The Sun.
London, England, 1838-03-24 00:00:00

171)

WITH WHICH
" THE TRUE SUN" IS NOW
INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
SATURDAY EVENING, MARCH 24, 1838.

We quite agree with the Chronicle in ascribing great im-
► ortance to the speech of the Bishop of LONDON, delivered
,ist night in the House of Lords. We loge to hear the
Bishops speak on any questions of humanity or justice, be-

cause they are then sure to furnish arguments against them-
soives. Their conduct is so much at variance with their
doctrines, that whenever they, forgetting the necessity of
always defending, the Church, come from behind their brist-
ling fortifications, to assail the want of charity, or the rapa-
city of others, they throw open their citadel to their ene-
mies. Then we put down their words with care—then we
scrupulously weigh their meaning—and then we ask them,
how their condemnation of other unjust men sanctifies their
4,wn conduct ? He said

" He was not quite sure that the interests of humanity
ought not to prevail against the interests of, the planters. If
the safety of the Colonies were to he considered as dependent
upon the frame of mind of the population at the end of the ap-
prenticeship system, and if any danger were likely to result
from the exasperated feelings of the population, when that ter-
mination should arrive, he thought there was less danger likely
to result now than if they waited for a few years longer before
they put an end to the system."
Now, if we alter the words a little, what answer can the
Bishop give to the question—why should not the interests
of humanity prevail over the interests of Bishops and of
Dea.ls and Chapters ? Why are these classes to monopo-
lize t,l2'e bulk of the wealth devoted in past times to the

purpose ,of teaching the whole people, so that it is now ex- -
elusively ,wpropriated by that one sect to which the
Bishop belctigs ? Why should not the Catholics and the
Dissenters, ‘.,g do are as much Englishmen, and have as
much right to th e property devoted to purposes of religious
instruction as the n.`embers of the Church of England, have
a full share of it ? In fact, Catholics devoted the pro-
perty for Catholics ; ant.l if the general interests of humanity
require that the whole people should receive religious in-
struction, surely all the people should have a share of this
wealth as well as the Bishop, arid the sect who agree with
him in opinion? Why should this Bishop, too, if the
.4.oterests of humanity, of justice, and religion ought
to prevail over those of the Bishops, have 14,0001.
a year, while nearly a million of his flock, as he says, are
hunger ing for the bread of life, and have no pastors to
supply it,' ;.? Why, also, if the interests of humanity are
to prevail over the interests of the priesthood, should the
Rectors of the metropolis, several of whom have large in-
comes and no congregations, with this very Bishop at their
head, oppose, with all their might, the removal of cemete-
ries from our crowded streets, which surely the interests
of humanity—the health and good moral feeling of the
people require—merely because the fees they now receive
would be lost ? In these instances we find, and they
might by multipled, the interests of the priesthood of the
Established Church prevailing over the interests of the
humanity, and the interests of religion, and the interests of
morality, contrary to what the Bishop of LONDON laid
.down in the House of Lords last night.

But there is another part. of the extract worthy of com-
ment. "If the safety of the Church, we may ask, changing
fe.w terms, be considered as dependent on the frame of
mind of the Dissenters, and if any danger be likely to re-
sult from their exasperated feelings, will there not be less
danger from at once putting an end to those feelings,
than from continuing them a few years longer ?" But the
Dissenters are outraged by the Church-rates, by prosecu-
tions in Ecclesiastical Courts, and by various exactions of
the Church, which are in principle, though not in degree the
,same, as those inflicted by the planters on the slaves ; and
w I,y does the Bishop and his co-Priests of the Establish-
mein so vehemently oppose giving relief to the Dissenters,
and liutting an end to their exasperated feelings ? The
answer' is plain : the Bishops stand in the same relation to
the Dissenters as the planters do to their slaves, and both
tenaciously and blindly prefer their own interests to the in-
terests of humanity and justice.

