The Sun.
London, England, 1831-11-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is pretty positively asserted by our contempo-
rary of the Globe, that Parliament will not re-as-
semble till January. People will anxiously demand
the reason of this delay. Is it to give time for the
completion of that negociation which is pending
between Lord Grey, and Lords ilarrowby and
Wharncliffe, on the subject of a modified Bill of Re-
form ? The country is observing the movements of
Ministers with scrutinizing vigilance, and will visit
with unsparing indignation any compromise of prin-
ciple. It may be right, it may be honourable, for
Lords Wharncliffe and Harrowby to make large
concessions in favour of Reform : their change is
from bad to good—from erroneous opinion to rea-
son and justice ; and every body will applaud
their conversion. But what will be said of
the Ministers, if, after their reiterated decla-
rations, both in Parliament and out of it, they
consent to surrender a single vital principle of
the Bill ? We are aware that the crisis is most im-
portant—the emergency most momentous; but it is
on such occasions that great qualities are exhibited,
and the weak and timid are distinguished from the
constant-minded and the courageous. A short time
will demonstrate whether Lord Grey and his col-
leagues are equal to the crisis, and who, if any of
them, are wanting in the abilities and firmness to
face and overcome the difficulties of their position.
Lord Grey has, by his long and undeviating adhe-
rence to the cause of Reoerm, given no trifling
pledge that he cannot, at this late hour, consent to
any act which will obliterate the fair fame of up-
wards of 40 years' duration. There are, however,
those who say that the Lord Chancellor, notwith-
standi:ng his eminent abilities, may, from his profes-
sional habits, be less disposed than the Premier to a
pertinacious tenacity of opinion, even on such a sub-
ject as Reform. We know not on what grounds such
persons found their suspicion. True it is that the
legal profession has not been fertile in statesmen—
that its habits of thinking are calculated, as Burke
has remarked, to narrow even the most compre-
hensive understanding, and to generate prejudices
in the most enlightened mind. Of all the great
lawyers who have adorned the English bench or bar
for the two last centuries, Lords Somers and Cam-
den are the rare exceptions which can be quoted in
contradiction to Burke's general, and in the main
most just, observation. Ia Lord Brougham also an
exception ? We think he is : but we know that it is
said that he has on more than one occasion exhibited
the peculiar modes of thinking which characterise
the body of men among whom he has been bred.
It is argued on such data that Lord Brougham may
consent to a modified and diluted measure, which
Lord Grey, with a sterner sense of consistency,
would at once reject. But we repudiate the suppo-
sition with disdain. Lord Brougham cannot be a
party to any arrangement which will injure a repu-
tation which must be as dear to him as it is to the
nation at large. We wait, therefore, though not
without some impatience, for the particulars and
conditions of that coalition which is in progress, be-
fore we express ourselves more explicitly on this in-
finitely important subject.—Times.
To-day the Ministers will lay before his Majesty
the result of Saturday's Council, and tender him
their advice with respect to the re-assembling of
Parliament. Before our next publication then-fore
appears, it must be officially known whether the ses-
sion is to commence on the 10th or 12th of the en-
suing month, or to be postponed till after the
Christmas holidays;—whether, in other words, we
are to have six or seven weeks more excitement
and agitation, or whether the nation is to be soothed
into hope by the more immediate concession of those
claims which all but the boroughmongers admit to
be right, and which even many of them acknowledge
to be irresistible. No mere question of time, which
we remember in histoiy, was ever more important
to the best interests and the tranquillity of a
State; and yet, to patriotism, integrity, and energy,
none, we think, was ever more simple, or of more
easy solution. If the great measure is sure to be
carried by despatch and promptitude, and nothing
can be gained by delay, what reason can be assigned
for keeping up for nearly two months longer the
existing fermentation of the public mind,—an
excitement which obstructs all commercial business,
_—paralyses all useful enterprise,—destroys all inte-
rest in the common events, or relish for the every
day enjoyments of life,—furnishes daily temptations
to factious violence,—arrays against even the best
institutions of the country (as now perverted by
their natural guardians) popular dissatisfaction and
physical force,—and weakens our influence among
foreign nations, by inviting their attention to our in-
tenstine divisions ? It cannot be pretended that the
Bill itself is not forthcoming, or that its provisions
require further deliberation ; for we want no Bill
trot the last, and, what is more, we will receive none
Isoo'solt does not embody all its efficiency and energy,
its extent of disfranchisement,—and all its
concessions of new suffrage. It cannot be said that
the Members of Parliament require repose after
recent labours, for they have already enjoyed a
sufficient recess, And must not consult their
ease at the expense of the public tranquillity,
or to the detriment of the national interests.
