The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-05 00:00:00

'PARLIAMENTARY.

In the House of Peers last night the Earl of Minto de-
fended and explained the promotions recently made by
him before leaving the Admiralty.
On the third reading of the Exchequer Bills Funding
Bill, Viscount Melbourne attacked the policy of his op-
ponents. He described their financial scheme as a
failure, and one which they, after turning him out of
office, ought not to have adopted. He insisted, too, that
they ought to be prepared to introduce some measure for
the relief of the public distress, and happily ridiculed
the pompous demand for time to mature measures, by
asking whether the Ministers were looking for the phi-
losopher's stone. He did not oppose the Bill.
The Earl of Ripon defended the delay of Ministers,
and assured his Noble Friend that he too must have had
a loan had he remained in office? and had carried his
budget.

The Duke of Wellington was apparently nettled at
Viscount Melbourne's remarks, and declared that he
would not follow his schemed, The Noble Duke said
that Sir Robert Peel had found out other deficiencies,
which were not mentioned in the Budget,
The Bill was read a second time. The Poor•law
Commission Bill went through a Committee. Other
Bills were forwarded a stage, and several petitions for
the repeal of the Corn-laws were presented. Lord
Brougham announced his intention of calling their Lord-
ships' attention to the subject of slavery to-day. Their
Lordships then adjourned.
PUBLIC OPINION.