The Bishop also talked a good deal about the compact
entered into tetween the planters and the Legislature, and
after a good deal of see-saw the Bishop came to the con-
elusion
that the planters had been well enough paid ;
that the compact might be rescinded if the planters had
violated it ; and that the public welfare would he promoted
by the immediate emancipation of the negroes. we are
quite sure that the Bishops and their friends have, like the
planters, got more than they deserved. There is, too,
another compact entered into by the Legislature than this
with the planter. The Clergy have, at least, presumed a
.compact, and have cried out bitterly, because individuals
e attempted, as the Clergy say, to set it aside. In the
year :833, an improvement was effected in the Church of
Ireland ; and ever since the Bishops and their friends have
intiated. :at the alterations then made were a compact
out the Legislature from making
fuethei imFiges."L in that Church. Of course, in all
the. eofqdct 'o4:4lliot\ nature between the Church and the
Legishittp:l:l" ways been implied that the Church
A s td &s::,.:4lotffitZ o the people, that it should put an I
~.SAL9l)ltftiaileii; t non-residence should be done away, 1

that each Clergyman should do the duties for which he is paid
—all these implied parts of the compact between the Church
and the State have been as completely neglected by the
Church as the planters have neglected to perform their
duty to the apprentices. We rejoice much, therefore, to
have it so explicitly stated by the Bishop of LONDON, that
the violation of a compact by one of the parties, that neg-
lecting the duties implied by the Legislature releases the
Legislature from the obligation of observing its stipulations ;
above all, we are glad to learn from the Bishop, that the
welfare of the public—the soothing the minds of the un-
justly treated people, the interests of humanity—ought to
be more considered than the interests of priests and
planters. We should like to see the Bishep applying these
doctrines to the Corn Laws ; and, in default of his and
his co-Bishops doing this, let us observe that the int e-
rests of humanity require that the people should not be de-
prived of bread to enrich corn-growers and tithe owners.
We delight in catching a Bishop espousing the cause of
justice, for then he is sure to convict himself.

The question of the abolition of Negro Apprenticeship
on the Ist of August next, was again the leading subject
of discussion in the House of Lords last night. With

equal surprise and pleasure will the country learn that
while the cause of justice, of freedom, and of mercy found
powerful advocates in Lord BROUGHAM, the Bishop of
LONDON, Lord WHARNCLIFFE, and the Marquis of SLIGO,