It cannot be presumed that Ministers expect
their friends to be multiplied, or their enemies
weakened by delay ;—for their friends are already
the King and the nation, and their antagonists
;ably a small band of voters with proxies in the
House of Peers. We hear from the antagonists of
the Bill, that it is stamped with a revolutionary cha-
racter, and has a republican tendency. In what, we
ask, does its democratic tendency consist ? Does it
interfere with the titles or legitimate privileges of
the nobility ? Does it ptofess to curtail the proper
influence of wealth, or to regulate the amount of in-
dividual fortune ? Does it abolish the law of pri-
mogeniture, or lessen the splendour of the Crown,
:rid the rights of the Sovereign ? No ; in all these
relosects it is obviously innocent, for it has not a
sinpls c:euse which can by possibility be perverted
into an attach on any person or institution connected
with the Aristocracy or with the throne. The Re-
form Bill—(it cannot be too often repeated) has
only two objecta.to disfranchise wholly or in part
(conveying their rights to large towns or popular dis-
tricts) a certain number of boroughs whose Members,
in the opinion of every man of common sense, it
would be a mockery to call represeetatives of the
people, and to extend the right of suffrage, by con-
necting it in towns and boroughs with the oc.
eupation of a house of 101. annual rent or value.
In which of these great provisions is the
revolutionary or democratic tendency of the
measure to be found? Is it revolutionary to de-
clare that Corfe Castle and Old Sarum—together
with some sixty other places without inhabitants, or
with a handful of slaves voting at the eeill of a mas-
ter—shall no longer continue to send delegates to an
assembly which pretends to represent the people of
England ? Is it equivalent to a revolution to cor-
rect quietly an anomaly by which, for instance, the
three counties of Cornwall, Wiltshire, and Dorset-
shire, with their brood of rotten boroughs, return
nearly one-fourth of the representatives of England,
without having one-twentieth part of the population,
or paying one-fortieth part of the taxation, of the
country ? Yet thus stands the account in some of
the official documents before us :—Cornwall sends
42 Members to St. Stephen's : its population is
257,447, and its assessed taxes 30,9031. VY ilts is
endowed with 34 representatives, while its popula-
tion is 222,157, and its assessment 50,0241.; and
Dorseishire, with a population of only 114,499, and
assessed taxes to the amount of 36,9411., has the
happiness of yielding 20 legislators to the great
council of the nation. Thus these three counties
send to Parliament 96 Members frem a population
of 624,102, and contribute only in its assessed taxes
116,8681.; while the county of Middlesex alone,
which sends only eight Members to Parliament, has,
by the same returns, a population of 1,144,530,
and pays in assessed taxes 1,250,3001. ! The
contrast is more striking, and the consequent
absurdity more intolerable, when we take, as the
test of a respectable population, the number of

t house' paying a certain moierate rate. Thus the
prodigally represented Cornwall has only 2,852 in-
habitants paying a rent of 10/. a year, to divide
among them the privilege of sending 42 senators to
the Ilouse of Commons, and exclusive of the houses
in the county, the number of 10/. householders who
send 40 Members to Parliament is only 1,001—
thus giving to every 25 persons a representative, or
making senators at the rate of 4 per cent. of the
• 101. householders. \%Tilts has for its 32 borough
Members only 1,493 10/. householders; and Dorset
for its 18 Members only 1,459, making altogether
for 90 borough Members less than 4,000 house-
holders, occupying tenements of 10/. annual value;
while in the single town of Liverpool, which sends
only two Members to Parliament, the number of
10/. licuseholders amounts to 8,789, and Birming-
. ham, which sends none at all, to 4,561. In this
statement we omit all allusion to that abominable
abuse, direct nomination and patronage, and take
the most favourable view of the case, by supposing
that the right of electing the 90 Members for the
boroughs of these three counties exists in the very
' democratic body of 10/. householders, of whom the
boroughmongers and their friends profess :to stand
in such profound terror. And we ask again, is it
revolutionary to propose a more equal distribution
of the right of suffrage to the same class of people
over the surface of England ? We might go on
' to show that the proposed measure is as far from
being distinguished by democratic tendencies, or
embracing universal suffrage, as it is free from a
revolutionary character,—that the 10/. qualification
will in most cases, where electoral privileges are
already enjoyed, reduce the number of voters, in-
deed of increasing it,—that in the 26 new extra-
metropolitan towns which will be admitted to share
the representation, there will be only about 60,000
voters; and that in almost no case will the electors
exceed 1-20th of the population. But this topic,
together with the effect of the Reform Bill in ex-
tending rather than diminishing the influence of the
landed interest, we must postpone to another op-
portunity.
