The Sun.
London, England, 1831-05-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

proceeded yesterday The polling at Northampton
eery slowly ; but we are happy to .eay, that at one
)'clock Lord Milton had gained three on the'claY 'l%
,on. This imptoeement, we hope, will continue.
l'he freeholders of Northamptonshire must bestir
themselves to save their comity from the disgrace of
...ejecting Lord Milton. One vote more or less
vould now have little effect on the fate of the Bill;
'ar, thank God, the Bill is already carried. This
-he more sensible Tories naw admit. "To those
gentlemen (said Mr. Bankes, in his last speech),
vho are now sd strenuous for Reform, I must say
tat I can now tell them, that the Bill, the whole
Bill, and nothing but the Bill is carried." The
eattle is over as far as the elections are concerned.
l'he war will soon now be transferred to another
quarter. Of the result, however, there can be
to doubt. The best policy for the Tories to pursue
is to resign themselves to what is inevitable, to aban-
Jou all proceedings, which are only calculated to ir-
itate, and to content themselves with the share of
influence which character and property will continue
to give them. The reflecting' men among them
Joust perceive with Mr. Banker, that " the cause
if ParFamentary Reform is now completely car-
ried." Power when made manifest naturally ac-
quires more power. The timid, the wavering,
will all now swell the ranks of the Reformers. On
the other hand, it is so decidedly the interest of all
.vho have anything to lose to strengthen the hands
of a Government supported by such an overwhelm-
ing majority of the nation, that the great mass of
owners of property will make common cause with
the people. The Anti-Reformers can move no lever.
They have no means of influencing the nation. All
the pretexts made use of by them, all the appeals to
;he prejudices of differ:;A classes of the people, have
been treated with derision. .They are left to them-
selves; and it is needless to say that a party with-
out support in the nation is a political nonentity.
Poor Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald, the Knight of Kerry,
has, like Sir James Scarlett, grievously miscalcu-
lated in joining the Anti-Reformers. Our readers
will see that Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Mullins are re-
' turned for Kerry. Mr. M. Fitzgerald has been
unlucky in his connections. He supported Lord
Castlereagh at the time of the Union ; he joined
the Fox and Grenville Administration ; and re-
mained in opposition till a short time before the
death of the Wellington Administration. He then
remained with the Whigs all the time they were
out of power, and he returns to his first friends,
when they also are about to leave office. As the
Bill will be submitted to the new Parliament soon
after its meeting, and as the motives which led to
such lengthened debates in the last Parliament, can
hardly influence the Opposition in the new Parliament,
the time will soon arrive when the people of England
can congratulate themselves on having attained that
Constitutional protection for which they have so long
sighed.—Morning Chronicle.
The people of Paris seem to he settling dawn
into tranquillity, and the natural consequence is the
revival of confidence. The Journal des Debats says
the agitators are abandoning each other—a certain
sign of their weakness. The Constitutionnel has of
late assumed an altered tone, in compliance, no
doubt, with the general feeling :—" The partisans
of war, of propagandism (says the Journal des De-
bats), are publicly convicted of error; they spoke
of an inevitable war, which it was necessary to an-
ticipate in order not to be overtaken by it ; and now
we have peace assured and certain : such a miscal-
culation is a grave check. To efface this check the
partisans of war will change their name; they wish
hereafter to call themselves the Nationals. A change

of name is something, if it is the commencement
of a change of policy. M. Mauguin perceives that
the opposition has discredited and lost itself; he
feels that his force on the public place is exhausted,
that the doctrines of his journals shock and dis-
please ; he wishes to give more strength to this
party, which has wtained a premature decay by its
excesses; he therefore gives it a new name, and at
the same time openly breaks with the republicans.
Let us attend to these two circumstances on the
part of M. Malign); they tell better than all
the reflections of the world the state of the
party. We wish to say a word also as to the
parry of the fightened, another new creation of
M. Mauguin. People are often frightened at
things less on account of the form which they have
than the weakness which they discover in society;
the good citizens were frightened under the last
Ministry—this was weakness: this weakness was a
great danger; the turbulent party was not stronger
then than now, but it was favoured by the yield-
ingness of the Government; this was calculated to
frighten. Let us add, that the difference between
the party of the frightened and the party of the
intrepid (fur we also have our nomenclature) is, that
the interests, that is to say, commerce, indos ry,
credit, labour, the funds, property, are the fright
cued; and the ideas, the theories, and the prin-
ciples are the irtt-epid. The difference is important.
It is easy to be brave when we hazard nothing. But
the shopkeeper, who is forced by mobs to shut up
his shop—the manufacturer who is obliged to turn
off his workmen—the banker who is obliged to
stop payment, may with good reason be frightened.
The frightened are the interested, they whom dis-
turbances do not cause fear, but injuiy and loss.
Do not laugh at this timidity; reflect that it is chagrin
on account of the losses they have sulf: red, losses fatal
to their families and their workmen, and Char every
man is warranted in being afraid of losing the
fruits of his exertions." There is some force in
these remarks. The industrious classes suffer so much
from any interruption of order, that they will in most
cases rally round any Government disposed to pre-
serve tranquillity. The national guards consist of
that part of the population which has the deepest
interest in preserving tranquillity ; and the fullest
reliance may in general be placed on their dispo-
sition to enforce the laws. The Revolution of
July may not have effected all that enlightened
Frenchmen expected from it ; but let us have pa-
tience; time will gradually supply the defects in
the French Institutions. The present Government
is honestly intentioned. There is no disposition to
counteract the progress of knowledge, to poison the
people by superstition. It may have been silly, or
worse, in the Government to institute so many prce
secutions against the Press; and it would have
acted with more wisdom if it had confined itself to
the repression of actual attempts to disturb the
public tranquillity. Still, with every deduction, tire
French have gained greatly by the revolution. Tin y
will act wisely in not allowing the good they lease
obtained to be placed in jeopardy by tumultuary
proceedings. A nation may be com Felled, by the
extremity of misgovernment, to have recourse to
the desperate remedy of a revolution ; but revolu.
Lions must not be resorted to for every abuse of au-
thority, or as an ordinary remely for detects in the
institutions of a country.—Morning Chronicle.
Northamptonshire has not yet redeemed herse'
from the disgrace of a protracted contest, when th
question is between a Reform candidate and a Tory
We do not speak of the return of Mr. Cartwright
as disgraceful to the freeholders of Northampton,f);
ne that point there could be no dispute, but we rte
pronounce it to be most humiliating and shameful
such a struggle having once been provoked byt he
boroughmonger faction; it should have lasted mol-
than four-and-twenty hours. Ciicums!ances,indeed
have been mentioned ro us, for the purpose of ex-
plaining in some partial degree the difficulties ex-
perienced by the freeids of the Reform interesting
bringing up their forces to the hustings. Northamp-
tonshire being an acricuitural county, it is said that
a great want of public conveyances exists there, in
comparison with places where a more dense popula-
tion and more active commerce have called such
facilities into extensive use. No public conveyances!
But are Oleic> tin pcst-chaises? Are there no saddle
horses among the farmers ? Is there no post-office
n or ei,ewhere,
establishedg
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Committee
e.)tlecoteatcebra• ofourL, 0,. the 02
those inconveniences as the managers