The Sun.
London, England, 1838-05-11 00:00:00

170 '4"

ITH WHICH
" THE TRUE SUN" IS NOW
IN CORPORATED.

LONDON :
FRIDAY EVENING. MAY 11, 1838.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER postponed the
Budget last night to next Friday, the 18th instant. The
Right Hon. Gentleman postponed this important subject
immediately bafore Sir THOMAS ACLAND had given notice
of his intention to move on Monday next, on the Order of
the Day for going into a Committee on Irish tithe resolu-
tions, that the resolutions of April 7 and 8, 1835, be re-
scinded. We arc net aware that there is any connection
between these subjects. except the mere juxta-position, but
that eves rise to some suspicions that the two are con-
nected. The resolutions in question constitute the decla-
ration of the necessity of introducing into any measure for
settling the tithes in Ire:and a clause that any surplus re-
venues should be appropriated to the purposes of ge•
neral education. They are the parents, in fact, of
the appropriation clause, and of the existence of the pre-
sent Ministry. On them the MELBOURNE Administration
came into power. Unfortunately for the Ministry, they
have, though from, perhaps, commendable motives, not in.
troduced this clause into the resolutions they have
proposed this Session, for settling the tithe question.
Willing to settle that, if possible, which they knew they
could not do unless, somewhat in deference to the opinions
of the Conservatives, they framed their present plans, as Lord
JOHN RUSSELL said, on a new basis ; and the Conservatives
now turn round and assail them with their own weapon. We
said on the 28th of March, the instant we read Lord JOHN
RUSSELL'S announcement, that if his resolutions " do not
maintain and carry out, to some extent, the principle of
appropriation, they will do irreparable injury to the cha-
racter of Lord JOHN RUSSELL and the Ministry." Our
words arc now verified. The Eranziner of Sunday week
attacked them severely on the subject, and on Monday Sir
THOMAS ACLAND will demonstrate, according to their own
resolutions, that they turned out their opponents
on an impracticable, if not a factious question. That
will be the consequence of their having given up the
great principle which distinguishes them from the Tories,
and which chiefly makes them acceptable to the enligh-
tened and not higotted public. They are now, however,
to be assailed on that principle which all true Reformers at
this period most earnestly desire to see enforced, and for
its sake, and the sake of the public peace, which we believe
will be involved in the decision, we trust that this new
attack of the Tories will be defeated, as was their attack
on the less defensible post of our foreign policy. If ever
there was a time, and if ever there was an occasion when
the House of Commons ought to affirm, and re-affirm, the
eropriating Church property to other than
;s, if it think fit, that time and that occasion
ed, for the Clergy of the whole empire,
d episcopal, have united with the Tories,
Forcibly to extort money from the public for
maintaining, in spite of the people, the
ominion of the priesthood.

ied on Wednesday that Dr. CHALMERS pro-
:ctures, a gigantic plan of endowing a priest-
portion of one clergyman to every 700 per-
sons, who should make it his particular business to in-

troduce himself into families, and bring the whole of his
congregation under his influence and controul. On look-
ing back to the debate in the House of Lords on March
30th, we have no doubt that such a plan is in entire ac-
cordance with the views of the Bishop of LONDON, and
the Evangelical party of the clergy of the Church of
England, who are anxious to obtain a power as great as
ever was possessed by the Catholic priesthood, either in
Paraguay, in Spain, or in Ireland. With such a power
every form of civil Government would be impossible, ex-
cept that which pleased the priesthood. In this country
they are already superior to the present Administration,
and render all improvement impossible. In Germany they
thwart the best organized Government which exists, and
Prussia is now agitated by their ambition from Cologne to
Posen. We believe that the motion of Sir T.ACLAND, taken
in conjunction with Dr. CHALMEICS visit to this metropolis,
is only a part of a great plan to overthrow the present
Administration, and re-establish the power of the Priest-
hood in these gradually-becoming free and tolerant islands ;
and we believe that this is only an off-set of the
still greater and more extensive plan in which
the priesthood have been at all times engaged, in order to
establish or preserve a dominion over the minds of man-
kind. Such a scheme all wise Statesmen of every party
should resist ; to that plan however the bigoted Tories are
accessories with a view to regain possession of power, for
their rule is associated with all that is benighted, degrad-
ing and destructive. On these grounds, we believe that
the best interests of the human race and the immediate
peace of the country, are deeply involved in the motion to
turn out the present Ministers, on the principle of rescind-
ing those resolutions, which affirm the power of parliament
to appropriate the revenues of the Church to useful and
secular national purposes.