In the mean time we must again repel
the charge, or denounce the calumny, so often ad-
vanced by the boroughmongers and their advocates,
that the supporters of Reform are the abettors of
revolution. This falsehood we have a thousand
times exposed,—and as often have we shown that
our accusers are the real revolutionists,—that the
nation cannot abandon its opinions to a handful of
Peers, whose patent of infallibility it has never
signed,—and that the people must obtain their
rights by concession, or will takethem by force. The
information which has been spread on the enormities
of the borough system, and the ideas which have
been acquired of the justice and necessity of a
change, since the commencement of the present
discussions, must lead to a speedy correction of
abuses against a force ten thousand times greater
than that of all the owners and partisans of borough
influence. Property without political privilege, and
political privilege without property,--large classes of
men of respectable station and independent means
disfranchised of rights which their inferiors abuse or
their superiors usurp,—t he general diffusion of poli-
tical knowledge and the most galling monopoly of
political power,—the iniquities of the borough sys-
tem and the general acknowledgement of them in
the nation,—cannot by any possibility much longer
co-exist. If such anomalous and absurd oppres-
sions were to be continued, they ought not to have
been exposed with so unsparing a hand. It was not
only to cause a great danger, but to commit great
crime, to carry the torch of truth into the depths of '
political corruption, unless means were to be imme-
. _

..liately taken to clear away the infiammableimpuritie..
Detected oppression has its fire-damp more terrible
thln that of the mines--and in carrying light to its
dark recesses, nothing but the safety. lamp of Reform
can guard us against an explosion !—Times.
This day it will be decided whether Parliament

meets in the beginning of December or is prorogued
till next year. We need not repeat what our wishes
are. In fact, we hold longer delay in the present
temper of the nation to be pregnant with danger.
It is impossible to make people comprehend why it
should be necessary to delay a measure which can
only be carried in one of two ways, and for carrying
which the same moans exist now which would exist

after the new year has commenced. But if it be
impossible that more means for carrying the Bill
could be commanded in the end of January than in
the beginning of December, it is by no means im-
possible that fewer means should then be at the
command of Ministers. We have so often alluded

to the danger with which delay is pregnant, that it
is not necessary we should now repeat ourselves by
enlarging on the subject. Ministers are supported
tkroughout the country by a class of men, who do
them more injury than any enemies could possibly
do. These men are constantly calling out, why will
you not repose the most ample confidence in Mini-
sters ? They must be the best judges of the time
when the Reform Bill can be introduced with the
best hopes of success; and you are inconsistent, if,
while you have confidence in the honesty of their
intentions, you do not also confide in them as to the
means for giving effect to them. But this is not
altogether fair. There is a partnership between
Ministers and the people in this business. Ministers
call upon the people to play their part in the great
drama of Reform now acting. It is admitted that
without constant agitation no progress could be
made. The moment people settle down to their
usual pursuits, the Tories call out " Re-action,"
" Indifference." If the people had nothing to do
with this business but to look on till Ministers fa-
voured them with the blessing of Reform, there
might be some justice in objecting to their impa-
tience. But the people are suffering, and suffering
severely, from the share in the drama which has
been allotted to them. Under such circumstances,
it is natural they should be impatient of being moved
like mere puppets—that as, after all, it is the force
which Ministers receive from the nation which gives
them their efficiency, they would wish to know
when the people have played their part of the game,
Ministers should not be equally ready to play theirs.
