The Sun.
London, England, 1836-12-09 00:00:00

.__,.. ......---
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

A philosopher of antiquity defined man to be a two-
legged animal without feathers. It would be difficult
to bring Lord Wharncliffe, the Duke of Newcastle,
and the Earl of Winchilsea together under any other
definition. Cobbett used to say the standard of ra-
tionality for Peers differed from that for other men, and
that it was enough for a Peer if he did not in eating
run the fork into his cheek, or could be suffered to
walk at large without danger of falling into a quarry.
The Duke of Newcastle and Lord Winchilsea are no
doubt rational Peers ; but were they Commoners, it
might be difficult to determine their quality. Lord
Wharncliffe, on the other hand, though far from pos-
sessing the enlarged views of a statesman, is a shrewd
man in the ordinary affairs of life ; and from the man-
ner in which he long discharged the duties of Chair-
man of the Magistrates of the West Riding of York-
shire, he earned the reputation of a good man of busi-
ness. The party in which these three men are conspicu-
ous personages must be strangely united. To the Duke of
Newcastle and Lord Winchilsea we should never think of
appealing ; but Lord Wharncliffe is a man on whom
argument is not altogether thrown away. His Lord-
ship, from the tenour of his defence of the House of
Peers at Wakefield,,reminded us of the French pro-
verb—gui s'excuse s accuse. It must have been clear
to all who heard his Lordship, that he had strong mis-
givings with regard to the wisdom of the course pur-
sued by their Lordships, and that he was by no means
free from anxious apprehensions as to the consequences
to which that course may expose them. The nation
is indebted to his Lordship for wavering in good time,
when the more reckless of his party were disposed to
push matters to extremities in resisting the Reform
Bill ; and notwithstanding his defence of his " order,"
we are mistaken if he will not soon be found counsel-
ling a more moderate policy with regard to Irish Cor-
porations. He never can approve of the insult offered
by Lord Lyndhurst to our brethren of Ireland ; and
his understanding must repudiate the shallow pre-
text of withholding from the Irish rights enjoyed
by the English and Scotch, because, forsooth, the
Irish are divided in religion. Why, the religious
animosities have their origin in the denial of civil
privileges on account of religion ; and equality of
rights and privileges by destroying the cause would of
course destroy also the effect. Lord Wharncliffe, by
his laborious endeavour to defend the Peers at the bar
of the public, proved that he was impressed with the
truth of the position, that no body of men in this
country can, with safety to themselves, set public
opinion at defiance. Now a man of his discernment
must be aware that the current is setting in strongly
against their Lordships, and that there is hardly an
open meeting throughout the country at which Peerage
Reform is ntt favourably received. This is a sign of
the times which there is no mistaking. In fact the
Peers by casting off the people, and claiming irre-
sponsible power, have deprived themselves of the only
sure ground of support in our day. To be favoured
by the Peers would be sure to excite the distrust of
the people in any man or any measure so distnguished.
In the able pamphlet to which we yesterday alluded,
.‘ The Conservative Peers and the Reform Ministry,"
a powerful appeal is made on behalf of Ministers on
the ground that their measures were not acceptable to
the Peers.
" Is rot," says the writer, " the strongest proof of the
efficacy and value of the measures of reform introduced
during the past session to be found in the resolute and suc-
cessful opposition made to them in the House of Peers ?
Had they been on the level of Tory patriotism—bad they
with a treacherous show of remedy struck out the letter of
the abuse, but kept alive its spirit—had they been so
framed as to provide in appearance for the security of po-
pular freedom, while in reality they left its protection as in-
secure as ever—had the Bills been of this Conservative
character, would they have been counteracted or cast
adrift ? Would they have met with the fate of the Irish
Municipal Bill, and the Voters' Registration Bill, and the
Charitable Trustees Bill, and the long list of Bills swept
away in the train cf them ? No. Their Lordships would
have been but too happy to give them effect. They would
have been most graciously received, and would have passed
without the slightest effort of amendment."
