The Sun.
London, England, 1831-05-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The right of a burgess to vote for a Member of
Parliament was identical with his right to enjoy thi
other privileges of a burgess. When Members were
=ant to Parliament by boroughs, no new class of
burgesses was created for the purpose of elections,
but those already in possession obtained an addi-
tional privilege. It is clear, therefore, that a bur-
gess, the condition of whose previous privilege,
was residence, could not acquire an additional privi-
lege without compliance with the same condition.
The custom of non-residents exercising the elective
franchise was a gradual innovation, sometimes eon.
nived at, but never legally established, till Commit-
tees of the House of Commons :sanctioned the
usurped power. We have thought it expedient to
throw out these few: words, in notice of a poor
creature in an Evening Paper, who fancies he has
discovered a mare's nest. The seal of this simple-
minded man is very commendable; but we suspect
his friends would dispense with a little of it, for the
sake of a little tact. They must aeisb that he vvas
as harmless a friend as he is a foe. But let us come
'to more important matter. The mingled folly and
hypocrisy of those who supported General Gas-
coyne's mischievously intended motion is nor ill-
exposed in the letter of an " Irish Freeholder,"
-which we this day publish, It certainly showed
no small stupidity or daring in the same mere
to oppose the disfranchisement of nomination
boroughs, because of its weakening the peculiar
power of England in the House of. Commons,—the
same men, we say, who had always hitherto de-
fended those boroughs on the ground of their send-
ing Ntembers to Parliament, who did not represent
England only, but every other portion of the em-
pire. That, however, is not all : the Members fir
these wretched boroughs not merely did not repre-
sent England more than any other branch of the
Kong's dominions, but they might, in fact, accord•
ing to the chances of the market, have represented
Scotland and Ireland jointly, to the utter exclusion
of England; or Ireland alone, or Scotland alone, to
the exclusion of both her sisters. For, a borough
put uo to the best bidder, the nobleman or gentle-
man boroughmonger would not be very nice as to
the birthplace of FOR temporary customer. Every
close borough, therefore, in its high and palmy state,
might he considered as an extraneous power, throw-
ing foreign goods into the magazines of the Consti-
tution. It did not give representatives to England,
nor express the feelings or opinions of Englishmen.
Even if the Reform Bill bad done nothing more
than take away the 169 Nlembers from the House of
Commons who used to sit there by virtue of the
licences granted by their proprietors,—if it had
done this, without introducing a single substitute
for the Members so dismissed,---so far from de-
priving the people of England of weight or autho-
rity in the Imperial Parliament, the Bill would,
by the very act of disfranchising the said boroughs,
hive removed an irksome and iniquitous restraint
from the operation of the real feelings of the
country, and would have enabled the Members for
counties and great towns to legislate freely on be-
half of the people who have elected them, un-
thwarted and unshackled by the borough slaves,
who could vote no otherwise than as their lordly
masters enjoined them,—or by the borough adven-
turers who had bought their seats, who were re-
sponsible to neither proprietor nor constituent
body, and whose vote, therefore, proceeded from a
regard to no interests or objects but their own. To
prove, however, the wild extravagance of General
Csaascovne and his supporters, no more is necessary
than to look at the Bill, and see what it actually
does for England beyond the mere benefit (momen-
tous as that is) of relieving her from the incubus
of borough nominations by noble Peers and others.
Instead of leaving her loaded with 169 Members of
Parliament, who one and all could make laws to
bind her, without having received the shadow of
title from any notional authority for the exercise of
so grave and vast a power, the Reform Bill pro-
posed by his Majesty's Ministers expels at once
that hostile force, and supplies the place of it by
upwards of ninety Members, to be freely chesen by
the largest counties and most populous, intelh-
etent and wealthy towns of England, substanti-
ally representing, because really constituting, the
people. Yet England was to be weakened, said the
wise General Gascoyne, by the Bill. Again, a
prodigious fear is expressed respecting, Ist, the in-
crease in the number of Irish Members by the Bill,
and 2d, the influence under which they are likely to
be elected. The number of additional representa-
tives proposed for Ireland by Lord John Russell is,
we believe, either three or five. For Irish Members,
or Scotch, or any others, to work mischief against
the general interests of the State, we must suppose
them to act in a trained and premeditated combinr,-
lion. Now, what evidence have we from Irish history
of the possibility of such a league ? When was it
known that a large body of Irish Members of Par-
liament, or indeed Irish gentlemen out of Parlia—
ment, ever combined for any one system, or even
measure, of policy, except when receiving their im-
pulse from the nation at large ? Of the latter ex-
ception, the state of Ireland from 1781 to 1783 may
be quoted as an example. And what was then the
moving power ? Wf.y, the oppression practised
upon Ireland by the Ministers of George 111. whom
the common opinion of mankind has long con-
demned, as it has vindicated and honoured the
patriotic spirit of the Irish. At no other time, for
no other end, do we recollect any tendency towards
a strict union amongst Irish gentlemen, as a
body. It is hardly to be presumed that even
that sage Statesman, the discarded Member for
Liverpool, will deny to Irishmen the privilege of
uniting for the redress of grievances ; nor will any
man, with half an idea to guide him, allege that it
would not be safer for the empire to have a combi-