These supporters, too, have the folly and the pre-
sumption to talk of the injury done to Ministers by
the Press. Thus, for instance, at the Lincolnshire
meeting, Sir Robert Heron thought fit to say—
" The Press of the country had done a great deal of
mischief.--(Loud cheers, and cries of A great deal of
good you mean ! ') He, (Sir Robert Heron) admitted that
the country was under infinite obligations to the in-
dustry and talent of the Press; but there was one point
on which he could not but think it bad done a great deal
of mischief ; that it was goading, and urging, and threat-
ening the Peers. Englishmen did not like to be menaced ;
and he had no hesitation in saying, that in consequence of
the conduct, pursued by. the Press, a great many votes
which would have been in favour of Reform, had been en-
tirely lost to the cause.—(Cheers, and ci ies of No.')"
This is not the first time we have heard this
twaddle. A great many votes which would have
been in favour of Reform had been entirely lost to
the cause, because, forsooth, Englishmen did not
like to be menaced ! That is, that there are a great
many brutes (for rational beings we cannot call
them) who did what in their conscience they be-
lieved to be wrong, to show, that when menace was
used towards them, they were not afraid of doing
wrong. Admirable logic ! These men ought, on the
same principle, to commit murder and burglary, to
show that they are not to be intimidated by the threats
of the law. They ought to commit the sin against
the Holy Ghost, because they are not to be inti-
midated by the threats of eternal punishment. Sir
Robert Heron is an old woman if he believes this,
and worse if he states what he does not believe. No
votes were lost either on this occasion or on the
occasion of the trial of Queen Caroline by menace;
but in both many votes were gained by it. Pretty
Legislators and Judges! What would be thought
of a Jury which should convict an innocent man of
a capital crime, because a menace was held out that
it durst not acquit him ? Sir Robert grossly libels
the House of Lords in attributing to a great many
Peers the commission of injustice for fear lest they
should be thought to be under the influence of fear.
We think better of him than this. We believe that
many of them are selfish, and actuated by corrupt

motives, but we do not believe that they act on such
foolish grounds as are imputed to them.—/Iforning
Chronicle.
The late county meetings at Lincoln and in Cum-
berland require more than a passing notice. If ever
"an outward and visible sign" were indicative of
the " inward and spiritual feeling" of the people to-
wards the Church, it was there displayed. In Lin-
coln especially the manifestations were marked and
decisive. Within less than a stone-throw from that
majestic pile the wonder and admiration of all so-
journers in the ancient Linduni—the Cathedral
Church of Lincoln, the people were exclaiming, and
could not be prevailed upon to cease exclaiming,
" Down, down with the Bishops 1" In vain such
men as Mr. Tennyson, Sir Robert Heron, Sir Wil-
liam Ingilby, anti others, who have long been the
most popular men in the county, tried to arrest the
current—in vain the first-mentioned gentleman re-
minded the freeholders that their present and sole
object was to Reform the House of Commons, and
nor, neglectful of that, to direct their energies to an
alteration of the constitution of the House of Lords.
Eminently popular as lie was, the appeal was as un-
heeded as the command of Canute to the ocean.
A thirst to punish " wickedness in high places,"
had displaced the demand for the restoration of
usurped rights. The zeal against the borough-
mongers was merged and swallowed up in the
7.e al against the Bishops. Well, if it must be
so, it must—the Bishops have only themselves to
thank for it; they have drawn down an avalanche
upon their mitres, and they have to look for " de-
fenders of the faith" uow-a.days to those sound and
consistent Reformers whom they have all their lives
opposed. Mr. Tennyson gallantly threw himself
into the breach, not perhaps so much to save them
as to save the people from the consequencea of this
missdirection of their energies, and to save also the
Government from the possible supposition (he being
a member of it, and present when the resolution
against the Bishops was proposed), that they con.
templated more than they were pledged to perform,
via., the ,:fecting of a thorough Reform in the
House of Commons, We were, however, very glad
to perceive that the meeting was not so far over-
come by their indignation against the Bishops as to
prevent unanimity in voting the address, and after-
wards a resolution of perfect confidence is Govern-
ment. The great object of the patriotic promoters
of the meeting was effected, though we should have
been better pleased had the sound and sensible ad-
vice of Mr. Tennyson prevailed, and the single and
permanent object kept strictly in view, " the Bill,
and nothing but the Bill." We understand that it was
stated at the meeting there were on the hustings
the possessors of more property than were ever be-
fore collected at a county meeting in Lincoln.