The unanimity with which the House of Commons last
night adopted Sir ROBERT INGLIS'S motion fer an address
to the Crown, praying her MAJESTY, in conjunction with
her allies to declare the slave-trade, by whomsoever carried
on, piracy, and to order it to be punished as such, will not
fail to spread consternation among the slave-holding States
of the Old and New kVorld. By a reference to the speech
of Lord PALMERSTON, it will be seen that the Government
is fully prepared to go all lengths to put an end to this
horrible traffic. What persuasion and mosey could do to
abolish slavery throughout the world, England has done to
an extent which must obtain for her the admiration of
future ages ; but as these means have not been succassful
—as it has been attempted to make her the dupe of nations
indifferent to the faith of treaties—we rejoice to find her
Government prepared to assert the sacred majesty of inter-
national law, and the still more sacred rights of outraged
humanity. When the determination of the British
Ministry and Parliament, to put an end to this
detestable traffic at all hazards, is made known
to the Government of the United States, we
cannot believe that Congress will rush into a collision
with all the great Powers of Europe, rather than cease to
connive at the atrocities perpetrated for the sole interest
of a minority of their own citizens. With respect to Por-
tugal and the South American Republics, the best cor-
rective is force. We have reasoned with them long
enough to no purpose—exclusive of the vast sums we
have paid them for co operating with us in the
performance of what they are bound to regard as
a double duty. The speech of Lord PALMERSTON last
night will go a great way towards allaying the irritation
caused-by the conduct of the Government in opposing the
immediate abolition of the Negro Apprentices. Even
Mr. THomrsoN—whose excellent speech at the Great
Anti-Slavery Meeting, held in Dublin, on Monday
last, will be found in The Sun of to-day—will
speak less harshly of the intentions of the Ministry
after reading the Parliamentary exposition of the Noble
Foreign Secretary. Nothing could be more explicit than
the declarations of the Noble Lord, and as many of them
were volunteered, we regard them as so many proofs of the
perfect sincerity of the Cabinet upon the question.

Mr. WAKLEY alleged as reasons for bringing the Cop -
right question again under the consideration of the House
of Commons, tit! thinness of the House and the smallness
' of the majority when the subject was formerly discussed.
If these were the only grounds for re-opening the discussion
we think we may now conclude that it is finally closed, for
it can scarcely be contended that the House was thin on
Wednesday night, when one hundred and eighty Members
vot,il on the questior, or that the majority of Ety-two,
which decided it, was a small one. The result of the
debate has justified the anti,ipation which we expressed on
a former occasion, that the time was not far distant n hen
the rights of authors would be as fully acknowledged as
those of other men. For this result, the literary class are
indebted, in some measure, to the injudicious hostility of a
very fee; individuals, whose practice it is to live on
the lahours of others, and whose short-sighted cupi-
dity prompted them in an evil hour, to attempt to
clamour down the voice of justice. Why Mr. \VAK-
LEY should have made himself the instrument of such
men for such a purpos., it is not for us to conjec-

If the Hon. Gentleman intended to set the House
in a blaze by his eloquence, we think he might have
chosen a fitter subject. But be that as it may, those
authors, whose works he enumerated in his speech, as being
so greatly depreciated, have, it is said, some reason to com-
plain of unfairness in the selection made by the Hon.
Gentleman, who ought not to have omitted from his cheap
list, a well-known periodical yeTept " The Lancet," cart-
loads of which; it is reported, are sent every week, to in-
crease Mr. TEGG'S already overgrown stock, and for which
that calculating personage cannot be prevailed upon to give
more than a penny a number, thinking it after all no great

ture•

bargain.
We must, however, guard the public against the belief
that Mr. TEGG and Mr. WAKLEY in their proceedings
against the Bill represent the publishers. From communica•
Lions which we have received from some of the most ex-
tensive publishers in the kingdom, we are warranted to say
that they are not adverse to the principle of the measure,
though they disapprove of some of the details. The clause
to which the greatest objection seems to be made, is that by
which the Copyright is made to revert to the author's re-
presentatives at the expiry of the present term. This
the publishers allege is unjust to them, as it debars them
from the privilege which they now enjoy of publishing an
author's works after his death, without entering into a new
arrangement with the representatives. Now, if there be
any injustice here, publishers have no greater reason to com-
plain than any other persons, for it must be observed that
they purchase the Copyright only for a certain period, and
therefore with that period their exclusive interest expires.
No publisher can come forward and say that he is by this
Bill deprived of anything for which he has ;liven value.
All the claim that he can reasonably put in is,
for a privilege, if so it may be called, which is com-
men to every subject of the British Empire, or to speak
more correctly, to every individual of the human race,
inasmuch as every one has an equal right with him to
publish any work of which his purchased Copyright has
expired.

Sir ROBERT PEEL last night moved for leave to bring in
a Bill to regulate the jurisdiction of the House in the case
of Controverted Elections. He repudiated at once the idea
of depriving the House of its jurisdiction, and explained
at great length the imperfections of the present tribunals.
He might have taken this for granted, and might have
spared himself, except for the purpose of a little display,
the trouble of demonstrating what all the world knows.
As to Sir ROBERT'S own plan, which devolves on the
SPEAKER the power of appointing, at the commencement of
each Session, a Committee of four or six Members, which
Committee is to nominate the tribunal, consisting of seven
Members, to try each Controverted Election, we hold it to
be far worse, and more certain to give rise to party injus-
tice, than any plan yet submitted to the House. The
SPEAKER is altogether the organ of the majority
—and when a power is placed in his hands of deter-
mining who shall try Controverted Elections, the majority
will place in the chair that person who is the least scrupu-
lous, and most capable of promoting their views. Sir
ROBERT gives a remedy for partiality ; first, by submitting the
Committee chosen by the SPEAKER ; and, secondly, by sub-
mitting the Committees chosen by the SPEAKER'S 'Com-
mittee, if objected to, to the judgment of the House ; but
the same majority which will appoint as SPEAKER the most
unscrupulous and most capable man they can find—when
he has their power of increasing and securing the majority
of his own friends—will support all his nominations, and

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