arol
induce her to recede from, or even to halt in, tie,
precautionary position which she has so recently at,-
sumed, we reply that /voids from Russia are nothing
worth, but as stimulants to increased wariness and
foresight on the part of other powers. That with
Persia, with Turkey, as well as in the instances of
Circassia, of Wallachia, of the Danube, of Greece, and
Poland, even where treaties were made, and the acqui-
escence or assent of England was conditional on their up-
right and direct fulfilment, such compacts were audaciously
broken within a year of their receiving the signature of
Russia—nay, in some cases, from the very hour of their exe-
cution. Fortresses were retained in breach of treaty—
fortresses, nay, provinces, were seized in contempt of treaty.
There can, therefore, it is quite manifest, be no reliance
placed on the good faith of this long-practised aggressor
upon the rights of all her defenceless neighbours, and
there ought to be no change (because of her declarations
merely) in the course adopted by any discerning Govern-
ment. It ought to be observed on the present occasion.
moreover, that the disavowal by Russia of every design in-
jurious to Great Britain or her interests embraces only such
projects as those of which the direct and ostensible aim is
to inflict wrong upon England. Of those encroaching schemes
and enterprises. whose tendency is to wound the British em-
pire through the sides of other countries, or through a sub-
version or violent disturbance of the equilibrium of power
among States—for instance, of the advances of the Rus-
sian arms in Asia beyond the Caspian, or between the
Caspian and Euxine, or towards the Persian Gulf—or of
preparations for another iniquitous attack upon Turkey,
by which England and her European allies must suffer, if
not an immediate loss of territory, at least a grievous and
fatal blow to their peaceful commerce, and to their po-
litical independence, there is no mention whatsoever made
in the " conciliatory" note of Russia. Yet England has a
profound interest in the restraint of the Russian Govern-
ment from such aggressions as these upon the general repose
of the world, no less than from direct assaults upon her
own dominions, and a right to satisfaction altogether as in
disputable and complete. For the professions of pacific policy,
therefore, which have now been tendered by the Government
of St. Petersburgh, 'with a view to muzzle the just
complaints of England, and to paralyze her demon-
strations of a new-found vigour—we set them down as
utterly valueless. The ambition of Russia yields to
pressure, but shoots again the moment when the pressure is
withdrawn. Her shuffling present substitution of a mode-
rate and friendly attitude, for the more natural one of un-
mitigated animosity and rancour, was foretold emphatically
by the author of the pamphlet on the " Progress of Russia
in the East," referred to already in this journal ; and at
the same time, and by the same competent hand, a glance
at the causes which have led to the gradual decline of Bri-
tish influence and authority, when brought into collision with
those of Russia, is afforded in the following passages :—" It
is asked, what has brought on this alarming condition of
things, this rapid decay of British influence and power ?
The question is easily and simply answered. It is the irre-
solution, the timidity, or the false economy of English
policy and measures, which, losing sight of the national
best interests and power, and enamoured of peace—
peace at any rate—have paralyzed the vigour of her coun-
cils, and induced her Government rather to concede and
conciliate than to stand firm, and resent the smallest ag-
gression on her interest, which has stripped her foreign en-
voys of favour and means, when these should rather have
been increased, to match the agents of a power that never
spares money or scruples at measures which are to further
her ultimate ends. How could the Schah of Persia or the
chiefs of Affghanistan resist the promises or brave the
threats of Russia—which experience had proved to be no
empty words—in order to cling to England, envoys of
which could neither promise efficient protection, nor threaten
with effectual punishment ? •
The attitude assumed in Persia by
Russia, or at least by her agent, is unquestionably hos-
tile ; but, with the art which governs all her po-
licy a loophole has been left in case of need. She mar/
disavow the acts of her envoy—and if need be she will (i.,)
so." (This we believe has actually since been done by the
Emperor Nicholas.) " But is Russia yet in circumstances
to brave and to wage a war with England ? That is the
question. We think not, even were she to have England
single-handed for her antagonist. The proof of this may he
found in the conduct of Russia herself. The day is gone
by when doubts might have been entertained of her pro-
.
Jects of conquest and territorial agrandizement. Every as-
.Trtion she has made of moderation and self-denial has been
belied by her acts. But she knows when, where, and hoe
to make her approaches, and carefully avoids all attempt,
at encroachment, whether political or territorial, wiles,•
there is danger of coming too fully under the public eye.
To England she has been particularly lavish of pa-
cific assurances and conciliatory declarations ; were
she prepared for a rupture, would this be the case 1'
We quote, however, the concluding words of the
pamphlet—that " The integrity and independence of
Persia are necessary to the security of India and of Europe,
and any attempt to subvert the one is a blow struck at the
other—an unequivocal act of hostility to England." " This
act has now been perpetrated, and that point in the pro-
gress of Russia where resistance to her dangerous ambition
becomes imperative has surely been reached. The moment
for firmness in language and decision in act has arrived, and
let it not be forgotten that a neglect of such junctures, a
constant sacrifice of opportunities in dealing with a powerful
and encroaching adversary, must at length place us in a po-
eition where to struggle may be vain, and we may awake
from our lethargy too latefor safety," It may be true diet
Russia is now not a match for England, but successive en-
croachments have made her five times more powerful than
she was 50 years ago, and a few more unopposed acquisi
dons may augment and invigorate her existing force, until
we, and not she, become at length the weaker party.—
Times.