There were five Members of Parliament, four Ba-
ronets, and several scores of Justices of the Peace,
a very pretty proof of " rabble" and " re-action."
—Morning Chronicle.
The accounts of the events by which the second
city in the kingdom was delivered up to the misrule
of a riotous mob, arid exposed for a considerable
time to all the horrors of anarchy and devastation,
should not have been in London 24 hours before
Government sent down a Commission of Inquiry to
make the most full, searching, and impartial exami-
nation into the origin and progress of those disgrace-
ful transactions, which appeared so seriously to com-
promise the local authorities. Government should
not have waited for the inhabitants of Bristol, or
any other of the King's subjects, to demand that in-
quiry ; it should have closely followed the intelli-
gence of the events, as an act of imperative duty
which the servants of the Crown owed to the laws,
the Sovereign, and the country. While Ministers
who could not see their way clearly in a matter in
which there was but one sound and rational course
to pursue, and that a plain► and obvious one, hesitated,
deliberated, and decided nothing, the inhabitants of
Bristol continued to press them, through their repre-
sentatives, for a definitive ,answer to their demand
for investigation. More than a fortnight elapsed
from the termination of the riots before Mi-
nisters could resolve on what they were to
do. Much negociation took place between
Mr. Protheroe and Mr. Bailie on one side,
and Lords Althorp and Melbourne on the other,
relative to the simple question, " whether
an impartial inquiry ought to be instituted into the
conduct of the Magistracy and others, to whom ►he
preservation of the public peace, and the protection
of the lives anti property of the King's subjects, had
been intrusted ?" But though various official com-
munications took place, and many Cabinet Councils
were held, the diplomatic notes written upon the occa-
sion were as evasive and unsatisfactory as some of the
protocols of the London branch of the Holy Alliance,
which, under the name of the Conference of the
Five Powers, has been for nearly a twelvemonth
" settling" the affairs of Belgium and Holland in a
way that must eventually render them more un-
settled than ever. In the meantime the public did
not know that the Mayor arid Magistrates of Bristol
had themselves demanded an investigation, and had,
as early as the 4th of November, forwarded to Lord
Melbourne and the Commander of the Forces certain
documents, containing their own narrative of the
dreadful events which had cost the sacrifice of
so much life and property before the mob, who
had been allowed, in the most extraordinary
manner, to gain a complete ascendancy for a time,
had been reduced by the application of military
force. These documents, as the public are now
aware, seriously inculpated Colonel Brereton, the
officer commanding the troops during the riots. If ,
these charges were true, they would go far to ac-
count for the audacity of the rioters, and the con-
sequent calamities, both to themselves and others,
which ensued. If false, it was due to the character
of Colonel Brereton, and it was due to the charac-
ter of the army, that the opportunity should have
been afforded for their immediate refutation. Ten
days, however, having elapsed, and the important
statements forwarded to Government, under the
signature of the Mayor, having produced no result,
the Mayor and Magistrates thought it proper to for-
ward copies of those papers to a Bristol Journal for
publication. This publication has been followed by
the appointment of a Court of Military Inquiry into
the charges against Col. Brereton. We wish not to
prejudge the case of the gallant officer upon ex-parte
statements; we must hear the statements on the oilier
side, and the evidence on both, before we can form
an opinion. But there is one important point con-
nected with this affair on which we can form an
opinion, and that is, that, instead of this Court of
Inquiry being a close Court, it ought to have been
an open one, because accurate reports would have
reached the public through the Press of what passes
there, instead of the false or exaggerated rumours
which will now be circulated; and also because ho-
nesty and truth fear nothing from disclosure. Titus
it would appear that the publication of the documents
signed by the Mayor had the effect of inducing Go-
vernment to appoint a Court of Military Inquiry ;
but with regard to the civil inquiry demanded by the
inhabitants, it has at length received an answer from
Lord Melbourne, which amounts pretty nearly to
nothing. His Lordship takes a very circuitous way
of telling the memorialists that they are at liberty to
forward to Government any information which they
choose to collect and transmit, and which will be
submitted to " those advisers who are the most corn-