The Morning Post, commenting on Lord Brougham's
speech in the House of Lords a few evenings since, on
the subject of the bribery practised at the late elections,
says :—" It is our belief that the changes produced by
the Act of 1832 did greatly extend the possibilities of
getting into Parliament by means of bribery and intimi-
dation, and therefore to that Act (along with whatever
good it may have done) may justly be attributed the evil
also to which Lord Brougham has drawn attention. But
it is not our purpose to argue that question now. Though
it were admitted by all that the changes produced by the
Reform Act were the immediate cause of the increased
bribery, still it would not follow that such a result was
reasonably to be expected, The real cause lies 'deeper
than any Act of Parliament It is in the immorality
of the bribers and the bribed. If these two classes
were manly and honest, the new system created by
the Reform Act might have been carried into practice
without producing any increase of corrupt voting."—
If, as the Post states, the Reform Act has greatly in-
creased the facilities of bribery, an additional argument
is adduced in favour of the Ballot, which is the only sure
means of putting a stop to such a crying evil. But this
• is a remedy which a Tory journalist will never advocate.
Ire will cant about bribery, as Joseph Surface canted
about morality, .because it looks decent and respectable ;
but he will never seriously set about its removal, because
he knows well, that by so doing, he will be depriving his
party of one of its most powerful weapons. It is on the
broad shoulders of bribery and corruption that the Tories
have lifted themselves into office. It is bribery that has
swelled their majority to ninety-one ; it is bribery that
has enabled them, with a plausible appearance of truth,
to cry out, "Reaction !"—and, so long as they have
an influential voice in the State, never will they apply
more than a skin-deep remedy to the abuse that has made
them what they are,
The Times is delighted with the Earl of Shrewsbury's
pamphleg chiefly, we presume, because it aims a blow
at the authority of O'Connell in Ireland. " Never,"
says our Contemporary, " never were the Irish Roman
Catholic priests addressed by a sincerer friend than the
Earl of Shrewsbury—never was justice so impartially
awarded to the more exemplary members of their order,
as well as to the more. turbulent—nor is it possible to
conceive a series of suggestions better fitted than his
Lordship's to encourage the virtuous conduct of the
one class, or to restrain the unseemly excesses of the
other, or to advance their the,
respectability and
usefulness. Not only does the Noble Earl declare his
conviction that the Irish Roman Catholics are now ab-
solutely free from all degrading disparagements, and
from every imaginable contingency that can justify their
hostility to the Protestant Church, or their distrust of
a Conservative Government, but that the alleged
grievances still palmed upon them by O'Connell,
(even including the vevatious question respecting
the right to Church property) are wholly visionary
or grossly exaggerated, and in either case, if
susceptible of redress at all, such as can by. no means
justify the agitators obtaining plans for it."
If the " allege grievances" which O'Connell declaims
against, were " wholly visionary"—as the Times hints
in the above passage—never would he exercise the vast
influence that ho exercises throughout the length and
breadth of Ireland. It is not the shadow, but the sub-
stance, of ill that engenders discontent in a country.
People do not rally by thousands round a leader who
goes forth to battle only against the phantom of a griev-
ance ! They clamour, not from imagined evils, but
from the actual iron pressure of adversity. It is the
thorn rankling in their side that extorts their cry of suf-
fering. Mr. O'Connell is only
.powerful because Ireland
is oppressed, and his power is in exact proportion to the
extent of that oppression.
The Morning Advertiser says :—" The independent
labourer is reduced to the condition of subsisting with-
out the ordinary necessaries of life, while the idlers of
society are revelling in abundance! How astounding
would such a fact as this be, had not our experience fa-
miliarised us to its existence l As the national wealth
has increased, the comforts and enjoyments of the labour-
ing chases hare been diminished. As the means of
abridging manual labour have been multiplied, the toil
of the labouring classes has become more severe and
protracted. As the power of facilitating and multiply-
ing productions has been enlarged, the consumption of
the labouring portion of the community has been cur-
tailed Instead of increasing in comfort and happiness,
in proportion as the country has increased in scientific
knowledge, and its application to the purposes of
production, the Industrious part of the population has
become impoverished and debased, and deprived of one
tomfort after another, until they are found—we speak
Vitt Parliamentary authority—absolutely lying by
hundreds in one locality from utter inanition !"
FriliS the state of things that Sir Robert Peel is called
on to remedy ; but for this he has no remedy ; or if he
has, he declines to make it known. He is prompt enough
at remedying the imperfect ventilation of the House of
Commons ; but the starving thousands must wait five
long dreary winter months, before he condescends even
to inquire into their condition ! Alas, how many will
have died off from the face of the earth, utterly worn out
by the pressure of hunger and disease, before that
anxiously-desired period arrives ! But what cares
Toryism for the sufferings of the people, so long as it
can feather its own nest, and provide handsomely for its
own callow brood ? But the hour of retribution is at
hand. The starving, half-frenzied operative, at whose
wretched hearth the gaunt phantom, Despair, sits,a con-
stant guest, will not wait--cannot be expected to wait—
the return of Spring before his sufferings are redressed.
He will force the Tories, however reluctantly, into a
prompt consideration of his case ; or such an uproar will
arise throughout the country, as will hurl them from
their snug, easy posts in Downing-street,
The Chronicl2, alluding- to certain rumours respecting
dissensions in the Cabinet, says—" It is tolerably cer-
tain that if any material change is to take place in the
Corn-laws, the Right Hon. Baronet must get rid of some
of his colleagues in the interval between this and the
next Session. If we could suppose Sir Robert Peel to
believe either that there was no distress in the country,
or that the distress was not mainly caused by the opera-
tion of the Corn-law, we might also suppose that too
much importance has been attached to the supposed
divisions in the Cabinet. But the belief has very
gene-
rally gained ground, notwithstanding
some equivocal
speeches of the Premier, that he is anxious n
to : prot
pose a much more important change..than _his p_r_ese,,
colleagues will consent -.So, -and:that the Cabinet must.
therefore undergo, cre 10ng,.. a; . material .c.hange•
Whatever change may= ogblP4
tween this and -splingibiwthitticis the change
-must b.. for the better, for it cannot possibly be for the

worse. We defy Sir Robert Peel, v'itl 'iarverse
ingenuity, to find amore unpopular Colleagiie than the
Duke of Buckingham. His Grace and Sir James Graham
are "loads that might sink a navy." 'They are a con-
stant drag-chain on the .movements of the. Premier.
And yet he talks of his . independence—and at
the very time, too, when the chain is clanking at his
heels ! We tell him that he is the mere tool—the puppet
of the aristocracy, and this is the price he pays for his
elevation. The plebeian Premier may. ,be .the nominal
ruler, but his patrician colleagues are the Viceroys over
him.

