The Sun.
London, England, 1836-09-24 00:00:00

PRICE OF SUGAR.

Th► Average Price of Brown or Muscovado Sugar, computed from
the Returns made in the week ending the ;10th slay 01 September, It'36, is
Od. per Hundred Weight, exe!usive or the Duties of Customs
paid or payable thereon on the Importation thereof into Great Britain.

The workmen employed at the manufactories of
steam-engine boilers at Liverpool lately turned out for an ad-
vance of wages, and before they would consent to return to
their work they required their masters to accede to several
most unreasonable demands. The masters refused to listen to
their terms, or to take any of them again into their employ,
unless they would quit the " union," which the misled men
have been prevailed upon to join. The consequence is that
several very extensive factories, the finest in the kingdom,
employing from 360 to 500 hands each, are now at a stand
still, and the men are wandering about the streets indulging
in idleness and drunkenness. On Wednesday the engine of
the Comet post office packet, lying in the Clarence dock, re-
quiring some repairs in the boiler, four mon were sent for
from Holyhead to do the work. The sound of their hammers
soon brought a few of the workmen to the spot, and as the
number increased it was feared an attempt would be made to
force the four men to quit the premises. Mr. Dowling, the
superintendant of the dock police, was apprised of the circum-
stance, and he instantly placed himself at the head of a party
of men and repaired to the spot. The " turn outs" were
then in front of the factory, but the moment they observed the
police they dispersed and went away.

- -
A coroner's inquest was held at Falmouth, Jamaica,
in July, on the body of Serjeant Thackeragh, of the b6th Re-
giment, who came by his death in the following manner :
About a week previously the deceased was alarmed by the
cries of the wife of the Barrack Serjeant Collins, who was
beating her with much violence, and in a state of intoxication.
He proceeded towards Collins's apartment for the purpose of
preventing any further breach of the peace. Repairs were at
the time going on, and a ladder was erected against the house.
Serjeant Thackeragh observing that to be the nearest way to
Collins's room, ran up the ladder, but as soon as the latter saw
him he rushed into the piazza,. exclaiming 44 Your life or
mine !" and immediately overturned the ladder, tmd deceased
fell to the ground. He,complained of great pain in his side,.
but was able to return to his guard after the lapse of 'a few
minutes. In the course of the day, however, be was obliged
to go to the hospital, and died in a few day@ afterwards. The
medical man who opened the body found that the liver was
much diseased, and gave it.as his opinion that the deceased
could not have lived. The jury consequently returned, a
diet of " Natural death," accompanied by a recominendat.um-
that some restraint should be imposed upon Seigeant tekhil4"ct
It was stated that this mail had been wounded in the head,.al'.
when he took spirits, let the quantity be ever so asean,uiet e be
came completely mad; when sober .he is alarrnlespiind t I
man. Croydon rail.
The first stone at the statiOn.6k the.
way, at Croydon, was b eleven o'clock in the
id on ThursdaY. at .
morning, amidst the shouts of 150 workmen, who are engaged
in the excavations on the line'of that railway, which is now
proceeding with the utotost•rapidity The poor men were
afterwards regaled with a Pea..n..d. of heal each, and porter by
order of the Directors.

SPIRIT 1W THE PUBLIC JOURNALm.

Is it the wish of the Tory journals to uphold Lord
Lyndhurst's character, or to earn the Learned Baron's
gratitude or friendship ? Or have they conspired to
blast his reputation—such as it is—under the guise of
partisanship ? We ask the question because of the
extraordinary articles which have recently appeared in
a notorious Morning print, and in its evening tale-
bearer—articles so mischievous to the object of their
apparent advocacy as to prove their authors to be
either egregious asses, who do not comprehend the
.harm they are doing to their friend, or covert foes
who have plotted the Learned Lord's ruin, and put on
the garb of friendship, the more surely and safely to
effect their sinister purpose. Judging from the arti-
cles to which we allude, the authors arc unquestionably
idiots or assassins. For what do they maintain, de-
spite the obvious import of Mr. O'Connell's letter of
the 18th August—the part of which that bears upon
Lord Lyndhurst personally we republished on Thurs-
day—despite the remarks of the Liberal journals—de-
spite the explicit contradiction of their original mali-
cious inuendo, or rather assertion, contained in Mr.
O'Connell's letter to the Editors of the Times ?
Why, that Mr. O'Connell did threaten, in his let-
ter to the Secretary of the General Association, to
publish the history of Baron Lvndluirst's private
life. Right or wrong, the Learned Baron'sfiiends (?)
will have it that his private life is threatened with
exposure—an exposure which, if one were to judge by
the soreness felt or simulated by his advocates, the
Learned Lord could not bear up against. Is this
the way to serve a friend or to evince friendship ? We
doubt if Lord Lyndhurst will think so. Sure we are
that his Lordship owes no obligation to his backers.
But with this we have nothing to do ; and, accordingly,
we pass on to a more legitimate subject of discussion
—namely, the public character of Lord Lyndhurst.
The position now occupied by the Learned Baron, as
leader of the Obstructives—at all events in the House
of Lords, the Tory Members of which seem to be no
other than puppets, subject to the control and moved
at the will of a parvenu—this strange position, in which
an upstart and a Republican figures as the leader of
an ancient and oligarchical Peerage, together With the
extravagant and unwarranted eulogies which the Tory
press has thought it consistent with truth and discre-
tion to bestow on the Learned Lord, make it a duty
upon us to analyse his pretensions to respect as a pub-
lic man, and to consideration as a statesman. Before,