This argument ought to weigh the more with those
who have any regard for the House of Lords since it
is urged, not so much in the way of reproach to that
body, as in justification of Ministers. They deserve
well of the country—because they ate hated by the
Lords. It is supposed that this is proof conclusive.
When a thief praises a police officer, honest men
ought to distrust him. A Ministry in favour with the
Peers ought to be distrusted by the nation. We leave
to any able actuary to calculate the probabilities of the
life of any institution thus rooted in public odium.
Will the Tories succeed in stemming this torrent of
odium, by playing off against Ministers Mr. Daniel
Whittle Harvey and Mr. Feargus O'Connor? We
leave it to the former of these gentlemen to consider
whether he has not overshot the mark when he finds
himself so great a favourite of the Tories. He has
great talents unquestionably ; but if there be any
force in the words laudari a laudato viro, what is
it to, be praised by those of whose censure all good
men are desirous ? The fate of Mr. Hunt is sure to
overtake in the long run all who tread in Mr. Hunt's
footsteps. Mr. Hunt opposed the Reform Bill because
it did not give annual Parliaments and universal suf-
frage, and the Tories praised him for his honesty and
consistency "in going the whole hog." Mr. 'Whittle
Harvey is a clever man ; but so was Mr. Hunt ; and
the people of Southwark, though they may have been
once gammoned, will some day be wide awake. We
have more than once adverted to the inconsistency of
those Reformers who make the successful opposition
of the Peers a ground for withdrawing their support
from Ministers. This point has been so forcibly put
by the writer of the pamphlet that we shall here tran-
scribe his arguments
" The Bills rejected by the Lords were cast aside because
they openly recognised and gave effect to the principles
which should be inherent in all political institutions. They
went straight onward and at once to the redress of abuses.
They did not curtail an excrescent shoot or two, and leave
the root of the evil to flourish under ground. Their aim
was to give a practical fulfilment to the promise of the
Reform Act. Was it the fault .of Ministers that they did
not succeed ? To this question all candid minds will return
the same answer. Well, then, what better criterior can we
have of the character of public men than the class of prin-
ciples which they advocate, and the tfOnest exertions which
they make to carry those principles into effect? That they
have been discomfitted by an overruling majority in the
Upper House is no ground for reproach. If we disavow
and reprobate our real friends because their efforts are for
a time unsuccessful, we shall soon give our enemies full
possession of the field. To estimate fairly the worth of
those who would serve us we must take into account the
resistance they have to contend against. If they obtain for
us—not all we want—but all tht for the present is attain-
able, they have done their best. If, having so done, we
reject their exertions as of little account, me may depend
upon it that our best well-wishers will soon tire in our service.
" The great question we have to ask ourselves, with re-
ference to the character and conduct of Ministers, is this :
—Have they disappointed the fair expectations of the
people ? Have they, in the measures they have brought
forward, justified the confidence reposed in there, or have
they abused their power and lied from their trust? The
reply to these questions is to be found in the ground of dis-
satisfaction alleged by the more sanguine of the Radical
party. It is objected to them that they have permitted
ually
the
most important even of the Bills which they did event
But
pass to be in part shorn of their strength, by adopting al-
terations that materially impaired their good effect:
does not the very objection admit that they were originally
meant to be more effective than the aristrocratic branch of
the Legislature would permit them to be? Does it not
admit that the Government has been faithful to its trust ;
and that if the Tory Peers have looked exclusively to their
own interest, Ministers have regarded the interests of the
people? If they have not been supported by majorities
strong enough to cope with the power and influence and
authority of the Upper House, is the fault with them ?
You complain that they have yielded to the Tyrant ; but
have you given them the means of destroying the tyranny,?"
—Morning Chronicle.
The arch apostate journal—we need not name it—
which the Quarterly Review some time since charac-
terised as the most profligate print in Europe, has dis-
covered a new proof of the impending dissolution of
the Ministry. And what do our readers suppose is
the circumstance which affords this " demonstration
strong as proofs of holy writ," that the annihilation
of the Melbourne Government is at hand ? Simply
the circumstance of Mr. Wakley, Member for Fins-
bury, and Mr. Daniel Whittle Harvey, Member for
Southwark, having chanced to differ the other evening
at a public meeting, on the subject of whether or not

Church Reform ought to be taken by instalments. Mr.
