The Sun.
London, England, 1836-09-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURINAUts

The question of Peerage Reform is considered in
different lights by Reformers, and we do not disguise
from ourselves the difficulty with which it is sur-
rounded. At the same time we confess we could
wish to learn, from those Reformers who would leave
the House of Peers as it is, in what manner they pro-
pose to overcome the resistance of that body to all mea-
sures of good Government. That the Tory Peers
will change their policy is what even a visionary cannot
believe. The question then conies to this—ought the
people of England to be contented with a state of
things in which the benefits which they promised
themselves from the Reform Bill arc withheld ? The
difference between Lord Melbourne's Government and
Earl Grey's has been said to be this—that Lord Grey
presented to the Lords such measures as they would
pass, while Lord Melbourne laid before them such mea-
sures as were just and proper, throwing on the Lords
the responsibility of rejecting them. But some time
or other, we presume, there must be an end of this
system of placing before the Lords good Bills merely
to have them mutilated or rejected. The end, then,
must either be a victory over the Lords, or the triumph
of the Lords. No Reformer will own to himself
that he wishes to see the Lords omnipotent ; but
this is what they must be if Reform is not intro-
duced into that assembly. The policy of the Tory
Peers is no secret. They seized power prematurely,
and the well-founded apprehensions of the people de-
feated the attempt. Their object now is to generate
in the people an indifference and apathy, from seeing
reform comparatively unproductive of beneficial re-
sults,. by means of which they may in time obtain
power with less difficulty than they experienced in
1834. Those Reform Members who declare at pub-
lic meetings their opposition to Peerage Reform arc
not, perhaps, aware of the extent in which they con-
tribute to produce in the great body of the people the
most dangerous of all states of mind—that of indiffe-
rence. Only place before the people some practical
way of overcoming the collision, and obtaining the
anticipated fruits of the Reform Bill, and the people
will rally round you. But if you tell the people that
the obstacles to good government are not to be over-
come, and that the destinies of England are in the
hands of the Lords, you can not be surprised, if
the people—in turn—remain passive. We hear
some Reform Members exclaim—" It is the peo-
ple's own fault—why do they not return a greater
majority of •rfl
Liberal Representatives ?" This is
only another mode of asking why property is
unequally distributed ? There can be no question that
of the holders of property the great majority are
Liberals ; but there can be as little question that the
great body of the gentry, and nearly all the clergy, are
Tories. In almost every parish in the kingdom there
is one man who has abundance of time on his hands,
to watch over the Tory interests, and to further them.
The parson is, in fact, a standing canvasser for the
Tories. These are fearful odds to contend with. An
election is a serious matter to a man who by his vote
exposes himself to the displeasure of his landlords, or
the disfavour of rich customers. We were assured by
a tradesman who used to take a very active part in
Westminster elections, 'that every such election was
2,0001. out of his pocket—that his customers were
principally rich Tories, who were displeased because he
was too honest to vote in accordance with their wishes,
and punished him by withdrawing their business from
him. It is absurd to expect from the mass of men that
they will make great sacrifices for political opinions.
At the same time we have no doubt that if the
people were made to perceive that by one great effort
they could free themselves from the incubus which now
presses on reform, they would be disposed to make it.
But if, on the other hand, you tell them that the Lords
must not be touched, but that, in order to induce the
Lords to comply with their wishes, they must make
continual sacrifices, for the moment they cease to make
them, the Peers will relapse into their old hostility to
good government, you necessarily paralyse the energies
of the people. That the people are yet prepared for
Peerage Reform we do not believe. But it is the bu-
siness of the enlightened part of the community to do
their duty, and place the question fairly before them.
Let not Reformed Members deceive themselves. The
people must see their way, or they will not move.
Mystification will not do. If, therefore, it is wished to
exert the enthusiasm of the people, some tangible issue
must be presented to them. They will not bestir them-
selves merely to return Members without having some-
thing like a well-founded assurance of a removal of
the proved obstacles to good government.—Morning
Chronicle.

