The Sun.
London, England, 1836-10-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNAL.

One of the best signs of the times is the anxiety of
our honest contemporary of Printing-house-square to
have the credit of being still a Reformer. It was
long supposed that the Times knew its own interest,
and always took care to shout for the winning side ;
and the departure from its ordinary tact, in abandon-
ing the cause of Reform in November, 1834, at a
time when the nation was deeply indignant at the
Tory manceavre to defeat that cause, was inex-
plicable on the ordinary principle of Printing-house-
square tactics. Macchiavel tells us, that if an army
has a strong force of artillery, the opposing army
should, above all things, first try to get possession
of it ; dud, to compo.e great things witty small, when
Punch is foul-mouthed, the best cure is to jet hold of
Punch himself. The Tories took a lesson from ivlac-
,clilavel—they at once made a bold push for the araller ;'
of Printing-house-square, and the Reformers found one
morning, to their no little astonishment, one of the Duke
•of Wellington's engineers turning its guns against
themselves. Instead of entreating a good word from
Punch, a rich Tory, who had suffered much from his
ill tongue, opened his purse, and purchased box and
puppets, and Punch became quite a new man. The
knowing ones remarked that all of a sudden the limes,
-chiliclz, for a dozen years at least, had never ceased
mauling Mr. Alexander Baring (now Lord Ashbur-
ton), carefully pointing out the bearing of his breeches
pocket on his arguments, and the facility which lie
possessed of setting up a position to bowl it down
again, and the rancour which it displayed when an
opportunity presented itself (as in the case of Mr.
Bingham Baring) against all Mr. Alexander Barine's
connections, became blind to the imperfections of that
distinguished personage, and gradually the truth oozed
out. The public, however, did not relish this attempt
of the Tories to fight under false colours, and so soon
as it became evident that the Times had undertaken to
deliver over the " three-fourths of the people of Eng-
land, whose political opinions it guided," to the ene-
mies of the people, with as little ceremony as one
German prince makes over to another the dominion
over so many hundred thousand souls, the object for
'which the Tories made so heavy a sacrifice was in a
great measure frustrated. The Times betrayed the
people, and the people deserted the Times. The guide
of the political opinions of three-fourths of the people of
England lost all influence with the people. In spite
of all attempts to conceal the unpleasant truth, it soon
was known that its circulation dropped off ; and of
those who became aware of this important truth, we
were not the last, having profited so much by the
change which had come over the spirit of the oracle of
Printing-house-square. Satan, in Milton, cannot blot
Heaven out of his remembrance, and, in spite of
his boasting language, it is obvious that he is by no
means satisfied with hell. In like manner the Times
every now and then looks back to that period when it
combatted for Reform, and yielding to the bitter con-
sciousness that all its abuse of O'Connell, and endea-
vours to frighten the nation with the bug-bear of
Popish ascendancy, have been lost on the people of
England, pays a homage to reform by claiming the
character of a consistent supporter of that cause, of-
fering thus an outrage to every reader possessed of a
grain of common sense. An instance most gratifying
to Reformers of this extorted homage occurs in the
Times of yesterday, in that part of the speech of Sir
George Sinclair at the Caithness meeting, where the
Honourable Baronet observes—
When I had the honour, at a later period, again to re-
present the county, Earl Grey and his colleagues had been
called to his Majesty's councils ; and I deemed it my duty
to give to the Reform Bill, as well as to the other measures
of that Administration, a hearty, though not servile sup-
port. At length, however, a schism took place in the Cabi-
net. Four of its most influential members—namely, the
Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Ripon, Lord Stanley, and
Sir James Graham simultaneously retired from office. At
this eventful crisis I deemed it incumbent upon me to in-
vestigate the grounds which had induced them to resign ;
and the more so as I entertained the highest respect for the
character, the talents, the eloquence, and the integrity which
my Noble and Right Hon. Friends had so constantly and so
prominently displayed whilst I had the honrur to co-operate
with them in the House of Commons."