Harvey will accept of nothing unless he gets all he asks
for, and at once ; Mr. Wakley, without departing from
one iota of the nation's rightful claims, is willing in the
meantime to take an instalment, or part payment.
Which of the two is the most reasonable man, and
which is the most sincere Reformer, is a point on which
there cannot be two opinions. We have no right, and
certainly we have no wish, to impugn any man's mo-
tives ; but we may state a fact—one, by the way, to
which a morning contemporary yesterday referred—
namely, that people do express their doubts as to whe-
ther so shrewd a person as the lion. Member for
Southwark could possibly so far practise deception on
himself, as to come to the conclusion that the best way
of attaining the object of a full and efficient reform of
the Church—an object which he professes to have in
view, in common with other Reformers—is by refus-
ing to accept of any concessions, short of the whole
demand, which Ministers may be able to extort from
a reluctant Legislature. Mr. Harvey talked, at the
meeting in question, about being a tradesman, allud-
ing, no doubt, to his being the proprietor of a daily
and weekly paper. Will he allow us to ask him, whe-
ther he is willing to extend the principle to his private
interests as a tradesman, which he lays down as that
by which he is determined to govern his conduct as a
Member of the Legislature ? Mr. Harvey, like every
other man engaged in business, must expect, in the
nature of things, to meet with a greater or less amount
of bad debts. If, then, a man fails in business, and
owes the Hon. Member 1001., would lie rather lose
the whole than accept an instalment of 501., or
even 251., in the first instance, though still retain-
ing his right to enforce payment of the remain-
der as soon as his debtor is in a condition to pay
him ? Of all men in the world, Mr. Harvey is the
last who, in his capacity of private individual, would
act *so foolish a part. Why, then, should he do as a
legislator, what be would not do as a man of business ?
But not only does the Hon. Member incur the charge
of folly in the course he pursues in reference to the
question of Church Reform ; he is guilty of attempt-
ing to vindicate that conduct'bv the most specious fal-
lacies. He conveniently assumes that those Refor-
mers who are willing in the meantime to accept of
that particular measure of Church Reform which is
comprehended in the assertion of the. appropriation
principle, have no wish or intention to press further
reforms in the Church. Mr. Harvey knows as well
as we do, that this is a most unfair representation of
the facts of the case. No one knows better than he,
that if there be one point on which Reformers are
more cordially agreed than another, that point is
the necessity of extensive reforms in the Church,
and the desirableness of accomplishing those re-
forms with the greatest practicable expedition. Mr.
Harvey knows more than this. He knows, that
if all Reformers were to adopt the same line of con-
duct as he does, those Reforms would never be accom-
plished at all—not, at any rate, without a revolution.
He knows also that those are the only sincere and
practical Church Reformers who are willing to accept
the desired reforms in instalments, because every suc-
cessive instalment they receive puts them in a condition
more effectually to demand the remainder. Will the
Hon. Member for Southwark permit us to put one
more question to him I Why does he not apply his
"queer" principles on the question of Church Reform
to those other measures of Reform which are from time
to time brought under his consideration as a Member
of the Legislature ? He avows himself to be a Radi-
cal Reformer. Why, then, did he not abstain from
voting on, the question of the Reform Bill, when it
was only, in his view, an instalment of what the coun-
try had a right to demand ? Here the Hon. Gentle-
man; on his own principles, subjects himself to the
charge of the grossest inconsistency. A word now as
to the alleged fatal consequences to the Ministry,
which a Tory Morning Journal so confidently pre-
dicts from the recent freaks—to call his conduct
by no harsher name—of the Hon. Member for
Southwark. It is necessary to remind the print in
question, that this is not the first attempt of the
kind which Mr. Daniel Whittle Harvey has made
to play into the hands of the Tories by dividing the
Reformers, and consequently embarrassing the Mi-
nistry. It needs no great stretch of the memory to
recollect his conduct when the appropriation principle
was last before the House of Commons. His dex-
terity, however, on that occasion went for nothing.
