The Sun.
London, England, 1831-11-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

On Tuesday last, the 22d inst., on the evening of
which very day the proclamation against Political
Unions appeared in the Gazette, did the grand Po-
litical Union of Birmingham relinquish, at a public
meeting, that only part of its composition which af-
fected its legality,—namely, organisation, with
gradation of rank, officers, and titles : so that it was
by the goad sense of the Union, and not in coma.
quenec of the proclamation, that the step now spoken
of was taken. The proclamation, however, deseaved
the utmost respect, and the previous law urea the sub-
ject implicit obedience. These matters were laid
fully before the meeting by Mr. Peekes, a gentleman
who, to the zeal of a reformer, appears to add the
intelligence of a great constitutional lawyer. The
brief abstract which he gives of associations, of
their well-tried utility in effecting all the useful
changes which the Constitution has undergone,
and of the advantages which may still be
derived from them till our rights are obtained
and settled, deserves the utmost attentioet 'r`rom
all who would desire to understand the Consti-
tution under which we live. "In f. 3536 the people
commenced associations and declarations in favour
of 'William 111. The King and his Ministry not
only sanctioned, but legalized their formationA tad
a statute law was passed, the Bth Williatt kII., c.
27, reciting, Whereas, great nurnh.en of his Ma-
jesty's subjects have entered into and subscribed an
association,' and then weeded that it was good
and lawful.'—(Loud cheers.) Mr. Burgh, an able
political writer, who treated of this historieseir-
cumstance, singularly remarked, that ece have here
a model for an association for restoeing adequate re-
presentation and an unbribed licuse of Commons.' "
It is evident, also, that associations may form rules
for their own government, may name officers, and
constitute ranks, as is done in the case of the lodges
of Freemasonry; hut these can affect only persons
who are voluntary members of the body. The gee
neral peace of the country is called " the King's
peace," and must be preserved by the king and
civil officers appointed under his authority ;
and however, its a too ardent zeal to carry a
measure dear to his Majesty's heart, some
of his subjects may for a moment have overleaped
the rules prescribed to their patriotism by vxisting
Statutes, there are none but would view with detes-
tation any attempt to interfere with those preroga-
tives of the Crown which we nee so generously ex-
ercised for the public good and the imparting of their
just rights to the people. But let us cutlet' upon a
fuller view of the question. There have been,
as we have all seen, two stages of dishonesty and
falsehood in the representations of Political Unions,
their plans, and abettors, furnished by the Tories
and their Press. They first proclaimed that the
purpose for which these Societies were constituted
had been to advance towards revolution through
general' anarchy ; and in support of that shameful
slander, the mob devastations and atrocities at Bristol
and elsewhere, with an impudence of which faction
itself affords no parallel, ascribed to the Unions
professing reform for their object. The second step,
after affiliating the crimes of brutal incendiaries
upon the members of the Birmingham and Na-
tional Unions, was to trace up the parentage of
the Unions themselves to no less a source than his
Majesty's Government. The immediate effect in-
tended by these systematic calumnies was to poison
the King's mind against Reform, and against the
Administration which proposed it. The ultimate
scheme was to throw back, irrevocably, the Sove-
reign and his people upon a Tory Cabinet and a
ratten borough Constitution. It must have been
acknowledged by every upright mind, that from the
manner in which the parent Union of Birmingham,
and its offspring the National Union, were com-
posed,—comprehending, as the first did, by far the
greater portion of the wealth and intelligence of
that central seat of British industry, and as the Lon- i
don Union did, so much of that staid and solid re-
spectability, by which the middle classes of the me-
tropolis are distinguished,—it muse, we say, have
been admitted by every educated and truth-telling
man in the empire, that such associations could
not have contemplated any object not entirely con-
sistent with the maintenance of the public peace,
and the full security of men's lawful rights and
possessions. The attempt to confound the en-
lightened lovers of Reform with despera-
does who hate the law which protects their
fellow-subjects from their violence, was, on the face
of it, sufficiently revolting. If any thing could have
made it more so, it would have been the positive
demonstration of that pacific and temperate spirit
vt.:,;ch not merely might have been expected from
the classes of Englishmen composing the Political
Unions, but which they have actually and eagerly
exhibited on every occasion which brought them to-
gether, since the earliest moment of their institution.
The memorable" meeting of 150,000," which took
place some weeks ago at Birmingham under circum-
stances of the strongest excitement, when the King's
name was pronounced with a degree of loyal attach-
ment not always witnessed in the House of Peers
itself, when order and decorum was preserved in-
violate, when the noblest sentiments of disappro-
bation towards evil government, and contempt for
sordid faction, and earnestness in prosecuting the
great cause of Reform, were mingled with deep re-
verence for existing authority and law,—and when a
countless multitude dispersed with exemplary har-
mony, not raising a shadow of disquiet in the mind
of the most timorous inhabitant,—that meeting was
a ruthless comment upon the calumnies directed
against the industrious classes of Great Britain.
Much more has ground for cordial exultation
been afforded by the proceedings which were
held at Birmingham on the evening of last
Tuesday, and which ate minutely recorded in this
day's Times. Mr. Attwood's speech, on opening
the business, is worthy of some attention' from those
Lords and gentlemen who denied the existence of
any ardent Reform spirit in this country until after
it had been called forth and stimulated by Lord
Grey's Cabinet in their proposition of the present
measure of Reform. Tr' ly does Mr. Attwood re-
mink, that the Union " had gathered up its mighty
strength under the Administration of the Duke of
Wellington," before the French revolution of July,
1830, which has been over and over again insisted
upon as the first grand mover of the Reform power
in England. Before that vast event, the Birming-
ham Union numbered 7,000 subscribing members
on their books; and in October, 1830, one single
ditiner company of the association amounted to
3,700 persons. "We will violate the laws," added
Mr. Attwood, " to injure no one ; but woe unto
the men that may violate the laws to injure us."
That is the true character, the defensive charac-
ter, of every Political Union of Englishmen
which the Constitution tolerates, and which no
law congenial to a free society can punish. But
these Unions have been charged with seriously me-
ditating a system of organization in open conflict
with the laws; and the proclamation of Tuesday
last, prohibitory (though not quite explicit) of what
would be unlawful in the conduct of such voluntary
bodies, was hailed by the enemies of Reform as a
hostile blow aimed at them by the Government, and
as a certain scurce of discord between the
iAdmi-
nistration and the people. Now the royal njunc-
tion was addressed as a paternal warning, net in
angry denunciation against the friends of his own
generous policy ; and so far was it from being cal-
culated to indispose the Reformers towards the
Crown or its advisers that, as we have before
stated, even before the proclamation was printed,
and a whole day before any man in Birmingham
could have had the slightest conjecture of its be-
ing in existence, the great mmeeting referred to had
under the able and upright advice of Mr. Joseph
Parkes, rejected of its own accord the seducing pro-
posal to organise itself under diverse gradations of
leaders, bearing names well known to the mu-
nicipal constitution of the count
~,ry. And why did
the meeting at once reject this plan . Because
"
Mr. Parkes very fairly told them, that it was
decidedly illegal—contrury to the principles of the
Common Law, and Ito distinct provisions of the