The Sun.
London, England, 1836-09-02 00:00:00

sr;itirr OF THE PUBLIC J OURNAL.

The Times is at great pains to confound a House
of Lords with the House of Lords as now constituted.
It holds up the advocates of a reform of the Lords as
desirous of making the House Of Commons absolute.
Having practised this fraud on its readers, it then
dilates on the defective Constitution of the • House of
Commons, with a view to reconcile them to the mon-
strous state of things which now prevails—a House of
Lords and House of Commons in permanent hos-
tility to each other. Admitting all that the Times
advances against the House of Commons (and we
have on many occasions shown ourselves as much
alive to the defects of that branch of the Legislature
as the Times can be), this proves merely the neces-
sity for a House of Lords to re-consider and amend
the hasty legislation of the Commons ; but does not
prove the necessity for the House of Lords as at pre-
sent constituted, which is actuated by interests at va-
riance with those of the nation.
" Let us observe," says the Times, that all men con-
versant with Parliamentary affairs perfectly well know that
for the transaction of matters of business, the House of
ommons is about the most inefficient assembly that ever
was permitted to meddle in the concerns of a great com-
mercial country. We pass over the question of individual
corruption—the jobbing on committees, and so forth
and attach ourselves to the proved incapableness of the
House, which arising, we are 'aware, from the gioss igno-
rance and presumption of those whom the Commons allow
to lead them, and from the unhappy mode in which they go
through the form of discharging the duties that devolve
upon them, is nevertheless a defect for which the whole
body is responsible, from which the whole community suffer
sufficiently even now, and would suffer still more severely
were it not for the vigilant and skilful superintendence of
the Lords, in mitigating or correcting the vices and the
errors of the measures sent up to them by the Lower
House:"

And then it quotes the opinion of Lord Brougham,
that " if there had been no House of Lords, the House
of Commons must have stopped its legislation, or if it
had worked on, it would have been covered with blun-
ders and absurdities With the competition
which prevailed amongst 658 men, who are constantly
striving one with another, it was impossible that the
details of measures could receive the same calm and
deliberate attention which they obtained in their Lord-
ships' House, where none of those distractions pre-
vailed.i; There is both truth and falsehood in this
represenCation. It is hardly possible to conceive a
body worse adapted for legislation than the House of
Commons. Before the union with Ireland, .it was far
too numerous, and a hundred additional members
could not improve it. But twenty-five or thirty years
ago the great bulk of the Members were possessed of.
no capacity for business, and did not pretend to any ;
the debates were few and far between, and there were
not-above twenty Members who took any part in the
proceedings of the House. There was a family re-
semblance between the Members of the two Houses ;
nineteen out of twenty of the Commons were as idle
and ill-informed as the generality of the Lords stiii
arc. The Reform in the Representation has filled
the House of Commons with speakers, all of whom
are anxious to prove to their constituents that they
are deserving of the- distinction conferred on them,
and there is, in consequence, such an excess of
discussion that there is no time for any thing else.
The House of Commons, besides, arrogates too much
to itself—Bills are considered in detail, in Com-
mittees of the whole House, that is in a mob—and for
the sake of fees to clerks 4nd other officers, Inclo-
sure Bills and a variety of other matters, which ought
to be confided to particular tribunals, are all considered
in Parliament. The latitude, too, allowed to peti-
tions, is another impediment in the way of legislation.
But when we allow all this, we do not see that the
opponents of a Reform in the House of Lords derive
auv advantage from it. Great changes iu the mode o!
conductiner, business in the House of Commons are un-
questionably necessary. It is not because that House
really represents the people that it is unfit for legisla-
tion, but because it still retains the system of proce-
dure which ini,dit be suited to a rude age, but which
is obviously unsuited to ours. But whether the
House _adopt a better system or not, the Lords would
not be one whit less efficient for the purpose of review-
ing the acts of the Commons, if they were in...de r.
little mere honest than they now are. Nay, they
would be more efficient, for the Peers arc become too
numerous for a deliberative assembly ; and were, it not
that discussion is almost. confined to the law lord,.
the newly created peers, and those who have acquired
experience in the House of Commons (for it was ad-
mitted by Lord Harrowhy, in the discussions on
Reform Bill, that Noble Loris who hail not bee:,
trained in the Commons seldom made a fi2;urc arnor
their Lordships),-fileJ]pper House would be far too
troweled. But were a certain number of Peers to he
elected from the whole body by constituencies having.
interests and feelings in common with the nation, tit'
Members so chosen would be the most accomplished
of the hotly, and efficiency, as a second branch of the
Legislature, would not certainly be impaired by the con-
fidence reposed by the -nation' in their integrity. At
present the majority of the Lords do not sympathise
with the people, and the selfishness which is apparent
in all their proceedings divests them of the influence
and authority which a better body could not fail to
possess. With respect to jobbing, the Commons in
Committees have certainly laid themselves open to the
charges brought against them by the Times. But are
the Lords pure ? Far from it. During the last ses-
sion, several Peers unblushingly opposed measures of
dreat national benefit, merely because their incomes
would be affected •by them. No member of the'
Cormnons would have dared to use the language
oeenlv held by Lords Londonderry and Wharn-
eliffe; in the case of the South Durham Rail-
way Bill. But from ail that we have heard, the
Bribery and corruption in the Committees of
the Lords has not been exceeded in the Commons.
Several Bills were thrown out by influencing Lords to
vole who had not heard a tittle of the evidence. The
Poverty of some of the Peers leads them to sell them-
selves regularly, and one or- two are known to sell
themselves twice over. Of course Peers of this de-
scription would not be chosen by any constituency,
and the body would of course gain in respectability by
the .circumstance. We bave thus shown that all the
arguments of the Times do not bear on the real ques-
tion ; which is not whether there should or should not
be a House of Peers to revise the proceedings of the
Commons, but whether the Peers should be purified,
by subjecting them to a responsibility to the nation ?
This would add to their efficiency in every respect.—
Morning Chronicle.