On this the Times, with matchless effrontery, makes
the following comment :
" In all this Sir George Sinclair concurs with the views
which, without abandoning a simple principle of genuine
reform as opposed to revolution, this Journal has strenu-
ously and successfully urged upon the country. To the
constitutional improvement of our national institutions, in
contradistinction to mischievous novelties and democratic
experiment, there is no assignable limit consistent with the
preservation of the Monarchy in its organic structure which
we should decline advancing. Our intelligent countrymen
know this well. It is not, therefore, we who have changed,
but the degenerate and perfidious Ministers, whose base
pandering to a Popish and revolutionary faction we should
never cease to oppose. The difference between them and
ourselves, in reference to the country, is precisely analo-
gous to that subsisting between a benefactor and a banditti ;
in other words, our sole object is to improve and strengthen
the Constitution—theirs is to maim and plunder it."
When Voltaire was told that his account of the
battle of Fontenoi was destitute of truth, he is reported
to have said—No matter; there are not above three or
four of the present generation who know it not to
be true, and in another generation there will be no
one able to contradict me. Unfortunately for the
Times its apostacy is too recent, and access to its
file is too easy to allow it to imitate the French
historian with success. 'Who does not know that
so far from having the justification (if justification
it be, which it is not) of Sir George Sinclair, it
laboured day after day to drive Lord- Grey, Lord
Stanley, Sir James Graham, and Lord Ripon from
the Cabinet—that it triumphed over their retreat
as a great benefit to the country—that the sole ob-
ject of its labours seemed to be to replace them
with more decided Reformers—that Lord Durham
and Mr. Abercrombie were warmly eulogized in its
columns, and that Lord Melbourne's Ministry re-
ceived its support till the day of its dismissal ?
Nay, so ittle suspicion had any one of the faith-
lessness of the Times, that the account of the
dismissal of the Melbourne Ministry appeared in
that journal as well as in the Chronicle, with the re-
mark in the Times that the Queen had done it all,
which, with its usual treachery after the apostacy,
it attributed to a member of that Ministry. The new
light followed, but did not precede the dismissal ;
and thenceforward the Times has been labouring lus-
tily, with but little effect—thanks to the good sense of
the people of England—to damage in every way the
cause of Reform, to promote the views of those who
opposed the Reform Bill and every other amelioration
of our institutions, who now seek to make that Bill a
dead letter by again giving the Lords an ascendency
in the Commons. The impudence, however, benefits
the Reformers. It is a homage extorted from the
lying spirit to the power of their cause. No Re-
former would think of assuming the guise of a Tory.
Some crazy-brained fellow like Mr. techinere Charl-
ton may outrage public opinion by glorying in being
an apostate ; but in general the man who abandons
his cause from selfish motives seeks to disguise his
meanness. No honest man seeks the reputation of a
rogue ; but many a rogue, like • Colonel Charteris,
knows the value of a character, and tries to play the
hypocrite Fortunately the Times is too abandoned
to be longer able to deceive. There are wolves whom
no sheep's clothing could clisguise.—ilorn. Chron.