Indications have lately appeared in a Morning Tory
Paper, and a Whig Evening one, of a longing among some
of the Conservative party and their Whig-Radical oppo-.
(lents to " coble up" a compromise (the attempted one of
last session having proved abortive), with a view to ruling
the country by means of that political monstrosity—a COA-
LITION MINISTRY. We should not be sorry to see such a
thing done, because we should like to ascertain, upon une-
quivocal evidence, who are the leaders of the Conservative
party so rotten at heart and decrepit in intellect as to
give, under any circumstances, the fraternal embrace to the
Lichfield House Ministry—the men who obtained office by
the appropriation swindle—who have saciificed Ireland for
the support of the profligate Agitator whom the Whigs
had previously denounced in the speech from the Throne—
who did their best to put the House of Lords under the hoof
the pestilent brawler against " Saxon" institutions—
and who, finally, avowed the intention of inflicting a heavy
blow and great discouragement on Protestantism. We
should certainly like to know, as we have said, upon evi-
dence which no man can dispute, who the Conservatives
are, whose sordid anxiety for office induces them to specu.
late upon the manufacture of a coalition Cabinet, in which
the Melbournes, the Russells, the Spring Rices, and Pal-
inerstons, whose names are indissolubly associated with the
most disreputable hostility to the religion and institutions of
England, may lovingly embrace with the pledged defenders
tyeemodf such a
of our ancient Constitution inChurch and State. When we
denounced the attempted compromise
zealouslyi se of a sat d
v oc.a session,advocated,
whichwe
thing if it succeeded endino-
lsuodme otfootu.hreTp
roor.by
in sec alition.Ministry. The bad faith Of the Whigs, and some
intelligible hints from the master of the " many-jointed tail"
that any compromise in which IT was not amply provided
for would not be considered justice to Ireland," caused
that huxtering " settlement, which would have settled

nothing, to fall to the ground, to the great " dismay" of some
Tories and many Whigs. Those Conservatives who are
looking forward to a coalition Ministry now will be ready,
we have no doubt, to offer, as the price of office, the sacri•
five of the Protestants of Ireland to their implacable enemies.
The English public may rest essured that such a sacrifice,
if allowed to be carried into effect, will be productive of
great calamities, if not of utter ruin, to the British empire.
In connection with the subject of this suggested coa-
lition we cannot but observe that, notwithstanding the ex-
perience which we have had of late years of the Punic faith
I of the Whigs and their Popish allies, there seems still to be
a determination to surrender the Protestant Corporations
of Ireland to the enemy, and to hand them over to O'Con-
nell to be converted into his " normal schools of political
agitation." If this be not delillerate treachery to the
Protestant cause it is absolute infatuation. In the Cor-
poration of Dublin Mr. Frederick Shaw has been charged
with a desertion of principle in having refused to
support the petition of the Lord Mayor and Corporate
body to be heard by Counsel at the bar of Parliament
against the intended measure for the surrender of the
Corporate power of the metropolis of Ireland to the
enemies of British connection, who have already possessed
themselves of the representation of that city. Mr. Frede-
rick Shaw owes whatever political importance he has to
the Corporation of Dublin. Most assuredly, if the Cor-
poration had not made him their Recorder, he would never
have been elected to represent the Dublin University.
What would be said of the Recorder of London, if, in the
instance of the Government making an attempt upon the
chartered rights and privileges of the City, as it now does,
by endeavouring to introduce there a Home-office Police,
he declined to support in Parliament a petition from
the civic body, to be heard in defence of those rights
and privileges ? But we cannot forget that Mr. F. Shaw
is one of those Irish Conservative Members who, last
Session, expressed himself most anxious for the then
proposed compromise. We recollect he was reported to
have exclaimed to Lord John Russell, " We have
offered to concede a great deal, and you will not concede
anything." We hope this Learned Gentleman, and " Con-
servatives" like him, will be stopped by the honest ex-
pression of English Protestant feeling, in their plans of
"surrender." We have had enough of that already with-
out producing any other effect than increasing the insolence
of the Agitator's demands for further concessions to Popish
ambition. We see to what lengths the unchecked "pre-
cursor" agitation is proceeding, with its enrolment of " two
millions of men," to petition the Queen for " justice
to Ireland," which means nothing short of the utter destruc-
tion of the Protestant Church and " Saxon" institutions.
While this goes on, some of our Tory Contemporaries, in
a spirit very unlike that which made England, before she
was humiliated by Whig rule, the foremost nation of the
world, recommend the Orangemen of Ireland to lie down
and allow the organized bands of their enemies—the peti-
tioningfighting men—to walk over them ! That was not
the way in which Ireland was preserved at the revolution
to the British Crown.—Morning Herald.