The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-20 00:00:00

send to Parliament almost as many Tories as Re-
formers; and the Ministers, whatever .may be
their inclinations, are obliged to comply with
this balanced state of public opinion, and almost
to stand still.
At the Salford dinner Mr. GREG pointed out,
we think, one great source of this neutralization
of the -popular power, without perhaps intending
it. The Hon. Member referred, with something
like apprehension and dismay, to the Chartists.
The stout-hearted, well-fed, lusty middle classes
have really been more frightened by a little idle
Irish vapouring—for most of the violent speaking
and writing has been done by some great 0' or
other—and a few torch light meetings than ever
they were by the armies and threats of BONAPARTE;
and their fears, their terrible mistrust of the people,
have driven them to sacrifice Reform, as they
supposed, to obtain security. They have acted
foolishly. Had they exerted themselves to
obtain bread and freedom for the people, instead
of penury and prisons, discontent would have
subsided, and those political reforms, which are
necessary to adjust legislation to society, might
have been ensured. We are quite clear, there-
fore, that the bulk of the middle classes are as
much to blame as the Ministers for the slow
progress which Reform has lately made.
We do not wholly exonerate the Ministers.
If they had acted as boldly to the landed gentle-
men as they have to M. TRIERS and MEHEMET
ALl—if they had explicitly and manfully stated
that the condition of the people absolutely re-
quired those practical measures Mr. BROTHERTON
speaks of, the landed gentry, like M. Timms,
would have quailed before the force of truth,
and Ministers would have been able to carry into
effect their own views. But they have been more
terrified by the opposition of a few Whig Lords
and Commoners than by the whole force of France,
and they have sacrificed the prosperity of the
country, and their own real greatness to a very
idle fear. One bold measure, throwing them-
SWves on the honest and just feelings of the
People, would have placed them far beyond the
reach of such pitiful politicians as my Lord Asti-
BURTON and Mr. BENETT.
They have not adopted this course, and hence
it is that Correspondents at Nottingham and else-
where, ask us, What have the Whigs
done ? We are rather surprised at such
a question from Nottingham, because the Whigs
gave the Nottingham citizens, with others, a
Municipal Reform. If they have not given the
stocking-weavers the abolition of the Corn-laws,
the weavers will probably remember that not
above one Tory voted for Mr. VILLIER'S motion,
that Sir R. PEEL and all his friends spoke and
voted against it, and that two or three of the
Ministers spoke for it, and the bulk of the Whig
party voted for it. If the Ministers have done no-
thing towards abolishing the Corn-law, the reason
is that a few Whig LordS and Whig Squires,
combined with the Tories, would not allow them.
We may say the same of many other things.
Five or six sessions of Parliament have been
wasted by the squabbling resistance of the Tories
to the measures for reforming the Corporations of
England and Ireland, for commuting tithes in Ire-
land, and other measures which the Ministers
proposed. The • Ministers—and we blame them
for it—have not been earnest enough in abolish-
ing Church-rates, and in getting rid of the rate-
paying clauses of the Reform t; but to blame
them for not extending the franchise, when they
were not allowed even to extend the time for pay-
ing the rates—to blame them for not abolishing the
Corn-laws, when they were not allowed to pass a
Bill to authorise the grinding of wheat in bond,
is as absurd as to blame a man for not running,
who is so overloaded that he cannot move. If
the people want reform the only way to get it is
to command it, and as long as the people are in-
different to the subject and sell their liberties
they will not have reform and will remain en
slaved.

