The Sun.
London, England, 1836-08-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

These Tories are, after all, bungling blockheads.
Honesty and truth are strangers to their cabals, but
for cunning and dexterity they have frequently received
credit. We dispute the title of the faction even to this
merit, such as it is. If the Tories were dexterous or
cunning, they would not for the last week have been
propagating an insidious report, by means of the whip-
pers in, and of certain insiders and outsiders of the
Dilly, that the mutilations of the Peers upon the
Irish Church Bill, are per se fatal to the measure, in-
asmuch as the clauses from fifty to fifty-seven, being
of the nature of a money-bill, could not be altered or
struck out by the Lords, and these clauses having
been partly altered and partly expunged by the Peers,
the Speaker could not receive the Bill in its pre-
sent form. The object of this mendacious report is
palpable. The Tories wanted to lull the Reformers
into a false security, and thus to obtain for their own
factious cause and selfish interests that victory by
fraud, which they invariably failed to achieve by the
force of argument or of numbers in the reformed
House of Commons. Now this betrayed gross stu-
pidity on the part of the corruptionists—for at least
two reasons. First, the liberal press of the empire
has been for upwards of a fortnight urging upon the
liberal representatives of the nation the paramount ne-
cessity of being in their places on the 2d of August.
Secondly, the Prime Minister in his speech on
the night of this day week, declared, in pre-
cise terms, that to . the appropriation clause he
and his colleagues were irrevocably pledged—
that to it they would adhere while supported
by the country, but that the instant they
ceased to have the support of a majority in the House
of Commons upon this question, that moment they
would retire from office, the seals of which they would
not resign while sustained by a majority of the repre-
sentatives of the people. Now if Ministers did not
anticipate the reception of the mutilated measure by
the Lower House, and a consequent debate, and finally
a division, for otherwise they could not obtain a majo-
rity, of which they are sure ; and if, also, the friends
of Ministers did not see the necessity of having all the
liberal Commoners at their post, what was the mean-
ing of the Minister's candid, manly declaration ?—or
what was the motive for the earnest appeals of the
liberal journals to the Reforming Members of the
House of Commons ? With that declaration, and with
these appeals ringing in their ears, it was not
likely that the popular representatives who had left
town, or were about to quit London, would pay atten-
tion to the inuendos or impudent assertions of avowed
Tories or despicable trimmers. It was, therefore,
neither cunning nor prudent on the part of the Tories
to spread a report which could not aid their purpose,
and which they must have known, if they were not
idiots, would be afterwards turned against them.
Absurd and impudent, however, though the Tory
assertion about the non-reception of the mangled Bill
by the Speaker was, its impudence is eclipsed by their
later more audacions assertion that the friends of Go-
vernment have been circulating a rumour that there
would be no division after all ! No further back than
Saturday morning the renegade print had the boldness
to interlard a characteristically mendacious and unprin-
cipled article with the following piece of outrageous
falsehood :—" But they (Ministers) know this (that if
i hey reject the lordly mutilations, they will be driven
front office) it seems, anti have hit upon the clever
expedient of shirking all discussion on the merits
of the Bill, and sneaking out of this awful (!) pre-
dicament, by a resort to some question of privilege."
This " question of privilege" has been already ex-
plained, it is the Tory device for winning a fraudulent
victory, by cheating Reformers into a fatal security,
sprinting from the notion that the 1-louse of Commons
could not receive the mutilated Bill. This question
was, however, set at rest—the Tory stratagem was
blown to pieces—the fraudulent scheme of the faction
was unmasked on Thorsday night last, when the muti-
lated Bill was actually received, and ordered to be
taken into consideration on Tuesday next (to-mor-
row.) Thu recreant journal stated these facts in its
own columns on Friday morning, and yet, in the tee:h
of ite own report of what occurred in the House of
Commons upon the Chancellor of the Exchequiu's
motion, with the facts which, by anticipation,
pee the tie to its leading article staring the
writer in the face, that journal had the har-
dihood to publi:fit on Saturday the passage we
have extracted. This complication of folly, malice,
and turpitude, will not, however, now excite surprise.
