The Sun.
London, England, 1831-11-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The meeting at White Conduit-house has been
formally postponed by the Committee of the Work-
.ing Classes. It is barely possible that a meeting
may, notwithstanding, take place; and no doubt a
sharp look out will be kept. We think it probable,,
however, that there will be no meeting. From the
first we had our apprehensions with regard to a
meeting, called by individuals who could publish the
very objectionable declaration, which has been the
subject of so much animadversion. While, however,
we condemned this separate meeting of the work-
ing classes, especially under the excitement of various
publications, recently dedicated exclusively to them,
of a most mischievous tendency, we must say that the
influential classes are the cause of this very dan-
gerous separation. Has it not hitherto been the
object of the Government of this country to brutalize
the labouring classes, by endeavouring to retain them
in a state of ignorance, and confining the cir-
culation of political intelligence to the rich ? The
consequence of excluding the labouring classes from
the sources of knowledge accessible to the rich, and
from all particiption in vestry meetings (and this
has been done to an immense extent, of late years,
through select vestries), has been the estrangement
of them from the upper classes, of whichwe now begin
to taste the melancholy fruits. Publications addressed
exclusively to the prejudices and passions of the poor.
l,ave been multiplied with fearful rapidity; and we may
now be said to sleep on the brink of a volcano. The
causes which led to the desire of a meeting of their
own still exist, though the meeting has been post-
poned. The labouring classes, though not always
able to detect sophistry, have still made an immense
intellectual progress of late years. They have a
great relish for political discussion; and, whatever
the rich may wish, the poor having once tasted the
forbidden fruit, will riot be debarred from it. We
always thought that the anxiety to raise the suffrage
in great towns to a height which should confine it
exclusively to the higher and middle classes, to say
the least of it, betrayed great want of wisdom. It is
precisely in great towns where there is a tendency
to exclusion and estrangement, that the suffrage of
the labouring classes is most beneficial. An Eng-
lishman has many reasons for being proud of h's
country; but it is certain that the spirit of exclu-
sion which has obtained such ascendancy among us
of late years, is an immense drawback from our a&
vantages. All foreigners who visit this country are
disgusted with the spirit of exclusion which meets
them in every direction. We have been much struck
with some observations on this subject in a clever work
attributed to Prince Puckler Muscat', well known
in our fashionable circles, and who penetrated even
into the remotest part or Connaught, of which a
translation, executed with admirable spirit, has just,
appeared. The title of the work is, " Tour in Enke
land, Ireland, and France, in the years 1828 and
1829, by a German Prince." The Colonel, in the
following passage, resides at K— Park, near St.
Asaph's :—" Towards evening," he says, " I ar-
rived at the house of my worthy Colonel, a true
Englishman in the best sense of the word. He arid
his amiable family received me in the friendliest
manner. Country gentlemen of his class, who are
in easy circumstances (with us they would b
thought rich), and fill a respectable station in so-
ciety; who are not eager and anxious pursuers et:
fashion in London, but seek to win the affection ot
their neighbours and tenants ; whose hospitality is
not mere ostentation ; whose manners are neither
exclusive' nor outlandish ; but who find their dig-
nity in a domestic life, polished by education and
adorned by affluence, and in the observance of the
strictest integrity;—such form the most truly re-i
spectable class of Englishmen. In the great world
of London, indeed, they play an obscure part : but
on the wide stage of humanity, one of the most;
noble and elevated that can be allotted to man. Utee
fortunately, however, the predominance and the:arro-
gance of the English Aristocracy is so great, and that
of fashion yet so much more absolute and tyrannona,i
that such families, if my tribute of praise and admira
Lion were ever to fall under their eye, would probably
feel less flattered by it, than they would be if I
enumerated them among the leaders of ton.' To
what a pitch this weakness reaches, even among the
worthiest people in this country, is not to be be-
lieved, without actual observation and experience—
without seeing all classes of society affected by it in
the most ludicrous manner. But I have written
you enough on this subject from the foyer' of Euro-
pean Aristocracy, and will not therefore, repeat my-
self." In another place,he says, "In the street (Dub-
lin) I met a London 'dandy,' whocalled out tome( for
I did not recognise him,) laughed heartily at our meet-
ing in such a horrid place,' ran on for some in a satiri-
cal ‘ein, cn Dublin society, and at lust concluded by
informing me, that through the influence of his fa-
mily he had just obtained a place here, which indeed
brought him in 2,0004 a year, and gave him nothing
en do, but which compelled him, pro jhrma, to pass
a part of every year in this shocking abode. With
such, and even much richer sinecures are the younger
sons of the English Aristocracy provided in count-
less numbers, and in all parts of the empire. I
think, however, that even here the pitcher will not
always go to the well without breaking." But we
shall not at present pursue this subject farther. It is
one which suggests many reflections.-31-orn.Chron.
As advocates of rational freedom and constitu-
tional powers, we are glad to find that we have not
laboured altoge•lier in vain in opposing the mania
iOr Political Unions, and other organized bodies of
people, instituted as permanent conventions to
cants:sill the three estates of the realm, and intrude
on the most important functions of Government by
undertaking.. to preserve the public peace, and to
trisect and wield the physical force of the multitude,
be :he exersise of power unconnected with respon-
sibiltty. In opposing this man:a, which, foolishly
aided as it was by the intemperate declarations of
some .Ministerial Journals, had hurried away, as
ssith a ruthless curret t cf delusion, the understand-

irgs of thousands of respectable and well-meaning
indiviclutils, we had to perform the unpleasant task
of opposing the popular opinion. But seeing that
the friends of Reform had taken a wrong course,
anti that injudicious or treacherous advisers were
misdireciing them at the morntnt when victory was
almost within their grasp, and endeavouring to place
them in a wrong posPion, that might give their
enemies a fatal advantage, we felt it to be a duty
to resist the formation of associations only favour-
able to the dangerous ascendancy of turbulent
men, who seize excitement in favour of Reform

to make it subservient to ulterior views, which
could not be carried into effect but on the
ruins of a Constitutional Monarchy. Having
pointed out the datirrerous consequences of such
:issociations, avowedly formed for the purpose of
usurping, though in the most amicable way, the
duties of the executive, and in Some measure of the

legislative Government—having shown, by cogent
examples, that such associations, however honestly
and respectably patronised in the first instance, are
:sitlfti. to degenerate into dangerous cabals, in which
he #.iercest democrat obtain:3 the fullest power—
having paved that they ate admirably calculated to
become the hot-beds which produce and mature, in
the soil originally consecrated to freedom, "all mon-
str ous,rdi prodigious things,"—having also shown
that clubs of this sort are the best machinery to raise
mock patriots and political quacks into that bad mi.-
Dunce frorn which they can most easily disturb the
peace of Siciety fur their personal ao-grandigemoit,
—we trusted that the iell.ction und'good sense of
the English people Nvould lead them to consider the
subject, and to examine it under the influence of the
J. tie „rd steady light of reason, which the glare of
"• • "
delusive Faisitn had for a time overdowered.
the conscqueree is that reason has begun to resume
its influence o%er a portion of the public mind which
the wild and extravagant appeals of some of the Mi-
nisterial Journals were rapidly leading astray. At a
preliminary meeting, held at the Crown and Anchor
on Friday evening, with the view of forming a Re-
form Association in Westminster,permanent political
unions were strongly and most properly denounced.
An attempt was made by some members of the