The Sun.
London, England, 1838-03-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF Tim PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We were glad, on Friday night, to hear Sir flebmt Peel
suggtst that it was ill for the House of Cornmoma to ennsidtr.
as a preliminary to the diseustion cf the detail: if Mr. C.
Buller'. Bill fur the alteration of the law relating to the triad
of controverted elections, whether it m 4 (Light not be exped
to part with the ari,ilege of doeiliatt such sit: melees.
intimation of an opinion was received nith evident satisfac-
tion, loudly expressed on both sides of the house, although .1
Sir Robert afterwards thought fit to qualify what he had said,''
by adding ti.at he did not mean to prejudge the matter. It
fact, as we have more than once stated, the only mode of
amending the present law which can be yertnaeently satisfacai!
tett to the eleetora of the empire, will be to establish a tribes.;
pat, similar to these. by which the law of the lad is atlminis;
Wd, independent cf the Crown and of all other ex;
ternal ii.fluenee4. TiT very feet of the introduction of Mr.
C. Buller's measure,: the second reading of • which is fixed for
Friday next, is an emaitsien on the part ol the House of Com-
mons that some chenge is required. The chief difference
between the bill as amended and as it stood formerly, is that
the assessors, who are to set as chairmen of election commit-
tees, ale to be permanently appointed like the judges, instead
of Leing named <very session or every Parliament, and that
they are to be paid 2,5001. instead of 2,000/. per annum. The
fiat is a most material, improvement, for if the assessors
were anpointed sessiomilly they would be sessienally
reponsiitle to the domiaant party in the Scete, and that
'ircumstinot alone would dispose them to become po
E ieal political partisans, and to favour the claims of those,
wale ther petitioners or sitting members, whose opini „s
were is favour Of the Administration of the day. If the
selection and nomination of barristers for this duty were
to be in the hands of the Speaker, as suggested in
Mr. Charles Buller's original protosal, it would no
doubt throw upon him a heavy and in some respects
an invidious responsibility ; but we are - not by any
means sere that this course would not be preferable, notwith-
standing the fact that the Speaker is placed in the Chair by
the supporters of the Minister for the time being when the
vacancy occurs.. In his Bill ncyv before the House, Mr. C.
Buller has taken a different view of the matter, and has not
only made the situation of Assessor permatent from Session
to Session and from Parliament to Parliamant, during good
behaviour, but he has given the selection and appointment to
the House at large. How this alteration will get rid of the
objection of political partiality in the choice of Barristers we
do not exactly sec. In cases of this kind we prefer indi-
vidual responsibility to the irresponsibility inseparable from
an act done by an almost indefinite number. These Assessors,
if impartially named, we look upon as the great recommen-
dation of Mr. C. Buller's measure. We think that barris-
ters duly qualified may be found, who will be willing to give up
an uncertain practiac of perh pa considerably more than the
fixed salary for the sake of the certain ernofument of 2,.5001.
per aueum for the fulfihnent of the duties of an office
of great importance and no little dignity. What we felt
with regard to the Bill of last year was, that barristers to be
paid only 2,0001. per annum, and whose situations might be
taken from them at the caprice of the Minister of the day,
would not possess the necessary weight and influence with
members uniaily forming election Committees. So far,
therefore, the change is for the better ; and, reckoning upon
due legal attainments and that peculiarity oflatiowledge which
belongs to the sill-jet, there seems every chance that the
decision of election Committees, net merely finally upon the
merits of petitions,bnt incidentally upon points arising is the
course of their inquiries, would be rendered more uniform and
more consonant with reason and justice. One great
cause of the present multiplication of petitions is that
decisions are not uniform—that one Committee decides one
way and another another, so that parties have always a
hope of overturning previous determinations. If a Com-
mittse last Session resolved that the registry
.of an Irish
caunty shall not be opened, and this ye r that it shall
be opened, asd if adverse findings occur within the
space of a couple of years upon such a question as the admis-
sion or non-admission of parish constables to vote, there can
be no end to litigation, and no bounds to expenditure. It has
not unfrequently happened that decisions in the very teeth of
each other have been given in the same session. In some in-
stances this contrariety may have been occasioned by misap-
prehension or ignorence of the law, and unlearned Commit-
teemen, like unlearned Magistrates at Quarter Sessions, want
a legal pilot upon whom they can rely to steer them safely be-
tween the strongly-enforced arguments of Counsel. So far
Mr. C. Buller's Bill may be said to afford a remedy; but we
think that the second part of his plan, which relates to the
selection and appointment of a jury of Members, would not be
an improvement upon the present mode, excepting inasmuch as
the responsibility will be limited to five instead of being divided
among eleven. We doubt, however, whether the smaller;
number will not in most cases be as well content to bear the
charge of political labis as the larger. Here we must be care-
el: we are treading upon tender ground ; but although the
word ~ perjury" is forbidden by the late resolution of the
House of Commons, and although it may be dangerous to