however, we do this, let us put the reader in possession
of the panegyrics pronounced upon the Noble and
Learned Baron's public character by his foolish or
malevolent flatterers. The Standard asks—

" What can there be more preposterous than to talk of
the hideousness of a Nobleman's public conduct, of whom
the public knows already that, having ascended to the first
rank of the bar, not merely with unspotted honour, but
with a brilliant reputation for candour, humanity, inte-
grity, and generous bearing, as well as genius, he 'has pur-
sued an undeviating course of patriotism during the sixteen
or seventeen years of his Parliamentary career ? We ask
pardon for an error—his Lordship did deviate once, and
fatally ; but it was under the guidance of an ingenuous
and noble credulity. He deviated when he had been per-
suaded to believe that Mr. O'Connell, and persons like Mr.
O'Connell, would not stretch to the portentous guilt of
making solemn and periodical perjury a part of their poli-
tical system. This is the single deviation in the Noble
Lord's public career ; but surely Mr. O'Connell and his
apologists will not number this among the hideous details
threatened to be brought forth."

The reader will please to look again at the passage
we have marked in italics. In that passage there is
as much of pettifogging dexterity as ever signalized the
shabbiest Old Bailey practitioner. First, we have the
inflated eulogy upon Lord Lyndhurst's career as a
lawyer ; and then comes the cunning limitation of
praise of his political or " patriotic" conduct to the
16 or 17 years of his " Parliamentary" career.
How nicely the Republicanism—the Radicalism—
the Jacobinism of John Singleton Copley, Esq.,
is slurred over in order to get at the " undeviating pa-
triotism "—in other words the virulent, unprincipled,
selfish, mercenary Toryism of Sir John Singleton
Copley and Baron Lyndhurst. Unquestionably Lord
Lyndhurst has pursued a Tory course since he entered
Parliament, and is so far consistent ; but herein we
charge him with the basest inconsistency that ever de-
graded a politician. A violent Radical, or rather Revolu-
tionist, on circuit, he all at once became as violent a Tory

in the Senate. Exchanging his early opinions and prin--
ciplcs in an hour, for the favour of a Minister to whom
these opinions were hateful, he lost his character when
he found a seat in the House of Commons. The un-
purchased Liberal of one day became the hired bigot
of the next. A Treasury whisper converted the Re-
publican barrister into the Ultra-Royalist Solicitor-
General: The Reformer, in a word, became a cor-
ruptionist—the Catholic Emancipator, an intolerant
foe of religious liberty—the Latitudinarian a High
Churchman—the leveller a Conservative ; and this cx-

