The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-20 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION

submit in England to this Irish plan of perpetual irritating
disturbance, so opposite to the sense of peace and
security which is congenial to England. A good
deal may be done, perhaps, to annoy us through the
agency of the large amount of Irish population now set-
tled in our manufacturing towns, but, so far as the es-
sistance..of English sentiment is necessary to the scheme
it will not prosper. The national habit of English Pro-
testants is to state boldly what they want, to strike
boldly for it when the desire arises to a thorough con-
viction that they ought to have it, and so to settle the
question one way or the other. They cannot bear a
smouldering conspiracy which lasts for year after year,
until it grows into a national habit of half violence, half
trtac:tery. This is the Irish Romanist method—an
0d:31,3 and detestable method of political action, which
may Heaven avert from the public proceedings orEng-
l:shmen I. It were not well, however, that statesmen
should shut their eyes to the fact that among large bo-
dies of the English working people there exists a feelinv
of strong discontent with the present distribution of
the elective franchise. Nine years ago the late
Mr. Coleridge foresaw this, as the probable etrcet,
of the changes contemplated by the Reform lai
" I am afraid," he said, " that the Conservative party
see but one half of the truth. Tile mere extension of
the franchise is not the evil ; I should be glad to see it
greatly extended—there is no harm in that per se ; the
mischief is that the franchise is nominally extended,
ht“, to such classes and in such a manner, that a prac-
tical disfranchisement of all above, and discontending
of ill below, a favoured class are the unavoidable re-
suits." This prophecy has been fulfilled by the event
in a'most every place where the Reform Act has had
any practical cff:ct at all. We actually find a far
.0; rent.er degree of discontent among the masses, on
aecount of the state of the representation, since the

grind " reform" was enacted, than was ever known
to exist before. They thought that " reform" was
to do something them, and they shouted for it
aecoldingly. But they now perceive that they were
duped, and that they helped to make a revolution,
from the real or supposed benefits of which they
have I):.en exchaded. We think they hare been wronged
—that they have been misled and cheated ; but we
wiAl they would bear in mind who they are who have
-misled and cheated them. Surely it is their part, as
rational men, to recollect that the Conservatives had
no share in this delusion. If the Conservatives hate
not been " liberal " in extending the franchise, they
hate at all events been honest. They have practised
no trickery upon the working people. They have not
flattered crowds into the belief that the common multi-
tude ought to influence or control the Government of
the country, and then taken advantage of the assistance
of these crowds to make a revolution which gave every
thing to themselves, and nothing to the multitude. This
was the conduct of the Whig-Radical managers and
tricksters—of those persons who are now Ministers, or
supporters of Ministers, and who still maintain their po-
sition by other jobs, and tnanceuvres, and dexterities, of
'which honest English statesmen would be ashamed.
Whatever, then, the working classes may have to com-
:plain o', they should remember that the Conservatives
ore guiltless towards them, in comparison with the pre-
sent Government party, who, for its own advantage, 041
most certainly cheat them in a very base fashion. Bat
the Conservatives oppose the present claims of the
working people—the peope without any fixed property
—to such an extension of the elective franchise as will
reach them. They do, but they are prepared to show
,that, having regard to justice and a reasonable diatribe-
ttion of power among the various classes of the State, they
vclomot do otherwise. If the working people would but
wdlect upon the circumstances of their condition—upon
:Aunt litvited opportunities of political knowledge—
upon the occupation of their time on the daily tasks
of procuring subsistence—upon the complicated and
important interests which exist separate from them, they
must surely come to the conclusion that they ought not
..to have a preponderating and overwhelming amount of

