The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-09 00:00:00

worth, to have an investigation, on the spot, into
the signatures. Sir R. PEEL used to be called
the Duke of WELLINGTON'S cad; but, as there
is nobody so low, according to the old saying,
but somebody is lower, the Duke's cad has
found a cad in Sir J. GRAHAM, and the cad's
cad did the dirty job of ascertaining who of all
the Premier's neighbours had lifted up a voice
against him.
The result of the inquiry, though very rigid,
was, that of the whole 2,058 names, only about
30 were of a doubtful character. The tools of the
Government who undertook the investigation
could ascertain who every subscriber was,
except about thirty. Few petitions, nume-
rously signed, could come so well out of
such an ordeal. Accordingly Sir JAMES GRA-
HAM, after making the investigation, did
,not
think himself authorised, he said, to withhold
the petition from her MAJESTY. If, however,
he had found any pretext for it, he would have
withheld it; his assertion that he had not, imply-
ing that he thinks he has the right to stop any
petition on its way to the Throne.
We do not object to an investigation into the
signatures of petitions ; on the contrary, that is
frequently necessary, to keep away improper
signatures. The parties, however, to make the
investigation are not the Secretary of State, nor
is it to be done by his orders, unless some recla-
mation be made, but the neighbours and persons
on the spot interested in not being misrepre-
sented. We are not surprised, however, that
the new office of inquisitor should be assumed
by the Home Secretary. Such rapid inroads
have of late been made by the Government
into all the departments of society that
Sir JAMES GRAHAM has only, we regret to
say, followed the bad example which
has been set him. In our country the Govern-
ment, whatever it might have been, is now no-
thing more and nothing, better than an instru-
ment to serve the purposes of a party, and
whoever gets hold of it uses it to that end.
At the same time we must say that Sir J
GRAHAM'S conduct is not conformable to custom.
At least he ought have communicated his sus-
picions and his intentions to the gentleman who
placed the petition in his hands, even if he were
not disposed, as is generally the case, to rely im-
plicitly on the honour of those—if they be known
and responsible persons—who place petitions in
the hands of the Home Secretary. We have now,
then, a political inquisition; we shall soon have,
probably, a censorship of the press and the pass-
port system ; and then we shall have a Govern-
ment in conformity with the pattern Govern-
ments of the Continent.

It is very singular that the English, who, in
general, are such matter-of-fact persons, should
tolerate, in some of their most. important con-
cerns, a series of fictions and mystifications
that seem more like the superstition of LAMA
worship than the reason which flows from obser-
vation. The people who object to compliments,
which please individual vanity, because they are
insincere, give their approbation to the most
barefaced fabrications, when uttered in the name
of the public. The practice of subscribing
one's-self " Your humble servant," and the
practice of telling servants to say you are out
when you are at home, have found rigid moral-
ists to censure them, and both have been abated,
if not abolished, by the censure. But the practice
of calling the speeches delivered at the closing
and opening of Parliament, by the name of the
SOVEREIGN, while they are avowedly the
speeches of the Ministers, is still cherished and
honoured. We still, also, call those Ministers
the QUEEN'S Ministers, when they are no
otherwise her Ministers than they are forced
into certain offices in order to procure her
signature to certain measures which they,
or the party which forces them into office,
approve of. All kinds of deeds and actions
which that party perform, however repugnant
to the SOVEREIGN'S disposition, are said to be
done with her approbation. She not only, as is
said; appoints Lord STANLEY and Sir JAMES
GRATIAM to offices, hut she promises, months
beforchadd, that she will cordhlly concur tal
measures of which she has never heard nor
dreamed. The fictions of Westminster Hall
have often been reprobated, but they =are sur-
passed by the fictions of the State.

In private life no person of colt nvin sense ever
expects to obtain success or happiness by basing
his conduct on fiction. O'ir families, our
household, buying and sellirg, building, repair-
ing and pulling down, warming and ventilating
our dwellings, clothing -and educating ourselves
and our children, are 'all based on realities, and
we keep falsehood r.nd fiction from contaminating
them as much as possible. In every walk of
private life, fa'.sehood and fiction are poisonous
ingredients, In public affairs, do they change
their natrare ? Are fictions and falsehoods, which
eorrupi and destroy private happiness, the es-
sen'ze of public virtue We conclude not; and
;jast in proportion as the matters are weighty,
which public men attempt to regulate by fic-
dons, so great will be the extent of the ruin ulti-
mately brought about.

When we compare the actions of Government
with the almost perfection of a workshop, such as
Mr. MA.tmsLEv's, we see that all its business (that
is, all the functions connected with the fictions we
have adverted to), are in a sad state of disorde r.
The poverty, distress, and criminality of the
people, are the condemnation of the law. While
the present results are disastrous in the extreme,
results still more disastrous can only be expected
from continuing the system. We want truth and
reality as the basis of all public as of all private
affairs.

Her MAJESTY'S masters express in their speech
deep concern at the distress which has prevailed
for a considerable period in some of the principal
manufacturing districts. The gentlemen who
express that concern have been for many years
leading Members of Parliament. They either
knew of the existence of the distress, through
the whole of that considerable period, or they
did not. If they did not, what precious hum-
bugs are they to pretend to govern a people
of whose condition they are deplorably ignorant !
If they did, as they took no measures whatever
to remedy it, but opposed all inquiries into the
Corn-laws, and all measures calculated to give
relief, how dishonest was their conduct, and how
unworthy are they of public confidence ! On
either supposition the acknowledgement that
distress has prevailed for a considerable period,
is a condemnation of the Ministers. They are
either political charlatans or political rogues—
very ignorant, or very wicked.
What have they been doing all the time that
this distress has prevailed? Did they inquire
into its causes? They resisted inquiry. Did
they check the profuse public expenditure,
which is partly to blame for the distress ? They
encouraged it. They urged on the Whigs in
every measure which was likely to increase the
distress, and never proposed a single measure to
relieve it. Lord STANLEY was assiduously em-
ployed in insulting the Irish, and all his party
were aiding him. Their whole minds were in-
tensely bent on the means of turning out the
Whigs, and, to succeed in that, all regard for
that public distress which now afflicts them with
such deep concern was cast aside. It is not
enough for their reputation that they have, by
implication, denied the present existence of dis-
tress; to admit that distress has existed fora con-
siderable] period, is as fatal to their character as
its present existence.

Were not the miserable career of Captain
ELLIOT, in China, rapidly drawing to a close,
and were we not satisfied that his successor will
be careful to convince the Chinese that Great
Britain never could approve of the acts of this
wretched Plenipotentiary, we should despair of
the name of England ever again being respected
in the East. We have to-day given a series of
his bombastical proclamations to the Chinese,
which, though of prior date to those published
yesterday, are interesting, as showing the almost
unmanageable extent to which Lis stolidity
:carried bitn, iu all the measures undertaken by