The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-17 00:00:00

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WITH WHICH
THE " TRUE SUN " IS NOW
INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
FRIDAY EVENING, AUGUST 17, 1838.

Our Paper of yesterday informed our readers of the
termination of the Session of Parliament, and con-
tained her MAJESTY'S most gracious speech. That
document says too little to require much comment.
We knew all about Canada before, and we participate
in her MAJESTY'S hope, that a Constitutional form of
Government may speedily be restored there. Our
hope is, we must admit, much lessened by the
events in Parliament of the last week, which
have demonstrated that authority is weak and
divided, the Legislative and the Executive
powers being in conflict, and that momentary
convenience—uncertain which way to look and move
—not reason or principle—is the basis of our
legislation. We cannot look forward, therefore, with
confidence to Constitutional Government being
ever re-established in Canada by such an authority.
To destroy, it was powerful—to destroy, it was united
—and we regret that it pulled down what it has
now shown both indisposition and inability to restore.
We rejoice with her MAJESTY that progress has
been made towards the entire Abolition of Negro
Apprenticeship ; but while we tender, as we have
before tendered, the mced of our humble praise to the
Ministers, particularly to the Under Secretary of the
Colonies, for their exertions to induce the Colonial
Legislatures to concede what is due to humanity, we
cannot forget that the Parliament, as a body, deserves
no credit for the improvement. It negatived every
proposition for accelerating the good end, and set at
nought the demands and wishes of our humane and
enlightened people.
We approve of the Abolition of Imprisonment for
Debt ; it is, however, but a poor achievement to
boast of after so many years' labour on the subject.
Besides, it is in no otherwise a remedy for any social
evils than as it puts an end to some bad laws which
the Judges or previous Parliaments had inflicted on
us. We have always supported the Poor-law for
Ireland, but we can neither conceal nor deny that
many well-informed persons doubt its utility, which
according to them is far less certain than its patronage
and expense. The Tithe Composition Act, after a
party struggle for four years is a mere gift to the
rapacious landlords of Ireland, and a tax on the
people of the empire ; without a particle of that
quickening spirit of improvement which was sup-
posed to lie in diverting some of the revenues of that
monstrous nuisance—the Irish Church—not into the
pockets of the Corn-law making landlords, but to the
purposes of general education. The Meeting at Dub-
lin, which our Paper describes to-day, convinces us
that this measure will merely have taxed the people of
England, without either settling the Tithe question or
giving safety to the Church of Ireland. It serves no
good national purpose, and it will disappoint the po-
litical traders of both parties who united to promote it.
Her MAJESTY'S Civil List, and her beloved
Mother's increase of income, with the Supplies voted
by the House of Commons—not forgetting the pension
to Mr. HoLMES, and his like—may be rational topics
of congratulation to the Ministers and her MAJESTY,
but there is, in them all, nothing on which we can
bid the people rejoice. We remember no Vote of
Supply passed by the House of Commons which
has the smallest tendency to diminish the toils of the
labourer, to give bread to the hungry, to elevate the
condition of our species, or to improve and adorn
society. We see something given to museums and
national galleries, which supply amusement to the rich,
and from which, by the necessities of their condition,
the masses are excluded ; but there is no vote for any
of those numerous scattered institutions, which the
tliftWS bumbler' classes have established and raised for their
iat v
ement.
t•
at the. Speech with which the Session has
.v,.
...mw412.1i, at the long debates which have occupied
tlii:stiter of the two Houses, remembering in addi-
tiOdiagrnite topics mentioned in the Speech, the discus-
Ajos2lkaat the use of the word "perjury" and about eon-
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