nation of Irishmen of property opposing the Minister
on the floor of the House of Commons, than to
provoke them, by an exclusion from Parliament to
meet in College-green and pass resolutions for a re-
peal of the Union. The fact, however, is that were
such a crisis to arrive,—were all the Members in
Great Britain to vote on one side of any question
affecting deeply the interests or passions of Ireland,
and all the Irish Members on the other,—it mould
indicate a collision between the two countries, so
serious that nn Parliamentary distribution of votes,
or measures of purely legislative activity, could ar-
rest it. The question must then be settled elsewhere,
and physical more Lilian any other preponderance must
deride between two hostile nations. For the kfiu-
ewe which is henceforth to return Irish Members to
parliament, we feel no particle of apprehension. If
the Catholic priests be active and powerful, it is
because the gentlemen, Ptorestant and Catholic,
have abused and greatly forfe;ted their power. If
the priest be sometimes where he ought not to be,
it is, that where the gentleman ought to be, he sel•
dom can be found. The growth of an unwhole-
s.ante influence in most countries may he traced
to the previous mismanagement of that which is
more natural and lawful. When the relations
of property are established on a right footing
in Ireland, the priest, as well as the gentleman
and the peasant, will have his just authority and no
tumors. As for danger to the Irish Protestant church,
that can nevtr be produced by any change in the de-
scription or character of men returned to Parliament
under whatever influence; o nt-ot-door proceedings
and interests are those onl
the stability of all our prr„,,'!iephalm."st
tutimainly depend
war of words may be waged
itinisti ons. The
St. Stephen's
chapel—the pressure of things is not there.co
" respondent who signs himself Substance
Shadow," recommends a measure which, however
not
bold, is conceived in the true spirit of constitutional
liberty, and would bring men to know the ditTerence
between words with meaning, and words which have
none. He proposes a petition from the inhabitants of
boroughs, against the Members who do not repre-
sent them, while they pretend to do so. We will
suppose a case. If eighty Members for English
counties were to vote on a question affecting every.
Englishman's rights, and give their votes accord
to the sense of the people, and if eighty-one Mem-

,
bets for nomination uoroughs were to vote against the
iaeopleo voice,ntlesam same question, and beat the counties
iy a single
we should like to hear which
'tight, in faro conscienlite, to be regarded as binding
the people of England,—those whom they had sent
to Parliament, or those who had been sent there by
a knot of strangers ? Is the Constitution a name, or
i reality ? Times.
The Corwall election has commenced with
iuspices that leave no doubt of the issue. We speak
sf this first, in the course of our observations to-day,
because we know the Anti-Reformers attached much
importance to the name, character, and actual talents
of Sir Richard Vyvyan. We respect them all;
but we do not ascribe that semi-infallibility to
the possessor of them to suppose that he knows
the swats of the country better than all the people
which constitute the country. In Worcestershire,
Lygon still falls farther into the rear, yet not so far
hut that a long- purse may measure the distance.
We hope the friends of Parliamentary Reform %l en
consider this. In Dorsetshire, Guile, the daughter
of Old Age, is called in by the venerable Anti-
Reformer to his aid, who has abandoned the good
old bludgeon system, to which he at first seemed
disposed. He now takes frivolous objections to
the votes of his antagonists, for the purpose of
detaining the Reform voters in town, and of
exhausting the funds. The shuffling and contradic-
tory way in which an Evening Paper has spoken
of the great measure—as, first, that it was to be
modified; and now, that it is not to be modified;
and to-morrow, perhaps, afresh, that its provisions
are to undergo some material change—induces us to
state, as a most positive fact, that the Bill, the Bill
itself will be immediately brought forward after the
meeting of Parliament, and its unqualified adoption
in all its essential features recommended by Ministers
to the skew Parliament. It is not sufficient to say
they, the Mini-tern, will stand or fall by it, but con-
sidering the Members who have been universally
returned whet ever the principles of a free election
has prevailed, the country must sand or fall by
it; for, undoubtedly, should this Bill fail, there
is an end of the Constitution—we, the people of
England, and William IV., the King of England,
are governed by an oligarchy, whose despotism is
founded only on corruption ; but on corruption so
deeply rooted, that the whole efforts of King and
people cannot eradicate or shake it by ordinary pro-
cess. We are sure that we are supported in this
reasoning, and that others will think so, when we
state, that the accession of strength to the King's
Ministers is expected to amount to ten from Scot-
land, and to twelve from Ireland, and that upon the
whole the majority in the House of Commons cannot
be le‘s than one hundred and sixty ! Is there, then,
under these circumstances, the slightest probability
that with a Parliament thus chosen by the people for
the express purpose of supporting their Bill, Minis-
ters should recede even from the least important
of its provisious,—should desert their own pledge,
and deceive the expectant country ? However, it
is not as an inference which we deduce, but as a
positive fact which we assert, that the Bill is to be
supported by his Majesty's Ministers as it is now
before the country; and we, with this knowledge,
are therefore the more suprised, not that the Courier
newspaper should make an erroneous unauthorized
statement, but that such a roan as the Lord Advo-
cate of Scotland should have committed the grievous
error of intimating that a change might be made in
the amount of the qualification. We sincerely hope
he will see this correction of his mistake, and set
himself right.—Times.