Among the rumours reported by our Dublin corres-
pondent, is one which must move the indignation of
Mr. Daniel O'Connell. It is one, indeed, the truth
of which, if demonstrated, would do more to seal the
downfall 'of that personage in the estimation of all
parties here and in Ireland, than any that we, his sworn
enemies, could have hoped for. We .are therefore in-
credulous as to the fact. We do not believe that on
Mr. O'Loghlen's promotion, whether to the judgment-
seat left vacant by the lamented Sir W. Smith, or to
that which, in consequence of some piece of success-
ful jobbery with Chief-Justice Bushe, might become
disposable through that learned and witty person's re-
aignation—we do not believe that Mr. Daniel O'Con-
nell will be the new Attorney-General for Ireland.
What a commanding officer descend to the rank of
subaltern in his own corps ! A master Cabinet maker
turn journeyman in his own shop, and receive orders
from the very apprentices whom he has been in the con-
stant habit of chastising ! The thing is not conceivable.

This man's relations with the Melbourne Ministry
would be simply ludicrous to a mere spectator. But
no British subject is now a mere spectator. We are
• all parties—we are all sufferers. The highest of us and
the lowliest, every Englishman who looks to property
for his siipport7---to civil rights for their unmolested
.xercise—to law for its protection—to religion for its
comforts—to himself, that he may die in peace—and
to his children, that they may, in the course of nature
and in the fulness of time, live after him—every such
man, the richest and the poorest in this realm, is a
real, ay, and at this moment a conscious, victim, of
the relations which have subsisted for the last eighteen
months between the self-constituted patron of Mary
Magdalene, and the persecutor of all who do not wor-
ship the clumsiest wooden image by which his spu-
rious saints are caricatured. Let us try back a little
for the immediate origin of the Melbourne connexion
with O'Connell. Lord Grey had been the Agitator's
abhorrence. He stopped far short of that point from
which a Popish revolution could have started. By
an intrigue of quacks and popularity hunters, the Noble
Lord was undermined, and was succeeded by this
Nigh-born Viscount, so justly fastidious on the score
of birth, that his genealogy fills just 71 lines in the
columns of Lodge's Peerage ! the Lord Mel-
boOrne, the grandson of Matthew Lamb, gentleman,
came into office with a Cabinet somewhat dwindled in
calibre, but with nearly the same amount of Whig
ill embers in the House of Commons as had supported
the Government of Lord Grey. They formed a ma-
jority of that assembly, as against both Conservatives
and Revolutionists, though a small one, and were,
therefore, in a good, measure independent of Mr. D.
O'Connell. They acknowledge the fundamental prin-
ciples of the monarchy, and barring much dirty bar-
gaining and sordid abuse of patronage, they kept
on
decent terms with the Constitution. What followed ?
They, too, fell short of O'Connell's mark ; and he
filled the newspapers with volumes of abuse against the
Irish branch of the Government-more especially, ran-
aackina Billingsgate for terms of contempt and hatred
towards Lord Duncannon. But it is not in the struc-
ture or the fate of Whiggcry (and Lord Melbourne
is., after all, but a piece of Brummagem Whiggery) to
stand much wear and tear. Its wants density (save in
o fa.r as brains are concerned,) and bottom.' The first
Melbourne Administration became weaker every day
it lived. Public distrust and disparagement were hard
at work for its progressive overthrow, when it was ab-
ruptly, and, as we have ever thought and said, pre-
maturely, dismissed, without the participatiOn or the
privacy. of a single Conservative statesman. A new
Government brought with it a dissolution of Lord
Grey's Pviliament. Two months more of Melbourne
sway and imbecility would have made the House of
Commons,
elected in the beginning of 1835, Con-
servative by ' a large majority. But the best was
done that under the circumstances could be done,. and