talk of violating, or even of " trifling with oaths," we may
assert, on the authority of Members of all parties, that poll-
tlcal bias has influenced (we do not say governed) the deci-
sions of not a few Election Committees. No Member whoi
feels awe at the notion of a reprimand or a committal will ever
again venture to use such a word as " perjury :" it will he
marked in future as verbose
.vetitum in the vocabulary of the
Commons. The Tories denounce it with the same feels
ing that urged Nell Gwynn's coachman to flog a passene
ger for giving his mistress, while he was driving her,
an offensive but highly appropriate designation. Nell
enquirscl of the driter what had so enraged him, and
he answered that the person he had so set crely chastised
had called her ladyship what Othello in the fury of his jealousy
calls Desdemona. " Never mind, Thomas (sold the unblushing
Nell)—drive on ; it is of no consequence : you know very
well that lem so." " Yes, Madam (returned the indignant
Thomas), it is true enough ; hut for all that nobody shall call
you so in my presence." It is exactly so with the Tories :an
election Committee may prostitute itself to party, but woe to
the man (unicts he be as powerful as Mr. O'Connell), who
shall ever again venture to assert that it has been guilt'; of
perjury ! To charge a Committee with having yielded to
political bias is this very utmost that can be per mitted by Tory
sensitiveness. Nell Ow.:,•nn's coachman was the ancient type
of a modern Tory. The qu. ,Alon therefore, is whether the plan
recommended by Mr. C. Bailer will have any material effect
in checking this practice. which, after all, is the great mis-
chief to his rem .•!ied. We fear not ; for the mode of selec-
tion of the give members is tie same as of the eleven, and it
will be liege ta ail the same abuses. Canvassing to no down
to the Ballot, in order to secure an advantage to the one party
or to the other, will be continued, and eases will still be ac-
counted lost or gained, just as the majority, after reducing the
list, shall be found to be one way or time other. Whether it
will be possible to. prevail upon the House of Commons to re-
linquish the privilege it has asserted for more than two c,:ntu-
ries, of judging of matters of election, remains to be seen ;
but we reoeat that impartial justice will never lat done, am!
will never be expected by the public, until the Hente of Com-
miens ceases to be party, judge, and jury iu its own caae.
Morning Chronicle.
It would be as well to press Ministers a little closer now and
then, for the sake of getting cut of a Government so very
"squeezable" tome mere trustworthy causes than they seem
willing to assign fur that continued pone of procrastinatioe,
or do-nothingnes, w11,1o,.: they have already drawn so many
quarers', or ra-., ... tweivemouths', salary, for which no man
alive can venture to affirm that the public has received, cr. ex-
pects to receive, the slightest particle cf return isi profitahic
labour. Wu find, from Lord J. Russell'a words, what vas
fully anticipated at the outset of the -session, irons the whole
history of the Noble Lord's previous aehieveraents, and those
of his meritorious colleagues, that the Church Lease Bill
and the Irish Tithe Bill are to be came more what they
have already been —tubs to the respective whales of Radi-
calism and Popery at either side of the water, and means
of keeping what one of them at least was originally the
means of seizlng—viz., the mal-administration and gross
misgovernment of this degreded realm. On Thurs-
day the Secretary fur the Home Deaartment apprised
the House of Commons that he should not be able to
firing on before Easter a motion for the appointment of a
Committee on Church leases, which he had promised (as what
. has he nut proi;lised?) early in the session—not before Easter.
The Irish Church Bill, indeed, on which we made acme ob-
servations it tho Times of Saturday, has become the subject
of a formal notice by Lord J. Russell, who professes an inten-
tion of submitting a molten with regard to it in the course of
the present week. This is the Bill of which we have pre-
sented Mr. O'Connell's version in the article above alluded to,
and the mere introduction cf which (for its enactment into a
law is, thank Heaven ! out of the question) will be registered
by the Melbourne Cabinet as a clear acquittal of their promises
to Parliament that the tithe quarrel should by them be " ad-
justed." That this phantom will, moreover, be received by
O'Connell as a discharge in full of the Whig pledges to him-
self, we have no hesitation in believing. He has drawn the
Bill for them, as he assures the public, and they have stopped
-his mouth by accepting his draught. Both parties being con-
snious that the affair will go no further, as we suspect that the
House of*Commens, and arc sure that the Lords, will dispo •e in
no very ceremonious manner of a scheme so worthy of the source
it springs from. The ditcarded of North Devon will then put
leis tongue in his cheek, congratulating himself that the Down-
ing-etrect concern is safe for yet a few weeks longer ; while
O'Connell, with a half chuckle, half scowl, will sack s-..me
more patronage, and say nothing at all about it. Thus is to
be again performed the Irish tithe farce. This is to be got
rid of for another session the engagement undertaken with so
reutili solemn effrc.nterv, to tranquillize Ireland, by robbing the
cataltlisned Chuich7aid dividing her spoils between Romish
{testa and Protestant 'squires. Thus thrts the Palladium. cf
.. 'big. Papist Government. Thus vanishes that much
ling . -brig e to. Popery, and that fatal visitation upon the
4040,
P.-otcsiant cause and eler;yy, which was to redres by a single
ten- stionathe wrones of 700 years, and to vindicate the ways of
et.