traordinary metamorphosis was all effected in far less
time than it has taken us to recall the infamous fact to
the recollection of the public. The Minister was a
Tory he had places high and emolumentary to
bestow ; he held out the largess ; and Copley,
too indolent to labour too pure to indulge his
disposition too ambitious to be pure grasped
the golden lure, and obtained a place, by becom-
ing an apostate. In Parliament, he has been
pretty consistent in the flagitious inconsistency which
won him a Tory patron. But, even here, with what
revolting want of principle is his career marked !
Look at him as the opponent of Catholic Emancipa-
tion in 1827, which in his early career he advocated
[Did he not write a pamphlet in its favour fl —and
again its advocate in 1829 ! For the course pursued
by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel on
that occasion there is much to be said in excuse,
though we always felt that it would have been better
had they resigned office, and allowed a Whig Cabinet
to settle the Catholic Question. But for the double
apostacy evinced in the relapsed liberalism of Lord
Lyndhurst there was no palliation. A man may
change his opinions once upon a great question—from
honourable, virtuous motives. Such was the conduct
of Mr. Brownlow, and we do believe of the Duke of
Wellington, on the Catholic Question ; but it is im-
possible to believe that a rational being can, with a
pure intention, shift and re-shift his political opi-
nions with as much facility as if he were shift-
ing the knights and bishops on a chess-board.
And was not this the conduct of Baron Lynd-
hurst in reference to the Catholic Claims ? As
Master of the Rolls we find him denouncing
these claims in 1827, and, by the " renegade vigour "
of his hostility, exciting the indignation of Mr. Can-
ning. As Lord Chancellor we find him strenuously
advocating the same claims in 1829, and calling forth
the scathing rebuke of Sir Charles Wetherell. As the
friends of the Learned Baron will have his public con-
duct discussed, let them settle with him the account
for eliciting the republication of the follownon-
ing extTceus
s
from the speech then delivered by the
Attorney-General :"
fugacto
" When he, the Attorney-General of the King, was
called on to frame an Act of Parliament, it
tihveas not.. un-
natural that he, as a lawyer, shouldna:lo:lkfietththeou:ohp:nhleonw
an-
a higher authority than himself,
cellor, to direct his judgment. of
4 Shield when he took
placing himself under a strong
Chancellor up his
position under the buckler of Le/11,a,_Lyndhurst.
—(Hear, hear.) When ho
was
asasKinn's
to frame the Bill, he
, What . the.
_.c. Attorney-General
naturally exclaimed
prepare a Bill
which the /4,4 Chancellor has declared would
Church of England "
subvert the Protestant
uOtin th . He begged to
observe that he wag-
n°.tong all go` e Lord Chancellor as
indisputable authority
'not venture Pints.Pints. But this was point
upon which ,he cot!from the King's sworn
Kee er of the
councillorw.,-tlr,
oj(31 adv. Great Seal—who had sworn
to. give' the.l;3nghgat ' t • (tree. And here, by the way, he
nii,ht.obsrv.e, I r nsht be as well /Kg to cavil too much
_l-4:,the. dtsregard which Catholics displayed for oaths.
at'eut"them not ' run a muck' against the Catholics, but see
„whiti bound some Protestant c ' n c--(11 and
laugh)—* * s—(Hear, ce.,--, ear, . a
Hundreds of those who now did him
,the .honour to listen to 1.
iim must remember the able, va-
luable, and impressive
speech delivered two years ago by
the present Lord Chancellor
the Rolls,. _ (Lyndhurst), then 11Iaster of
and a m
Member of that House. It would also be
in the recollection of hundreds, that that eminent individual,
than whom none was more acute in reasoning, more clas-
sical in language, and more powerful in delivery—that in-
dividual, then Master of the Rolls, but now Lord Chan-
cellor, quarrelled with the late Mr. Canning on this very
subject. * * Was he, then, to blame for refusing- to do
that, in the subordinate Mike of Attorney-General, which a
more eminent adviser of the Crown, only two years ago, de-
clared he would not consent to do ? Was he, then, to br

