The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-08 00:00:00

THE SUN, LON DON, TUESDAY, DI4'CEMPER
_B. 1840.

after very improper objects—because the policy of

France under his Administration was erroneous
and unjust—it does not therefore follow that the
policy to which Lord HOLLAND was opposed
is righteous, frank, and proper for England.
The errors or crimes of M. THlErts supply
no rule for condemning Lord HOLLAND, and no
rule to justify the policy that was embraced, we
must now suppose, in spite of his remonstrances.
That must be defended on its own merits, and by
all its consequences, including the alarm we have
already suffered, and the danger which still threa-
tens us. We trust that all will turn out well, but
we frankly confess that we should have preferred a
line of policy which would not have placed in
jeopardy the peace of Europe.

Many months ago The Sun directed public at-
tention to the circumstance that the conduct of
the Chartists would put an end to all real public
meetings, and so actually suspend one of the most
important parts of the Constitution. During the
last Session of Parliament, the subject was alluded
to in the House of Lords by Lord BRoUGH &M,
who spoke on it with some indignation. Per-
haps the late meetings at Norwich, where the
Chartists overcame the Anti-Slavery champions,
and at Glasgow, where the emigration scheme was
put down, may have tended to strengthen the con-
viction which the previous conduct of the working
classes must have generated. Another scene of the
same kind took place at Glasgow on Thursday, when
a public meeting was called to address the QUEEN.
Though some attempt was made to pack the meet-
ing, by admitting the requisitionists into the hall by
the back -door, and to deter the people from attend-
ing, by threatening them with Bridewell if they in-
truded, no sooner were the front doors opened, than
the Chartists,who had gathered around the entrance
in great numbers, rushed in with loud shouts, and in
five minutes, says the Glasgow Chronicle, the hall
was crowded. The LORD PROVOST was placed in

the chair, but all the subsequent proceedings were
little more than noise, riot, and confusion. A Mr.
JOHNSTONE moved an Address to her MAJESTY
in the usual strain, and a Mr. JACK moved an
amendment to it, which is thus described :
In addition to the usual congratulations expressed in
unobjectionable language, it congratulated her Majesty
on the opportunity which such an occasion afforded her
of granting a pardon to all political offenders in her
Majesty's dominions, and of restoring them to their de.
solate homes, and mourning families. It next alluded
to the distress which existed in the country, and prayed
her Majesty to institute an inquiry into the causes of
this distress, which they alleged, existed in consequence
of legislators being too ignorant or too corrupt, to le-
gislate for the nation's welfare or her Majesty's safety,
and er,ded by expressing a belief that this distress would
exist till the people had a full and fair representation in
the Commons House of Parliament.

After a considerable quantity of noise and uproar

the question was put to the vote, and the LORD
PROVOST declared that the original resolution was
carried. To show his partiality, however, the
Chartists had their numbers counted as they re-

tired from the building, when they were found to be
785, and as the building will not hold more than
1,200, it is said that the majority was on their side.
Be that as it may, the proceedings were altogether
disorderly, and, were any question of public im-
portance concerned, the motion adopted would not
be worth a straw. As an indication of public
opinion, it would be of no value whatever. It has
come then to this point, that the middle
classes of the towns cannot hold public meetings,
no matter what may be their object. Hole-and-
corner meetings, to which no persons are admitted
but by tickets, given to none but partizans, they
may hold, but it will be very difficult, if not impos-
sible, to hold open public meetings. This is the
consequenee of the very decided separation which
has taken place between the middle classes and the
working classes, and which is more likely to increase
' than diminish. That this is eminently true of
Glasgow is the opinion of the Glasgow Chronicle,

which says—
The proceedings in the Trades' Hall yesterday, must
have convinced every dispassionate observer of the lolly
of any longer attempting to hold public meetings in
Glasgow, for objects of a political complexion, till a bet-
ter understanding shall have been effected between the
middle and the wo7kir.g classes. We most decidedly
condemn and lament the conduct which the Chartists
have latterly been pursuing in reference to meetings
called by other parties. In one or two instances they
have obtruded themselves and their principles where
they had no right to appear, and in others, in which no
objection could be made to the introduction of their opi.
nions, they have yet brought them forward in such a
manner, as to weaken the sympathy and repel the co-
operation of many who are strongly inclined to go great
lergths with them in the march of constitutional reform.
There is no reason to hope that the Chartists
will be changed by such remonstrances, while they
have no other means of securing to themselves the
least political importance ; and it is hardly to be
expected that they will pay much respect to those
political rights of which they are so sedulously de-
nied all share. The cure for the evil is the exten-
sion of the suffrage, and the division of large towns
into parishes or wards for the exercise of popular
1 rights. _

