The Sun.
London, England, 1838-01-03 00:00:00

Gosford. Between foxes in Downing-street, and geese at
Quebec, we are in a hopeful condition.—Tieres.
It is the part of a judicious statesman to fall in with,
and, if possible, to anticipate public opinion ; but it seems
to be the policy, or rather, perhaps, we should charitably
say, that. it arises from the self-willed ignorance of our
Whig statesmen, that public opinion should have no
weight with them, and that however obvious the error into
which they may have fallen, and however odious it may be
in the eves of the people, they adhere to it with a firmness
and pertinecity worthy of a better cause, and wholy un-
worthy of that which they thus obstinately and mistakenly
c spouse. We need hardly say that it is with reference to
their conduct relative to the new Poor-law that we at
present direct this observation. That they were upheld
in the passing of this cruel law, as they have since been in
maintaining its severe enactments, by persons from whom
we should have been induced to expect better things, is an
admission which we arc compelled to make with the
most poignant regret. But though the sanction of
the persons we allude to night induce us to pause and
reconsider, our own opinions ; having done to, no sanction
of error, Loweser high, will lead us to disregard the
cause of truth, or shut our eyes to the appalling state or
misery and destitution to which the operation of this law
has redur ed so many thousands of the most helpless of our
fellow-creatures. We have never denied the abuses which
had found their way into the practice of the old law, or
that a remedy was called for. But when the remedy turns
out to be tenfold worse than the disease, is it. not the eli-
sions duty of those who, unless they shut their eyes and
ears to the truth, must. have daily proofs that such is the
case, to recall these harsh proceedings, and at once to abo-
lish or reform a statute uncongenial with the Christian
character of the country, and, in many of its features, so
oppressive, that no endurance or experience can reconcile
the bulk of the community to its enforcement? This is no
party question, nor do we wish to make it one. We are
compelled to call it a Whig law, because the Whigs are
its authors ; and its disgrace recoils with double force
upon them, because they have all their lives, when out
of office, held themselves up as " the friends of the peo-
ple." Let them now prove that friendship by yielding to
what their great opponent Mr. Pitt used to call " ex-
perience and the evidence of facts." - Lot them look for
that experiem e to the evidence of nearly every contested
election in the kingdom, where no candidate dared to avow
himself the advocate of this measure, and where, as at
Sudbury, hostility to it has been alone sufficient to insure
success. It is in vain to say, as some of the Ministerial
journals pretend to do, that the press has made this subject
-an instrument of clamour. Facts cannot constitute clamour,
and it is on facts, recorded and acknowledged facts alone,
that all its reasonings upon the subject have been founded.
It was to elicit facts that Mr. Walter, in the last Parlia-
ment, moved for a Committee, and it was to suppress, as
far as possible, all unpleesant truths, that none but a packed
Committee could be obtained. Truth, however, cannot be
long suppressed, even by the most powerful means.
Every day furnishes fresh facts to increase and swell the
tide of public feeling upon this interesting subject ; and
any further attempt to stem and resist it will bespeak a
degree of infatuation which the country, we trust, is not
doomed to witness in any class of public men.—Morning
Herald.

remedy' cr..uld be pi ilitcd tAlt alcpted to-inorrow the
Tories, throuqh Sir Robert Peel, tiv, deilared that it ought

not to be applied to claims to s.ats now made, and yet unde-
termined—a monstrous doctrine, to he sure, but such as the
House of Lords would willingly lend its aid to enforce. It
amounts to this, that if a tribun'al could be furmed to which no
possible objection could apply, which would do the fullest and
most impartial justice, still it would be improper to have the
merits of the petitions now on the table honestly and justly
decided ; but they mint be left to the determination o!" a Court
notoriously open to every species of abuse and corruption, uri•
vote and political. Such, be it observcd, is the Tot y doc-
trine, and very pretty doettinr, it is."
Very pretty" if true ; but such, " be it. observed," is
not the doctrine of the Tories, by any manner of means,

though it may suit the usual honesty of Whig controversy
to toy that it is so. The conduct of the Whigs has doubt-
less been (end especially of late) so pure and so immacu-
late—so free from any taint of double dealing, or treachery,
or anything of that rpen and honourable—so
clear and consistent—so patriotically perfect ill every
way—that the journals in their interest have a pe-
culiar ri;ht to impute all manner of depravity to
others. 'But let that fass—we cry them mercy on the
score of their superior virtue, and proceed humbly to point
out some inaccuracies in their charges against the
Tories. The Tories are not much given to the discussion
of hYpotktical cases, even where the hypothesis appears
to base some proximate relation to a practical matter.
They certainly never did take into comideration any such
extravagance as that of a Whig-invented tribunal for the
trial of controverted elections, "to which it pos,ible ob-
jection could apply." They neither look forward to this,
nor to a commercial intercourse with the moon firmly es-
tablished by means of Whig balloons, nor to any other
consummation of similar probabi:ity. The Tories do not
say that the elections now in controversy "must he left to the
determination of a Court notoriously open to every species of
abuse and corruption, pi ivate and political." They know, in-
deed, that these Courts must in all cases have some, and
in some cases have nearly all, their Judges, composed of

Whig-Radical Members of Parliament, and they are not
insensible to the faultiness of tribunals so constituted ; but
they are not so %irulently uncharitable as to accuse even
these Courts of being utterly corrupt. They had rather
submit to the injury which they may receive from the faulti-
ness of such Courts, than break through that great prin-
ciple of British justice, that laws shall not be made to ap-
ply to cases which are already sub lite. The Tories are of
opinion that nothing could be more monstrous than that an
assembly of men against some of whom complaint is made
that they are nJt rightfully members of that assembly should
set about framing a law for the trial of these complaints.
The Tories do not think that, when proceedings have been
commenced in conformity with the law which has existed
for more than half a century, it would be fair to the suitors
to abrogate that law, and say that they must commence de
110170, because the Parliament bad found out, all of a sud-
' den, that the law was a bad one. These may be Tory
prejudices ; but, somehow or other, they bear a great re-
semblance to that which the world has hitherto called by
the name of Justice. We dare say the Whigs may not like
these prejudices—no, nor justice either, for it is a shock-
ing old-fashioned thing, which, though first cousin to mercy,
has no knowledge at all of " liberality." But this is no
good reason why Whig newspapers should publish lies
about the Tories.—Morning Post.

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