The Sun.
London, England, 1831-03-08 00:00:00

PRICE 7D.

ever rights he violated—whatever principles be overturned.
No, no; this will never do ! The rotten boroughs
are for ever cast out of the Constitution ; and as to the
subsequent parts of the measure, we know not, we re-
peat, to whom the elective franchise can with more secu-
rity be extended, than to that great mass of people who
ire not mere servants, but persons having pr tperty to
defend, and an interest in the preservat'on of tranquillity.
Among the meetings now in progress, that at Birmingham
is one of tho most striking The inhabitants of this
flourishing town will, it is thought to the amount of
0
'impose of supporting the King
an 1
their constitutional thea-
-201068 0,
Minis conveneter
in for
conductingthe
sure of R form to a happy conclusion. Warwick, Dudley,
Bilston, and all the Staffordshire towns ,are also in
movement ; and the present condition of all the towns,.
as to trade and employment, entirely refutes and exposes
that false estimate which would int aiure the call for
Reform by the pressure of public difficulties. Counties
are also in motion —Surrey, Berkshire ; and parishes
without end—St. George's, Ilinover-square, Greenwich,
Woolwich, Deptford, Christ Church, Surrey. A peti-
tion in favour of Reform has also received the signature of
several of the most eminent King's Gfuneit, and of the
leading members of the bar. It is now lying in Lincoln's-
inn-hall ; and copies are to be despatched to the several
circuits. There is one error—springing, we believe, from
a liberal principle, perhaps a radical one,—which we are
anxious to correct, and which, in truth, finds no sanction
in the present Bill : it is that which would assign to mere
labourers without visible or tangible property, the right of
voting for Members of Parliament. We have had enough
of these in the pot-wallopping boroughs. They may he
drawn as militia-men, because they have persons, though
no property ; and we doubt if their condition ba not bet-
tered by the change, should the militia be called out. But
why are such men, while they remain in a civil state, to
lose their time, which is all their property, upon elections,
for the loss of which time they are paid when their attendance
is necessary in Courts of Assize, or at Quarter Sessions ?
The error, howevtr, it this,—that the argument supposees
that class always to consist of the same persons indivi-
dually ; whereas, though the numbers may remain sta-
tionary, or nearly so, the members change daily, some
sinking into it and others emerging from it, so that the
rule is impartial and fair for all ; and, as we hive before
hinted, the elective franchise should be held out as a temp-
tation to industry. But those who now move in support
of the present Bill are of a higher class—they constitute
the whole body of England ; and to them we say now, as
we have said before, " Petition, petition : urge forward
the present most just and necessary Bill in every legal
way." None dare oppose it in Parliament who have a
constituency to return to at the dissolution which would
follow the failure of the Bill. Its enemies are simply,
and almost numerically, the boroughmow;ers —those who
have a dishonest interest, in some sort or other, with the
rotteu boroughs to be suppressed. We are glad to see
that Ministers will press the 811 forward with all con-
venient expedition, and by no means think of postponing
or letting it sleep till after Easter, as some weak persons
had urged them to do.— Times.

The unstatesmanlike and unparliamentary language

which has been used by our ultra-radical Ministers and
their aeherents, in speaking of that borough system, which
is our only remaining safeguard against their misrule,
might well justify the harshest terms of reprohation. We

_ .
know, however, that vehement invective is seldom resorted

to except when arguments are wanting ; and the ravings

of the Times, or the declamatory menaces of a Macauley,

carry with them their own antidote to the minds of all
calm reflecting meo. In France, when popular excite.
ment reigns, it reigns supreme. In England it reigns
among hungry Whigs—among factious demagogues—or
among the giddy multitude of idle adventurers, whose
passions enslave their understandings. But among the
thoughtful and serious-minded classes of this great com-
munity the cry of revolutionary excitement is as hate-
ful as the love of domestic quiet is influential, and rea-
son triumphs over delusion as surely as a calm succeeds
the storm. The Courier has had the audacity to assert that

