The Sun.
London, England, 1831-05-13 00:00:00

of fact ion to paralyze it will be found unavailing. The
people knew, that having given themselves heart and
soul to the Government, the Government thereby be-
comes firm and stable, for who would dare to
seize the helm of State with a nation hostile
to his endeavours; who would have the bad
courage to draw down on himself the maledic-
tions of a people by attempting to create confusion'?
Who would dare to attempt to sacrifice a nation to
a contemptible faction ? But the boroughmongers,
deceived in their hopes of the effect to be produced
by the duplicity of Judas Iscariot, the sympathy
with the potwallupers, the appeal to the justice of
the nation in behalf of the corporaticns of rotten
boroughs about to be robbed of their franchise—a
franchise to return plunderers of the nation—and
finding that the elections have every where gone
against them, now say, what is it that the people
want—if under the present system they can return
a great majority, why alter the system. As well
might a despot exclaim, when the people have risen
against him, why complain when they thus prove
how much more powerful they are than I am
There is no need to prove that the people of every
country must, of necessity, be much more powerful
than the privileged orders ; but the latter, on all
ordinary occasions, array one part of the people
against another. Ott this Reform question an
honest Ministry, by throwing themselves on the
people, have induced the people to meet them with
exertions and sacrifices commensurate with the
emergency, and which could only be made on a
question which unites all classes, and with the pros-
pect of sparing to themselves, by one great rising in
their might, all necessity for similar exertions in fu-
ture. It is one thing to make exertions in an ordinary
election, and another to make exertions to return
such men as will support a Government pledged
to make such a Reform as will secure them trorn
plundering boroughmongers in all time corning, and
ensure to themselves and their children the blessings
of good Government.—.horning Chronicle.
It is very amusing to hear the Anti-Reformers
talk of giving the country what they are pleased to
call a " qualified measure." Lord John Russell's
Bill is henbane to them. "We cannot," say they,
"on any account vote for this revolutionary Bill,
but should have no objection to vote for a qualified
measure." How extremely generous is this ! One
would almost be inclined to think, from this tone of

liberality, that the boroughmongers, and not the
people, were the conquerors. Who cares now what
they would yield, or what they would vote for ?
There was a time, and that not many months dis-
tant, when they had it in their power to satisfy the
people by a reasonable concession. But no, strong
in their own weakness, they despised every kind of
warning—they resisted every species of intercession;
and now, after being compelled to surrender at dis-
cretion, they not only propose to march out of their
citadel with all the honours of war, but would
kindly tell us upon what terms they would conde-
scend to resume the command. But here we rather
overrate this tardy ingenuousness. They talk, it is
true, of a " qualified measure," but in such vague
terms that it is not possible to define or understand
their meaning. Neither before the late Parliament
was dissolved, nor at any of the hustings during the
present elections, have they had the candour or the
openness to tell the counts), what it is they actually
mean. They are ready enough to raise objec-
tinns, and if possible to create alarm. They are
shocked to see corporate rights, as they call them,
demolished, and embryo apprentices disfranchised;
while the transference of the right of voting from
the pot-walloper to the 101. householder fills them
with dismay; and, instead of these and the other
advantages proposed by Lord John Russell's Bill,
they say they would give us a " qualified mea-
sure;" but what that qualified measure is not a soul
among them has ventured to define. But we are
told that, when Parliament meets, Sir Robert Peel,
or some one with his concurrence, is to let the
country into the secret details of this qualified mea-
sure. If this should really be the case, we can only
say that such a step will afford another striking in-
stance of that miserable system of postponement and
delay which has characterised every act of the party
from whom the main opposition to Reform has ema-
nated. A statesman's mind should be in advance
of the age—should take the lead and give the tone
to every measure of improvement : instead of which
the party to which we allude has been dragged and
dragooned into every thing; and, as in the ease of
Catholic Emancipation, so, on the measure of Re-
form, concession is only wrung from them, and is
yielded with a reluctance which takes from it the
slightest merit, or even appearance of sincerity.—
Even the eleventh hour does not bring w'th
it wisdom to them. When they saw that,
in a Parliament elected during their own con-
tinuance in office, the question of Reform
was carried by a majority of one, they might
then, at least, have made a virtue of neces-
sity, and if they really had a plan which they
thought preferable to, and likely to supersede, the
measure of their opponents, is by did they not at
once manfully bring it forward, and submit it first
to the ordeal of Parliament, and then to that of the
country on a dissolution taking place exprestly for
the purpose of ascertaining the sentiments of the
people upon the identical subject ? The truth is
they have no plan. Their " qualified measure" is
mere moonshine. There is not a soul among them
who can define what it means; nor have the oppo-
nents of Reform in Parliament hitherto meant any
thing but a desire to cling to the rotten-borough sy...
tem as their sheet anchor and their only hope. This
is the true point upon which the country is at issue
with them. On this point the whole worth of Re-
form rests. The value of what Lord John Russell's
Bill gives bears no comparison to that which it
takes away. In removing the incubus which has
so long weighed upon the vitals of the country, it
will, of itself. alone give a new impulse to our na-
tional existence. On this point no " qualified mea-
sure" must, or can, be heard of ; nor do we envy
the hardihood of any matt who would seriously ven-
ture to offer cne. No, a full, not qualified, mea-
sure is what the country demands; and all the
pious constitutional alarms of those who have so
long basked in the sunshine of a contrary system
will neither have the effect of frightening the isle from
its propriety, nor of one moment admitting a doubt
that the country shall not now enjoy ttie fruits of
the victory it has so nobly won.— Morn. Herald.
It appears that the King has finally determined
not to visit the City; and that the reason given for
his Majesty's nen-compliance with the invitation of
the Lord Mayor is, that his Majesty is apprehensive
his health on the day proposed may not permit him
to perform his engagement. This reason is suffi-

cient ; and it would have been liable to no observa-
tion, excepting that of regret, if the announcement
of the King's decision had been limited to the ex-
pression of apprehension that the state of his health
might not permit his Majesty to dine with the Lord
Mayor. But his Majesty's sentiments have been
further explained by the Secretary of State, in
whose letter there is a paragraph stating that the
King begged it to be distinctly understood that the
state of his health, and that alone, induced his Ma-
jesty to postpone accepting for the present the invi-
tation of the loyal citizens of London. Our Con-
temporaries of the Government Press (no mean au-
thority) add that this paragraph was inserted in the
Secretary of State's letter because it had been re-
ported that the King was displeased with the conduct
of the Lord Mayor. This letterbecomes thus a matter
of importance. When the King dissolved Parliament,
with the view, as his Majesty declared, of appealing
to the sense of his people, an illumination was got
up, not certainly by the direct order, but undoubt-
edly with the sanction and encouragement of the
Lord Mayor. It was not by an illumination or any
such means that the King desired to ascertain the
sense of his people; nor did the King's Speech or
the Proclamation for the dissolution of Parliament
require obedience to the whims of a weak•minded
Lord Mayor, or to the commands of an ignorant
rabble. No person in his senses could doubt that
disorder would result on this occasion, and accor-
dingly the metropolis was for a succession of hours