The Herald pays the following tribute to the merits of
the Duke of Wellington:-" No sooner does any one of
the ConServative Ministers utter in Parliament a truth
distasteful, nut to the OppOsition—for Lord Melbourne,
with his usual contempt for facts and realities, assures
the country that there is no party of legislators united
for the pnrpose of opposing the Peel Administration—but
to the Whig,Radicals,•than he is assailed by their organs
with a yell of execration. Thus on Friday evening the
Duke of Wellington simply stated a truth as palpable to
every one who will use his senses as the nose that completes
and adorns hiS face, and on Saturday morning he was forth -
with denounced as a monster, and as a modern Herod. He
whose whole life has been, with a single interruption,
one great and remarkable example of foresight and cir-
cumspection, is declared to be now incapable of making
contemporaneous observations on the most ordinary sub-
ject, because he announced a fact adverse to dishone.tt
and unsuccessful agitation. He who, while leading on
British armies to victory for more than twenty years,
never sullied the British flag by one act of unnecessary
harshness, is now vituperated as cruel, because he will
not deceive the public."—Our Contemporary here boldly
refutes an assertion that has never been advanced.. " He
makes the giants first, and then he kills them." No one
ever called the Duke of Wellington " a monster," or a
" modern Herod," for stating that there was enough
food in the country—no one ever dreamed of such an
absurdity. The worst that has ever been alleged against
his Grace by Reformers is, that he is rather behind, than
in advance or, the times, as respects legislation.

We quote the following from the Berwick Advertiser :
—" While the new Ministry reign supreme in the House
of COmmons, public feeling sets in against them strong
out of doors. In every part of the country meetings are
in the course of being held, to deprecate the heartless
postponement of public business over the winter. As
might be expected, the strongest indignation is every-
where expressed against such a procedure."
The Somerset Gazette observes, in an article sug-
gested by the approaching prorogation :—" Sir Robert
can only retrieve himself by meeting the' country with
tenfold liberality next February, as some small compen-
sation for the delay. He must give in tenfold degree
then. But that he may be stimulated to do so, the
country must make good use of the intervenirg five
months."

The Hereford Times says of the present Government :
—" Among the many fine things which the country
was promised, whenever the Tories returned to power,
was the practice of economy, which, we were assured,
would-stand in strong contrast with the profligacy of the
Whigs. But the Tories are in power, and the preach-
ing of economy has passed away, and we have in its
stead th• practice of profligacy."
The Paisley Advertiser remarks, in reference to the
state of the poor in that tows—" There is great distress,
great privation, great suffering. In Johnstone there
are 120 families, comprising 300 individuals, in such
distress as to be unable, without aid, to obtain food,
clothing, or pay, for shelter. The distress in Paisley
has increased more this week 'than during any week
since its commencement. The number applying for re-
lief has increased 118, and now in all 804, amounting,
with dependents, to above 2,400."
The Scotsman thus speaks of the present Ministry :
" They see trade in a state of extreme depression,
poverty and famine stalking over the land, and,
after immeasurable bonding of their power to
save the country, -thiiy confess
.they can do
nothing I Their excuses are worse than ridicu-
lous. There are men in the party—Herries
and Goulburn, for instance—who are familiar
ith every part of our system of taxation, and who
know just as well at present how money may, or may not,
be raised, as they will do in February next. They are
not profound men by any means ; but we may safely say
that the intervening five months will not add a single
idea to their stock."
MONEY—TRADE—COMMERCZ.

The Leeds wool-trade has been tolerable this last week.

The recent heavy Manchester failures have made the
Huddersfield market comparatively dull. The Rochdale
flannel market has been thin, and fallen off. Halifax
trade has also been less animated. _ _

The distressed hand-loom weavers held a meeting at
Manchester on Thursday last, when emigration to the
United States was resolved upon, and the gentry of the
town and country at large solicited for the purpose.
The Leeds Intilligencer announces the failure of a large
and long established manufacturing house at Hudders-
field. It is said that certain woolstaplers in Leeds alone are
sufferers to the amount of 20,0001. The occurrence has
created a painful sensation throughout the manufacturing
districts of the West-Riding.