usoliticsl power in the country. They cannot but per-
ceive that they acre not equal to such responsibility.
And yet, looking to the numerical amount of their
class, it is certain that the extension of the elective
franchise to them would give them this overwhelming
;power—that it would be, as Mr. Coleridge says, a
..practical disfranchisement of all above them. We
• think we are not paying them too great a compliment
~e, supposing that this injustice cannot be their ob-
; They carmot deliberately wish to engross every-
•
', and to make themselves the exclusive managers
Over
interests which they cannot possibly under-
s„.nd. It may be urged that, though to give them
this pr, •spotaDlerance would be unjust, still they have a
rig;tt to moms share in the distribution of the fran-
chise. N, Its certainly should agree to this if it could be
s'sown that
the p6ssszssicn of the franchise in a due pro-
poetion to th eir class would do them any good. Eat
they have neN'er made h.gY such modified claim to the
franchise as would be grarii:sd without upsetting alto-
gether the balae.ce of power among different orders
of society. When they do mos.-lifY their claims the
argument with respect to them n.nist assume a dif-
ferent shape, and lead, perhaps, to a different con-
clu,ion. But no claim founded upcn abstract
assumption that the elective franchis,.., is a valu-
able possession can be evidently a just Dne. To
seine the franchise would undoubtediy bt,• a mis-
chief. Tney, therefcre, who would have their claims
li2tened to as just and reasonable should try
vs show what good to themselves and to the country
would be likely to arise from the possession of the pri-
vilege to vote for Members of Parliament. Let us do
the working people the justice to say that in respect of
moral and intellectual qualification we certainly regard
them as far better entitled to votes for Members of
.Parliament than the " ten pound rent" class in our
Faroe cities and toNns. These, taking them as a class,
are the worst set of Englishmen in existence—the
least honest, the least generous, the most sordid, the
most self-indulgent, the most irreligious. It is not
among the working people that we fled the base and
sordid cry Fier foreign bread at foreign prices. 'Fee
working- people would rather pay a little more for their
pairs than see thousands of their countrymen who
week upon the land of England turned adrift because
corn could be got cheaper from Poland or Hungary.
Nu, it is the grasping, greedy creatures who pick up
money here and there by a sort of half-labour, half-
gAiraing—who care not a doit for anything on earth
but their own gain, and the grossness in which it will
enable them to indulge—these are the creatures who
alter Corn-law repeahagitators, and who long to
Isisend less money upon bread, that, they may spend
•ittere money upon gin. Happily the isfluence of this
eiass is but of limited extent. To whatever extent it
_goes, however, it is mischievous and degrading.
( From the Morning Advertiser.)

" Nu.'hing is settled," so saith the Times, and, in most
sit •d:,..nws ince of faete, proceeds to supp,rt its as-
se, lion by the following procss :—" Nothing is settled.
e.af! of a htde war's having already produced
vrea' repults, the great opium war against Cuina has
Orottuced no results at all—not a shilling of indemnity—
e,.• an approach to u treaty—not even a promise to ne-
..ou.:te worth the least reliance. And what have we
really and definitely accomplished in the cast of Europe?
What s the actual state of affairs between Mehemet
the Saltan ? Whore is still the army of Ibra-
:;.tin: Patla? How iar has he proceeded on his march
t:uvards I:orvt ? tiles thi, Turkish fleet arrived at
,C,:,.,:.ntmuple, or i it at Alexandria still ? Has the
on oFthrt conOst there—for in Syria the fight-
!ov ;s yet ot er—not yet' yroduced any change of pos-
.r c, or return to i;I burnour in the French Govern-
„t.? Aduiral Dnptrr. has at this moment in Tou-
,ho, 1;:: sail of the hoe, well manned, which our ships (as
;iQ ,cr:lplained of be scores of British officer 3 in the
,M,f,terrdnean) ,tre not, 'nor in a safe condition Joe
(cavYiet with a skilful European enemy. Is our quar-
:iet with the United
States
made up. or the slightest

,ppronitmtion towards it? Ask Mr. Van Burro, who
;Lopes, as every Arnercan President has hoped, and
•-.ery Minister, for so many years ; but not a
siigie point :s yet decided, nor a single atom of Amori-
, Ito tenacity relaxed, ncr a single ground of hope esta-
lietied (though many of apprehension) which did not
Leo years ago. Then, in fact, there is nothing
40y,:iwt ; c:Af, west, north, south, there is
cotttio!4:;ettled. Yet out of scch nothiugaess i; Queen's
speech waist be vamped op, and everything iiie an
a NICEMITIICLt sneered at ! Will the Speech allude to the
state of Ireland, end the repeal agitation too? We
guess not." We are altogether at a loss to decide whe-
ther sat aciArtinent should be excited more by the shame-
less audeo.ity of the assertions, or by the shrewd in-
genuity wtrereLy elicit a number of fallacies are ini•
piled and conpresned within so small a compass.
" Nogiirtg is settled !" " Rome was not built in a
day ;" suit bad the Tinzes existed during the progress
,stablishtnent of Rome's mighty empire, it might
a airy time have exclaimed, " nothing is settled,"
with n disregard to facts as shameless as that with
it now asserts that in fact, " there is nothing
settler{ " any where ; east, west, forth, and south,
.
" there nothing settled." Perhaps not. The
pier io ~v ,01, is dubious. Mutation is the law of being,
• •
said therefore it may at any time be said that " nothing
;" and ,we rejoice in the fact, for in pro-
grmcon consists iatprovement, and in tl' enunciation
of tlie that nothing Is settled," Toryisin or
the (wise rv.tism of settled abuses, may recognise the
.announcernent of its ultimate and inevitable ex-
tinction. So far we exult in the opinion Which the
Times promulgates in apprehension ; but 0, its
insidious and base application of the opinion,
Ie
p.ronounce an unqualified denial and denunciation. t
is curious and amusing to remark the manner in which
ate -Times exhibits its own enormous inconsistencies,
In the extract just quoted, for instance, it refers to the
collision with China not as a " little war," but as " the
great opium war," though but a few days since it treated
it as undeserving any public interest, more than might
Le excited by a party of policeman in pursuit of some
rtraway thi-ntes. It is not "the great opium war,"
however, which it now endeavours to depreciate, but
its results. " The great opium war against China,"
saith the Times, "has produced no results at all:'
This is great news for Sir James Graham. Everything
demanded by Admiral Elliot has been acceded to by the
Celestial Emperor, indemnity promised, inquiry granted