twitted, taunted, and attacked # * He dared them
to attack him. He had no speech to eat up. He had no
apostacy to explain. He had no paltry subterfuge, to re-
sort to. He had not to say that a thing was black one day
and white another. . HE WA'S NOT IN ONE YEAR A PRO-
TESTANT MASTER OF THE ROLLS, AND IN THE NEXT A
CATHOLIC LORD CHANCELLOR. He would rather re-
main as he was, the humble Member for Plympton, than
be guilty of such apostacy—such contradiction—such maw-
plainabk [Place explained it easily] conversion—such mise-
rable, such cogtemptible apostacy. He would state no-
thing without authorit; ; and, therefore, he would read an
extract from the speech delivered by the present Lord
Chancellor (Lyndhurst) tvco years ago, which would com-
pletely bear out the observations he (Sir Charles Vvretherell)
had made."
And this is the man, thus characterised by a gentle-
man, who certainly has through life exhibited the most
unswerving, chivalrous adherence to his principles—
Tory principles—whom the Tory journals of the pre-
sent day, then as violent in the denunciation of his
" unexplainable, contemptible apostacy," as Sir C.
Wetherell, now magnify as a prophet, laud to the skies
as a paragon of public virtue, and to hold out to the
present and future generations as a model of integrity,
sincerity, consistency, wisdom, discretion, and all the
other virtues that are compatible with human nature I'.
We think we have said enough to make the Learned
Lord's friends observe a discreet silence in future
respecting his political career, if they are not resolved
to sacrifice him to their disastrous zeal or masked
hatred. Should they impose upon us the necessity of
reverting to the subject, the Learned Baron shall have
reason to cry out, in the bitterness of his soul, " De-
liver me from my friends !"—Morning Chronicle.
Two Whig-Radical displays have just taken place
—the one at 'Wicklow, in Ireland, presided over. by
the High Sheriff, and attended by Earl Fitzwilliam ;
the other at Taunton, in England, where Sir Thomas
Lethbridge figured as Chairman. We could have
been content to pass both meetings over in merciful
silence, but that the Ministerial journals are so loud
in their admiration of the Whig-Radical oratory there
delivered. Let us then examine what there is to ad-
mire in the one case or the other. County meetings
are often composed of assemblages which represent,
and which sometimes indeed actually embrace, a very
large proportion of the affluence, rank, and character
of their respective " counties." There are other
county meetings which well deserve that disrespectful
epithet which has been applied to such by the
greatest enemy of humbug perhaps existing—to wit,
by the Duke of Wellington, when he called them
" farces." It is of this latter description of meeting
that we speak when we refer our readers to a report
of that which took place on Monday last in Wicklow,
distinctly and undisguisedly to puff the two most
factious measures of the Melbourne Ministry.
Earl Fitzwilliain attended, or rather indeed the meet-
ing attended him, for the Noble Earl appeared, in
truth, to be " first, and last, and midst," &c.—nay, to
be himself the entire county meeting ; of which, with
not half-a-dozen exceptions, the whole of those who
were present, who took a part, and who had any
knowable name or habitation, were simply dependents
of the Noble Earl, or tenants on his extensive pro-
perty—or agitating priests—or salaried servants of
Lord Mulgrave's Government, paid, or supposed to be
paid, out of the public treasury, for tranquillizing the
country, and preserving the King's peace—not for in-
flaming and blowing up the popular spirit by their
presence at meetings held for the purpose of exaggerat-
ing or inventing grievances, and turning the fierceness
oia rude and irascible race of men against the noblest
and most venerated institutions of the empire. This
meeting was called, as it seems, by requisition to the
Sheriff, which Sheriff is a Mr. Parnell, brother of
that Sir H. Parnell, who, after being turned out of his
own county (Queen's County) by O'Connell and the
priests, was inflicted by Radical influence upon the
Scotch borough of Dundee, and now holds some infe-
rior office under the same O'Connell's Cabinet. To a
Dublin Contemporary (the Evening Mail) the Eng-
lish public are indebted for an analysis and classifica-
tion of the county of Wicklow, which shows what a
pitiful fraud it is to describe as an expression of the senti-
ments of that affluent county, where there are such
numbers of resident gentlemen, anything that passed