The history of this country for some months past
has, we rejoice to say, been little else than a record of
the rapid progress of Conservatism through every por-
tion of it—that is, of attachment to the British Con-
stitution as established by great statesmen in the 17th
century, and, in England at least, enjoyed by the
people for whom they laboured, throughout the whole
of the It3th, as it has been during that portion of
the 19th century which preceded the accession of
Messrs. O'ConDell and Melbourne to power. It
is to perpetuate that Messed work of the 17th
century in its principles, and to secure its enjoy-
;meat for the present and future generations of rig-
tishmen, that Conservatism exists and struggles, and,
pease the Almighty Being who has hitherto watched
owe!' us, it is for such patriotic and beneficent ends
that Conservatism will filially conquer. In exact
propoi lion with the growth and spread of that spirit
which animates the Conservatives, or, in other
words, ta yte "preservers of the Constitution," has been
the declin e of " Radicalism," or the " Movement," or
the appetite. for " organic change;" for Radicalism, as its

name implies, is a dealer in fundamentals—it is not a
modifier—not a mere improver—it pretends to no such
thing : Radicalism literally signifies a tearer up of
roots, an extirpator, a destroyer, and its etymology is
well illustrated by its political action. Thus it has for
many ages been a principle of the British Constitution,
that a certain body of religious doctrines, upheld and
countenanced among those who subscribed to them, by
a certain cede of ecclesiastical regulation and discipline,
and explained and enforced by ministers answering
particular descriptions," performing specific duties,
enjoying definite privileges and property, and ex-
ercising powers which the law has authorized,
should be acknowledged by the State as constituting
its chosen religion and its established priesthood. So
essential has a religions ministry been considered, not
in England only, but in the most distant regions, and
from the remotest times, even when Christianity was
vet unheard of, to the .interests of that binding sense
of right by which mankind are held together in society,
I that Egyptians, Hindoos, Greeks, and Romans—we
say Teething of the Jews, whose theocracy was ordained
by God himself—but all nations known to history after
I had once emerged from barbarism, even the Ro-
mans, whose polytheism wag boundless, have had
their religious rites and ceremonies, whether by Chief
le r-
Magistr ate or Priest, or both united in one person,
formed as a public and national obligation, surrounded
by the highest sanction of the law. Throughout
Christendom a religious establishment, viz., the set-
ting apart an especial body of citizens to religious
oeces, has been universal, ever since each Christian
community began to assume a settled form. Here in
the United Kingdom all conscientious and intelligent
men have admitted that many abuses had crept into
the discipline of the Church, and that many inconve-
niences arose from the condition of its property, and
they agreed that both should be corrected for the better
conservation of the Church itself. But this was a
case which provoked the interference of Radi-
calism, whose apostles accordingly preached up
the necessity, not of reforming Church abuses,
but of applying the Radical canon to the Church
itself, cutting it up by the " roots," and substituting
the voluntary principle. It has been an ancient and
abiding principle of our Constitution that the " peo-
le" should elect members to serve in Parliament, and
lie reason of this rule was merely, that the State could
be no otherwise supported than from supplies drawn
out of the people's pocket by act of Parliament. It
became, therefore, necessary to determine what classes
of the people had a fixed and tangible interest in the
well-being of the State, otherwise a property to be
protected, and which afforded the material of taxation
by the legislative body. It was, in short, no more
than fitting to ascertain who they were that contributed
to the support of the State, with a view to the deposit
in their hands of the right to elect the law makers who
imposed the taxes. Hence arose a qualification for
the exercise of the franchise ; and as in the condition
of the priesthood, so in that of the constituency, va-
rious abuses had arisen, a reform of the elective body
became in the eyes of a majority of intelligent men
throughout the kingdom a safe and desirable con-
summation, which was hailed with rejoicings and
applause. The elective franchise was considera-
bly extended by the introduction amongst the elec-
tors of a description and amount of property
which had been heretofore excluded. Well, then,
what say the Radicals to this ? Why, just what they
have said with regard to the church—" We want no
reform' of the constituency.; we must go to the
root,' and extirpate the ancient practice of the mo-
narchy, or, what is the same thing, destroy its vital
principle, by substituting for electors qualified through
their property, and acting under a consciousness of
their stake in the country, an unnumbered multitude,
who have no stake at all." Again, it is a principle of
the British • Constitution and of society, that every
man who possesses a political right shall be responsible
whether to law, or to the opinion of his fellow citizens,
for its exercise. Yet these very Radicals, who are for
deluging the property of the realm by a torrent of mere
desperate and worthless numbers, clamour at the same
moment for another, and an inconsistent novelty, in
the shape of a ballot, a thing never heard of till of
of late days, which would release from the pressure
of opinion a rabble by their mere position in-
tangible to any process of law; thus, as in the former
cases, proceeding at once to the " root " of things,
and " extirpating " the Constitution in its first prin-
ciples. Finally, it is the most ancient corner stone of the
British monarchy, that the Peers of Parliament should
be a substantive body, nominated by the Crown, but
wholly irremovable by it, and legislating independently
both of King and Commons. But the demon of Ra-
dicalism is still at his post. He goes to the " root"
of the hereditary peerage, and extirpates the first prin-
ciple, by virtue of which the Upper House of Par-
liament both acts and exists ; urging, that instead of
being chosen by the Sovereign, and thenceforth abso-
lutely independent of him, each Peer shall be elected
by a ballot of paupers, and removable every two or
three years ! And such is that power which calls
itself Reform I Such is the " Liberal" party, such
the " Movement," such rather a banditti daring to
persecute and hunt down every honourable man in the
community, who, at the risk of being termed an apos-
tate (from crimes which he has at all times held
in abhorrence), sets his face, or his arm, if
necessary, against the ruin of his native land.