there was not a voice raised in extenuation of the cruelty oi

the planters—not a hope expressed that the legal duration
of their tyranny would not be diminished—not a syllable
uttered with a view to imply or convey a conviction that
they had not shamefully, wantonly, and outrageously vio-
lated the compact under which Parliament had granted
Twenty Millions sterling to purchase the freedom of the
coloured race. It is true that the Bishop of LONDON in-
timated that he was not himself convinced that all the
planters had violated the Parliamentary compact, and that
he would scruple to punish an innocent minority for the
sins of a guilty majority ; but the Right Reverend
Prelate did away with his own objection when he stated
that, in the opinion of the people of this country, Twenty
Millions was a large enough sum to pay for immediate and
unrestricted emancipation of the Negroes, and likewise that
his Lordship was himself convinced that the safety of the
colonies and the interests of the mother country would be
best consulted by setting the slaves at liberty. The plan-
ters, and not the people of England, are the violators of
the compact between this country and the colonial slave-
holders. From the moment the Emancipation Act was
passed, a large body of the West Indian planters did every
thing in their power to render such of its provisions as ex-
tended the immunities of the coloured race of no effect.
In a dispatch from Lord GLENELG to the Governors of
the West Indian Islands, dated the 13th of May, 1837,
the Noble Colonial Secretary states, on the authority of
Mr. LIGHT, that Negroes leaving one British colony for)
another in search of employment, were conveyed clan-
destinely to Crabbe Island, and there, though pre-4
viously free, sold to the Spaniards as slaves. Thei
persons engaged in this horrible traffic—almost unknown.l
before the passing of the Emancipation Act—were
planters who had received the compensation for thei?
slaves voted by Parliament, and in many instances the!
redemption money at which the poor Africans fancied they
had purchased a discharge of the bond of apprenticeship.
gI
their
ea:
them
ei rmecounfll avo rigc,
gtaieocdlnd
ar
nef addressed d,
,a
mnbyya s
iGoi
efrodes,-ieer
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r the
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fourth
.1 .
circulate SMITH,Ina:
to the Special Magistrates of Jamaica, dated the 16th of
May 1837, his Excellency complains that flogging through-
out the Island was not diminished, and that men and
women were flogged, contrary to the instructions of the
Executive, for the most frivolous offences. Decrease of
crime had only led to increase of corporal punishment. In
another circular, dated the 2d of Jane, 1837, his Excel-
lency charge; the planters with causing the apprentices to
be seized by the police.and Maroons on frivolous pretexts,
of their intending- to disturb the public peace—merely tot
third circular, dated the 22d of July, his Excellency repu•
diates as a common practice of the Plenters and Magisa
trates the loading of apprentices with irons, previous t 1
dated the 29th of December, the Governor refers to itt
stances in which women in an advanced state of pregnancy
were tied on the treadmill, and their delivery prematurely
and sometimes fatally accelerated by the whip—at the same
time ordering the discontinuance of such cruelty. In De-
cember last the Jamaica House of Assembly—after re-
peated refusals to revise the Colonial Code of that island,
so as to adapt it to the altered state of affairs, as recom-
mended by Lord GLENELG in a dispatch of the 6th of
November—terminated its labours for the session, by the
adoption of a Police Bill which actually neutralized, and
de facto abrogated, the ghost essential provisions of the
Emancipation Act of the Imperial Parliament! It was to
no purpose that the Governor remonstrated—moved an
adjournment—and even cited the letter of his instruc-
tions from England. The Colonial Legislature per-
sisted, at the hazard of provoking a general insurrec-
tion ; and thus, in the face of all Europe, violated
the solemn pact between the planters and the people of
England. Were other proofs necessary, we might supply
them to repletion from the evidence taken before her MA-
JESTY'S Commissioners, Messrs. GORDON and DAUGHTIEY,
in Jamaica, since the Ist of September last.
As the Government is perfectly acquainted with the
cruelty and dishonesty of the planters—with the moral
fitness of the slaves to enter immediately upon the enjoy-
ment of their liberty—and with the strong religious
feeling that prevails throughout the United Kingdom
upon this subject, we cannot believe that any official
objection will be made to the abolition of the apprentice-
ship system from the Ist of August next. Ministers must
see, as well as the Bishop of LONDON, the rich harvest of
gratitude which they would derive from ♦oluntarily
abolishing an apprenticeship, which was only adopted
in order to prepare the Negroes for the enjoy-
ment of liberty. Such an act would for ever win for
her Majesty and the Imperial Parliament the entire
and unchanging devotion of the coloured race. Besides,
Ministers should remember that in the opinion of a Noble-
man whose practical experience exceeds that of any other
Member of the Legislature—we mean the Marquis of
SLlGo—the apprenticeship system will be abolished by
force, if not by reason, before the expiration of the
period fixed by the Emancipation Act. GOD forbid that
the Government shGuld be so blind as to leave the per-
fecting of so Christian a work as the freedom of the
Negro to be effected by violence, after the vast sacrifices
made to accomplish so holy a purpose by the generous,
enlightened, and humane inhabitants of the United
Kingdom!

The Hampstead Necropolis Bill, which has been four
days in Committee, and is adjourned to Tuesday next, is
one whis.--11, however it may be with the Commons, will cer-
tainly never' ba allowed to pass the Lords, who will reject
it, on the same principle that they rejected it last session—
namely, " that no public advantage could be derived from
its adoption." It is, indeed, a measure of the most value-
less character, except to certain interested parties ; ,end by
proposing, as it does, to enclose seventy-five acres of ;and
within a mile of that thickly-peopled neighbourlood called
Somers-town, is sure to be attended with the greatest
practical inconvenience to the public. The neighbourhood
of Hampstead is now the only healthy, rural Jocality, left
within an easy walking distance of the metropolis; and if a
great portion of this is to be shut out from that numerous
and toil-worn class of the community, who require, as a
matter of necessity, fresh air and exercise on the Sunday,
what means of enjoyment have they left them, except such
factitious and demoralizing ones as may be furnished by
the gin-shop, or the close, smoky atmosphere of the pot-
house ? We trust that all liberal Members in the House
of Commons will rally in vigorous opposition to this ,despotic
measure, which is based on injustice—and that wiprst
spat-its of injustice which affects the more helpless and un-
protected ela,sses of society.