One thing the present Ministers, or rather
Lord ALTHORP and Earl GREY'S Administration,
did, for which they are much blamed by the lead-
inglory journal. The aristocratic Times, the par-
sons' journal, condemns them for passing thd new
Poor-law, and it hopes to hoist Mr. WALTER
into Parliament on the condemnation. Now that
law When passed was almost universally ar-
proved of. Very larg9 majorities of both parties
carried it through Parliament. Few p etitions
were sent against it. The complaints of the old
law were numerous and just, and, so sanctioned,
the new Poor-law had 'all the characteristics
of . a popular measure. At any rate it was
the parsons' and the landlords' measure.
One of ifs great patrons was the Bishop
of LONDON. It was chiefly intended to save
the, landlords' and the tithe-lords' pockets,
and to this day it is zealously supported by the
parsons and the landlords throughout the coun-
try. It is not a Whig measure, but a measure
of the clerical and landed aristocracy.. It is
little less than shameless, therefore, for the Times
and Mr. WALTER, the supporters and protegees
of the parsons and the landlords, to essay an en-
trance into Parliament for him by abusing the
Whig Ministers as the authors of the Poor-law.
When Mr. WALTER and the Times denounce
the landed aristocracy and the priesthood we
shall give them credit for sincerity and honesty in
denouncing the Poor-law. We do not mean
by these remarks to exonerate the Ministers
from all blame ; but where they, following
the old practices of the Constitution, have
scourged the people vita ;-ship;;, the Tories
would have scourged them with scorpions. The
worst that can be said of the Whigs is, that they-
are too much like the Tories, and it will be a dis-
,,race to the people of Nottingham to elect a
worse enemy to the public liberties even than
any Whig.

We chew attention, on the 9th instant, to the
Rev. Ml'. PARKINSON'S pamphlet, in which he

explains that one great source of error in at-
tempting to heal the disorders of society, is our
ignorance of each other. We enforced his view,
and applied it to the Legislature, which we then
maintained, is essentially ignorant of the wishes
and feelings of the people, for whom it pretends
glibly to legislate. To us it seems to try stu-
diously to preserve its ignorance, and sometithes
it wastes the public money in order to keep out
the light. We refer, for example, to the "First
lteport of the Committee ou Emigration, Scot-
land," which has recently been published. That
Committee was appointed " to inquire into the
cioli.i(litioll of the population of the Islands and
kifngli!and.s ofScotland, and into the practicability
aft. ordang the people relief by means of emi-
gration.
evidently to the
at'll.vurds " population "and "people"
lower classes, not to advo-
cates, agents, writers to the Signet, ministers
of religion, and factors; and if any thing were re-
quired to make the matter clear and certain it
would be supplied by the tern "emigration," all
the genteel classes we have alluded to spurning
the aid andvaadtev.iceloihfethiengLuti!rg:_srlaetluait-iengt,o
til:epil
t i,
wholly
'llion to e
lilytottuhie condition of the lower class of the
Highland community, if the Committee or the
Legislature had reall.ynwisnhoetdtotohlay
trusted to
true
thinge
thing of their conditto,
hearsays and guesses, ought it not to have called
before it some of those people ? There can be
no doubt it ought. We affirm that they should
have been the chief persons examined, that
it should have been first ascertained from
their own mouths, what is their present condi-
tion, what was the condition of their predeces-
sors, to what causes they ascribe the change,
if any, and how they think their condition can
he improved. By pursuing such a course the
Committee, instead of Mere conjectures as to
what the past condition of the people was, or
their present condition is, might have got at an
approximation to the truth; but it has done no
such thing. We will prove our assertion by co-
PYing the names and callings of the persons
examined :

Mr. John Bowie, Writer to the Signet; Robert Graham,
EN., Advocate ; Mr. Charles Robert Baird, Writer in Glas-
gow ; Rev. Norman M'Leod, Minister in Glasgow, D.D.;
Rev. John M‘Leed, Minister of Morven ; Mr. Alexander
M'lver, Factor ; Thomas Rolph, M.D., Resident, Upper
Canada; Mr. Andrew Scott, Factor; Mr. A. H. Mackinnon,
Writer and Landowner: Hon. C. A. Hagerman, Judge of
Canada; Mr. Alexander Macdonald, for-
merly
Provincea KofeUlpppr geutMr. Thomas Knox, Chamberlain of
Lewis; Rev. Robert M'Pherson, Minister in Inverness ; Mr.
Duncan Shaw, Factor, North Uist. -

Upon the evidence of these gentlemen, not
one of whom is of the people, some of whom
have a mere business connection with the places