The Sun.
London, England, 1836-10-03 00:00:00

attachment to the Constitution by which he is animated,
and by which he pledges himself to abide, so well as
by employing those same negative assurances for which
the Ministerial prints of Saturday abuse Lord Eliot—
viz., that he will not alienate from the church of Ire-
land her less than moderate revenues—that he will not
destroy the independence of the House of Lords, under
the impudent pretence of reforming it—and that he will
not vote for the shameful ballot—a device which it
would become the Prince of Darkness, and him only,
to approve of. But is it true that Lord Eliot has
confined himself to these negative disclaimers of Ra-
dicalism, with its revolutionary and destructive plots ?
Is there nothing demonstrative of a sincere disposition
to accomplish sound and effectual reforms, or of a ca-
pacity to point out where they are, or at least where
they have been, wanting ? Although an acknow-
ledged Conservative, deeply and steadily attached to
the Protestant church, and convinced that with its
maintenance are bound up the best interests of morality
and religion, Lord Eliot is not slow to admit that alte-
rations might be made in the distribution of its pro-
perty, and in some branches of its discipline, which
would better adapt the church to the fulfilment of its
holy purposes. It is unnecessary to remind the public
that some of those improvements, relating both to the
finance and discipline of the English church establish-
ment, have, in fact, already been ordained by acts of
the last session, and if even more extensive ones have
net yet been completed with a regard to the church in
Ireland, are the Conservatives they who are to blame ?
—the Conservatives, who did their utmost to enforce

that great object, the want of which is always put in
front of the Popish grievances, so far as Ireland is
concerned—namely, a permanent commutation of tithe ?
or the Whig Ministers and Radicals, who, from mo-
tives purely factious, opposed it ? Lord Eliot again
declares his hearty assent to the removal of all disabili-
ties from every class of conscientious Dissenters, and
gratification at seeing them in possession of their civil
rights. The noble Lord proceeds to state his view of
that species of economy which ought to be practised
by an enlightened and powerful people, in terms which
we recommend, not to the attention of those unteacha-
ble screws and pedants, who like the mis-called repre-
sentative of Middlesex, look only at one side of the
account, to wit, the sum expended, without once ad-
verting to the value received for it, but which we do
press earnestly upon the calm consideration of the
whole people of England :—" I am," says Lord Eliot,
"an advocate for economy, but all saving is not eco-
nomy. It is with states as with individuals, a liberal
and well understood expenditure is found in the end
to be more economical, than extreme and indiscrimi-
nate parsimony." Now it is obvious enough that to
such a range of intelligence as that which distinguishes
Mr. Joseph Hume, and is reported to have shown it-
self in Sir Henry Parnell, while as Secretary at War he
did his best to pinch the public service, and to
starve all those by whom it was carried on,
and who depended on it for their bread,—to such
men we are aware that the sentiments of Lord Eliot
on that which constitutes the rationale of administra-

tive economy would be utterly incomprehensible. The
skin-flint Baronet, indeed, who represents Dundee,
stultified himself so irretrievably by the bothered evi-
dence he gave, or tried to give, before the committee
on military expenditure two years ago, that we look
upon him, and so does the public, as pretty well dis-
vosed of. It is not, therefore, to uninstructed teachers
of absolute wisdom, like Hume and Parnell, that Lord
Eliot ever thought of addressing himself, or for them
that we would take the trouble of offering the plainest
observation. But to the really enlightened people of
England we will take the liberty of remarking,, that
the word " economy," like the word " justice, may
be perverted so as to work the ruin of the most
flourishing State, and to make the richest bankrupt.
If we do not pay the fair price of an article es-

sential to the existence of a Government, why the

most important wheel or spring may get loose,
and the motion of the whole machine be para-
lyzed. It is unquestionably a measure of criminal
profusion to employ a superfluous number of public
functionaries, or to pay services which require no skill,
and entail no responsibility, with disproportioned in-
comes. It was nothing less than flagrant and abomi-
nable corruption, for example, in the Melbourne Cabi-
net the other day, to bring in a bill for creating 42
inspectors of Irish police, at upwards of 5001. a-year