The Anti-Corn-law League continues to act on
the plan it some time ago announced, of visiting.
the different boroughs which return Pro-Corn-law
men to Parliament, and of rousing the electors to
take measures to elect only Anti-Corn-law men.
On yesterday week they visited Warrington, and
though at first they were opposed by a Char-
tist, in the end their resolutions were unani-
mously carried. They do right to make the
Pro-Corn-law Members uneasy in their seats, and
when they have succeeded in half a dozen instances
they will find their force in Parliament is much in-
creased. Already they have made great progress.
The land rings with indignation against the authors
of the Corn-laws, and their exertions must be
crowned with success. _ _

It is a good sign we think, that Mr. Cos•
DEN admitted at the Warrington meeting that
the middle classes have been idle and inac-
tive on this subject, and we may expect from
such admissions and remonstrances a more ener-
getic conduct, as the only means of restoring the
harmony which ought to exist between them and
the working classes. They possess great power
in the State, and it depends on them whether jus-
tice be done to the people. If it be not, the de-
mands for the Charter will extend, the separation
between the classes will widen, mutual distrust will
grow into hatred, and peace will be banished from
the land. Too long have the middle classes
tolerated or allowed the oppression of the lower
classes, in cases such as impressment, interference
with their amusements, &c., which do not affect
themselves. At length the temper of the people is
completely embittered by such proceedings, and the
worst consequences, we believe, are likely to ensue,
unless the middle classes resolve on commanding

that justice be done to the working classes. Such
is the principle, or project of the Anti-Corn-Law
League ; and if it can rouse the middle classes to
a sense of their duty, it will confer an immense be-
nefit on the community. _

The Scotsman of Saturday, remains of opinion
that the cases of Mr. HARMER and Mr. BLACK
were dissimilar. Without professing to know much
of the Dispatch, the Scotsman affirms that it was
"charged with teaching doctrines subversive of mo-
rality and social order," and it maintains that this
charge was " valid to exclude Mr. HARMER, if
it were true." The Scotsman knows that this charge
of teaching immorality and subverting social order is
the mad-dog cry with which the bigots of all descrip-
tions assail all their opponents, and we regret to see

it countenanced for a single moment by such an
enlightened journal. The charge was made
against the Dispatch, because it inculcated certain
opinions which the priest and the Tory party dis-
like, and Mr. HARMER was proscribed on account
of those opinions. Now, we contend against
the principle of punishing opinions, be they what
they may. The Scotsman advocates it, and on ac_
count of Mr. BLACK'S opinions, he was excluded
from the Lord Provostship. If he, like the Scotsman,
advocates that principle, he was paid in his own coin.
If it be admitted, there is no opinion disliked
by the bigots and the Tories which they will not
consider a proper test of exclusion from office, and
we, shall never feel any regret to see it applied
for the discomfiture and punishment of those who
maintain it. Opinion should not be punished,
but refuted.

TRIUMPH of the SOULT-GUIZOT

CABINET.

By extraordinary express from Paris, we have
received the gratifying intelligence that the Minis-
terial Address in answer to the speech from the
Throne, was carried, after post hour on Saturday
evening, by a majority of 86 votes—the numbers
upon the division being—.

For the Address — 000000 ~.

247

Against it .......
Majority in favour of Ministers B6
The conclusion of the debate has not yet reached
us,but a full report of the proceedings, up to post hour
on Saturday, will be found in another part of The
Sun. This long and important debate being now
over, we ate in a condition calmly, but earnestly to
make a few deliberate observations upon it.