eternal justice by one overwheimmat crime. 'i
“U 3 evaporates
flint especial boon to Ireland, which Sir Robert Peel was ex-
pelled from power because he was too frank to hold out that
which he was too honest a man to realize, but which the
' Whigs though certain that they could Lever execute,
were base eneugh to promise. And en the non-perfor-
mftlwe of that pledge has
Whiggery thriven for about
three
years. On the dexterous management of hopes and
fears, and popular delusions arising from tint pledge, has Mr.
Daniel O'Connell for three yearn fattened—on the alternate
use of threats and fawning?, towards 'the Treasury has Nir.
Daniel O'Connell succeeded so far as to cotiveet the negative
quantity, the unfulfilled engagement of the Whig Mini4ers,
into the positive quantity (or rather enormity) of corrupt pa-
tronage, as his equivalent, which he punctually exacted, and
exacts to the present hour. Mark, then, amidst the practical
defeats of their threatened enterprises, what has been the pro-
gressive theory of rapine on the part of these worthless men.
They bad heretofore been satisfied with proposing that the

clsrgy should have a rent-charge in lieu of tithe, and now it
turns out that they are to have pensions in hen of rent-charge
—pensioes during the O'Cennell pleasure—such crumbs a;
may fall annually from the table of tle Committee of
wet s and means, but swept away by Mr. Joseph Hume.
on one side, and on the other by 'Mr. Daniel O'Con-i
nett; while. the latter ectsenage, degrading the Protestant,
clergy nit% precarious peesioners, exalts the Rorniih. priest-,
hood into landed proprietors, by turning orrr to therm as the
'ears of a permanent establishment beyond the reach of any
Lion in the House of Commons, these glebes and other ter-
oriel possessions which he will have extorted from the,
inis,ers of the Protestant Church. We may guess Wore-
: nd how likely such a project is to succeed, or to he thought
otherwise than with indignant scorn by any but the. Papist
ho has himself prepared, it. As for the wretched Ministers
ho are deemed to bring it forward, their base consolation is
, dr fore-knowledge of its inevitable failure.- Here, then,
ill pass the fourtli, Session of Parliament without even the
ost minute advance cn the part of the Mell:ouree Ministry
owa-ds the completion of that one measure, the imminent
d instantaneous necessity for which was the single moel
Live alleged by the Whig faction composing that Ministry,l
and by the democratic and Papist factions supporting it,
for' driving Sir Robert Peel from office so long ago as in
April, 1835. They find they are not strong enough fur a se-
rious grapple even with the worried and persecuted Church
of Ireland, which has at length found a powerful,
though tardy, protection in the laws and tribunals of the
realm. Is it much wonder, then, that an open contest with
the mighty Church of England should appal these tricky rind
feeble men, and that they should strive by every rnrieuvre
within reach of them to shuffle off the day of battle with such
an enemy ? Lord John Russell accordingly, instead of pro-
ceeding, at once, as he had promised, towards the settlement
of the Church lease question, which contains materials fer no
small alarm to assailants of a calibre like that of the Noble
Lerch- has given notice that his motion for a Committee on
the subject canrot come on till after Easter I What next?
When is that Committee to report ? Why, if Lord John Rus-
sell's wish shalt prevail, the report wilt be called for the day
after the Greek calends. Our lives for it, if the friends of
the Church in Parliament badger the Noble Lord out of his
skin, he will not suffer the Church Lease Committee to re-
port within the present session. Our lives for it, the unfer-
, getful victim of the Bishop of Exeter will writhe, and roll, and
struggle himself into convulsions before he dares to initiate a
motion fon transferring any surplus which may arise from a
re-arrangement of Bishops' leases to the use of Dissenters, or
to interests in their nature separate from those of the Church
of England. The Noble Lord by this time knows his ground
too well for the voluntary indulgence of such untoward under
takings. We shall see.—Times.
