The Sun.
London, England, 1836-08-25 00:00:00

LONDON,
THURSDAY EVENING. AUGUST 25, 1836

The political state of England is the most unnatu-
ral that can he imagined. A liberal, and justly be-
loved KING—a Government enjoying the confidence
of the people—and a House of Commons intent only
urion the removal of abuses, and the adoption of wise
and humane laws, are all suddenly checked in their
tighteons career, by an assembly composed of some
four hundred titled individuals, calling itcclf one of the
three Estates of the Realm. It refuses to move, and
the consequence is, that the nation is left to bear the
infliction of every evil which, in unison with the
SOVEREIGN, the representatives of the people seek to
eradicate. Must there not be something radically
wrong in a Constitution, agreeably with whose forms
such injustice as this can be perpetrated with impu-
nity ? Is there not something essentially defective in
a system which gives to some four hundred irresponsi-
ble persons—having, few interests in common with the
rest of the community—the power of neutralizing the
most zealous efforts of a liberal KING, and thirty mil-
lions of people? Much has been said and written
about the constitutional checks of the three Estates
of the Realm upon each other, and the power of each
to neutralize the evil tendencies of measures adopted
by the other two ; hut let us once proceed to examine
the question calmly, and to what conclusion must we
come ? Why to this :—That if each were to exercise
to the fullest extent the power vested in it by the Con-
stitution, nothing could he done—no purpose or duty
of Government could be fulfilled. It is commonly
urged that the representatives of the people may, if
they think proper, starve the Lords into submission.
This is true ; but we deny that the right to rcfrtse the
Supplies is a sufficient check upon the mal-practices
of the House of Peers. Why cannot a means he de-
vised for securing the same end, without thus being
under a necessity of inflicting a temporary evil upon the
whole kingdom ? Wherefore have recourse to the
spreading of dissaffection, and the awakening of the
spirit of insubordination and distrust in our army and
fleet, in order to compel the Lords to accept a Bill
necessary to the public tranquillity of Ireland ? The
machinery which can only he put effectually in 'no-
tion through such instrumentality is necessarily very
imperfect—as unsafely contrived as it is bunglingly
constructed. But like so many other institutions which,
of late years, have been beneficially re-modelled to suit
the wants, and to conform to the spirit, of the age, that
part of our Constitution which establishes, or rather
recognizes, a hereditary irresponsible Peerage as a
branch of the Legislature, must be either reformed or
abolished without delay. As IT LT
...JAIME well ob-
served in his able address to the House of Commons on
Saturday last, the country has abundance of precedents
for such a course—precedents which would even go
the length of removing the constitutional scruples of
Lord LYNDHURST, had they been submitted to him
before his elevation to the Woolsack. The Hon.
Member for Middlesex stated that the Municipal Cor-
porations were as old as the House of Peers ; and yet
they had been reformed when they were found to mi-
litate against the object for which they were instituted
le
—the good of the peop • Wherefore, then, should
the institution of a House of Lords be suffered to
exist as an exception ? In confirmation of the state-
ment of the Hon. Member, we take leave to maintain
that the House of Peers, as now constituted, is, com-
paratively speaking, only an institution of yesterday.
Compared with the antiquity of our Municipal Corpo-
rate system, contrasted with its close and immemorial
adherence to original forms, what a paltry, shuffling,
contemptible, venal spectacle does the history of the
British House of Lords present ! It may be said of
their Lordships that they bartered away their religion
at the beck of HENRY VIII., as they did the liberties
of the people at the command'of his Royal Father ;
for though the Reformation was in itself a blessing, the
Peers had only regard to their temporal interests.
They were plunderers during the brief reign of ED-
WARD Vl.—traitors to MARY—and the slaves and
sycophants of ELIZABETH. They encouraged
CHARLES I. in the insane career which terminated
on the scaffold ; and they did all that in them lay to
debauch the morals of the nation during the inauspi-
cious reign of his profligate successor. They betrayed
JAMES II; cajoled, deceived, and finally disgusted