So it will on this. The Ministry then survived his
" ingenious device." So it will now. Reformers
continued as united together after it as before. So
they will still in spite of the cunning effort made the
other day at White Conduit-house. to divide them.
What, if these repeated efforts to eject a Reform Mi-
nistry, and to throw the country—bound hand-and-
foot—once more into the clutches of the Tories, should
recoil on the Hon. Member himself ? His own
" ejection" from Southwark was very nearly the price
of his anxiety to serve the Conservatives last Session.
We should not wonder, and certainly few would regret
the circumstance provided it occur, were the conse-
quence of any similar attempt next Session to be the
sending him to Coventry by his constituents. Did we
speak without book, when we warned the Reformers
the other day to be on their guard against the designs
of persons attending and spouting at public meetings
as Radicals of the first water, but who have no other
object in view than to retard, if not ruin, the cause of
Reform, by sowing dissension among its real friends ?
We repeat the warning now. Such persons are infi-
nitely more to be dreaded than the open Tories.—
Morning Advertiser.
Some of • the Whig Journals, acting upon the well-
known principle of divide et impera, are zealously at
work endeavouring to create jealousy in the ranks of
the Conservatives ; and Lord Lyndhurst and Sir Ro-
bert Peel are naturally enough singled out for this
laudable purpose. The Right Hon. Baronet is kindly
told that he is likely to be eclipsed, and his by-gone
reputation, as head of his party, superseded, by the
novel and superior splendour of the Noble and Learned
Lord ; and a gentle hint, in the shape of a feeler, is
thrown out to the former, that were he to join and
carry with him a sort of Juste-milieu-ism to the ranks
of the Whigs, he might retain his importance, free
from the encroachments of his supposed rival. Both
these ideas are as unfounded as they are ridiculous.
This is the first time we ever heard that in the affairs
of this or any other country there was only room for
one man of commanding talents. The happy state
of mediocrity which distinguishers our present
rulers may naturally enough puzzle them, when
they behold two shining lights in the opposite
horizon ; but people in general will be better pleased
to see distinguished talent increasing, and every office
in the State filled by persons competent to fulfil their
functions and to command respect. No doubt Sir
Robert Peel was, till lately, more distinguished for
Parliamentary, if not for Statesmanlike talents, than
any of his party ; and that during the late Session Lord
Lyndhurst burst upon the public in a new and splen-
did character. But what is there in that to create
jealousy with Sir Robert Peel ? Jealousy is the vice
of little minds, and one therefore of which Sir Robert
Peel's cannot partake. And the writers we allude to,
as well as those who prompt them, may rest assured,
that in starting the idea they are again venturing upon
a forlorn hope, the desperation of which must be ap-
parent--if not to themselves, to every one else. Still
more preposterous is the idea of Sir Robert Peel being
now inducedd
to join their ranks, by any temptation
which they
could offer. There was a time, perhaps—
about the period of Lord Grey's retirement from office
.when the Whigs had it in their power to have
formed a strong
Government, by a
parties in the union of the heads
of the two influential State. That op-
portunity, however, they let slip ; if, indeed, they
ever contemplated it. A. subserviency to Mr. O'Con-
nell, ending
in the disgraceful coalition of Lichfield
House, suited their views better, as keeping, for a
time
among at
themselvesleast tlie ;
sweets
office more exclusively
andiof
it is
isnow
too late, even were
To talk of
tshiervitsoobienretlipneeedl,
ttlonirteinpg,airwthitheir
tphaestderregs
error.
of the Whig
is a proposition
too superlatively ridiculous discussion.
No upheld by the 0 Connell Tail,
ous to admit of
No ; Sir Robert Peel has a course to pursue, plainly
pointed out.—Morning Herald.