The Hon. Member for Leeds, Mr. E. Baines, last week
gave notice that he would, to-morrow, in the Committee of
the whole House on the First-fruits and Tenths Bill, move for
instruction; to the Committee " to take into consideration the
propriety of abolishing the first-fruits of the clergy in England
and Wales, and for the more effectual rating the better collec-
tion of the tenths, applicable to the maintenance of the poorer
clergy." This motion the Hon. Member for Leeds has post-
poned to the end of the week. The question, however, will
he brought on to-morrow (Tuesday) by a motion of Mr.
James to the following effect :—" Return from the Treasurer
of Queen Anne's bounty of all the moneys he has received
daring the same period as profits of vacaet ecclesiastical digni-
iies and beneficies, and of the manner in which such moneys
have been appropriated, distinguishing the dates and persons
from whom these receipts have come." The combined effect
of the motion of Mr. James, and the instruction of Mr. Baines
will show that, without looking to such a newly-created fend
as the Chancellor of the Exchequer's last year's Bill for.
the supersession of Church-rates proposed, there is another:
fund which may be fairly devoted to the proper diffusion.
of religious instruction; and to the fitting remuneration of
the working body of the clergy. Nay, it would do more than
this : if properly controlled and appropriated, it would cover
the entire expense of the supersession of the Church-rates.e
We refer to Queen Anne's Bounty-fund—the subject of both
motions, that of the Hon. Member for Leeds, and of the Hon.,
Member for Carlisle. Nothing is requisite but honesty in
the great functionaries of the Church Establishment. Theys
have nolhing to do but to fulfil the spirit of the Act of Par-i
liement at the Restoration, and confirmed subsequently in the
time of Queen Anne. That Act requires that every Bishop
should pay the first fruits and tenths of their incomes into the
Exchequer, for the purpose of augmenting the livings of the
poorer clergymen, and for the more respectable maintenance
of them who really and solely supply the " bread of instruction
to the myriads famishing" for it, which Bishop Philpott's
zealot imagination has conjured up. According to the return
of the Ecclesiastical Revenue Commissioners, the annual reve-
nue of the State Church functionaries is 2,000,0001., allowingt
for the small livings discharged from paying the first-fruits and-
tenths by Queen Anne's Act. Now, a tenth' part of the above
sum (the tenth contemplated by the Act) is 200,0001. per annum,
and the first fruits would produce a suns nearly equal to it.
Here we have 400,0001 per annum—a sum which would bee
adequate to supersede Church-rates and provide a surplus of
150,0001. for the ample supply of religious instruction, and for'
the adequate remuneration, of the working clergy. Thai
reader wilt be surpri,ecl to learn what is actually 1;a1•1 by th
Church hi discharge of this just debt. The average su
paid for first-fruits and tenths is no more than 15,000/. p
:annum. The " famishing myriads" are thus robbed of th
" bread of religious instruction" to tlrr a nouLt of 375,00
per annum. By what machinery is this effected? By a finan-
cial slight of hand, of which any individual in private life
would be utterly ashamed. The lien on the ecclesiastical in-
come is paid in the currency of Henry VIII., but the income
is received in the currency of Victoria I. The dignitaries of
the Church Establishment thus blow hot and cull with the
same breath. Let them give and take wiili fair play. Let
them pay their'deb:s in the same
.currency in which they re-
ceive their incomes. This common honesty demands.
Morning Advertiser.