petent to decide on its import and bearing," with a
view to legal or to legislative proceedings, as one or
other may be thought most applicable to the case. His
Lordship then goes on to say, " I am not aware of
any other course being open, either to Government
or to individuals, which would be sanctioned by pre-
cedent in this country, or conformable to the laws
and Constitution." It is, therefore evident that
there is to be no Commission of Inquiry emanating
from the executive power of the State. He would
say that if there were no precedent for a Commis-
sion of Inquiry issuing from the Crown, on such an
occasion, there were peculiar circumstances connected
with this case which justified the creation of a pre-
cedent. Can Lord Melbourne show that a similar
demand was ever made by the inhabitants of any
city in England that had suffered calamities like those

which have befallen Bristol, and rifused? We
think not. The inhabitants accuse the Magistrates
of supineness, or worse ; and the Magistrates recrimi-
nate upon the inhabitants. Can the statements of
either party be supposed to be free from the colour-
ing of their respective party feelings ? Can they,
therefore, furnish satisfactory materials for Govern-
ment to take any ulterior proceedings upon ? Surely
not. If Government wanted a precedent for ap-
pointing a Commission of their own to collect infor-
mation on the spot, they would have found it in the
Newtownbarry case. There they sent down a Com-
missioner to investigate the circumstances connected
with another dreadful instance of popular tumult
and military execution. Were the disasters at
Bristol, and the causes which led:to them, of inferior
importance ?—.Morning Herald.
Whatever may have been the determination
adopted by the Cabinet Council, which was held on
Saturday, or whatever may be the resolution
adopted by the Council, which, it is said, is to be
held this day at Brighton, respecting the meeting of
Pa:liamentfor the despatch of business, and the cre-
ation of a sufficient number of Peers to carry the
Reform Bill as triumphantly through the House of
Lords, on its second appearance for their Lordships'
approval, as it passed through the House of Com-
mons, his Majesty's Minister: may rely, on the one
hand, and the boroughenongas may rely, on the
other, that the country will have the Bill, and the
whole Bill; and that whatever may be their joint
wills upon the subject, if the constitutional means
of granting it, which are at the disposal of the
Crown, and ought to be at the disposal of his Ma-
jesty's :Ministers, be not successfully employed, the
people—a term in which we include all classes of
his Majesty's subjects—will have recourse to others
of a less mild, but more efficient and certain
nature, for effecting the same purpose. Every day's
experience convinces us more and more of this im-
portant fact. Instead of there being a re-action in
favour of anti-reform principles, there is daily exhi-
bited a more zealous, a more intense, a more deter-
mined spirit in favour of the Bill. The people have
now met in almost every city, town, and county of
the united kingdom—and every meeting has exhi-
bited a greater eagerness for the Bill—a more tho-
rough hatred of the principles of those who opposed
it—a more sweeping spirit of Reform in Church
and State—in taxation, and in the expenditure of the
public money. The whole country also, by the insane
conduct of the 199, has been driven into the adop-
tion of a most unnatural system—a system of uni-
versal combination for obtaining that for itself
which a wise and a good Government, and as firm
and decisive as good, would have taken means to
insure to it before things had come to such a pass.
The " Political Unions" are taking root every
where—many of them are already in full vigour, and
many more are in the course of formation; and does
any one think that these Unions, armed or unarmed,
would not, in ease of a second rejection of the Bill,
have recourse to means which could not fail to give
a new Constitution to the country, instead of the
mere provisions of the Reform Bill ? The great
county of Lincoln met on Friday, and its resolu-
tions fully bear out these remarks. Among others
passed by it, one, not of the least remarkable, was
the following :
" We reflect with indignation upon the conduct pursued
by a majority of the hereditary Peers in rejecting the Re-
form Bill. This conduct we ascribe to faction, self-
interest, and thirst of immoderate power.—(Tremendous
cheering.) For the conduct of the Spiritual Peers we
entertain a feeling which no language can adequately ex-
press.—(Loud cheers.) We are firmly of opinion that in
order to secure the right of the Crown and the liberties
of the people, faction must be suppressed, and mal-appro-
priation of public money be corrected, and ecclesiastics
confined to their spiritual functions.—(Loud cheers.)"