at a meeting thus called and constituted. The requi-
sitionists did not amount to one part in fifty of the
county of Wicklow gentlemen ; and of those who signed
the requisition, a considerable number, as one of the
speakers informs us, absented themselves from the
meeting. After Lord Fitzwilliam himself there parades
among the ten justices of the peace who signed and
attended in subserviency to the will of their overgrown
Lord of the dirty acres, Mr. Chaloner, his own steward ;
Mr. Hume, the said steward's son-in-law, a stipendiary
magistrate newly fastened on the nation by Lord Mut-
grave ; Mr. Redmond, another stipendiary, and a
Roman Catholic—not the worse, we willingly agree,
for that last, but much the worse for being at once a
magistrate and a dabbler in faction; Messrs. Segrave and
Byrne, two Roman Catholic Magistrates, and an
apothecary, a Fitzwilliani tenant. Lord Fitzwil-
liam himself, and two other Lords, made up the
full number of ten justices. Of the Peers who
washed their hands of the whole proceeding, there ap-
pertain to the county of Wicklow nine, of Magistrates
thirty. The Members of Parliament were Mr.
Howard, a joint of the tail that screws on and off
again, as occasion requires ; the two Messrs. Grattan,
whom we arc very far from blaming for any mark of
devotion to Lord Fitzwilliam, considering the friend-
ship that subsisted between their respective parents,
although such a motive for the deference shown by the
above gentleman to the Noble Lord, who, besides,
possesses in his bands the means of returning whom
his Lordship pleases for the county, reduces to zero
any political value which might otherwise have at-
tached itself, if any could, to Members of Parliament
whose votes are almost invariably to be found in the
same list with Mr. O'Connell's. Mr. Fitzsimon, the
son-in-law of that illustrious personage, was the only
other senator (God save the mark) at the meeting.
We can add nothing to the unanswerable observations
made by last night's Standard upon the indecency and
indignity of stipendiary magistrates making themselves
political partisans, in a country where nine-tenths of
their magisterial duty consist of efforts to prevent or
bring to punishment crimes springing from that politi-
cal excitement which meetings like this at Wicklow,
for all the calculating plausibility of Lord Fitzwil-
liam, arc amongst the chief means of keeping up.
There is one thing to be observed upon respecting this
day's performances—viz., that in no resolution, nor in
any speech, was there one syllable uttered which could
be construed into the faintest compliment to Mr. Daniel
O'Connell, or even the most distant allusion to his
politics—a fact which proves the hugger-mugger Fitz-
williamite spirit in which the whole affair was got up,
since it must be recollected that this same Lord and
his deceased father were made by O'Connell, during
many months, spitting-boxes for all the bile and venom
which he could discharge from his overloaded stomach ;
lie succeeding lie, and the most daring and disgusting
effrontery being resorted to by that malignant impostor
to cover with the hatred of the Popish rabble, on the
score of their being harsh and persecuting landlords,
noblemen, who, whatever may be their politics, have
always been exemplary in the private relations of life,
and eminently kind to all who held leases under them.
Not a word was here said for O'Connell I How far
his gaping vanity may be disappointed by such an
omission, it is not for us to guess, but it would not
surprise us to see symptoms of sourness before many
days have expired. There is little worth remark con-
nected with the above meeting beyond the few per-
sonal characteristics of it which we have already
noticed. The subjects touched upon were the Irish
Municipal Bill, the Irish Tithe Bill, and the intractable
conduct of the House of Lords with regard to both—that
is, for passing a Bill to abolish tithe for ever, and another
to get rid or Protestant Corporations for ever, the two
grand nuisances which Papists have these five years
been complaining of, but which Bills the majority of the
House of Commons—more stubborn than O'Connell
refused to pass, for he, the crafty hypocrite, recom-
mended the Whig Ministers to accept them. As for
the speeches themselves, they were far below medio-
crity, the Noble Lord's own included. Now let us
turn to the feed of the West Somersetshire Whig-
Radicals at Taunton. Mr. Bickham Eseott, not many
years ago, told the Radical-Reformers of this 'division
of the county, that if they remained true to their poli-
tical creed, Somersetshire was likely long to continue