The Ministerial prints threaten us, and those who
think like us on the subject of the atrocious Poor Law
Act, with something little short of positive annihila-
tion. We know not how the nerves of our Contem-
poraries may enable them to carry themselves under
this impending infliction, but for ourselves, we confess,
that we contemplate with dry eyes the ragings of the
puddle that is about to be whipped into a storm on the
subject of the Poor Laws. The " Tory" papers, as
we are called, have acquired, and, we admit, deserve all
the odium that can possibly attach to those who would
protect the poor from a system of oppression more
heartless than it ever entered into the mind of any but
a Whig to meditate towards his fellow men. Let us be
abused and bullied for this ; we care not. We know
slander and insult the
our antagonists well. They
Peers ; they starve and crush the poor. They are in
the interest of a vile set of sordid and selfish conspira-
tors, who, desiring to clutch all the authority and the
wealth of the State, are determined to have as few
sharers in the plunder, as in the power, they hope to
lay violent hands on. Hence their war cries—" Peer-
age Reform," and " The Poor Law Act." Knowing
full well that they who from wealth, intelligence, and
station, will be among the most formidable of those who
are rushing to the rescue of the poorfrom the cowardly and
gold-blooded tyranny of the Whigs and Whig Radicals!
that class of the community, the Peels, are butted at with
blind brutality, while the helpless victims of poverty arc
,trampled on with iron hoof. For the present this party has
the poor down, under foot, disgraced, insulted, even tor-
tured in their misery, by being torn from the embraces
of their wives and children, and forbidden the worship
of God among, the congregations of Christians with
which they have hitherto been accustomed to commu-
nicate. But the Peers survive—aye, and will survive
to put down the Whig faction, and expose its vile
supporters among the Radical crew who have attached