The first decided check to the revolutionary im-
pulses stimulated by a factious perversion of the Re.
form Bill, was given unquestionably by Sir Robert

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDA Y, DECEMBER 9, 1836

Peel in his address to the electors of Tamworth ; and
from the moment when this generous and confiding,
nation extended to the Right Hon. Baronet that con-
fidence which he so nobly ratified by his subsequent
Government, scarcely a day has passed without fur-
nishing new evidence of the re-ascendancy of reason
and judgment among the constitutional Reformers
of England. Symptomatic of this, in the first in-
stance, was the general election of 1835, whereby the
number of Conservative senators, as compared with
the preceding Parliament, was more than doubled in
the House of Commons : while even in those places
where constitutional candidates were defeated, the
number of votes in their favour was in general not
merely twice as great as the suffrages they had received
at a former contest, but in most cases within a decimal
of beating their Whig-Radical opponents. What hap-
pened immediately on the back of Sir Robert Peers
resignation is not yet forgotten by our readers. Trans-
mitted from all quarters, and signed by millions of
our countrymen, we had those numerous addresses of
congratulation presented to the ex-Government which
were so fittingly pioneered by that proud document
from the city of London, whose splendid array of sig-
natures by the thousands occupied for days the co-
lumns of this journal. Next came the mortifying in-
terdict which the 12,000 gentlemen of South Devon
and Hants put upon the " for-God's-sake-take-me"
of two of the famished hounds of the Lichfield kennel,
whose hunger for office had compelled them to fasten
themselves upon a recoiling King and a disgusted peo-
ple. Immediately afterwards, when Mr. Whig Lit-
tleton was shelved with a Peerage, Staffordshire
spoke out its loathing of the Melbourne hypocrites,
by electing the Conservative Sir Harry Goodricke.
The return to principles of loyal and constitutional
reform now began to be apparent in every part of the
kingdom. In proportion as electors became convinced
of the selfishness, meanness, and treachery whereby
Whig-Radicalism has rendered itself a synonym for
infamy, one constituency after another struck in with
the general note of reprobation against the despised
Whigs ; and as often as Parliamentary seats happened
to become vacant, the counties and boroughs of Britain
seemed absolutely to vie with each other in manifesting
their complete recovery from the revolutionary fever,
and their convalescent testimony in favour of Conserva-
tive practice. Meanwhile, the distrust of the O'Con-
nell Ministry, so extensively entertained by many
noblemen and gentlemen favourable to liberal measures,
was gradually ripened into hostility by the progressive
developments of the revolutionary clique. The powerful
protests of Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham against
the Popish and democratic policy of their quondam
colleagues were strengthened by the concurrent sup-
port of many of the oldest and truest Reformers in the
country. Nor were these declarations of the more dis-
tinguished Whigs, proclaiming their secession from
a party whom they could no longer countenance
without personal dishonour and a sacrifice of pub-
lic interests, anything else than what our Scotch
friends would call the braird of that perennial har-
vest of sound patriotism which has since widened
and waved over every district of the land. Hav-
ing the purification and maintenance of our national
institutions as its principle of attraction, the Conser-
vative cause drew within its circle, and incorporated
into an immense mass, all the homogeneous elements
of the old State parties which had formerly been di-
vided, not so much on essentials, as on questions of
mode and time. Then arose in every part of the king-
dom those patriotic associations, whose crowded, trium •
pliant, and incessant meetings, not consisting exclu-
sively of Whigs or Tories, but comprising the united
worth and intelligence of both, have given such an
irrecoverable blow to democracy and Derrynanery in
all creditable society, as has already put them out of
fashion preparatory to putting them out of life. The
example thus set by the educated classes, was spee-
dily followed by multitude of reflecting artisans. So
that, while old and tried Reformers—such as Sir
George Robinson, Lord Charles Townshend, and
countless others, were daily, one after another, de-
nouncing the perfidy of the jobbing and revolutionary
Liberals whom they felt impelled to desert, a similar de-
monstration of constitutional sentiment was extensively
exhibited among our honest English operatives, who,
disgusted with the tyrannical poor-law of Ministerial
Whiggery, have recently rallied in great strength around
the Conservative standard. Well, but still there has
been no re-action ! So say those poor, deserted, and
" despised Whigs," whose instinctive wish to retain
office is father to the flattering thought. So say those
still poorer retainers of theirs, who, figuring in their
morning and evening liveries of shabby-genteel, cannot
hear to have it surmised that their masters and them-
selves are among the victims who have seen better days.