amour " for the fatness of her soil and the folly of her
gentlemen." We heartily hope that no barrenness has
befallen the land ; and that the gentlemen are flourish-
ing in the style alluded to by Mr. Escott is clear
enough from the speeches of Messrs. Sanford, Tynte,
Labouchere, Lee Lee, and, last not least, Sir Thomas
Lethbridge. The worthy and consistent Baronet,
though the dinner was given to the County Member
of West Somerset, was so devoted to the " powers that
be," that after the health of the Royal Family, he
proposed the health of his Majesty's Ministers, whom he
exhorted to "look with a firm face upon the people."
This called up Mr. Labouchere, who, after puffing the
Government measures, informed the meeting that it
was not in his power to "withdraw the veil from frit
turity," but added that he knew " enough of the lead-
int,° members of the Administration to say that, when
they found that they could not hold office with honour
to themselves and benefit to the empire, they would not
continue to retain it for an hour." We pretend to no
more power of withdrawing the veil from the future
than the Right Hon. Gentleman, but we know enough
of the leading members of the present Government to
say, that closing one eye to their own honour (if they
have any), and the other to the benefit of the empire,
they will keep tight hold of place till they are contume- '
liously turned out—as, indeed, Lord Melbourne him-
self declared at the close of the last Session. The
speeches of the two county members, Messrs.
Sanford and Tynte, would not justify one word of re-
mark, had they not blundered on the question of the Re-
form in the Lords, both declaring to an assembly of Whig-
Radicals that they shrunk from that extreme measure.
The disapprobation manifested at this gave the cue
to a " whole-hog" man, Mr. Leader, the. Member
for Bridgewater. This worthy left nothing for the
most rampant Radical to desire. His speech was
of the true O'Connellite character, compounded of
disgusting abuse, and of more disgusting bombast.
And the temper of this meeting of the Reformers
of West Somerset may be estimated, when we say
that this specimen of Irish eloquence brought the
patriots present on their legs at its close, and the
Hon. Gentleman was greeted with " enthusiastic
and long-continued applause." Of his diatribe
against the Lords we shall only say, that it was
more stupid and vulgar than such exhibitions usually
are. He first told his hearers that the House
of Lords was a " many-headed despot ; " next, that
it was " Lord Lyndhurst's tail ; " then, that it was
a body which had " challenged the nation to
mortal combat ; " and lastly, that the said body was
" irresponsible, and had a selfish narrow interest
diametrically opposed to the interests of the people."
Having so often, arid indeed no later than yesterday,
disposed of this flimsy charge of irresponsibility and
exclusive interests brought against the Lords, we shall
not go over the same ground again in reply to this
Radical spouter. Yet few things in this world are ut-
terly worthless. Even the speech of Mr. Leader, at
the West Somerset dinner, is so far valuable, as it
gives evidence of the split in the faction, which the
Whig-Radical journals themselves from day to day are
beginning more faintly to deny. Here we have a
muster of the whole Whig-Radical force of one divi-
sion of a great county assembled under the soothing
influence of a comfortable dinner, yet their unanimity
cannot last throughout one short evening, but the
fainting spirit of Whiggcry is made to quail before the
furious onslaught of Radicalism. Vainly may a few
feeble voices attempt to prevent the approaching dis-
severance, by pointing out the impossibility of either
division of the party opposing the respectable portion
of the community single-handed. The faction is un-
controllably hastening to its doom. We may observe,
that Messrs. Sanford and Tynte, the two county mem-
bers, have both a large landed stake in Somersetshire,
and are opposed to any tampering with the Peerage.
Mr. Leader, who is fur proclaiming, " in tones of
thunder, to the startled cars of the Lords, that they-
must be aroused from their dream of pride and fancied
power," is member for the borough of Bridgewater,
with which, we believe, lie has no connexion but an
electioneering one, while with the county of Somerset,
or indeed with any county whatever, we are given to
understand, he has no connexion at all.—Times.
The Reformers of Liverpool have invited Lord
-Melbourne and Lord John Russell to a public dinner.
We have seen the announcement with infinite pleasure.
It is one which ouctht to fill the breast of every Re-
former with joy. We are sure it will overwhelm the
Tories with despair. From our hearts do we pity
those of them who are on the eve of eating Conser-
vative dinners. The hale idea of the Prime Minister
and the Noble leader of the House of Commons being;invited to a public dinner in such a place as Liverpool,
and with the Mayor, too, of that important city in the
Chair—the bare idea of this will deprive the unlucky
wights of Tories, whose public dinners arc yet to be
eaten, of all appetite. It would not surprise us if it
do something still worse. It would be no subject of
wonder to us should it seriously interfere with the di-
gestion of the huge quantities of eatables which have
been gulped by the Conservatives at the dinners which
have just taken place. At all events we may safely
affirm that the mania for Conservative dinners will, from
this moment, cease and determine. The simple announce-
ment of the fact, that the invitation to which we have just
referred has been sent by the Reformers of Liverpool to
the two Noble Lords in question, will annihilate all the
projects which may be in contemplation for other Con-
servative feeds. may
the beneficial results which we
anticipate from the intended dinner to the Prime Mi-
nister and the Noble Secretary for the Home Depart-
ment, will net be of a merely negative kind. 'We feel
all the confidence of entifb conviction when we say
that most important positive results to the cause of
reform will result from it. We doubt not that there
will he a full and unreserved expression on the occa-
sion of the views and feelings of the most influential
and intelligent city, the metropolis excepted, in the
empire, on the great questions which at this moment
engross the public attention. Above all, we hope and
trust the opportunity which will be afforded of appri-
sing the noble guests of the real state of the public
sentiment, with regard to the collision which now
exists, between the two Houses of Parliament, will
be gladly seized, and turned to the best account.
The Noble Lords will learn more, from what passes
before their eyes, and comes under the cognizance
of their ears on such an occasion, as to the real opi-
nions of the people of England on the question of
Peerage Reform, than they could learn from a month's
unintermitting perusal of the newspapers. But the
advantages to the cause of Reform which will result
from the contemplated dinner will not end here. That
dinner will operate most beneficially for the people of
England in another way. Other dinners to promote
the interests of Reform will follow, as a matter of
course, in various parts of the country. And in many
places where the Reformers may not meet for festive
purposes, they will assemble in much larger numbers
than the expences and ceremonies consequent on a
public dinner would allow, to take into consideration
the best means of removing the obstructions now in-
terposed to the completion of further Reforms. What
we have so often and earnestly of late recodoubtmmendednot,
the people of England to do, will now, we
be well and speedily done. The demand for Peerage
Reform will be forthwith embodied in the irresistible
shape of the resolutions and petitions adopted at large
assemblages. This will be found the right way of
going to work. The thanks of the country will be
due to the Liverpool Reformers for giving an impulse
and direction to the public mind on so momentous a
question. Morning Advertiser.