The Ministerial Journals are very naturally displeased with
the majority of 65 in the House of Lords who rejected the
" bit-by-bit" amendment of the Reform Bill introduced by the
authors of that measure, and known by the title of the Parlia-
mentary El, ctors Bill. Ministers and their adherents feel
that this decision of their Lordships is a disagreeable sort of
set-off against the majority cf 29 placemen in the other House
of 1351 liament who, on the morning of the same day, came to
the magnanimous resolution not to vote themselves out of
office. If it can be shown that all the pretences upon which
the Parliamentary Elect ors Bill was founded were false and
fraudulent nothing more can be required to prove that every-
thing connected with its origin, progress, and fate was, in
natural order, that Ministers noted in pin nuance of their proper
vocation in introducing, the House of Commons in adopting,
and the House of Lords in rejecting, it. Now, we confidently
affirm that the fraud and falsei:ood of every one of these pre-
tences may be clearly established. It was pretended, in
the first place, that the Conservative proposal t+ abolish
the tax en the admission of freemen into corporations
naturally suggested anal fully warranted the demand of sonic
c :Ire:Toed:rig neon to the householder class of voters. The
persons who resorted to this argument must have known that
there was no analogy or resemblance whatever between the
two cases, the similarity or rather the identity of which they
effected to assume. The proper equivalent for the house-
holder class of voters to receive in consideration of the remis-
sion of a tax accorded to the freemen class would h ive been
not the questionable privilege of getting deeper into the tax
collector's books, but the riAlui_nion te ' a proportionate extent
offame 'of the taees upon the re griller paymsnt of which their
franchise had been toede t.) thpend. And what beco:nes of
this argument, upon which Ministers at first pretended to rest
their measure, if, in point of fact, the householder class of
voters Lad already, since the enactment of the Reform Bill,
been relieved from the only species of taxation in any manner
affecting the franchise, and were still in the course of receiv-
ing further relief in a degree fir exceeding the measure of re-
lief solicited on behalf of the freemen ? When it is recollected
that the house tax had been remitted since the passing of the Act
which made a certain degree of punctuality in the payment of the
assessed taxes and peer rates essential to the acquisition and
preservation of the suffrage, and when it is also recollected
that the New Poor-law, whatever other effects it may have
produced, had at least, if there be any faith in the reports of
Poor-law Commissioners, effected a great and general dimi-
nution of the assessments for the relief of the poor, it would
seem impossible that men of common sense or ordinary in-
tegrity should have inferred the reasonableness of permitting
household voters to be perpetually in arrear in the payment of
the taxes and the rates, already mitigated as we have seen,
from the applicatiOn to Parliament fur the remission of the tax
chargeable upon freemen en an occasion which occurs to no
man more than once in his life. Anything more absurd than
this would be difficult to imagine, but those who see in it no-
thing worse than absurdity, have a greater fund of charity than
we wish to claim. Then it is pretended that the allowance of
a longer arrears of taxes to the household voter would not have
militated against the principle of the Reform Bill. But what is
the principle of the Reform Bill ? We suppose that what deter-
mines the class of society to which shall belong the right of
electing the popular branch of a mixed Legislature must
be deemed one of the essential principles of a measure
intended to model or remodel a representative Constitution.
Now, it is admitted by the advocates of taxes in arrear that
the Parliamentary Electors Bill is only desirable inasmuch as
it would increase the aggregate number of voters by the ad-
mission into that chats of a multitude of persons either so poor
as to find it inconvenient to pay their rates and taxes at the
time specified by the Act as it stands, or so indifferent to the
possession
of the franchise as to think it riot worth obtaining at
the expence of ordinary punctuality--a multitude of persons,
in other word, less qualified by their circumstances, charac-
ters, or habits than the rest of their fellow-citizens for the im-
portant office of selecting the national Representatives, and
intended, therefore, by the Reform Bill to be excluded from
that office. Such is the kind of reasoning, for refusing .o
listen to which writ :Ts in the service of a defeated and de--
graded, an inconsistent and profligate Administration, p esume
to censure the House of Lerds. Again, it is pretended that the
House of Lords, in refusing its sanction to the Ministerial
project for altering the Reform Bill, virtually admits that a
measure which while under discussion it steadily and vigo-
rously opposed, is so excellent and perfect a measure as to be
incapable of improvement. The absurdity of this pretence is
an manifest that it is extremely difficult to believe it can have
imposed even upon those by whom it is advanced. It would
apply to a Bill establishing Universal Suffrage and the Vote
by Ballot, or to a Bill repealing the Reform Act altogether,
quite .; well as it applies to the Parliameatary Electors Bill.
The Conseeeatiye party in both Houses of Parliament,
oppose any tinkering pf the Reform Bill—not iwcatts^
1 thdy think, even now, that that measure was a
good and wise, much less a perfect, one—but, because
tlney do not aril* that any tinkering it can now un-
dergo, is likely to improve it, because, with all its imper-
fections, it is gradually working, as any other measure on the
same subject must have done, towards a wholesome assirnil4-

TRE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY., MARCH 12, 1838.

ticm with the Constitution, the priticples, the t::mper, and the
habits of British scciety ; because they will not so far yield to
the temptations of discrediting a measure which they disap-
rovc,l and opposed r.s to assist in interrupting or retarding a
proce,,s of which they alone of the statesmen of Gr:.at Britain
undcrstc,nd and appreciate the vain a.id becaue they deem
it, in the Li.r..;hcst degree, pernicious to the well-being of a
State ant its institulions . should, ty th,..evil precedents of
cont,nual mutation, assume the ch;,ract.:r of hopeless and
cureless irritability, and be degraded into the cheap and un-
valued toys of accident or passion.--Morning Post.