The Sun.
London, England, 1831-01-31 00:00:00

dine received its death blow. " The King of France
knew his danger ; his Ministeis, his egregious Mi-
nisters ! miscalculated their strength. Instead of
waiting for circumstances, which would not long have
been delayed, and which would have authorised them
to call on the other Great Powers of Europe for in-
terference and support according to treaty, they
committed an act of egression, whereby they placed
themselves manifestly in the wrong, and forfeited
that right." And where are we now ? " Men in
Administration," says the Learned Dsetor, " at this
time, whether Whig or Tory, must, we are willing
to believe, have the same interest, and arrive at the
same end—that oldie public safety and the publicgood.
There is no occasion to suppose in them any extraordi-
nary degree of patriotism or private virtue; as mere men
and pubic ones, their interest and their duty coin-
cide. Being sane men, they can take no other
course—no other is possible for them. The age of
jobbing is past. Were Ministers as profligate as
such persons were in the days of Bubb Docldington,
they could not act in the same manner, because
whatever they do is known and scrutinized ; they
are under the public eye—an eye which is anything
rather titan indulgent. So far, therefore, as good
conduct proceeds from good intentions, it is to
be presumed on in any Ministry, and credit ought
accordingly, to be given to them." Thus, then, piety
brings on a nation the blessing of Providence—the
blessing of Providence shows itself in political free•
dom to a degree which excites the admiration
of Europe,—political freedom manifests itself in
the wholesale corruption of the Government,
the fruit of piety—the State then perishes
by want of wisdom and virtue—that is want
of the means of corruption, and we are preci-
pitated in public opinion—public opinion ren-
ders jobbing impossible, and forces Ministers, whe-
ther they will or not, to aim at the public safety and
the public good. Thus far we have arrived on our
way. But we have next to proceed, according to
Dr. Southey, " through storms and tempests to the
calm of a dead sea, in whose noisome and pestilen-
tial exhalations other storms are generated." How
the d—l we are to get out of the dead sea, after
being struck with these noisome exhalations, and
buffeted about, the Doctor telleth not. But, per-
haps, in a subsequent political lecture, the Doctor
will reveal what he suffers to remain now a mystery.
In the meantime, here we are, a warning and an
example of the misery which awaits every nation
which has the misfortune to exchange a corrupt Go-
vernment for a Government which can no longer
job, and under which men in Administration must
consult the public safety and the public good.—
Morning Chronicle.
We alluded on Saturday to a pamphlet, under
the title of the " Question of Reform considered,
with I-lints for a Plan." The author is not bigotted
as to any particular plan of Reform. " I will readily
acknowledge (he says), that, provided the principle
of substantial representation is admitted, the precise
mode does not appear to me essential." It would
be difficult, perhaps, to contrive any scheme of
re-
presentation so defective as that which we now pos-
sess ; so that there is one thing of which we need
to be under no alarm—that of deteriorating the cha-
racter of the house of Commons. The franchise is
not in the respectable part of the people of England,
but in the rabble of petty boroughs, who have no
in crests but their vote, and the so called repre-
sentatives may as well be said to represent the
Grand Mogul or the Emperor of Morocco as
Englishmen. There is no, choice on the part of
the people ; but a man possessed of the requisite
funds goes into the market and buys his seat.—
Talents and respectability are matter of accident.—
If the property and intelligence of the country re-
turned the representatives, we might expect some
attention to qualifications. The people of a district
would naturally return the man they deemed best
qual,fied to protect their interests. But the people
have no choice, the representatives are not chosen,
but the elections are purchased or influenced.
" In truth (says the author) the facility of obtaining a
family seat, the pride of continuing the hereditary repre-
sentation of a county, the vanity of upstart riches, the
necessity of adding titles to wealth, the temptation of earn-
ing, through Parliamentary distinction, those professional
rewards which are there most surely to he found ; all
these, in all their combinations, are the motives which
assemble in the House of Commons that rich variety of
classes, which has been supposed to constitute so high a
perfection. I have been long and intimately acquainted
with the House of Commons, collectively and individually.
I have a list before me, in which I have classified the
p, rsons, the places, the motives, the ends, the speculations.
It would be invidious to give it to the world, and I have
no inclination to render the discussion of a great ques-
tion the occasion of personal attack. Let us not
be told, however, of the excellence of arrangements which
contribute to give us adventures of every colour and
degree. In the fact, then, of all these declarations
upon the comprehensive variety of the composition of
the House of Commons, I maintain that, as at present
constituted, the House of Commons is not an adequate—is
not a fair—is not a sufficient—is not a faithful represen
Ltien of the people of this country. The House of Com-
mons does not contain within its walls any Representative
of the middle classes of Society, nor have the middling
classes of this community any reasonable means even of
sending any fair rep,esentative of their class to the House
of Commons,"