T .e public are too familiar with the incessant outrages
o the apostate upon truth and decency and common
sense, to he astonished at any particular offence of
this sort, no matter how atrocious, that may he commit-
ted in Printing-house-square. Now-a-days what people
marvel at in that quarter is a stray gleam of decency,
or an accidental adherence to facts. With respect to
the material point—the division on the Lords' Amend-
ments—that will, we believe, be decided to-morrow
night. Ministers must be desirous to bring the sub-
ject to a close with the least possible delay. A con-
siderable deal of important business remains to be
done, and all parties look forward with anxiety to
the hour of prorogation. Hence we infer a short
debate upon the hacknicd question of the Irish
Church and a division on the first night. There is
nothing in the present maimed offipring of Tory spite
and lordly tyranny to win over doubters—if any such
there be on the Ministerial side of time House, or to
allay the indignation of all straightforward Reformers.
The Bill, as now returned from the Upper House, is
worse even than the mutilated measure which the
country last year scouted. If evil result from the non-
settlement of the Tithe question, they alone arc re-
sponsible, before God and moan, who have indulged a
factious spite and a corrupt motive at the expense of
justice and of the peace of Ireland. Ministers pre-
pared a healing measure—the Representatives of the
people passed it—the country approved of it—and the
Tory Lords destroyed it. The Commons, for the
public good, passed the original Bill—and for the
public good they must and will reject the mutilated
measure of the Tory Lords.—Morning Chronicle.
The threatened Whig-Radical tactics remind us of
the ingenious devices of the disciple of Dando, whose
exploits have recently amused our police-offices. When
the hour of reckoning arrived, that practised trickster
was in the habit of producing a pinchbeck pencil-case,
which he avowed his honest readiness to leave in pawn
for the value of his vanished plate of' beef a la nzorle,
or Irish stew, which, we believe, is the dish more in
fashion now. So, to-morrow, when that straight-
forward and plain-dealing firm, yclep'd the Cabinet,
after regaling another Session on the official banquet,
are to be called upon to settle their accounts with
the people of England, the nation, we understand,
is to be bilked. Privilege, forsooth, is to be the
Whig-Radical pencil-case, and the worthless gage
by which these Dandos of Downing-street are to ex-
tricate themselves from their ludicrous embarrassments.
But we tell them it won't do. One who knew them
well has immortalized the fine touch and nimble mani-
pulation of their thimbleriggery, but it will require
powers of deception beyond even their allies of May-
nooth or St. Omer's to palm off' this monstrous juggle
on the English people as the act either of patriots or
statesmen, or men of common sense, common honesty,
or common spirit. What ! after destroying a Govern-
ment, menacing ancient establishments, aed agitating
a whole empire in favour of the unnecessary enunciation
of a barren principle,—after having declared, over and
over again, that by this principle they would stand or
fall, that without it there could be no good government
and that, if but acknowledged, like charity, it would
cover even all their sins, will they slink out of the back-
door of the great edifice of faction of which this is the
corner-stone ? Will they leave their precious bantling,
the hybrid offspring of bigotry and plunder, in the
lurch ? Will they fling away in a fright the blunderbuss
charged for them by the Romish priests, and with which
they have so long swaggered, and take to their heels ?
And on what possible pretence is all this squeamish-
ness ? Their honour is touched, forsooth ! There
shall be no division, say they, because the Lords, in
some manner still unknown, and which we fancy will
remain unexplained, have trenched upon our privileges
So ! so ! The Whig-Radicals, it seems, are very
D.v lorous, but they will not " fight upon compulsion."
~.., 1 Afeulftllppear that they are not in the cue for com-
orr4.,s7? -4031.1p{esent. The Lords touch their privileges.
-4:1 i477:-;:Wl6oit riltes ? Let them name and prove them.
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