The Sun.
London, England, 1831-04-30 00:00:00

SIIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Yesterday was a glorious day in the cause of Re-
'form ! Indeed, if we were not afraid of occasion-
!Mgt some relaxations of exertion on the presump-
-tion of security, we would say it was decisive of the
•question. But energy—energy and- activity—are
still necessary ; for, be it recollected, that the
Bill has to pass the Lords as well as the Com-
mons, and if their Lordships were to see but a small
majority of pure and well-returned Members in its
favour they might say the Lower House was in-
dioTerent to its own purification, and the people
-whom it represents lukewarm in the cause of Re-
form. Let there be no slackness, then, from the
confidence of success, and all must be well. The
triumph in the city is a most marked one. Mr.
Ward, only one candidate in five, just opens the
contest and retires! His friends expected, at the
most, but 600 votes out of a constituency, all alive
and in motion, of twice as many thousands. He felt
the tide of public opinion so strongly against him,
that all opposition to it was fruitless, And in this
same city, essentially, within the hearing of the
triumphant cries of the very population by which
Ward's defeat was announced, is that Par-
liament to be assembled which has to decide
finally on the great question ! From every
part of the country the news is of the
most satisiactory and assuring kind. " Miracles
will sever cease," says the homely proverb : Sir
Edward Knatchbull, in direct terms, says that he
'has " bog since been favourable to Reform." These
are his %any words. We did not expect such an
Immage as this from him to the glorious cause. But
let not the men of Kent be deceived ; there are
iretented converts as well as real ones. No, no,
brother reformers of Kent, we must have a " Rider"
to the Bill ! To Mr. Bulwer, the late Member for
Wilton, we still owe an amende. The consequence
of the vote wh'ch he gave against General Gascoyne's
amendment has been, that he has been turned out
of the close borough above named for which he sat :
and this fact is a proof of the erroneousness of the
motives which were assigned for his retirement from
Hertford. But the country owes him a debt of
gratitude—let one of its principal towns pay it. He
starts for Coventty with Mr. Ellice, and a fitter
Member for that high-spirited and populous
place could not be conceived. "Himself and
his brother act nobly in the cause of Reform.
Our paper of to-day contains a very sensible address
from Mr. Pascoe Grenfell to the electors of Buck-
inghamshire, for which county he stands as the op-
p ment of Lord Chandos. His public spirit demands
tle sincerest respect. He has fearful odds of money
to contend with, though the odds of public favour
are all on his side. In such a cause, and with such
a candidate, the freeholders of Buckinghamshire
ought to convey themselves to the poll. Major
Weyland and the Hon. Mr. Harcourt are in the field
for Oxfordshire, as the avowed friends of Reform.
The freeholders of the town of Witney have pledged
themselves not to put the candidates to a farthing
expense for their conveyance to the poll. We trust
their noble example will be followed. Is it not
true, then, as we stated above, that all things go on
gloriously for the cause of Reform ? But, perhaps,
money may still be wanting. Let the subscriptions
then go merrily 'mind ; nay, let there be a collection
from house to house. One struggle more, and the
country is for ever at peace. Internal satisfaction
and content will follow the glory obtained abroad.—
Times.

Flesh light, and au-picious prospects, are beaming
upon us front every quarter. If the south-eastern
extremity of England has led the way in ramming
for Dover two men who will sympathize with the
country, we see in the north-west pretty strong in-
&cations that the ground has been already laid for
;sit equally bernficial result. Lord Lowther, as we
stated in yesterday's Paper, has retired from Cum-
berland without a contest. A great and important
meeting has been held at Liverpool, and resolutions
adopted, the very ti.st of which will prove to General
Gascoyne—as indeed is its evident object—that
whatever may be done for him by the tools of the
Corporation, with the Liverpool public he is irre-
trievably lost. His constituents tell the gallant
General freely, that his late motion against Reform
has moved " their indignation," as being the trea-
sure of a " selfish faction," by which the public
service has beets impeded, and which have,
for the present, frustrated the wise and magna-
nimous efforts of his Majesty. We do not re-
collect having ever witnessed in either House of Par-
liament an attempt of a more deceitful, slippery,
or revolting character, than that which gained
the Tories their trattsieet victory on the night of
General Gascoyne's motion. Nor was it less impu-
dent than crooked. The shallow and unthinking
portion of our English countrymen were to be
caught by an affected solicitude for English inte-
rests ; and if the motion should succeed, the people
of Scotland and Ireland were to be exasperated by
the disappointment of their hopes to have a more
extended representation. But the delusive nature
of the gallant Ex-metebet's motion was not, we
believe, exposed so minutely as it might have beta
in the course of that debate ; for in truth, when
General Gascoyne stood forth as the 'tomb'sl
champion of English Members, the class of Mem-
bers—to wit, those for rotten boroughs—whom it
was his real purpose to protect, were just as well
entitled to the name of Members for " that part of
the United Kingdom called England," as they were
to that of Members for the part of North America
called Kentucky, or that country in the Pacific Ocean
called Japan. y Why, the numerical reduction of
Members, bearing the name of " English," was to
England herself the most grateful provision of the
whole measure of Reform; the " reduction" was
like the reduction of a man's head by cutting out a
wen, or of his trunk by drawing off a dropsical
tumour. The members reduced, being one and all
delegates of individual Commoners or Peer:, who
were themselves, according to the law of Parlia-
ment, notorious political delinquents ; or, being re-
presentatives of their own 3,0001, 4,0001., or
5,000/. paid in a close borough for the seat in a
I imp,—and in a small open borough distributed in
the shape of bribes among the voters,—these per-
sons, we say, were precisely us much representatives
of England as they were of Kamtschatska or Japan;
and yet, upon such miserable ground was the mo-
tion of General Gascoyne rested, ad caplandum ;
and with that perfect knowledge of its merits did
Sir Robert Peel venture to shake his reputation for
integrity in supporting it. From the spirit which
prevails at Liverpool, we do not despair of see-
ing two staunch reformers sent up to Parlia-
ment for that important town, and two more
for the great county of Lancaster. London
btts already discharged her duty, as became the
capital, by the rejection, almost unanimous, of Mr.
Ward, and the unopposed return of four reformers,
as her representatives; and Southwark has com-
pleted a similar good work, by the election of Mr.'
Culvert, and of the Lord Chancellor's liberal bro-
ther. In Westminster and Middlesex Reform stands
secure. We trust, as we have stated in another
article, that the business of subscription and co-
operation goes on prosperous in every part of Eng.
land. Suggestions and exhortations are pouring in
upon us, One friend proposes—what probably has
commenced ere now—a subscription in every town
and village of the United Kingdom: another, a com-
mercial traveller, recommends a meeting of the nu-
merous and intelligent body to which he himself be-
longs : a third, that the contribution should not
ascend beyond one guinea each person, and that
boxes should be placed in one or more respectable
houses of every parish ;n town and country where'
slims, ever so small, might be deposited. The mo-
ment, indeed, requires that every engine shall be
set at work, and that every band shall be employed
upon them.—Tinter.
While the corruptionists and boroughmongers are
still exulting in the magnitude of the subscription
which they have set the example of entering into
for the purpose of fettering the free expression of
feeling in the country, a fresh difficulty. has arrested
their unpatriotic course, for which their blinded tin.