A very small proportion of the property of the
country is at present enabled, by purchasing the
votes of persons of no property, to prey on the mass
of the property of the country. The utter worth-
lessness of the House of Commons as a protector
of the interests of the nation, was proved the instant
the Crown and Parliament entered into their pre-
sent partnership at the Revolution. The account
given of the House of Commons by the first repre-
sentative for the county of Eciinburgh, after the
uniun xi:h Scotland (Lockhatt, of Carnwath—
Lockhfut Papers), is as applicable at the present
day as NO years ago. He had been Chairman of
the Committee to inquire into the embezzlement
and misapplication of the public money, and soon
found that the opposition of secret or avowed ene-
mies was a burden beyond the power of endurance
of indi, iduals—

" The truth on't is," he says, " the English please
themselves with the notion of liberty—it consists in nothing
more than thAt they themselves are the instruments of
their own slavery, being bubbled and imposed upon by
these in authority over them, more than any other nation
io Europe. A., for example they value their Constitution
touch because no taxes car. be raised but by consent of
Parliament ; whilst, ae the same time, greater taxes are
imposed, and greeter abuses committed in the application
of them than if the pawer was solely vested in the So-
vereign ; fir, as the consent of Parliament is requisite,
tbe Prince, to obtain the same, is obliged to bestow on the
Members thereof a great pat t of what is to be imposed;
so that the burden b• comes heavier on the people by the
Prince's being constt ained to bribe the Parliament, and to
star those who embezzle the public money to pass un-
punished, that so he may ba enabled to obtain what is ne-
cessary for the support of his Government ; and as the
sovereign cloth nut sp ire the people's money to give them
representatives, lie no more fails of getting what he demands
than if he was an absolute Prince ; only with this differ-
ence, that the deluded people pay for the notion of liberty,
as their representatives make bold with their contituents
in order to procure riches to themselves. Arid this obser-
vationto money matters, for in all
is riot confined wholly
other things the King is obliged, by bestowing offices and
pensions, to make a majority of both Heusei.of Parliament
on his side, the expense whereof comes of the people,
And as what I have said will Ike found a just enough cha-
racter of tbe people of England's notion of liberty and
..overnment in general, the Members of the House of
'Commons are 011101.46 e "we temper, and manage their
iiff tits after the same manner. For, though all of them
re vest,d with equal powers, a very few of the most
active and pragmatical, by persuading the rest that no-
thing is done without them, do lead them by the note,
and make mere tools of theta to serve their own ends.
And this, I suppose, is chiefly owing to the way anti
manner of electing the Members; for, being entirely in
the hands of the populace, they. for the most part, choose
those who pay best; so that many are elected who very
-eldin attend the House, give themselves no trouble in
business, and have no design in being chosen, even at a
great expellee,
but to hive the honour of being called Par-
liament men. On the other hand, a great many are like-
vieloctl who have no concern for the interest of their
coentry, and, being either poor or avaricious, aim at no-
thing but enriching themselves; and hence it is that no
assembly tender Heaven does produce so many fools and