There was scarcely any opposition to this strong,
but just resolution; and are we not right, therefore,
in saying that the principles of the Reform Bill, in-
stead of being given up by the public, are daily ex-
hibiting a more vigorous growth, and taking deeper
root in the minds of Englishmen ? The great dis-
trict of Lambeth meets also on Wednesday, at the
Horns Tavern, for the purpose of forming a Politi-
cal Union, of which the basis has been already laid
at a preliminary meeting, by agreeing that its object
shall be—
" 1. To obtain a full, free, and effectual representation
of the people in the Commons House of Parliament.

" 2. To support the King and his Ministers against a
corrupt faction, in accomplishing their great measure of
Parliamentary Reform.

" 3. To join every well-wisher to his country, from the
richest to the poorest in this parish, in the pursuit of such
important object.

' "4. To preserve peace and order in the parish, and to
guard against any convulsion which the enemies of the
people may endeavour to bring about.
" 5. To give opportunities, by frequent public discus-
sion, for eliciting the best means by which the above ob•
jects may he carried into execution."
We shall see of course what are the results of the
meeting. We have no doubt that it will be numer-
ously and most respectably attended, and we have as
little doubt that a considerable infusion of greater
vigour into the principles proposed as the basis of
the Union will be the result. But whatever may be
the result, there is assuredly enough in the resolu-
tions adopted by all the county meetings which have
yet been held—in the resolutions of the town and
city meetings—in the formation of Unions through-
out every part of the country—in the secret deter-
mination of some to arm, and to be prepared for a
crisis, and of others not to pay taxes, to induce the
boroughmongers, on the one hand, to cast aside their
opposition to the united will of the people, and to
determine his Majesty's Government, on the other,
to save their country from the possibility of a civil
convulsion, by putting in force those constitutional
prerogatives of the Crown which are alone sufficient
to effect that and every other end and object which
is desirable at the present crisis. The ball is at their
foot—their opponents are as nothing, and if they do
not drive it home—on them, and on them only, will
rest the disgrace,—the shame,—and the sin.—
Morning Advertiser.
We have not heard very lately what progress Sir
Francis Burdett, and the other tools of the Whig
'Ministry, are making in the organization of their
select Political Union, and cannot but suspect that
the silence which is maintained upon the subject is
an indication of any thing rather than success. There
is something inexpressibly ridiculous in the notion
which this feeble and conceited knot of individuals
seem to entertain, that they are qualified to pre-
scribe a limit to the course of revolution, and that
they possess the high authority which will entitle
them to say that, when once set in motion, it shall
stop at the precise point which is most satisfactory
to them. Who can sufficiently despise the vanity,
presumption, and arrogance of men who undertake
the task at once of levelling all the social and po-
litical distinctions which separate them from their
superiors, and of maintaining all the social and
political distinctions to which they happen to be
indebted for a degree of influence and power
greater than is enjoyed by the inferior classes of
their fellow-subjects? This presents to our minds
the beau ideal of despicable tyranny. There could
indeed be no stronger proof that the British Con-
stitution had entirely failed to accomplish the main
purpose, and to sustain the most infallible test of a
free Constitution, in communicating to the nation
subject to its influence the spirit and temper of free-
men, and that, therefore, its overthrow would be a
blessing to mankind, than would have been afforded
by the fact, that the insolent pretensions of these
Reformers, who seek to place a monopoly of politi-
cal power in the hands of their own class to the
exclusion of all others, had excited no suitable
expression of indignation from the classes to whom
this kind of Reform would be a deep injury and a
gross insult. We are happy to perceive that no
such insensibility to injury and insult can be charged
upon the lo.ver orders of the British nation, and that
no such grievous impeachment can lie against the
institutions by which the national character has
been formed and maintained. From the mass of
evidence which lays before us of the contempt
in which the shop-keeping class of Reformers are
held by the more dangerous, more revolutionary, but

tea thousand times more honest, consistent, and re-
{ spectable Reformers of the lower orders, we shall,
• for the present, content ourselves with presenting
r to our readers the following specimen. It consists
. of extracts from a leading urticle which has recently
appeared in the Birmingham Herald, the organ of
• the famous Political Union of which Mr. Attwood,
a staunch supporter of " the Bill," would wish the
. world to think he is the head. After exposing the
• tricks and manoeuvres of the Westminster shop-
. ocracy, the writer proceeds thus
" They do not deny that one of the chief, indeed the
main, object of the National Union, is to enable the
King's Government to pass an efficient Bill of Reform.