To the English reader, who peruses attentively
and dispassionately the whole of this long debate
in the Chamber of Deputies on the Address, rnore
correctly in fact, though not in name, the Parlia-
mentary debate upon the Eastern question, nothing
will appear more surprising, upon reflection, than
the absence of all regard for political honesty, truth,
and righteousness which characterises it. By such
a reader it must be regarded as the language of an
assembly, in which the avowed want of honesty in
a Minister produces neither a sense of shame in him-
self, nor the smallest feeling of resentment in his
auditors. This is the worst symptom which has
yet appeared in France. When M. TRIERS avowed
his intention of duping Lord PALMERSTON by false
professions—when he proclaimed aloud that, with
peace upon his lips, he had war in his heart—when
his colleague, M. DE REMUSAT, admitted that the
whole Oriental policy of France, as understood by
the Great Powers in 1839, was a falsehood which
contemplated with indifference the downfall of the
Ottoman sway at Constantinople—when, by ex-
posing the avidity of France to obtain possession of
the Ottoman fleet, he indirectly corroborated the
well-known fact, that France had advised the be-
trayal of that fleet to the VICEROY nay, even
when M. BERRYER, as ungenerously, as meanly,
and ungratefully invoked the manes of NAPOLEON
against England, who so nobly restored to France
the mortal remains of the ENIPEROR—not a voice
was raised in the Chamber in execration, or even
in deprecation of such open and undisguised wicked-
ness. On the contrary, shouts of applause followed
the avowal of sentiments which no member of the
British Legislature would dare to utter without in-
curring the whole weight of the national resent-
ment—without the certainty of being hunted like a
tiger from the precincts of public life. But in
France not only political justice, but a pretension
to it, is not essential to the character of even a
Prime Minister. M. TRIERS gloried in his dis-
honesty, and was applauded by his friends ; M. DE
REMUSAT avowed his participation in the delin-
quencies of his colleague, and was complimented
on resuming his seat by M. GUIZOT ! No orator
thought it worth his while to touch upon the inte-
rests of Turkey, the progress of civilization, or
the relative duties of the European States
to each other and to humanity, as regarded
the Eastern Question ; but each was content to
wrangle about and bluster about the immediate
interests of France. This is so well and so forcibly
expressed in the Tablet of yesterday, that we have
pleasure in quoting the paragraph which embodies
it—less to confirm our own impression than to sa-
tisfy the war party in France, and the Protestant
theological incendiaries in England, that the British
Catholics are even more decided than ourselves in
their condemnation of the policy of the late French
Ministry, and of the language of the Representa-
tives of France, with respect to it. Nothing so
harsh of M. THlERS—nothing so condemnatory
of the essential character of French statesmanship,
has appeared in the Tory Standard as the following
extract from the weekly organ of the British
Catholics :
M. Thiers entered this debate with every chance against
him. He bad for his opponent a man of high character,
great ability, and much reputation for probity ; and a man,
too, who had, side by side with himself, conducted the ne-
gotiations upon which the debate was to turn ; who had
been the recipient of " upwards of a hundred of his pri
vete notes," as well as of all his public despatches ; who
had, consequently, at his fingers' ends all the turns and in-
tricacies of the question, and was as fully acquainted with
the weak points of the case as himself. He entered it
after a policy of fraud, treachery and perfidy ; of blus-
tering, boasting, and bullying • of extravagant expendi-
ture and extravagant double-dealing. He entered it after
having made himself the ridicule of Europe by his im-
mense armaments, which ended in nothing ; aid "an
imposing attitude," which made the world ring again with
laughter at the solemn farce. He entered it after having
brought the King within a hairs' breadth of despotism or
abdication, and the capital of his country within a hair's-
breadth of pillage by a ferocious mob. He entered it after
having stripped France of everyone of her European allies.
He entered it after having caused the only ally which his po-
licy had left her, and about whom all Europe is convulsed
and agitated— the Packa—to be almost annihilated by the
a guillo.
tremendous blows which his treachery has brought down
upon him ; whereby, as he himsclf declares, the French in_
fluence in the Mediterranean is annihilated. He entered
French Minister •
it with the Wood of two thousand men upionnabahlpeispteohaecraadn.,cewhios
vtrincgacmheorsyt
ahnadv have
ambition.been offered
He
eu pc
entered
rSeydriiat, atin the ewsohrrdi
aftere of hish s
nnongconception of thei
triincehlfyroer
hmisdoawrnopceolurnotmrytmheenre;stanodf Europe, and aeand
out of it
almost in triumph ; complimented, congratulated, lauded
by the opposition ; unscathed, and rather exalted thoammecoaustt
down, by the Conservatives.
d
and fraud. The must vile ot
the
eNdVvi haveseehroyn
ebs
etsysatis that adth the edrsreputation y ofcol beingerttan
and the reason is, because the policy of Frauctheeessentiallyd+shon
ews
et
callan d fraudulent.tiicrn ? 0 f tTh
shtere
countryis
difference between probity
dishonest maxims are put forward by the most respectableean
men of every party, with an effrontery and an unconscious-
ness
the East, the
of their being in the slightest degree liable to excep-
tion, which is perfectly shocking. We have read throughthe whole debate so far as it has gone, and we do riot be-
lieve that in discussing a question in which were involved
ara:ilds
osufbjtehcetswie
West, and the,pos-
sibility of a most terrible war throughout Europe end
gohftstheof
leading
greiginons
Asia, the word Justice baa passed the bps of
. any ono of
the speakers, or the notiom of justice
therigh
rights
flitted even tran-
siently across his mind. The question has been on all
hands nakedly and coarsely stated to be one of interest.
Is Mehemet's Syrian domini▪
on , worth a war, all chances
being taken into account ilt s not," says one party,
acid therefore we ought not to have war. "It is," says
the other, and therefore we ought to have war.), he
CO6C
lusions ariived at arc di▪ fferent, but the rogue's logic
is the same in both.
Appalling as this sketch is, we fear it will be
found not so highly coloured as we would fain be-
lieve
it. In the progress of a debate upon an
Address which deplores the prostration of Poland,
several speakers recommended a close alliance with
Russia, with the avowed object of trampling upon
Englarid—the leader of the vanguard of western
civilization ! Provided they gratified the national
thirst for vengeance, they professed themselves
wholly indifferent as to the means. They were
ready to league with
the CZAR or the Devil in a
project for the humiliation, perhaps the dismem-
berment, of England. What, then, ought we to do ?
Abide the result calmly and firmly, taking care to
be well prepared for the worst. While Franc-o
continues her armaments, it is the first duty of our