Whig mis-government can prevail over the legitimate au-
thority of the Legislature; and its confederate the Times,
yet more treasonable in its effusions, has threatened us
with a National Convention ; but who, let us ask, are the
persons under whose auspices such machinations could be
carried on ? Would the Lord Chancellor or the Prime
Minister sanction such encroachments upon that constitu-
tional authority which is vested in Parliament alone? But
the Ministers—the Greys, the Stanleys, and the Russells,
whose party spirit now induces them to adopt, not their Go-
vernment to the Constitution, but the Constitution to their
Government—what excuse have they to plead ? What anti-

dote can they now offer to the poison which they have cir-
culated ? From the first to the last speech made by them in
this debate they have used no one statesmanlike argument—
they have omitted no revolutionary incentive, they have ac-
knowledged
the blessings we enjoy, and yet cursed the
system which produced them—they have tasted the fruits
of our tree of life, and own that they are sweet, and then
with a fiendiSh ingratitude lay bare its roots to the axe of
the revolutionists. Such are the critics, such the lawyers,
' such the statesmen, who now, under the name of re-
formers, are hurrying the country headlong into ruin.
Verily they will have their reward. But the King—the
gracious Monarch whose throne is based upon the present
Constitution—will he allow Whig party-spirit to dash his
sceptre from his hands? The thought is too monstrous.
The throne which William the Third established upon
the sound basis of constitutional liberty will, we are sure,
he rescued from destruction by his successor ; and whereas
the third William obtained his throne through the Hid of
the Whigs of 16S8, let William the Fourth now stand by
his Parliament and save it, in defiance of Whig traitors
and Popish agitators in 1831.—Morning Post.
I We have felt it to be our duty to listen with attention

to the opinions and declarations of all classes on the pre-
sent important occasion, and we are compelled by truth
to say, that the language of violence and intimidation does
not appear to us to come from those who Wield the pity.

sisal force of the community, but from persons of high
rank, but possessing together with their adherents large
property and small numerical strength—from them we
hear language of disrespect as applied to the Monarch, for
having given his Royal approval to the plan of Reform
brought forward by his Ministers, and of contempt and
hatred towards the people of England for having dared,
in reliance on the personal character of the King, and a
firm confidence in the declarations of those Ministers
when called into his Councils, to cover the tables of both

Houses of Parliament with petitions for Reform. If the
matter at issue were not so grave in its nature, we
should be amused by the boastings of these modern
cavaliers ; they say, " Now is the time to make our
stand—now is the time for every gentleman to peril
his life and property against the multitude ; let us
but show ourselves in arms, and the shopkeepers of
England will be too happy to get quietly to the safe
side of their counters. Indeed (they add) how should
the shopkeepers of England care, or know any thing
about the representation in Parliament ? It has been
our pleasure, as it was our right, to settle that business
for them, by arrangements amongst ourselves, and Heaven
knows we have mixed up therein a quantity of periodical
courtesy towards the common people that ought to have
satisfied every caprice of popular freedom." We must
confess that we do not hear such language with indiffe•
rence ; in the repetition of it, and in its continuance, we
see great danger. Thank God ! we are a more phleg-
matic, or, rather, a more staid people than our neighbours.
We know and feel that the band of cavaliers is but small,
and we do not pay them the compliment of saying
Exigui numero sed hello vivide virtue.
—lt is only within the last few weeks of restored internal
tranquillity that the fire of their daring has blazed forth.—
The successful firmness of Ministers, in applying the
strong arm of the law to put down the incendiaries of
agricultural stock and produce, has emboldened the ill
advised owners of boroughs, and their nominees, to treat
the people of England with contempt. The opinion
which the opponents of Reform entertain of the moral and
intellectual condition of the people of England would leo
us to doubt whether they could own a common country,
That Chatham's language was their mother tongue,
Or Wolfe's great name compatriot with their own."

For what is their assertion (we cannot call it argument)?
ExtUnd the elective franchise, and make it independent
of individual authority
and illegal purchase—place it in
the hands of a numerous body of small proprietors, and
such is the ignorance, such the malignity, and such the
madness of the English nation, that the House of Com-
mons must become the laughing stock of Europe, from the
Members being elected for their total unfitness-to discharge