But, unhappily, there is yet another source of mis-
chief. This frantic, this atrocious faction, thus sworn
to the subversion of the State, is actually lord and
master of the men who hold in their hands the seal of
office and distribute the patronage of the Government,
and exercise the prerogatives of the Crown. The
Melbourne Cabinet dares not breathe but as the " ex-
tirpators" direct it. Let the Irish Papist and Eng-
lish republican withdraw for one day their pretection
from that Whig offal which offends the public sense
in Downing-street, and it is annihilated. . Were the
question put to-morrow to the major portion of this
degraded Ministry, whether they will sacrifice the Peers,
the elective franchise, the English dominion over Ire-
land, the Established Church, and the Protestant reli-
gion, or submit at a day's notice, to lose a three months'
possession—not of office—but of the name and salary
of office, does any man of sense in the empire doubt of
the infamous choice which would be made by them ?
Not one. Hence it is that they are hourly going to
the dogs. Hence it is, that none but rabble will deign
to attend a meeting called for their advantage. Ecce
the fine affair of Coventry a few days ago, on which
we have seen some amusing commentaries in the Co-
ventry Standard. Contrast such exhibitions with the
assemblage of noblemen and gentlemen at the South
Cheshire Conservative meeting last Monday, where
contempt and defiance were hurled at the Ministers by
some of the best men in England ; and then, gentle-
men, proceed
.to a dissolution " with what appetite
ye may. —7 tines.
We arc perfectly aware that in our views with regard
to the general principle of Poor Laws, as well as to
their application to Ireland, we are at issue with most
of our Contemporories ; but, at the same time, we are
not without hopes, that as the subject is more calmly
and closely examined and becomes better understood,
our opinions will make a proportionate progress in
public estimation. This is not a time when the public
mind can be imposed upon by arrogant flippancy—in-
terested zeal—a mawkish profession of benevolent feel-
ing, or the assumption of superior wisdom, or rather the
pretence of it which would say, " I am Sir Oracle,
and when I ope my lips, let no dog bark." These
might impose on the ignorant and unreflecting—and
would not fail of their effect in a less advanced stage of
political knowledge ; but in the present day public
questions must be canvassed independently of such asso-
ciations—they must be) udged by their intrinsic merit, and
weighed with the unflinching impartiality of truth ; and
on this healthy tone of the public mind do we found our
expectations of seeing the principles respecting Poor
Laws,which, through good and evil report,we have always
advanced and defended, prevail against the outcry which
has been raised against them. In fact we already per-
ceive many gratifying evidences of the progressive con-
version of our oppoents, amongst which we may in-
stance the article which apneared in the Morning
Chronicle of yesterday, which, though containsthe
leaven of former prejudice, flows inba course d
ment far different from that in which its observations
were lately made on the pamphlet of Mr. Leslie. It
is surprising that, while the Chronicle gleans from ex-
tensive research convincing evidences of the beneficial