oovernment not to relax a moment in

its exertions to place our navy on the
strongest possible footing. The spring should
find us as well equipped for battle as our neigh-
imurs. Let what like happen we shall not
suffer so much as France from the cost of naval
armaments. We can always turn our ships to
some profitable account, should we happily have no
occasion for converting them into engines for the
merciless destruction of our fellow creatures. If
France, by wickedly and profligately continuing her
armaments, compel us to arm in self-defence, it is
of the first consequence that not a minute should be
lost in effecting our preparations. For nothing
now short of the discontinuance of the military
preparations in France can assure us that there is no
longer any danger to this country. The mere
defeat of ?I. TEI lERS upon tine address cannot now
satisfy us.We must have some less equivocal manifes-
taion of the pacific intentions of our Gallic neigh-
bours. Already we begin to perceive what we take
to
_be symptoms of new troubles brought on by
French intrigues in Spain. In the professed reck-
lessness of French statesmen as to the means Of
humbling England in every quarter where she is
supposed to have any influence—at Alexandria, at
Constantinople, at St. Petersburgh, at Madrid, and
at Lisbon, we anticipate little regard for principles
however liberal, or for institutions however popula-r.
The very same Republican faction now ready to
league with Russia—to forego all resentments on
the scare of the atrocious denationalization of Po-
land, would to-morrow, merely to humble England, •
march across the Pyrennees and re-elevate
the sceptre of Carlist despotism in Spain.
We can no longer, therefore, trust such
men. We can no longer rely upon the wis-
dom and virtue of a Representative Assembly
which hears without censuring their flagitious opi-
nions and sentiments. Hitherto France has ma-
naged to keep all eyes upon the Treaty of July—
all ears employed in listening to her complaints of
the insult offered—all tongues busy in deprecating
the violence of her wrath, and in expressing sym-
pathy for the burning intensity of her wounded
feelings ; but the guilty revelations made by M.
THIERS and his colleagues in the Chamber of
Deputies, have found other employment for the
eyes, ears, tongues, and minds of Europe. We
have discovered that our oft-repeated sympathy for
the mortified feelings of M. THIERS in particular
does more credit to the warmth of British hearts
than the soundness and depth of British penetra-
tion ant? judgment.

It is with deep regret we learn, that, at the instance
of her Majesty's Attorney-General, Mr. Hetherington
is this day to be tried in the Court of Queen's Bench
for publishing a work of anti-religious character. Such
prosecutions were formerly in vogue, and the chief ef-
fect of them was to multiply irreligious books, and
books written in the worst taste. In the present case
the Attorney-General does not follow, we are sure, his
own good sense—he acts in obedience to a resolution of
the House of Lords, promoted by the Bishop of Exeter.
He cannot, we hope and believe, do aberwise ; but
we regret to see the Ministers sanction, by ever so
small a compliance, the prosecuting, persecuting
bigotry of the priesthood. In this body, at the
present time, there are great dissensions. One
party accuses the other of idolatry, Popery,
blasphemy, and hints at perjury. We are not
sure that the most prominent of the persecutors of other
men for opinions has not deserted the Protestant faith—
though he clings to the temporalities of the Protestant
Church, and has not gone over to the Puseyite Popery
of the day. For the priesthood to institute or provoke
prosecutions for difference of opinion seems very impoli-
tic, for it points out to other men the course to be
hereafter adopted towards themselves. It is somewhat
disgraceful, too, for the law, that it should be made the
instrument for subserving the malice of these quarrel-
some, ambitious men, and we hope in their interest that
the time is not far off when persecution for any kind of
opinion shall cease. Mr. Hetherington is, however, only
a bookseller, not an author, and it as little rational to
punish him for his presumed offence, as to punish an ar•
suourer for selling a murderer a pistol.