The Sun.
London, England, 1831-04-23 00:00:00

hack to the pro( eedit.ga of the expired or expiring
Parliament, we do not, upon the wholei ace Much
reason to regret its preMetUre and sudden dissolu-
tion. it tan never be forgotten that it was this Par-
liament which expelled from office the conservative
Administration of the Duke of Wellington, and in-
stalled in power the revolutionary Administration of
Earl Grey. Nor can wt deina it an tinstlitable rc-
?ribution fot this act of thoughtlessness and folly,
that the Patna Mont should be the first victim of the
Revolutionist Ministers it had created, when it re-
fused to be implicitly guided by them in the dan-
gerous career of Revolution. But it is impossible
to speak in terms of adequate indignation of the
men who have deliberately condemned this country,
and, above all, Ireland, to a severe and alarming
crisis of agitation, strife, turmoil, and danger, merely
for the sake of retaining office a month or six weeks
longer, although we entertain a very confident ex-
pectation that thejesult of the approaching General
Election will be to give us a Parliament incom-
parably more firm, ardent, and uncompromising in
the defence of the Constitution of England—a Par-
liament representing with far greater fidelity the pro-
perty, intelligence, and patriotism of the land, than
that which Ministers, from this selfish and despicable
motive, have so unceremoniouslv dismissed. The
Regency Bill—a measure which, in common with
the country, we sincerely hope may never come into
actual operation—was the first important Act of the
late Parliament, and we think we do not err when
we say that this is the only positive enactment on
which any claim can be advanced on its behalf
to the gratitude of the country. This Act
was framed with an anxious regard to the security
of the throne, to the welfare and dignity of the
Royal Family, and to the satisfaction of the nation,
by the Duke of Wellington's Administration; and
how well it is calculated to attain its important ob-
jects may be gathered from the remarkable fact,
that its progress through its final stages in Parliament
took place under the auspices of a rival and jealous
Ministry, without an attempt to make the slightest
alteration either in its principles or its details. The
settlement of the Civil List, on the accession of a
new Sovereign, was another of the important duties
which devolved upon the late Parliament ; and it
vet,; in the discharge of this duty that Parliament
thought proper to ivithdraw its confidence from the
late and bewow it upon the present Ministers. It
is to be lamented, that in consequence of this trans-
fer of Parliamentary confidence, the Crown has
been deprived of a portion of its former indepen-
dence, and reduced to the necessity of an annual
application to the House of Commons for some im-
portant branches of the civil expenditure of the
State, always granted heretofore for the life of the
reigning Sovereign. Another consequence of this
transfer is still more to be lamented. The House
of Commons has been induced to pledge itself to re-
duce considerably the pension fund, the fund of
Royal bounty, at some future and uncertain period,
as the lives of the present pensioners may happen to
Ell in ; while, by a dexterous juggle, the present
Ministers, the authors of this prospective economy,
have secured to themselves, for a much longer period
than they can hope to retain office, the enjoyment of
unimpaired patronage in the nomination of new pen-
sioners. A third consequence of this transfer of
Parliamentary confidence we suppose many of those
who had the chief hand in promoting it lament a
great deal more than we do : it is the event of
yesterday. The Regency and the Civil List Bills
having been the only positive enactments of the
late Parliament, and the substitution of a revolu-
tionary for a conservative Administration, the only
successful exertions of its political influence in the
State, it follows of course that its fame must rest
chiefly upon its negative merits—upon what it has
refused to do, not upon what it has done. If it
were possible to believe that any assembly of
six hundred and upwards of British and Irish
gentlemen could in any manner be collected to-
gether who would concur in such project as the
Budget and the Reform Bill of his Majesty's
Ministers, then it must be admitted there is
some degree of praise jusdy due to the late Par-
liament for rejecting both. The Budget was a tissue
of absurdity and injustice. It sacrificed the most
important national interests, and violated the public
faith in a manner the most direct and express. By
it the most solemn and binding treaties were disre-
garded—the welfare of the colonial and shipping in-
terests of Englund vitally assailed—the public cre-
ditor condemned to spoliation, contrary not only to
the spirit but the le.ter of a Parliamentary guarantee
as strong and explicit as words could make it. This
disgusting medley of absurdity the late Parliament
had the virtue to reject with becomit'r scorn and in-
dignation. Its dissolution does not afflict us never-
theless, for we think Earl Grey, Lord Althorp, and
their colleagues, might safely be entrusted with the
nomination of a Parliament of their own, upon the
single condition that the number of Members for
England and Wales should not be reduced, if the
only danger to be apprehended were that it might,
by possibility, be found capable of voting for such
a budget. Wo have much too high an opinion
of the integrity of our countrymen to believe that
Ministers could find in the whole country the
materials for packing such a majority. But
the late Parliament had the merit of defeat-
ing the Revolutionary Bill, in defiance of popular
clamour, arid in defiance of the Ministerial threat of
dissolution, to which popular clamour was calculated
to give additional terrors. This is the redeeming
circumstance in the conduct of the late House of
Commons, and it cannot be denied that it manifested
in Ibis instance a degree of courage and of probity
which 'ought to cover a multitude of sins. In ap-
preciating the conduct of the House of Commons it
is necessary, however, to recollect the surpassing
enormity of the measure it was called upon to resist.
The Reform Bill was a measure,the obvious tendency
of which was, and the certain effect of which would
have been, to abolish for ever, in all but the name—
to deprive for ever of real power or influence in the
State, the Aristocracy and the Crown of England.
It was a Bill to convert the Government of Eng-
land into a democratic oligarchy. It was a Bill de-
priving the landed interest of England of all but an
illusory share in the Legislature, and leaving the
monied, the colonial, and the commercial interests
without any share whatever, real or apparent. It
was a Bill leading, by necessary consequence, there-
fore, not merely to a legislative disregard of the most
important national interests, but to the universal
confiscation of all kinds of property. These were
the real and evident character and tendencies of the
Bill. It was a Bill, too, the authors of which had
plainly overlooked its true character and effects
in their mere eagerness to pursue party objects.
This made it still more disgusting and contemptible.
The Ministers, men of rank and property, could
not wish to establish in the land a sheer democratic
Government, or to prepare the way for a general con-
fiscation. But what they might wish was the establish-
ment ofa permanent Whig oligarchy,and t heßill affords
abundant evidence that that this was the object,and that
in the headlong pursuit of this object they had merely
missed their way, and blundered into the precipitous
truck of democracy and confiscation. If we look
at the evidence afforded by the Bill as to the objects
of its authors, we find, first, that of 168 seats in the
House of Commons to be abolished, no more than
thirty-three, just fifty-one less than the just propor-
tion, are Whig seats. Second, we find that the se-
parate districts of twenty-seven counties, to which
the right of returning two Members each would
have been given, was in each instance to be cut off
o
of
b
f the te
Vs P'lrdigvy
from the body of the county; by whom ? By a
Committee
Ministers,ncil,w
thath o is
would
uld certainn
nominees
no
doubt, as in duty bound, have shewn, in this parti-
tion of the counties, a proper regard to the great
Whig families and properties. Ministers, without
being very sanguine, might eventually calculate that
40 out of 54, new County Members would by this
contrivance be permanently attached to the Whig
interest. They would thus obtain an advantage—
s lasting advantage over their great opponents, the
Tories, of 26 Members in all future Parliaments.
And'in the third place we find that a* Committee of
the Privy Council, that is, a body Of MO absolutely