The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-10 00:00:00

ABSENT L

whelmed the imagination of the Right Hon. Knight of
Netherby ; and as for Sir ROBERT PEEL he last night
professed to regard it as a contest suited rather to the
military resources of all Europe combined together then
to the limited means at the disposal of Great Britain.
China, from one of the most contemptible, has become
all at once one of the most potent empires in the world.
The Chinese have been metamorphosed from a race of
opium-smoking and tea-sipping old women, encumbered
with pig-tails and petticoats, and armed with matchlocks
capable of discharging two random shots an hour, into
a teeming population of heroes, entirely subject to the
iron will of one man, always under the guidance of the
wisest policy, and capable of overwhelming by their
numbers alone half the armies of Europe. The object
of these conflicting misrepresentations is the same—to
damage the Whigs. With no prospect of a return to
office, it was the Tory policy to strip her MAJESTY'S
Government of the glory of SUCCOSS in China, by re-
presenting the war as a pitiful aggression upon an un-
warlike people. But, in office, this game would
have to be abandoned ; and in the vain exp .etc-
tion of taking the Cabinet by storm, it was aban-
doned at the very commencement of the debate on
Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S motion. It was then declared
that the Government bail plunged the country into a
war of fearful magnitude, to pave the way for an
outcry against the ex-MELBOURNE Ministry, and to
prepare the nation for additional burthens in the shape
of loans and taxes, rendered necessary by Whig ruis•
government. This was the Tory trick, the signal failure
of which must be attended with consequences bent:-
field to her Majesty's Government.
The boasted morality of the Tories is likewise well
exhibited in their conduct upon this question. They de-
clined to give any pledge to abolish the opium traffic, and
they acknowledged their pi rfect willingness to accept.
in all its integrity the war legacy which they thought
the Whigs were about to leave them. They did not
even pretend to be influenced by a higher motive than
the ousting of a Cabinet, whose policy with regard to
China they were ready to adopt. They indulged in no
eloquent declamations against inundating China with
poison, and enforcing its consumption by the sword.
Not a syllable was uttered by the chiefs of the faction,
as predicted by their organs, about morality and religion.
It dwindled down to a mere struggle for place. "To
be, or not to be" Cabinet Ministers—that was the
question with the Right Hon. Knights of Netherby and
Tamworth. SirJ. GRAHAM'S motion was but a variorum
edition of Sir JOHN YARDE BULLER'S ; shaped to
catch the votes of the religiously scrupulous upon the
opium question. A more shameless and unprincipled
attempt to seize the reins of Government, under the
mask of religion and morality—under a mask flung
aside in the first struggle of the conflict—is beyond
any but Tory conception. Well may the country re-
joice at having escaped a war with China, conducted
under Tory auspices. Had Sir JAMES GRAHAM ob-
tained a majority last night, and Lord MELBOURNE re-
signed office, the nation would soon be made to feel that,
if the war was little, the expenses of it were likely to be
as great as its distance from our shores.

Common sense and justice, as we expected, have
prevailed against the mandate of the LORD CIIArt.
BERL A IN. Mr. T. DUNCOMBE'S motion for an
Address to the Crown to allow lectures on astro-
nomy in her Majesty's Theatre during certain
days of Lela, was carried last evening by,a majo-
rity of 73 to 49. What a heavy blow and discou-
ragement to the Church and the pious Bishop of
LONDON—what a desecration of the holy week, to
allow a theatre to be opened on a day when all the
Bishops mourn in sack-cloth and ashes, and
what an insult to Protestantism for the Go-
vernment to put forward a Dissenter, a man
connected with a Church which these Bishops say
s no Church, to defend the observance of a day
which the religion of his country derides as one of
the abominable relics of Popery 1 But this comes
of meddling with the vested rights of the Church.
Had the Test' and Corporation Acts remained in
full force, the Church of England would have had
a different advocate. Lord ELDON was wise in his
generation when he protested against any sacrilegious
hand touching a peg of the sacred fabric, and had
his advice been followed, we should not have wit-
nessed the lamentable spectacle of last night_
the representative of a Catholic Irish borough
stating what every one knows was the truth, that
the representative of a Dissenting Scotch burgh,
and a member of the Government tco, pleaded for
the observance of Passion-week, as if he would be
denied; nor would Lord ROBERT GROSVENO tt have
dared to insinuate that the most reverend and most
meek Archbishop of CANTERBURY was guilty of
a greater crime, in stirring up the worst passions
of the human heart, during a week set apart for
humiliation and prayer. He would have been put
down by a universal cry of execration, for maligning
the Primate of all England, while engaged in the
most sacred of his duties—that of defending the
Church in Passion-week.