We are glad to see the influence of public opinion
manifested, in the altered tone of those who were, but
a short time ago, full of revolutionary fury against the
House of Peers. The echoes have scarcely died away
of the loud noise with which they threatened that the
hereditary branch of the Legislature would be over-
borne by popular violence, if it did not give way to the
representative branch ; but these threats failed of their
effect. They doubly failed, for they neither deterred the
House of Peers from the independent discharge of its
constitutional duty, nor roused the populace, as it was
evidently hoped they might do, to undertake that inter-
ference, which, if it succeeded at all, must have done so
through a sacrifice of the peace and prosperity of the
empire. They who so vehemently urged a revolution in
the constitution of Parliament by force, or by a popular
demonstration having the character of force, are com-
pelled by the state of the popular mind to speak in much

more moderate terms. They admit the reluctance of the
people to proceed to those lengths, which, but a short
time ago, they insisted the people were eager to proceed
to, and they now only contend that what they think
proper to call a " reform" of the House of Peers is a
fair subject for consideration and discussion. This is, '
indeed, a salutary change, and it should be a matter
of public congratulation, that the " re-action," or
whatever it should be called, towards rational and
constitutional liberality, has taught those violent men
who talk of " liberality," while they mean licenti-
ousness, that they must alter their tone in order to
avoid becoming the objects of public contempt. We
have no objection that the question of the political
value of the House of Lords as it is, compared with what
it might be expected to become under an altered system,
should be made matter of fair and candid discussion.
We should have, indeed, a very different opinion of
that institution if we thought its merits could not be
brought into legitimate discussion without injury to its
stability, or to its present place in the good opinion of
the public. Let the question be discussed, but let it be
done with fairness and calmness. Let it be treated
as a question whether or not a great alteration should
be made in the British Constitution. Let it be con-
sidered as a question, the interest of which spreads
itself over the whole scope of British Legislation and
Government. But that sort of discussion, be it remem-
bered, will be very different from the irrational strain of
invective with which, hitherto, the Ministerial oppo-
nents of the House of Lords have striven to carry their
point. We must remind our readers of the mode of
attack heretofore made on the House of Lords, that
they may judge how great a change must take place
before the discussion can be conducted on the broad
constitutional ground which it is worthy to occupy. It
happened that certain matters, involving the extreme
points of party difference between the Ministers and
the Opposition were embodied in Bills which, by
small majorities, passed the House of Commons.
These were matters in which Mr. O'Connell took a
particular interest. They were not made Ministerial
questions until that notorious person had become, from
an angry opponent of the present Ministers, their
most influential supporter. By his aid the small
majority in their favour in the House of Commons
was obtained. The Bills went to the House
of Lords—that House appeared likely to take out of
them those clauses which were carried in the Lower
House as party triumphs, and the moment it did so,
the cry for the overthrow of the Lords, as an inde-
pendent branch of the Legislature, began. It was,
without any sort of argument upon the subject, assumed
that the Bills as they passed the House of Commons
ought to become the law of the land, and it was affirmed
that if the House of Lords presumed to take a different
view of the excellence of these Bills, the people would
arise, and, by some means or another, compel that
House to pass the Bills, or put it aside altogether, as
wholly unfit to continue any longer in the exercise of
legislative authority. Such was the reasonable mode of
warfare which the Ministerial opponents of the Upper
House of Parliament thought it not unbecoming to
adopt, while there seemed to be a chance of popular
support in such a mode of obtaining a political object.
Expressed in general terms, the argument against the
Peers was this—the representative branch of the Legis-
lature has come to certain conclusions, they ought
therefore to become the law of the land. But the form
of the Constitution is, that the aristocratic branch must
also agree to these conclusions, before they can become
law ; therefore, to comply with the form of the Consti-
tution you must violate the spirit of the Constitution,
and your own independence and integrity besides, by
agreeing to these conclusions, whether you approve of
them or not, and, if you wiil not do this, the people
shall rise up against you. We need not waste words
in proving the iniquity and absurdity of such an appeal
to the House of Lords as this. There must, in order
to be successful, be some other ground of attack upon
that House, than the assumption that their independent
judgment must be dispensed with, coupled with the ad-
mission that their consent is necessary. If it can be
shown that the judgment, the caution, the :nte,,rity,
and the independence of the Lower House are sufficient
t 3 secure salutary laws, and that the circumstances of
the constitution of the Upper House, as well as the
experience of times past, prove it to be hostile to the
enactment of salutary laws, then it is time that the Con-
stitution of Great Britain were changed. But to say
that the House of Lords is to be overthrown or altered
merely because it does not agree with the House of
Commons, is to beg the main question, and to assume
that the House of Commons is certainly right, and the
Upper House certainly wrong. We cannot leave this
subject for the present without protesting against the
false view which some Ministerial writers take of it,
when they say it is a question whether the House of
Lords shall have the absolute rule over the people.
Such a statement seems to suppose that the whole body
of the law, as it at present stands, is neither more nor
less than the absolutism of the House of Peers. That
House can make no new law, nor alter any existing
law, without the consent of the House of Commons.
The people therefore cannot become less free than they
now are, by the continued existence of all the power
which the Lords now exercise. The real absolutists
are they who wish to make the fiat of the House of
Commons have the force of law—the Peers have never
sought for such extreme authority.—Morning Herald.
I The literary champions of the Whig-Radicals have
many qualities which logo might have enumerated as
belonging to his character, but none more prominently
than that negative one which lie ascribes to himself—
they are " nothing if not critical." We are not sur-
prised at this, since it not only harmonizes with the
general captiousness of Whiggish dispositions, but is
the only thing in which they ever had anything re-
sembling permanent success with the public. Ever
since the Edinburgh Review, by a certain briskness
and bitterness, engaged the public attention, and ob-
tained some money, and a great deal of notoriety for
those connected with it, the Whig mania for criticism
has waxed stronger and stronger, and every Whig of
them who wields a pen must employ it (in season or
out of season) in the various modes of fault-finding
with which the ungentle craft of factious criticism
abounds. This was always offensive ; but never so ab-
surd as it has been since, in an evil hour for the poli-
tical destinies of Great Britain, the Whigs have been
the party of the Government. Instead of maintaining
the institutions of the empire, whichis the fit business
of a Government, they set about reducing- their criti-
cal theories to practice ; and very soon found (as all
rational persons well knew they must find) that such
theories as theirs were not capable of being reduced to
practice. The borough-loving reformers of the Edin-
burgh Review soon found themselves the framers of
the borough-destroying Bill of 1831; and in every
other particular, then, • and since, they have found
that their previous Whiggery was an impossible thing.
The more depraved and desperate of them fall into
practical Radicalism, and the more conscientious step
back into Conservatism. In Whiggery, as they had
maintained it with so much critical zeal and asperity,
there was no substance to stand upon—it was but a vain
imagination. But they who have gone down the precipice
into Radicalism have learned nothing salutary from
their experience. Prodigious vanity and petty rancour
are still their stock in trade, and though, in the posi-
tion of supporters, of the Government, we find them
wholly unable to put forth anything like a decent de-
fence (even in form) of what it does, or what it omits
to do, they are driven to direct and fulsome adulation
--revolting stuff, that disgusts thousands, and can de-
light no
one, except it be those to whomit is ad
dressed, and whose self-esteem blinds them to the
nastiness of
the mess of flattery provided for them.
But the chief
occupation of these critical supporters of
the Government still is to find fault ; and their labours
are devided
between the established and constitu-
tional institutions
of the country and the Conserva-
tive Opposition,
0, by speeches or writings, make
thro
public their opinions ug out the kingdom. They
are never done telling
those who question the capa-
bility of the Government to manage State affairs as
ought to be managed of theythe errors which they
(the Conservatives) are themselves; guilty of. One
critic
principles are very
lectures us e
tls u
lfor beings another for being
illogical : uthat
our • p
dangerous, another that
so,
rrea
then reasonings are very dull ;
g;
but suppose it to be what Suppose we
are as illiberal as Mr. Hume is profound and eloquent,
as illogical as Mr. Spring Rice is candid and straight-
forward—suppose we are as dangerous as Mr. O'Con-