The Glass Dukies Bill was read a second time in the
House of Commons last night. Ms. F. FRENCH made e
bold push to get of the duty en glass altogether, and
under other financial eirc-amstances we should have re-
gretted his failure ; but in the present state of the revenue,
it is utterly in vain to expect the abolition of this or, in-
deed, any other tax. We think the Government has done
all that it can be reasonably called upon at present to do in
this matter. It has introduced a Bill, the object of which is
to consolidate into one consistent Act the various laws
relating to the manufacture of glass, and to make the regu-

lations required for the protection of the [revenue as little
burdensome as possible to the manufacturer. In order to do
this, with the best effect, the Bill, which was prepared
some time ago, was submitted to the trade, and their sug•
gestions have been attended to, as far as the interests of the
Exchequer would permit. The duty, it must be borne
in mind, was very considerably reduced not long
ago, and we are glad to find that this reduction has
been followed by the most beneficial effects. Smuggling,
in its various forms, which, in this article prevailed to a
great extent, has been almost entirely suppressed.

The answer which Sir ROBERT PEEL will give on Mon-
day to the question of Lord JOHN RUSSELL, relative to the
Irish Municipal Bill, will decide what course the Tories
intend to pursue on the two great points on which they
and the Government are at issue. Report says,
it is not their intention to renew the motion for
the abolition of all Municipal Corporations in Ireland ;
and that they begin to see that the Irish may manage
their Municipal affairs without pulling down the Protestant
Church. We should not wonder if they also begin to see
that a few thousand pounds a-year may be taken out of
the ecclesiastical funds, and devoted to the moral and re-
ligious instruction of the people, without endangering
either religion or morality. It is impossible to say what
wonders the speech of Lord JOHN RUSSELL against the
Ballot and town Constituencies may work.

Though Lord ELIoT's motion for Tuesday stands
sixth on the list, there is no doubt, we believe, that it
will be brought forward on that day, and that the public
business will be postponed to allow the Noble Lord and
the Tories to make their party attack. All the Members
of the House of Commons, therefore, who do not desire
to gratify the Tories with a triumph, as well as an oppor-
tunity of making a display, will be careful to:attend on that
day. The Ministers may be blamed for not having done
enough for Spain, but only the pusillanimous Tories who
will find no support in the country blame them for having
done too much. They will be defeated, and the attempt
will only be another proof of their great desire to embarrass
the Government, and get hold of office at the expense of
public disaster, without the power to attain their object.

In recurring to the discussion on the Poor-law, which
took place in the House of Lords on Tuesday, we may ob-
serve that Lord STANHOPE'S hint, that it would take him
forty nights to lay open all the horrors of the new sys-
tem, is one of the most formidable announcements we ever
remember to have heard. A lecture or two we can put up
with, but a six weeks' course, even with all the Noble
Earl's capacity of entertainment, is rather too much of a
good thing. The plan adopted by Lord STANHOPE is no
doubt admirably suited to the purpose of interminable dis-
cussion. Any other person having in view to alter, amend,
or repeal any given law, would have at once come to the
point by moving, after showing the evils arising out of the
law, for a Committee of Inquiry. Any man, who had con-

fidence in the soundness of his cause, would have pursued
that course. But the Noble Earl; having before his
eyes the unhappy catastrophe of Mr. JOHN WALTER,
who broke down with such a crash while carrying
on, by regular approach, his celebrated attack on the
Poor-law, has deemed it expedient to resort to operations of
a different description. He has opened an establishment
for Poor-law grievances, and advertised for cases—if ano-
nymous so much the better—to be nightly served up in the
House of Lords. Let any one cast a glance at the rig-
marole speech deliverd by his Lordship on Tuesday night,
and say whether we are not strictly warranted
in what we have said. Was there ever uttered such a
farrago of unauthenticated statement, blundering assertion,
and impotent reasoning? Take one instance of the Noble
Lord's competency for investigating the comparative merits
of the old and the new systems. Among the horrible at-
trocities perpetrated by the administrators of the new Poor-
law, the Noble grievance-monger related a case in which
men had been yoked like brutes to a sand-cart, when, lo !
it turned. out that this transaction took place under the
old law !

