The Sun.
London, England, 1831-04-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We may congratulate our friends, and those of the
real and pure Constitution of England. The cause
of Reform looks cheerily! Indeed it is triumphing.
What Dryden calls the " royal plant," the true
British oak, like some of the productions of warmer
not happier climates, is now seen to yield the fruit
along with the blossom—fruition along with hope ;
while in most places a successful termination of the
struggle is looked to with confidence. In
.Dover it
has actually terminated successfully. This is a
mighty victory. The Lord War den (now the Duke
of Wellington) used to return both the Members
for that borough : one was lost to him some years
ago, but now the second, his Grace's and the Anti-
Reform candidate, Sir John Reid, after a twenty_
four hours' trial of his strength, has been defeated
by Captain Stanhope, of the Royal Navy. Elec.
tors "of England, imitate the gallant men of Dover !
This is the first place where the parties have
been in the field together. We accept the result with
joy, as an omen of the whole The election fur the city
begins this day : the result cannot be doubtful. Anoverwhelming majority on the first evening will sound
through the whole island, as well as the sister isle,
with talismanic power. It will influence all the
other elections. Dover has returned the first Re-
former: what borough, city, or county, will router
the second ? One of the Wigrams, and, we be-
lieve, another anti-Reformer or two, have been
down to take a look at Norwieh, and have retired
in hopelessness. The reports from the counties are
most favourable, and we have the surest proof of
the despair of our adversaries in their absurd fury and
exaggeration. A broken window or two on Wednes-
day night (where there were no candles), by some of
the glaziers' apprentices, or by boys employed by
the ultra-Tories, is represented as a positive riot in
London. We have seen illuminations before, and
never saw one more general, or more peaceable.—
However, let the parties aggrieved bring, as Lord
Castlereagh, of Constitutional memory did, their
losses before the eounty, arid they will be remune-
rated. By the way, some dirty boys were observed
coming out of an Under ex-Secretary of State's house,
having received money. What does that mean ?
While we thus almost riot with pleasure on the
happy view of our affairs, we must recommend
caution with zeal. There are plenty of men of
wealth and property to be found to undertake a con-
test with partial aid; and such men ought to be
selected and supported. We have heard of a person
being proposed for Weymouth,—a gentleman con-
nected with a periodical publication. Whatever may
be his merits as the manager of a literary chronicle,
we should say that such a man is not the man we
want. We speak with no unkindness, but we say
decidedly, that such a gentleman has no political
claims, at such a crisis, on the British public.--Times.
The communications by yesterday's mail from
Ireland were in the highest degree satisfactory. Long
after it had been given up on all hands that a disso-
lution of the late corrupt and refractory Parliament
would be fraught with the happiest consequences,
in so far as England only was concerned, the
friends of Reform were tormented with fears,
founded on the representations of intriguing Tories,
that the effect of such a measure would be to
throw Ireland into fatal 6onfusion, and to em-
barrass his Mejesty's Government by a conflict
between Irish parties, little short of civil war. With
unfeigned pleasure we perceive, by accounts from
every part of the sister island, that instead of
political exasperation and outrage, or any tendency
to occurrences of a nature inimical to the authority
of the King's Government, being likely to spring
from the late dissolution, there is the best prospect
that the ensuing election will he distinguished by
good temper, and indeed by unanimity, beyond most
others on record. There is not a whisper heard
about " repeal of the Union" from north to south
of Ireland. Another and more pressing interest has
ariaen to occupy the people and to animate their
exertions, and the cause of Reform appears to have
roused a zeal arid ardour amongst our western
brethren, as encouraging to the wishes of all honest
men as is the spirit which now circulates throughout
London. It is to the credit of Mr. O'Connell that
he has lately addressed a letter to hie countrymen,
deprecating in the most earnest manner, on this oc-
casion, the mixture of any unseasonable disposition,
be it what it may, with their eagerness in support
of his Majesty's Ministers, on whom rests the
burden of the great measure of Reform. The
Learned Gentleman dissuades the Irish electors from
perplexing themselves or the candidates with any
condition but the one—namely, that they shall vote
for the Reform proposed by Government. If there
be right feeling in such a course, there is sound
judgment also ; for just in proportion as the leaven
of old Toryisin—the old overbearing, boroughmon-
gering, anti-popular leaven—prevails in the general
policy of England, to the same extent will that
illiberal spirit to which Ireland may trace so many
years of civil and religious persecution, domineer
over the councils of her local Cabinet. The Peels,
arid Gouiburns, and hydra-headed Beresfords,—the
desperate enemies of English freedom,—are of the
very faction through whose tyrannical intolerance
the people of Ireland have been so alienated from
this country, and so often and so easily seduced into
rebellion against the British Crown. We say, there-
fore, that if the Irish seek to be well-governed, they
must fling off the vile sway of the oligarchy, and
make common cause with the bulk of their English
fellow-subjects, who have precisely the same in-
terests to consult as themselves, and, in a great mea-
ewe, the same grievances to complain of. But we
end as we began, with congratulating the friends of
freedom here, that the cause bids fair to profit
so largely by a reinforcement of useful represen-
tatives from Ireland, and to suffer nothing as to
reputation from arty unworthiness in the means
of acquiring for us that immense advantage.—
With regard to England, we must state at once, as a
matter to move the public indignation, end through
it to operate as a warning to certain rotten boroughs,
that there is reason to apprehend the return to Par.
