The Sun.
London, England, 1831-08-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We are glad to find that Mr. Portman has abandoned his
Bill " to consolidate and amend the Laws relating to High.
ways ;" and we are equally pleased to learn that Mr. Lamb
has undertaken that a legislative measure on this subject shall
be introduced on the responsibility of Ministers. Laws
upon a matter which so deeply concerns the rights, the
comforts, and the convenience of the public, should un-
questionably be framed by the Government ; and this be-
comes the more desirable when one recollects the injustice
and the annoyances that have been effected by the mani-
fold, and contradictory, and selfish statutes which are re-
ferable solely to the unfortunate abandonment of this
species of legislation to private individuals. Whatever
may be the opinions of Members of Parliament on this
subject, the matter appears to be tolerably well understood
out of doors. At a most respectable meeting of the in-
habitants of St. George's, Southwark, held on Monday
last, Mr. Arrowsmith being in the chair, it was unani-
mously resolved to petition the House of Commons for the
postponement of Mr. Portman's Bill. Among the reso-
lutions to which this meeting came, the following is the
most striking and the most true:—
. That in the opinion of this meeting, it has has not been a
redundant or superabundant population, but a superabundance
of legislation, which has been one of the great causes of national
distress, inasmuch as to increase and multiply' with respect
to Acts of Parliament appears to have been, for many years
past, a general rule of action,with very little regard to the rights,
the liberty, or the property of the people."
The Hon. Member who has been ill-advised enough to
introduce a Bill, called " The Enclosure Acts' Titles
Bill," will not probably follow the example of Mr. Port-
man. If, however, that gentleman should attempt to press
his measure, which is an extremely unjust and insidious
piece of legislation, we have no doubt that there will
not be wanting some Member of the House of Com-
mons, who, by calling the attention of the House to the
character of the Bill, will effectually obstruct its pro-
great.. We can readily believe that the Hon. Member
who introduced the Bill intends nothing improper; but
then he must have been egregiously duped by those
who have persuaded him that this Act does that which
is ct.usistent either with honesty or good sense. The
Act states, "as the provisions of law with re-
gard to lands enclosed, allotted, or taken in exchange,
have not been complied with, and that as the persons inte-
rested therein have been put to much inconvenience and
expense in consequence, it is expedient that some provision
should be made for remedying the same." But in what
manner are these illegalities of omission or commission to
be remedied by the Bill ? Why, in one word, the Bill
legalizes the whole of them. It is an act of indemnity for
all past violations of those laws, which, of all others, ought
to be most strictly enforced ; and it will doubtless operate
also as an Act for the encouragement of a similar disregard
of such statutes for the future. This must not be. If the
spoliators. who have seized upon the commons of the poor
finder enclosure acts, have been in such breathless haste to
enter upon the possession of their ill-gotten wealth, that
they have not even adhered to the prescribed forms of
sharing the plunder and making it legally their own, let
them in the name of common sense and common justice
take the consequence of their own laches.—Times.
Sir IL Vyvyan has postponed his intended motion on
the question of Belgium to Thursday night. He did so
at the request of Lord Palmerston, and on the ground
that no answer had yet been received from the King of
_the Netherlands to the communications made by the
British Government touching the late events. But though
the debate went off in the Commons, a different fate at-
tended the same question ;n the Lords, where the Marquis
of Londonderry indulged in a long harangue, for long it
certainly seemed, considering that his Lordship's object
was rather to obtain information than to communicate it.
Still the speech of the Noble Marquis was not destitute of
intelligence. He told their Lordships, for instance, that
his late brother's " happy policy," the " happy policy" of
joining Holland and Belgium, nolens volens, was a master-
piece in its way, and that it was by departing from the
system as laid down this country bad become in-
volved in her present difficulties. Unfortunately,
however, for this argument of the Noble Marquis, the.
rupture between Holland and Belgium was not the
work of this country, but was the work of his late
brother, and of those who a,sisted in joining, or rather
in forcing together such conflicting and irreconcilable in-
terests. It was the mistake of a vulgar politician to
think that mere physical power could do every thing ;
and this, the constant mistake of despots, which the pro-
trees of events is perpetually refuting, led the late Mar-
quis of Londonderry; an acute man, into an approba-
tion of arrangements, the natural effects of which are
now developing themselves in more quarters of Europe
than one. We are not the apologists of his Majesty's
Government, but we see far enough into the con-
nection between cause and effect to give to the late
Marquis of Londonderry and his brother negociators,
whether Kings or Ministers, the credit of their own
blunders. It will be seen from our report that though the
Noble Marquis travelled patiently, last night, through all
the topics connected with the question, he did not succeed
in eliciting any new facts from the Ministers. He was
met, however, upon those which are already before the
public, with great energy, both by Lord Grey and the Lord
Chancellor—the latter of whom did not hesitate to charge
him and his party with hazarding the peace of Europe, in
their anxiety to embarrass Ministers with a discussion, for
which they were not prepared. This was a strong charge
against those who had always deprecated such discussions
while they were in office themselves. But, perhaps, the
circumstance of having refused, in the House of Lords,
what had been conceded to the plea of expediency in the
House of Commons, will be regarded by many as one of
the symptoms of the times, and a symptom not discredita-
ble in its results to the principle of popular representation.