But enough of this man's absurdities. Let us now see
what opinion of the New Poor-law has been formed by
those whose qua',lfications for judging, and opportunities
of
observation, are somewhat different from his. The testi-
mony of Lord BROUGHAM, who gave a masterly expo-
sition of the new system, we pass by for the present,
as the Noble and Learned Lord having been the originator o f
the law, may be considered by some as not quite an impar-
tial judge in the case. Lord BROUGHAM was followed by
Lord STRADBROLE, who thus expressed himself :
In Suffolk, Norfolk, and Sussex, the condition of the lower
classes had been lately much improved ; there was a great de-
crease of crime, a great increase of comfort, and instead of the
workhouses being filled with able-bodied labourers, there
was a less number of paupers in the Unions than was
ever before known. It was folly to say that people were
forced into those unions or prisons, as they were termed,
as there was not half the number then in the work-
houses that there was before the passing of the New
Poor-law. The Noble Lord then referred to some docu-
ments to show that although the farmers in the counties to
which he had alluded enjoyed a great reduction in the poor-
rates, more out. door relief had been granted of late than at
any period prior to the passing of the Act. In one parish
from which he had seen an account, it appeared that not a
single able-bodied man was out of employment or in the
workhouse. In fact, it was notorious in many parts of the
country, that in consequence of the improved condition of la-
bourers, the rents of cottages had increased of late."
There is perhaps not a man in the Kingdom so well qua-
lified as the Duke of RICHMOND is for pronouncing an
opinion on the merits of this Act. The Noble Duke has
devoted much time and labour to the duties of Chairman
of the Board of Guardians in the district in which he re-
sides. He has thus been in the very midst of the details
—has seen with his own eyes the working and the effects
of the law—and what is the result of his Grace's expe-
rience ?—(Hear.)
" He would declare, though he was well aware and did not
care how unpopular the assertion might he, that on his honour
and conscience he believed a Bill never received the Royal as-
sent which had done more good to the morals of the people of
England._( Hear, hear.) It had rendered the labourers of
the country independent, and would have the effect of even-
tually raising the price of wages throughout the country."
Lord COLCHESTER, who has been for two years Chair-
man of a Board of Guardians, stated that " from what he
had seen of the working of the Bill, he was persuaded of
the justice of its principle, and of its benefit to the labour-
ing population of the country ; but at the same time he did
not think the effects were so universally great as its suppor-
ters seemed to imagine. He was sorry to admit that du-
ring the last winter great deprivations had been suffered in
Sussex, arising a good deal from the terror in which the
workhouses were held, and without just cause ; for he was
convinced that in them the poor were better clothed, more
substantially fed, and better taken care of, than they could
possibly be by their own families.—( Hear, hear.) And this
especially was the case with reference to children, who
were not only taught reading and writing, but also trades,
in a manner which never could be the case in their parents'

cottages."
To the same effect is the testimony of the Bishop of
CHIcHEBTER, who observed that "he must be permitted
to say, that the poor-house to which the Noble Duke (the
Duke of RICHMOND) had referred was within his own eye
dial observation, and that it had been his good fortune to
be owe of the clergy desired to visit it and to examine the
chill-en, and he could testify that he was utterly surprised
at the Admirable manner in which they went through that
examination, for that though there were between 80 and
country.a
90 chili Irye_n
yoeft boththeir s eaxnessw—eras
would fleeting h
abody, o andne
honourchanging
every dato
any
porn
rn h
With regard to the
diet,
e in the weather the
surgeon d rested a richer diet for the poor, and had wit-
nessed a ni-i nifest care taken by Guardians for the comforts
el:
nd esnete s
n thathonl duringiin
the
a chchance
of the inmatcs of the workhouse udder their charge. He
should not ht tve done justice to his own mind, to the poor,
or to ;the Guxtrdians, if he had not thus testified the excel-
lence of &he avraagements in the workhouse to which the
Noble Mike (.RICHMOND) had alluded."
Lord 'WY s WAD, whom nobody will accuse of undue
partiality for the new Law, was compelled by the force of
truth to,confess that, from an uncompromising enemy, he
had been transmuted into a friend of the Act. "He was
far from bei tig desirous of having the Poor Law Bill re-
pealed, for he thought that it had done' a great deal of
good,l'put,thesrewere some points in it which he thought
required Alteration,"
,Lool itititNTLIFFE wound up the debate by adminis•
tering the collowing severe but just rebuke to Lord STAN-
Hem, by wlsich we trust he will profit.
" disapproved of the course which had been pursued by
the Noble ,Earl ( Stanhope), as the Noble Earl had refused to
move for a Committee of Inquiry into the charges he had
brought fo.Tytard. The Noble Earl had made certain charges,