The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

At this time of year, when people are returning from
their country excursions, to recommence the season of their
London business, their first question to any friend whom
they see coming out of a clubhouse, is commonly, " What
think you of the state of politics !" Now, this question is
one which the London friend, with all the lights of his club,
finds it mighty difficult to answer. For, among the various
curses which an unprincipled Government brings on a
country, one, and not the least, is the pleague of darkness.
No man, in these unsettled days, can see 12 hours before

him. No man can tell, on any-given question, what the Mi-
nisters will do. Be it the maintenance of.the Sovereign's pen-
sion list, be it the vindication of a Governor's ordinances, be

it an enactment of Tithe appropriation, their declarations
are faithles., and their practices inscrutable. Yet we know
as much of their policy as they know themselves, and
no man can know les: of anything. One only calcu-
lation we can make with certainty—that they will not re-
sign. The point of honour, banished from every other
quarter of their councils, has taken refuge stiffly there.
No surrender ! You may expose us—we will bear it. You
may defeat us—we will confess it. You may disgrace us—
we will overlook it. You may convict us of evasion, equi-
vocation, breach of promise, pusillanimity—no matter, the
shabby Administration will never resign. Well, but, say
the people from the country, does it rest with the shabby
Administration to choose its own fate ? We are just come

up from the south, and everybody in those parts is saying
" These men must go," Our friends from the east are in

the like story ; and from the north, and from the west, the
Ittilroads bring the same cry. Yes, they must go, because

the worm of decay is in them—but it may be Christmas
or Easter, January or April, for any thing that the
wisest water-doctor of the land can prognosticate.

Like an old, condemned building, they nod- to their
fall ; but whether the winds of the winter or the storms of
the spring equinox are to bring down the rotten pile, the
new almanacks omit to specify, and history, the old one,
has nothing parallel that we can judge from. Present,
past, future—Canada, the appropriation, the ballot—Lord
Durham and their friendships—Lord Brougham and their
vamities—O'Connell in tears, stirring Ireland into flames—

the trampling scorn of the Radicals—the growing strength
of the Conservatives—the general registration, which has
set its handwriting upon the wall ;—against all these ac-
cumulations of difficulty, danger, disgrace, rashness, mean-
ness, public distrust, public hAred, public contempt—

against the memory of pledges forfeited, of promises broken;

. .
of attachments betrayed—against the efforts of a Christian
people and the prayers of a Christian Church—against all
these blasts of condemnation, we do not believe that even

" the demon whom they still have served" can save
them. One possibility indeed there is, which might, for a
little, protract their day of doom—the possibility, that some
well-meaning, but too anxious and eager Conservatives may
rashly endeavour to hurry on the fall of these foes to the
constitution and religion of their country. All impatience
on the part of the Conservatives is a diversion in favour of

their enemies. Conscious that themselves seek only office,
the Whigs miss no pretence which may be given them for
charging the same unworthiness upon the Conservatives ;
not considering (or affecting not to consider) that the Con-
servatives are nineteen twentieths of all the gentlemen in
England—men as remote from any vision of office as the
wild horse from coveting the packsaddle. What they want
is not to get themselves in, but to get the Whigs out—
to expel the spoiler, not to seize the spoil. But still we
say, be patient. No doubt the usurpation seems a long
one ; if it did not, your patience would have no trial.
You must be content to hear it said a little longer that the
pear is not ripe. You cannot shake it off the tree ; you
must let it rot off. There is no other way. See what for-

bearance has done for you already ; how it has trebled your
numbers in Parliament, and rallied round you the good
feelings of the people, who, while—they thought your object
was place, suspected you ; but who confide in you and act
with you, now that they see the moderation of your leaders.
William IV. made one false step ; we are beginning to re-
cover from it. Let us not ourselves commit another ; a
second failure might be irredeemable. No doubt, if a
Conservative Administration were installed to-morrow, a
general election would give it a majority in the House of