into the conduct of Commissioner Lin, who was the
agent of the outrage on British subjects and property,
and Commissioners appointed to prepare a treaty for
the regulation of future commercial intercourse. Yet
the Times asserts that the " great opium war" of yes-
terday—the thief-catching; expedition of last week—
" has had no results at all." Similar opinions are pro-
nounced upon the affairs of the Sultan and Mehemet
Ali ! the inefficiency of the British fleet in the Medi-
terranean! ! and the mistake committed by Van Buren
in supposing the boundary question in progress of satis-
factory adjustment !!! To all these statements iyce
shall say to all those, if there be any, not familiar with
the infamous inconsistences and fallacies of the Times
—Read and wonder!

(From the Times.)
" Like mister," says the proverb. " like man:" As
is Mr. O'Connell, such are the Whigs who live by
him. He plays for rent, and they for salary. His in-
terests are most assisted by a cry against the Union ;
theirs by a yell against the honest registration of voters.
He has had his repeal gatherings among the wild men
of the mountain and bog ; they have assembled their
Dublin audience in the Hawkins-street Theatre, to
damn Lord Stanley and his fair play, and pledge an-
other benefit to " her Majesty's servants," Through
box, pit, and gallery, the general cry was, " Silence
that dreadful Bill." It has already defeated the Mieis-
tars, disunited their friends, and endangered the very te-
nure of office. Since last July it has lain asleep ; but in a
few days more it wakes from its own slumber to (these
away theirs. By whatever means, fair or foul, by what-
ever agency, Irish or English, it must be crushed. So
vowed and roared the Reformers who filled the Dublin
playhouse on Friday last. The requisition for their
meeting is described as bearing the signatures of a great
many Noblemen ; but the only one who could be in-
duced to make his personal appearance was the Earl
of Charlemont, the Chairman. The leading resolution,
condemnatory of Lord Stanley's measure, is worded in
a strain well contrived to raise among ignorant people
the notion, that the Noble Lord has been proposing,
and still meditates, some horrible enormity, such as
flogging for rent in arrear : for these Reformers are
not content to signify disapprobation—that would be
far too feeble. No ; they say," We do hereby express
our deep abhorrence of the measure proposed in the
last Session of Parliament by Lord Stanley." They
vote the Reform Bill a failure as to the wants of Ire-
laud, they dire an extension of franchise, and they
call upon English and Irish to join for protecting the
elector, " in the legitimate exercise of his rights, from
the attacks of those who now seek to destroy it." We
will shortly remind our readers what is that " exercise
of right" which Lord Stanley is seeking to destroy, and
what is that measure of his which these sensitive people
so " deeply abhor." At present, an Irish voter, once
registered, stands upon the register not merely, as in
England, for one year, but for eight. In the counties a
very large proportion of the voters claim the franchise
in respect of a holding for lives. Many of these lives, of
course, must drop between one octennial registration
and another ; and whenever the freehold has there-
by expired, common justice would seem to demand that
the right of voting should cease with it. In like man-
ner we should humbly presume that the death of the
voter himself ought to discontinue the operation of his
franchise, since it is difficult for common understandings
to apprehend on what principle the family of a free-
holder who has died in the first year of his registration
should be permitted to leave his certificate of registry
in operation for seven other years, available at every
election occurring during that period through the
agency of some stranger suborned to personate the
deceased. To Lord Stanley and the Conservatives it
appeared that the exercise of the freeholder's tight of
voting after the freehold interests had expired, and the
exercise of the living man's right of voting by his perso-
nator after his death, were proceedings savouring very
strongly of fraud. But to the Reformers, who take a
liberal view of morals as well as of politics, all these
things seemed quite just and reasonable ; and when
Lord Stanley proposed to prevent such practices by
requiring the Irishman to be registered annually, as the
Englishman is, they came to the deliberate conclusion
that the culpable party was not the voter who committed
the fraud, but Lord Stanley, who attempted to prevent
it. But there was, and still is, another fruitful source
of Justice. If a voter, seeking to be registered, be
improperly rejected he is allowed to appeal ; and the
question, where it is one of feet, is settled by a
Jery, or where it is one of law, by a Judge of As-
size. But if a hundred, or a thousand voters, be ins-
properly admitted, be it by mistake, or be it by the
political partialities of the registering barrister, there
is no appeal either on the fact or on the law ; so that
the genuine constituency may be swamped, and the
rightful candidate defrauded of his return without the
possibility of redress. To Lord Stanley and the Con-
servatives it appeared that what was fair on the one
side was fair on the other ; and that if the ascer-
tainment of the parties justly entitled to vote was
the real object of the registration, the appeal
against the admission of bad votes was as ne-
cessary as the appeal against the rejection of good
ones. But the Reformers, on the contrary, thought
that justice should be net only blind but lopsided ; and
they adjudged that the Bill of Lord Stanley, which
proposed to give " the appeal both ways," was a wicked
infraction of the undoubted right of sham voters to be
retained as real ones. In these two enactments, of an-
nual registration and of reciprocal appeal, consisted
the whole principle of Lord Stanley's Bill.