liament of Messrs. Berries and George Dawson, for
the Government borough of Harwich. Little need
be said upon the political integrity of a man, who,
having sat under a Tory Government for a particular
borough, could so adapt, or rather pervert, his re-
sources of patronage to his own personal views, as
to establish upon that systematic manoeuvre a direct
personal interest among the freemen of the borough,
adverse to that of the patron under whom they had
hitherto exercised their right of election, and nomi-
nated their successive representatives. Nothing can
more fully demonstrate the pernicious consequence
of suffering one faction to enjoy for half a century
the power of distributing Ministerial patronage, or
the aggravation of such a license, caused by the
vicious amount of the patronage so monopolized,
than the fact that Messrs. Henries and Dawson, by
dint of the obligations entailed upon the miserable
burgesses of Harwich, through a long course of
Tory bribery, which those two Right Hotspur-
Able Gentlemen can now no longer carry on,
have been enabled (as we fear they have)
still to secure their seers, and to convert that
privilege, Which
oua ht t s
of
long since to have been with-
drawn both from
and from their petty corpo-
ration, into a
m them
e
perpetuating against the
country at large a hostof similar abuses. This
species of danger in other c!ses must be watched
e
and warded off in time.
his
y insurgent The liberal patron must
extensive
tviassal If such a
.not be bearded b
thing were possible as an nsv
ut mutinous
return of rotten members, for boroughs
which
the patrons were patriotic and honest of
men,oroti tire re-
sult might be such an autocracy of close
as would leave the people of England no inoresil'igae
borough
in their own Government, or controul upon its actions,
than the Chinese or Russians possess over their
re-
spective Emperors; and that in our own island we
!mold be subjected to a sort of foreign rule. But
as the Swisi Guards were unpalatable to the French
nation, and were at last extinguished by them, so
will Englishmen not endure for another twelve-
month -these mercenary satellites of corruption.
should the borough-guards prove too troublesome

" It is determinA to return the two Reform Members
for Kent free of expense. Perhaps, for the information
of other counties, it may be proper to state their plan of
proceedingo; The whole county is to he divided into
small districts, each containing two or mere parishes ; a
committee to be appointed for each district, to canvass it,
and to take to the poll, in the cheapest manner, by local
sulist:Tiptions, of such freeholders as are unable or unwill-
ing to incnr the expellee of going there. In this manner
the subscribers wii; have the management of their own
funds, and all extravagant expenditure may be avoided.
It is considered that by this plan a contest may be con-
ducted at g, much less expense than hag been hitherto
supposed."

We trust that those ports of Kent near the me-
tropolis, which are to reeei7e 17 the Reform Bill
the privilege of returning Members, wi!! not be be-
hind the eastern and central parts. From the great
extent of Kent, communication between the extre-
mities is difficult ; acid thus the men of Dover and
Canterbury are often in ignorance of what is doing
at Greenwich and Lewisham. This ought not to
be. The individuals who are now bestirring them-
selves in the good cause at Woolwich, Greenwich,
Deptford, and Lewisham, ought, without loss of
time, to communicate with the men of Rochester
and Canterbury. We understand the want of this
communication from the metropolitan par s of Kent
was felt on Tuesday, at thu meeting at Sitting-
bourne, This must not he. We regret to hear
that the good cause is likely to suffer for want of
Reform candidates in the counties of Denbigh and
Montgomery. Surely the Reformers of these coon
ties
are not to be disposed of as chattels of the
House of Wyonstay. The cause is now a host in
itself. Poweiful as the Wynn family is, the cause
against which they have
trusthavearrayed themselves is still
more powerful.
Reform will not fare
worse in %lee than in England, To-day comes