The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY, AITGUST 2, 1838.

peated their set speeches at Manchester, Leeds, Hud-
dersfield, and Salford, threatened to bring on a trial of
strength between the liberal and illiberal parties before
the Coronation, and returned to London only to be
laughed at for their folly, pitied for their impotence, and
despised for their want of principle. Since that date
her Majesty's Ministers have pursued their steady
course of national amelioration vt ith less interruption.
The Tories became convinced that they could du
nothing in the way of direct resistance, and their efforts,
instead of being open, were insidious. The solid
foundation on which the \Vhig Government rested
their claim to the approbation of the great mass of
the inhabitants of the three kingdoms was that they
were resolved to do all the good in their power : if
they could not carry out their own ideas of excellence
in their measures to the full extent, they were deter-
mined to omit no opportunity of accomplishing a partial
benefit, and the country gives them credit for the up-
rightness of their motives and for the sincerity of their
intentions. Upon this ground they stand, and they
stand firmly, defying the whole strength of their op-
ponents to remove them from it. If they cannot do
all they wish, they will do all they can : their mea-
sures shall proceed in the right direction, even if they
do not go the whole distance originally contemplated ;
and if in any instance their purpose be defeated for a
time, they will not therefore abandon their design, and
they will leave others to be responsible for the conse-
quences of postponement. Thus, then, we are justi-
fied in saying, that by pursuing this undeviating line
of public duty the Government of Lord Melbourne,
in the course of the present session, has confirmed it-
self in the good opinion of its friends, and has even
gained ground in the "favour of its enemies.—Morn-
ing Chronicle.
The House of Commons was " counted out" last
night, as it was the night before I Attendance in their
places is becoming a " bore" to Hon. Members on
both sides ! In such circumstances, the value of the
laws that are likely to be passed at this period of the
Session, may easily be surmised ! The Parliamentary
Ses-;ion of 1838 will, to the student of its history,
present little else than a waste of public time ? It
has given birth to not a single measure calculated to
improve the condition of the people. The labouring
poor are still to be left to suffer under the destructive
influences of the New Poor-law. The hand-loom
weavers are still destined to linger on in a state of
semi-starvation. For the factory children, there is to
be no relief. All the great interests of the country, in
short, have been, virtually, declared by the House of
Commons to be totally unworthy of its consideration I
But although the factory children, and the hand-loom
weavers, and the great mass of English labourers
have been disowned as fit objects of legislative care,
there has been the usual proportion of gabble about
the wrongs of Ireland ! The wrongs of Canada, too,
have been detailed with unceasing efforts at effect ;
and, indeed, the affairs of Canada are like to furnish
topics of reflection to the English Parliament, and to
the English people, for some time to come! 'Air.
Joseph Hume and his party were the original insti-
gators of Canadian agitation ;—and the Earl of Dur-
ham bids fair to complete the wholesome work which
Mr. Hume and his coadjutors began. The object
of the Member for Kilkenny, and of the small clique
which acts in concert with him, is obvious enough
These gentlemen desired to render themselves to
Canada, what O'Connell had contrived to be-
come in relation to Ireland 1 They saw O'Con-
nell, by means of Irish agitation, installed as the
ruler of the .English Cabinet ;—and there existed
no reason in nature, why Canadian agitation
should not be crowned with corresponding re-
sults! Nor was the calculation devoid of plausibility !
Had the Canadian traitors—the Mackenzies and Pa-
pineaus—been successful in their attempts, what would
have been the situation of Mr. Hume, and of the other
friends to Canadian "patriotism ?" Beyond all ques-
tion, Mr. Hume and his coadjutors might have dic-
tated terms to her Majesty's Ministers ! The pa-
c'fication of Canada would have been supposed to
depend on the good offices of the "friends of Ca-
nada" in this country I—and Messrs. Hume, Leader,
Molesworth, Roebuck and the rest of them would
have turned a defeat of the Queen's troops to as
good account as Mr. O'Connell do :s his tithe-
murders The result, however, did not answer
the anticipations of our " liberals." Mackenzie
and Papineau would seem, like the great Irish
leader, to have " registered a vow" against fighting—
and unluckily for their ends, revolutions are rarely
to be effected without appeals to steel and lead !