To give these latter the praise due to their fidelity, we
own that they are the very Caleb Baldersons of the
political family now fallen into decay ; nor are they
slow, unskilful, or unscrupulous in practising all the
ingenious arts that may best sustain the tottering credit
of their house. Unfortunately, however, there are certain
guests of the ruined castle, as well as certain scullions in
its kitchen, whose love of truth or tattle is continually ex-
posing its impoverished resources and its limited domain.
We shall give, in the first instance, the testimony of
Lord William Bentinck, whose disclosures, as an at-
tached connexion, must doubtless have disconcerted
the honest Calebs in no ordinary degree. When his
Lordship was in Glasgow the other day, endeavouring
to conciliate his firmer constituents, and to put them
in the best possible disposition for welcoming the visit
of Sir Robert Peel, he fearlessly broached the follow-
ing question in answer :
" Whence arose the re-action they had witnessed in the
public mind ? Simply, from the conviction that there was
no end to the demands of the Reformers."
Now this same Lord William, who dined Provost
Mills, of Glasgow, and his chained bear, Bailie Lums-
den, so sumptuously last May, is scarcely less distin-
guished for his sagacity than is the Bailie for his am-
bitious purchases of curious old plate and his indig-
nant refusal of the anti-dry-rot agency. With a
judgment, therefore, mellowed and matured under the
suns of Bengal, the ex-Governor of India not only
admits the full extent of " the re-action" he had wit-
nessed in this country, but (going a much greater
length than we do) virtually asserts that that re-action
can be put an end to only by putting an " end to the
demands of the Reformers." Whatever of Whig
resources and prosperity this confession may indicate,
we make the trusty Calebs heartily welcome to. Take
next the recent grumblings of a Sunday menial, whose
indifferent commons and hopeless toils have induced
him to give up his place at a month's notice. Un-
able to save appearances any longer under the empty
larder and kitchen squabbles of his fellow servants,
he gives the following " warning," in which it is dif-
ficult to say whether the civil or the surly be most
predominant :
~ We have long given a disinterested, and consistent,
support to the present Ministry ; but it is now our convic-
tion, which we feel it a duty to avow, that in its existing
form, and ' per se,' this Cabinet cannot stand the assaults
of the next Parliamentary Session ! A mere Whig Mi-
nistry, without the full support of the reform section in the
Commons' House—not to speak of the mass of the nation
out of doors—cannot front the thickly-packed and united
array of the Conservatives, even in the Lower House, for
a single month !"
But, of course, there is no re-action in all this.
Alas, for the unhappy Whigs !. Degraded, disgraced,
and despised by their own special bondagers, it were
scarcely within the rules of humane chivalry to give
them another lunge.— Times.
At a select meeting of the principal inhabitants of
Lambeth, which took place on Wednesday,the
will be
bKe seen
of Kerry was one of the guests ; and,
by the report of the proceedings which appears in an-
other part of our paper, the opportunity was embraced
to introduce the Right Hon. Gentleman as a fit and
proper person to represent that important borough in
the next Parliament. The occasion required that Mr.
Fitzgerald should make a speech explanatory of his
views of public affairs at the present crisis ; and the
sentiments he expressed, no less than the ability with
which he proclaimed and defended them, made such
an impression upon the assembly, while on the other
hand the warmth and cordiality with which the ex-
position of his political principles was received,
made such an impression on the Right Hon.
Gentleman, that before they . separated the loyal
and respectable hosts, and their Right Hon. guest,
had become mutually pledged to each other, the
latter to stand forward on the first opportunity as