each, when four inspectors have been found sufficient ;
and, en attendant, it was an iniquitous fraud in the
Whig Minister to promise that Colonel Shaw Kennedy
should have substantially the appointment of all the
officers under his command, and for whose conduct he

was himself to be responsible, when it is now notorious

to every man in the island that Colonel Shaw Kennedy
has no shadow of power to nominate the officers under
him, but that the entire patronage is ravenously

griped at, and arbitrarily exercised (that is, jobbed),
by the general gaol-deliverer of Ireland and his jack-
alls. But this is a digression. The question was, what
is true economy ?—and we answer, it is such an amount
and distribution of expenditure as assigns to every man
required for the service of the State a remuneration
sufficient to ensure an upright, diligent, and skilful
performance of his particular duties. Where superior
talents are wanting, high salaries must be paid—
so high as to attract such talents into the service.
A pettifogger in finance, like Mr. Hume, will di-
vide the House of Commons upon the difference of
1,0001. and 1,5001. a year in the income of one su-
perior officer. He is incapable of recollecting that
the masterly, or only middling, discharge of the trust
confided to that officer may make a difference to the
country of 100,000/. per annum. We say nothing of
Mr. Canning—a great, noble, and powerful Conser-
vative ; but Mr. Tierney, the most acute and sagacious_
of contemporary Whigs, used frequently to declare
himself in the House of Commons a friend to the
system of liberal salaries, presupposing that they are
bestowed on able and honest men. Here, then, is a
wise and honourable avowal of Lord Eliot's opinions.
It is not true, as charged against him by a print a me-
nial of the Ministers, that the noble candidate gives
only a negative sketch of his politics ; he asserts
broadly what he will assent to, as well as what he will
oppose. He will prove yet a piercing thorn in the
sides of the wretched, staggering Ministers. He has
already become a rallying-point in the extreme west for
the putting down of anti-constitutional and destructive
doctrines; and we believe it may be said, without
exaggeration or imprudence, that what Cornwall pro-
mises, the next county to it will not be more slow to
perform than when it beat the political " Rogue's
March," and drummed out of Devonshire the present
Member for Stroud. The country is fast recovering
its legs, and the good cause will soon again be upper-
most.—Times. _

____
The manifestations now being made by the Reform-
ers in every part of the United Kingdom, open a most
favourable propect to the liberty of Great Britain. In
Ireland, as the most aggrieved, the exertions of the
Liberals are naturally the most zealous and enthusias-
tic : but Scotland and England are not unmindful' of
the necessity of preparing for the defence of public
liberty, as may be seen by the evidence of two more
important dinners, reports of which will be found in our
columns this day. The Reformers of England have
been misrepresented by one party, and calumniated by
' another—by Mr. O'Connell they, in other words, the
People of England, are said to be indifferent to the
claims
of Ireland : on the other hand, the Tory prints
malign them as being parties and approvers of the mis-
deeds of the Lords. Triumphantly may we now point
to the numerous demonstrations of public feeling
throughout the country, to show Mr. O'Connell his
mistake, the Tories the magnitude of their calumny.
Theiast
people
o f
England are nobly vindicating their na-
tional character, and are as firmly resolved to do justice to
Ireland as to themselves. In public and private intercourse
—in deliberative assemblies, and in social meetings, the
Commons and Ministers against
the ijords--to vindicate the elective
the
edge tyranny to support
of
fort the r
from the usurpation of the hereditary principle, is
everywhere given and received. Nor is the question of
Peerage Reform contemplated as a remote, but as a
proximate event. The conviction of its necessity strikes
more and more deeply into the public mind, the more
the principle and practical working of the hereditary
Chamber be examined. The proceedings of the two
last Sessions have indisputably demonstrated the im-
possibility of two such heterogeneous principles as the
elective and hereditary existing in the same Constitu-
tion, without the one effecting the destruction of the