Herald.
If the following passage, which appeared in the Courier
of last evening, be intended as a serious defence of Minister
touching their policy with regard to Poland, it presents
what we must admit to he a very novel and peculiar plea
of justifies.tion. It is as follows:—" that our Ministers
have remonstrated against the shameful partiality of
Prussia, more strongly than even the French Government,
we are quite assured ; and, if in their appeals to the Em-
peror of Russia, they have not passed the line of pacific
communication, it may be that they expect from bins, in
the hour of victory, a moderation and humanity of which
we have yet seen no signs." If our Ministers expect
" moderation and humanity" towards the conquered Poles,
from the tyrant whose cruel, rapacious, and remorseless
policy goaded that heroic people into resistance to the
giant barbarism of an Empire which he wields with a
giant's ferocity, they must be the most credulous of man-
kind, or they must expect such " moderation and hu-
manity" to follow in the train of Russian conquest, after
the full tide of vengeance shall have rolled over the
devoted country, and shall have consumed in its lava
torrent the last relics of the national existence of Poland !
Did not the Emperor of Russia in his exterminating ma-
nifesto against the Poles, declare that the first cannon
fired by them should be the signal to cease Poland alto-
gether from the map of Europe?" That cannon was
tired in despite of his threats, and Poland still exists;
not because of the moderation of the Emperor, but be-
cause the Poles have displayed a heroism on which it did
not calculate, and which has not, we should think, im-
proved his temper. If, indeed, the treatment which his
armies, covered as they were with the laurels of van-
quished Turkey, have received from the Poles, has taught
him moderation, we wish him all the moral advantage•
that can be derived from the repeated lessons of such
humanising instruction. But, as a cessation of such
discipline might " harden his heart" once more in the
same way that transient gimps of prosperity did that of
his great prototype, Pharaoh, wa cannot join our Minis-
ters, if the Courier rightly represent: them, in antici-
pating the glorious results to humanity from the tri-
umphant occupation by the Russian hordes of the smoking
ashes of Warsaw. We cannot await with satisfaction the
erection of that standard, amid the carnage of its last de- •
fenders, which in former days floated over the ruins of
Wilna and Praga—the symbol of the " humane modera-
tion" of Russian conquest—when the barbarians avenged
the victories of Kosciusko in the blood of women, old men,
and children—when triumph seemed only to be felt by
feeling the power of gratifying an insatiate revenge, and
" Tumultuous murder shook the snitinig4t
—No, we cannot wish to see the Cz sr wade through the •
slaughter of the Poles to the moderation of exhausted
vengeance.--Morning Herald.
Ind the House of Lords last night the Marquis of Lon-
donderry, in moving for all the papers relating to the ne-
gociations on Belgium and Holland, as far as the same
could now be produced without injury to the public, made
a long, rambling speech, into which he contrived to intro-
duce the services of his great departed relative—the re-
ception given by all parties to that relative on his return
from Vienna—abuse of the Revolution of July--abuse of
the Reform Bill—abuse of the Belgians—abuse of the
French Government, mixed up with au abundance of
eonimon-place political gossip. If the character of the Noble
Marquis were not tolerably well known abroad as well as at
home, many of his statements and assertions might, at !Iris
ticklish moment, produce very mischievous results. Earl
Grey said " he had never heard a motion brought forward
for which less Parliamentary grounds were laid, and it
was a motion that must lead to a discussion that might do
'infinite mischief its the critical circumstances of. the
(..ountry. If in the Noble Earl's (Marquis) opinieu it

Ivas wise to plunge the country at once into war, he must
say that he had never heard a speech better calculated to
attain that object." His Lordship said "it was his
anxious wish that the continuance of peace would be the
result of the negotiations now on foot. He should not
avoid the responsibility of explaining these negotiations
when the time arrived ; but unless their Lordships were
prepared to address the Crown to dismiss the present
Ministers, they would not, he was sure, add to the
difficulties of what the Noble Earl himself called
an emhrassing situation, when negotiations were
going on full of complexity and difficulty, by call-
ing for papers, and they would place that confidence
in Ministers which was usually placed in them."
The Duke of Wellington seemed to question the
prudence of the conduct of the King of Holland,
though he bad a fair right to complain. But the prin-
cipal point in his Grace's speech was a charge against the
Secretary of War, that he had received on Wednesday a
communication from the King of Holland, in which the
King stated that he was willing to negotiate, but that he
should support his negotiations par moyens militaires.
" He should be glad (he said) to know why such mea-
sures could not be taken on that day as to prevent the
movement of the French troops towards the frontiers—
(Cheers)—instead of this, however, it appeared that the
letter was allowed to be unopened till the Thursday, by
which means all this opportunity for explanation was lost."