But although the traitors could not wrest Canada
from England, the policy of Lord Durham bids fair to
effect a severance of the colony from the mother coun-
try ! The Whio dictator, with the aid of Mr. Charles
Buller, and of Mr. Turton may be expected to achieve
greater things for the " Liberal" cause, than Messrs.
Mackenzie and Papineau, aided by the advice of
Messrs. Roebuck and Flume, were able to effect ! To
the Whig officials, the approaching prorogation of
Parliament must be more delightful than ever was re-
spite to a condemned felon ! To be freed from the
necessity of attempting to furnish explanations of
Lord Durham's acts of misgovernment—and of parry-
ing attacks upon the character of our commer-
cial economy—must involve an amount of plea-
sure, which only a member of the Whig Go-
vernment can understand ! For six troaths to come,
the \Vhigs hope to be able to throw aside official re-
sponsibility ! Russia may in the meantime, exclude
our commercial marine from the Black Sea, or
even from the Mediterranean—may seize Turkey, and
threaten our Indian empire ;—Lord Durham may
make a present of Canada to Mr. Van Buren ;—half
a million of hand-loom weavers may endure a living
death on an average remuneration for their labour of
fourpencc a-day ;—a factory system may devour its
tens of thousands of victims—whilst the horrors of
the new Poor-law may be goading masses of labourers
to nourish silently revolutionary plans of vengeance
on their oppressors :—what will the Whigs care for
these things, during time approaching recess ? Our
present rulers shut their cars and eyes, as long as
they may, to the indications of national sufferino. ;
and when they can no longer plead blindness and'ileaf-
ness to the signs of the times—why, they can resign I
There exists no real responsibility, now-a-flays, on the
part of the Administrators of public affaiii !--Morn-
iii,o- Herald.
'Whether from our insular situation, which hai
taught men to call us " toto divisos orbe Britannos,"
or from our somewhat too self-satisfied habit of look-
ing at all men and timings except our own as insigni-
ficant, or from whatever other cause or causes, the
fact undoubtedly is, that we English take much less
than a due interest in the character, the knowledge,
the literature, the general improvement of the other
members of the great European family. Learned
sctsocieties,fic notices,
otindeed,ces, a
utheconvey
picturesque,t one another
boutri 1111:
nature
a t
by a
few
r%e
and in the galleries of collectors, is pursued
mob of travellers, who have a taste, or a curiosity, or
vanity which they mistake for one ; but the great
body of the English people, who stay here within
the four seas, have as little notion about the general
subjects that occupy the reading and thinking classes
of continental society as the King of Brobdignag
possessed respecting the pursuits of the countrymen
of Grildrig. Now, deeming this kind of indifference
rather discreditable, and believing that ignorance of
the " quidquid agent" can hardly fail to be in some
way disadvantageous, we are glad to see the stirring
spirit which has been infused into a periodical work,'
the most likely of all others to bring us acquainted
with the business amid literature of our neighbours—
the " Foreign Quarterly Review." The Number for
the present month (though too much of it is occupied
by a couple of disquisitions on the written characters
of the Chinese and of time Phoenicians, together en-
grossing somewhat more than a fourth of the whole
pamphlet, and possessing an interest confined to a very
small number of very learned and curious readers) has
several articles of more general concern, which point
to veins of information and amusement well worth pur-
suing. The most important is the opening essay on the
life and writings of the celebrated German Pietist of the
last century, Henry Jung Stilling. It is written, in-
deed, with too much ambition of a poetical prose, and
is sometimes so transcendental as to puzzle the plain
reader, especially as it has the defect, very common
with abstruse writings, of assuming that the elements
and main bearings of the question are already familiar