Looking, however, at the question seriously, we
rejoice that these wealthy and arrogant priests have
been taught a lesson by the representatives of the
people, and that the people themselves (not fewer
than 1,400 respectable persons having signed the
petition) begin to distinguish between priestcraft
and true religion. Our beloved SOVEREIGN
will be g►atified by responding to the prayer
of her faithful Commons, and will consider,
in common with the most religious and
virtuous of her subjects, that it is more
meritorious to raise the thoughts of the young
to the contemplation of their CREATOR, than
to bring forward a measure under pretence of
supporting the Church, which, if successful, would
lead to a bloody civil war, and strip her of the finest
portion of her colonial. dominions.

Amongst the petitions last night presented in the
House of Lords, was one complaining of a breach of
faith in the Government for alienating the Clergy
Reserves in Upper Canada.

Petitions were presented to be heard by Counsel against
the Irish Corporation Bill, which the priesthood will pre-
vent from becoming a law, if they can.
Lord ELLENBOROUGII stated that the Learned Judges
not being all in town declined to give their opinion on
the question referred to them till the first day of term ;
and as that would interfere with the Archbishop of
CANTERBURY'S motion, he hoped Lord MELBOURNE
would give a pledge not to give the Royal Assent to the
Clergy Reserves Bill till after Easter. Lord MEL-
BOURNE declined to give the pledge then, but promised
to give an answer to-day.
The House adjourned at Half-past Seven.
Sir H. PARNELL in the Commons gave notice that
after Easter he should move for leave to bring in a Bill
to take a census of the population.
Mr. MILES obtained leave to bring in a Bill to pro-
vide a summary remedy for eases of seduction and
breach of promise of marriage amongst the lower
classes.

Mr. THOMAS DUNCOMBE, with his usual spirit, moved
and carried an address to the Crown, in consequence
of Mr. HOWELL'S petition, which we have noticed in a
separate article.

In the course of the debate Lord R. GROSVENOR
justly and emphatically rebuked the Archbishop of
CANTERBURY.

\\Then the priesthood get so hit by their friends, they
will be awakened to the sad truth that they no longer
can impose laws on others, without obeying them them
selves. As they will be the last to follow the precepts
they teach, we shall be relieved from many of their
dogmas.
The debate on China was renewed by Mr. HOOO,
who warned the country against the expenses and pro-
bable disasters of a war against China.
Sir S. LUSHINGTON took up the international view,
and contended that the Chinese had a right to prohibit
the opium trade if it liked, lie condemned the
illicit traffic, defended the Government for demand-
ing reparation for outrages committed on British sub-
jects, and attacked the poisoning policy of the Chinese
and Mr. GLADSTO NE, in language which made the
house ring with shouts of execration. Lord SAN..
DON followed in a trimming speech. Then came Sir
JOHN Hounousic and Sir ROBERT PEEL, and Lord
PAI.MERSTON summed up the debate In one of the
most effective speeches made for years in that House.

The Madrid Papers received are of the Ist inst., but
they contain no intelligence of any interest. From official
documents presented to the Cortes, it appears that the
deficit in the revenue for the current year will exceed six
millions sterlintt I What a prospect for the unfortunate
bondholders. No news from the theatre of war.

The French Papers of Wednesday are destitute of in-
teresting intelligence. M. BERGER, the Ministerial can-
didate for the office of Under Secretary of State for the
Home Department, was elected on Wednesday by a ma-
jority of twenty-seven votes.
A rumour was current on the Bourse on Wednesday
that Mr. TE➢IPLE, our Ambassador at Naples, had de-
manded his passports, and that Admiral STOPFORD had
received orders to sail with a squadron from Malta, and
blockade the Neapolitan coast. This is irreconcileable
with the fact that letters from Marseilles announce the
arrival in that port on the 3d of two Neapolitan Ambassa-
dors, the one Prince DE CASTEL CICALA, destined for the
British Court, with a mission to arrange the sulphur dis.
pute; and the other the Duke DE SERRA CAPROLA, the
Neapolitan Ambassador to Paris.

Peace has been restored in Switzerland, by the triumph
of the inhabitants of the canton of Lower Valais, or French
democratical faction, over those of the Upper Canton of
the same name, or Gzrman aristocrat faction.
BOURSE.--PARIS, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8.