►►ell is safe, and as dull as Lord Lansdowne is bril-
liant—all that will not make the Ministry a bit the
better, or satisfy Europe that our affairs are not under
the direction of conceited imbeciles. We should be
glad if the Ministerial scribes would be pleased to lay
aside their criticism for a season, and graciously con-
descend to inform us wherein the reputation of their
patrons consists. We want to know from its own
friends, what they think the present Ministry has
done to deserve the confidence or the toleration
of the public ; for we do profess, in all since-
rity, that we are utterly at a loss to imagine
how a favourable case could be made out even by its
own advocates. So wretched an Administration is
this, that if its acts are to be examined, or if the charac-
ters of the individuals who compose it are to be exa-
mined by reference to these acts, we cannot imagine
what pretence could be set up in its favour, or how an
acknowledgment of the exceeding depth of its degra-
dation could be avoided. We should be most glad,
therefore, if our very critical contemporaries would en-
lighten us. We should be obliged to them to show us
the nature, the extent, and the practical working of
Lord Palmerston's influence in Europe, and of Lord
Melbourne's in the House of Parliament to which he
belongs. Our contemporaries wrong us if they think ;
we are incapable of being converted from the error of
our political ways, even by demonstration, that we have
been in the wrong. If they will only show us that
the management of our Foreign Department has added
to the influence and advanced the interests of Great
Britain over the continent of Europe—that our Go-
vernment is respected, trusted, and feared, more than it
used to be in " the palmy days of Toryism "—why,
we shall confess that we have been mistaken ; but we
never can have these comfortable views of our pre-
sent errors while Lord Palmerston defends his policy
by attacks on those who think they see in it good rea-
son for blame. If it can be shown that Lord Mel-
bourne has indeed that kind of Parliamentary influ-
ence which it is becoming, if not necessary, for a Prime
Minister to possess—or that, in lieu of numerical
strength, he has personal respect, arising out of his
calm, conciliatory, and yet independent bearing—we
then shall feel that we have been in error respecting
him, but we never shall be persuaded of that by the
assurance that we are " illiberal " or " illogical."
Nor are these the only personages in the Administra-
tion concerning whom he should be glad to have some
satisfactory account from our most critical contempo-
raries. We want only some reasonable demonstration
upon the subject to think that Lord Glenelg is a person
of energy and activity, capable of managing so impor-
tant a department as that of our colonies : at present we
have no reason to believe that he is so. We desire very
much to learn what individual, or what body of men
is satisfied with the intercourse they may happen to
have had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer : at
present we are ignorant that any such exists. We
should like to know what British producer concerned
in anything in which a foreign competition exists is
well pleased with the President of the Board of Trade :
at present we know none such. We should be glad
to know who it is that admires Lord John Russell's
leadership of the House of Commons, or who is ena-
moured of Lord Lansdowne's deputy leadership of the
House of Lords : on these points we are also in a
state of ignorance, from which it might be a good
work on the part of the Whig-Radical prints to deliver
us. We certainly doubt their ability to do what we
think needful to the reputation of their Ministerial
patrons ; but we are sure that, unless they can do
something of this sort, they had better, so far as
their patrons are concerned, do nothing. Their cri-
tical exploits injure their own cause.—Morning Post.