-Commons. But the %ery fact of the onservatives—he'ng
in office would unite against them a host of malcontents,
who are now embroiled with one another. There would be
the old fear of the Tories, the great hobgoblins, and the
old cry for laying aside all minor differences, to fight
time common enemy. Brigands, who, if you do but let
them alone to work cut their present quarrels, will cut each
other's throats without your stir, will turn round and join
together to cut your's, if you move prematurely. Wait a
little longer, and their differences will have become too
fierce for composition. The wounds of deadly hate will
have grown too wide and too rigid to be closed. Time and
forbearance, which in politics are " tired nature's best re-
storers," will have shown two truths, both important to be
understood—that the Conservatives of the present day have
got rid of what was distasteful and unwholesome in the
leaven of the Toryism of the last century, and that the
mongrel revolutionists of Queen Victoria's reign are as un-
like the constitutional Whigs who enthroned King William
as Papists are remote from Protestants, and jobbers from
statesmen. It is of no avail to take office unless you have a
fair prospect of keeping it ; for it is only by keeping it, by en-
abling yourselves to follow out a permanent policy, that you
can do your country those real services for the sake
of which a good man should desire power. But to
make your power permanent, the force of your adversaries
must be not merely checked, or even routed, but abso-
lutely extinguished. There must be no party or parties
left in Parliament wbo, by an unprincipled combination, can
override a Conservative Ministry. Government must be
restored to the power of governing, and not be left, as
Radicalism loves to see it, too wea to maintain the Con-
stitution against the pressure of the Revolutionists. Im-
provement (for the word " Reform" has been hacked and
prostituted till its meaning has become as equivocal as its
character), substantial sound improvement, must he given
to public opinion—that is, to the deliberate and settled
judgment of the country, not to the demands of a party in
the House of Commons, just heavy enough to turn the scale
of office. But, to make all this sure, Whiggery must
be allowed a little while longer to develope itself in the
public disgust. The national opinion must be left to com-
plete its proper fermentation. Already the real character
of the Whigs is pretty generally known among the think-
ing part of the community—known and mourned by
thousands and tens of thousands, who, on the formation
of the Whig Ministry, in 1830, gave them credit for
much of the talent they arrogated, and most of the virtue
they professed. But light is a quick traveller, and is fast
spreading to the eyes of other and innumerable multi-
tudes, who were long content to slumber in confidence,
but who wake with a bound when at last the broad shame
comes staring in their faces. A little while longer and
what is already general will have grown universal ; and
the constituencies of England, except those few which the
authors of the Reform Bill patched up and boundarized
to fit the particular influences of their own magnates, will
banish the Whigs from Parliament to their proper Pande-
monium at the " Hole-in-the-Wall." Then there will be
no more possibility of effective unions between Whig Mem-
bers and Radical Members, Whig ex-Ministers and Irish
Repealers, treacherous Protestants and thorough-sworn
Papists ; then the agitators of the State and the foes of the
Church will be condemned to the penance of quiet, and
Government and Legislation, no longer warped by British
mobs or Irish hordes, will harmonize once more in the
Sovereign, the Lords, and the Commons of the realm.
—Times.
Mr. Roebuck, described by the Spectator as the recog-
nised agent of the House of Assembly. of Lower Canada in
Parliament, who " remains firm in his adherence to his de-
feated friends, after all hopes or probability of an advocate's
honorarium has vanished," has addressed the first of a
series of letAers to that paper on Lord Durham's adminis-
tration . in Canada. Mr. Roebuck professes to give no
or.nton on Lord Durham's plans for the future government
Ot our North American colonies, which will, he supposes,
be laid before Parliament on his return ; but as the
purpose of his mission was twofold, first to allay dis-
content, to restore harmony, and, if possible, to bring back
the people to a state of attachment to the mother coun-
try ; and, secondly, to provide securities for future good
government, he lays it down that the last of these
objects could not be effected without the attainment of
the first. The purport of Mr. Roebuck's letter is to
show that Lord Durham acted in such a manner as pre-
vented him from securing the attachment of the French
Canadians, and the inference we are left to draw is,
that, let his plans be what they may, they can be
but of little avail
to Lower Canada. Lord Durham, we
are told, on his arrival found all law
prisons filled with persons accused of high treason. He
might either have said, let the past be forgotten, and those
who are in exile or in prison return to their homes, or he
might have restored the just jt a n
lendr
nteo.
jury law that had expired, re-
instated the law, opened the b
tribunals,
sainrd epbun Cebo
the military despotism exercise
But instead of this, without trial, hey ranged the accused
into various classes, sent some to Bermuda, banished
othersothers
during the pleasure of the Governor, and permitted
to remain in Canada on giving security for their future
good behaviour. Lord Durham wished neither to pack
juries nor to suffer a mockery of justice through the means
of partisan jurors. The result of the trial in the case of
Chartrand sufficiently demonstrates that a fair and impar-
tial trial by jury was not to be expected in Lower Canada.
But, then, to punish men arbitrarily can only be justified
by necessity, and Mr. Roebuck denies that any such neces-
sity existed :
" I assert," die says, " and I demand proof to the contrary,
that no danger would have arisen had M. Papineau and hi'
fr*isis been fairly tried ; I assert that the residence of these