Do they object to this ? They say not. Why, then, play
into the hands of the Anti-Reformers by gratuitously
creating schisms am,.ng the Reformers ? Oh,' say the
Westminster electors, ' the members of the National
Union are revolutionists, not Reformers. They have ul-
sferior objects in view, and are propagators of wild theories
of Government.' By this they mean, of course, that Mr.
Wakley and his friends—though professedly supporters of
the late Ministerial Bill—are in heart the advocates of
universal suffrace, short Parliaments, and the vote by bal-
lot. These are what Burdett's constituents called ' wild
theories of Government,' but what we call essential ele-
ments of a just representative Government. Let any man
of common sense and common honesty but read the last
number of Cobbett's Register, or of the Twopenny
Trash, and having well marked, learned, and inwardly
digested' the contents of that excellent little tract, if he
be not then convinced that the working classes of England
have as clear and as indefeasible a right to be represented
in Parliament as the Westminster electors themselves, we
shall abandon their cause forever. Indeed it requires not
a Cobbett or a Cartwright, nor any other apostle of uni-
versal suffrage, to convince us of this truth."
And again—
" Are the electors of Westminster so stupid as to sup-
pose that the working-people in London will not see
through the thin disguise they have thrown around their
professed motives and proceedings? That they will not,
for instance, ascribe their defection from the ranks of the
National Unionists to mean jealousy and mortifiei spirit,
because Mr. Wakley's resolution, giving to the work-
ing classes the election of one-half of the members of
the Council, was carried, in despite of their opposition,
and that of their equivocal leader, Burdett ? Do they sup-
pose that the working-people will not entertain vindictive
and distrustful feelings towards those who evince such
jealousy of their rights, and so little of sympathy in their
wrongs ?—Talk of Hunt dividing the Reformers, indeed !
Here is dividing them with a vengeance. With what face
can these middle men of Westminster point to the physical
power of the millions, by way of intimidating the oli-
garchy into a concession of popular Reform, when at the
same time they virtually inform these millions that they
must not expect this Reform ever to extend to them? Do
they suppose that these millions would fight for the rights
of the middle classes, and not fight for their own ? or that
having achieved the restoration of their long-usurped fran-
chisee fur the middle men, they would ingloriously bend
their necks to the yoke of such petty upstart despots as the
electors of Westminster? Oh no ! The working-people
would one thousand times rather have back the dethroned
boroughtnongers than bethe pitiful vassals of a huckstering,
meney.changing aristocracy of factors, ironmongers, and
vile attorneys."

These are the sentiments of the Birmingham
Union—of that Uuion to which Sir Francis Burdett
triumphantly referred, as an example, when he at-
tempted to defeat Mr. Wakley's motion with re-
spect to the composition of the Council of the Me-
tropolitan Union. It is good that the Reformers
should begin to understand each other, if it were
only to prevent the possibility of such deplorable
mistakes as that of the foolish Westminster Baronet,
and that the British nation, or that large majority of
it who are not desirous of revolution, should under-
stand the feelings of the only class of Reformers
who can be considered as in the slightest degree
formidable, if it were only to guard them from the
deplorable mistake of supposing that the success of
the Bill can by possibility allay the political ferment
which Ministers have so strenuously laboured to ex-
cite. Lest it should be imagined that the above
quotations express merely the sentiments of an in-
dividual journalist, it is proper to state that the
editor of the paper from which they are taken wa.
nomina•ed immediately after their appearance, and
was to be elected with all the speed of which the
rules of the association admit, a member of the
Council of the Birmingham Political Union.—.Morn-
lug Post.