This, the only point worth noticing in the whole of the
speeches of the Opposition, was placed in its proper point
of view by the Lord Chancellor—
.. What did the charge ofthe Noble Duke amount to ? If the
Secretary of State had been more alive to his duty, and not kept
this sealed note in his pocket for twenty-four hours, all mistake
would have been at an end about the termination of the armis.
tice—if the letter had been opened in time, there was no saying
what benefit might not have been derived in stopping the march
of the French army ! He, however, begged leave to state some
slight doubt as to the correctness of this view ; and this on the
simple ground, that of all those who had read the letter, not one
had so interpreted it.—(A laugh.) Nor was this obtuseness pecu-
liar to this country alone; for all the Ambassadors in Holland
had read it, and not even there—not even in that Boeotian air
was there one Minister able to understand it in the way in which
the Noble Duke would have had them understand it. So much,
then, for the distinctness of this letter.—(Cheers.) But even
supposing that it had been so interpreted, how it was to prevent
the march of the French surpassed his knowledge; for it was in-
deed a notice, order§ were given to the Dutch army to pass the
positions before this letter left the Hague; so that long before
any step could be taken here the mischief was done. And, after
all, so little had the interest of this country suffered by the non-
opening of the letter, that within half an hour of the communi-
cation of our Ambassador, the proper steps were taken—(Hear,
hear, from Lord Londonderry)—the proper steps were taken ;
but if the Noble Earl thought that he was going to tell him what
those steps were, the Noble Earl—as was often the case with
him—was reckoning without his host.—(A laugh.)"
Lord Brougham, however, did not confine himself to the
defensive. He belaboured poor Lord Londonderry in an
admirable stile, to the infinite amusement of all who
heard him, not excepting, we dare say, some of the
good-natured friends of his Lordship. His upbraiding
Lord Londonderry of ingratitude to the newspapers, the
only source of his knowledge, was very happy. Men of
weak understandings, like Lord Londonderry, are seldom
much oppressed with a consciousness of their inferierity,
and, indeed, the manner in which his Lordship thrusts
himself forward in the part of a leading statesman, affords
a sufficient proof of his overweening self-sufficiency.
Still, however, we should think the marked allusion by
Lord Brougham to his notorious unfitness for the parts lie
acted on the political stage, must have penetrated his thick
coating of self-conceit.
"‘ He complained that two Ambassadors and an Irish Bishop
had been appointed from amongst the relatives of the Noble Earl
at the head of his Majesty's Government. Now, though that
statement was not true, he recommended his Noble Friend at
the head of his Majesty's Government to realize it—(A laugh)—
and at least some good would then arise from the speech of the
Noble Earl.—(Renewed laughter.) He should have thought the
Noble Earl would have been the last to allude to nepotism in ap-
pointments to foreign missions; he could scarcely have forgotten
that fraternal affection had appointed to such missions persons
unfit—notoriously unfit—unfit to a degree the world never wit-
nessed before.—(Cheers.)"
The affectation of the men who now complain that the
honour of Britain is tarnished by not interfering in all
quarrels in every quarter, was very happily exposed by a
reference to their cowardly and hypocritical conduct when
France marched an army across the Pyrenees, and over-
ran Spain, when not even a remonstrance was urged by
us. But then France was warring against Constitutions,
and in favour of absolutism, and the honour of England
can only be tarnished by not opposing constitutional liberty.
Lord Brougham, in justifying our conduct in the case of
Holland, condemned in strong terms the conduct of the
King. "If (he said) there was any sovereign so lost to
a sense of the duty he owed to his people—the duty he
owed to his kind—if there were any so smitten with the
monstrous, unholy, cruel, blood-thirsty selfishness of making
war for the purpose of conquering a province, or any war
not called for by extreme necessity, and sanctioned by per-
fect justice, that Sovereign would neither deserve the re-
spect nor veneration which he for one would be willing to
offer to a Monarch ready to sacrifice his personal feelings
for the preservation of the order, liberty, and peace of
society.—(Cheers.)" Lord Holland, in a short, but most
animated speech, laid bare the motives of the Opposition..
" If the Noble Lords carried their object, he said it meant
war ! war ! war ! and nothing but war ; and not simply
war between Belgium and Holland, but an anti-revolu-
tionary war. And was there an honest man—was there
an Englishman who considered the consequences of such
a war, who did not feel that every thing ought to be done
to prevent a cannon being fired in Europe. . . . In
moving for these miserable papers, it was quite clear the
object of the Noble Lord was to create discontent in
Courts, in individuals, and throughput the country. The
fact was, that the Noble Lords were themselves for war.—
(No, no.) If they denied this, it must be said at the ex-
pence of their understandings. If the motion of the
Noble Lord succeeded in occasioning a change of Govern-
ment, the inevitable consequence would be war." There
certainly seems little necessity for fanning the flames of
discontent on the Continent.—Morning Chronicle.