Success still attends Reform. In Oxfordshire
Lord Norreys has resigned. In Worcester, North-
ampton, Dorset, and Cornwall, the Tory candidates
are at the bottom of the poll, and two Reformers
will to a certainty be carried. The success in Ox-
fordshire has astonished many people. The majority
of the Aristocracy, the ecclesiastical corporations,
and the parsons, were all arrayed against the Reform
candidates, and yet all was unavailing. We have
just seen an intelligent gentleman, returned from the
contest, whose words we shall quote :—" I can cor-
roborate your arguments on the value of local Reform
committees, by saying, that I attribute our success,
in spite of nobles, ecclesiastical corporations, and par-
sons, very much to such institutions, and mainly to
that at Oxford, of which the tJayor was chairman."
There never was so decided an expression of public
opinion in favour of any measure as that in favour of
the Reform Bill. All classes and divisions of the
population, all divisions of the country, are equally
decided. The whole of that great division of Ey,g-
land, which may be called by distinction agricultural,
consisting of the rich level plains of the east—Kent,
Essex, Cambridge, Bedford, Suffolk, Norfolk,
Northampton, Huntingdon, Leicester, Nottingham,
and Lincoln, will return only one Anti-Reformer
(in Huntingdon.) Another great agricultural divi-
ion—the south and west—Sussex, Hampshire,
Wiltshire, Dorset, Devon, and Somerset (we count
uporoßankes's rejection) will, without an exception,
have ReformsiTemhers. The coal, tin, and iron counties,
Northumberland,Durham,Cumberland, Cornwall,( for
Sir Richard Vyvyati has no chance), 'Warwick, &v.,
return all Reformers. The metropolitan and manu-
facturing divisions, Middlesex, Surrey, York, Lan-
caster, arid Derby, have returned ail Reformers.
Again, the great cities and manufacturing towns, as
London, Westminster, Southwark, Bristol, Liver-
pool, Norwich, Nottingham, Newcastle, Ipswich,
Carlisle, &c. have returned all Reformers. The
Anti-Reformers have found an entrance into Pailla-
ment only through rotten boroughs, ecclesiastical
corporations, and one or two small counties, where
family influence has enabled them to return one
Member, and thus neutralize a Reformer. In no
one county have the Anti-Reformers returned both
Members : so that where circumstances have most
favoured them, they have only been able to neutra-
lize a Reformer. Now if there was a time when
the expression of opinion was free from objection,
it is the present time. The people are generally
employed, and no class can be said to be distressed.
We hardly remember a period when there was less
discontent. The elections have generally been con-
ducted with much good humour. It cannot, there-
fore, be said of the present period, that the judg-
ment of the people has been disturbed by their
sufferings, and that a return of employment and pros-
perity will produce a revolution in their views. It
is a fact fortunate for the country, that the circum-
stances under which the experiment has been made,
have allowed it fair play. But here, again, the
people are entitled to great praise for the quickness
with which they perceived that the tranquillity
of die country arid the well-being of the industrious
classes—to which the maintenance of credit and
confidence is of such paramount importance—could
only be secured by taking up the business of Re-
form in so energetic a mariner as to show the
boroughmongers that their efforts to oppose it must
be unavailing, and that it will not be in their power,
were they in their frenzy to embrace desperate re-
solutions, to interrupt the peace of the country.
The boroughmongers, forsaken by the people, are
but a poor contemptible faction. The borough-
mongers, the ecclesiastical corporations, the par-
sons, &c., possess, after all, but a small part of
the mass of property of the nation. Now, with the
exception of those who have an interest in perpe-
tuating a system for plundering the people, the
whole nation are Reformers. Every man, too,
who has put his hand to the plough in this emer-
gency, will not turn from it. They now say to
themselves, we are determined that there shall be
no violence in England—we have a deep stake in the
country—our capital is embarked in agriculture, in
manufactures, in trade; we can only prosper by the
continuance of tranquillity and order, and no in-
furiated boroughmonger, no foolish or fanatical par-
son shall disturb this order of things. We range
ourselves on the side of the Government, having
found an honest Government, and having so identi-
fied ourselves with the Government;all the attempts

` This journal supposes we have " a morbid feeling"
towards it. In the name of wonder, why ? We should
never think it worthy of any notice, unless on an occasion
when its supposed authority is injurious to the Ministers
wham it encumber, with its help,