SECOND EDITION.

THE FUNDS-(CLOSING PRICES.)

BRITISH FUNDS.

Bank Stock ... 171 India Stock ......... ... ..251
3 per Cent. Red 9OA Ditto Bonds
3 per Cent Cons ...... .. 894 Ditto Old Annuities ... 884
3 per Cent Red ...... .. 983 Ditto New Annuities...
New 4 per Cent .. ... 97L Ex. Bills, 1,000/....2id Bpm
New 5 per Cent ... Ditto 500/ Bpm
Long Annuities to expire Ditto Small 9pm
Jan. 1860. l3 3-16 Bank Stock for Acct ...170i
Oct 1859 ... l3 India Stock for Acct ... -
Jan. 1860 ... l2 15-16 Consols for Opg B9L
FOREIGN FUNDS.

A ustrian, 5 per cent 108!, Portuguese, 5 per cent.
Belgian, 5 per cent — Ditto, New Ditto._ .
Brazilian Bonf!s .. ..
RuenosAyres, 6 per cent 20i Russian, 5 per cent....
Chilian, 6 per cent
Colombian, 6 percent... Spanish, 5 per cent 243
Ditto, 1824 — Ditto, Deferred —
Littlish, 3 per cent..... French,s per cent...ll2f. —;..
Greek, 1825,5 percent. Exchange -f. —c.
Zdexi,:an, 5 per cent.... French,3 per cent —f. —c.
Ditto, 6 per cent, 1825. Dutch, 21 per cent sOi
Peruvian,lB2s,6 per ct. Ditto, 5 per cent....:. 99

. , _ .
SHARES. -
Bristol and Exeter (60 paid) .. .. 32
Great Western Railway (65 paid) 9O
Ditto New Shares (50 paid) .... .. ... 621
London and Brighton Railway (50 paid) 43A
London and Birmingham Railway (90 pd) 173
London and Greenwich Railway (20 paid)
.Ditto New Shares (20paid) ... ......... ... 17A
London and South Western Railway
London and Croydon Railway (Trunk)
North Midland Railway (iOO paid) 79
South Eastern and Dover (28 paid )... ..

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(From the Globe.)
In consistency with our invariable rule, to afford all
parties who conceive themselves injured by any state-
ment which has appeared in our columns, an opportunity
of explaining or denying the whole, or any part, of such
statement, we insert a letter from Lord Sirangford's so-
licitors on the article which appeared in the columns of
the Globe on Friday last, with the copy of an opinion
of his Lordship's Counsel on the decision of the Court.
In support of our remarks on the republication of
the Tinici article, and our allusion to the criminal
proceedings instituted unsuccessfully by Lord Strang-
ford against another journal for some severe comments
on the case, we are bound to state that the letter and
opinion of counsel leave the matter just where it was
before. The Court requires those who seek the pro-
tection of its extraordinary powers included in a crimi-
nal information for libel, to deny upon affidavit the
imputations upon their reputation of which they
'l'nis is the " technical rule " with
I.ord Strangford failed to comply. There was
no shrinking' from responsibility on the part of the
defendant ; no pre::.'nce that the publication did not
impute falsehood to L.?rd Strangford. This was
unequivocally and boldly avowt;:.!• Lord Strangford
could not, as his counsel states, " fratT2C any affidavit
which should operate as a denial of every con-
tained in the Times' article ;" and the Court left LL'.l
Lordship to the ordinary remedies, either by indictment,
or action for scan. ntag., of both of which the Noble
Lord declined to avail himself. If Lord Strangford or
his solicitors should be of opinion that the publication
of the observations of the Court on dismissing the rule
will at all benefit his Lordship's reputation, we will
readily give them a place in our columns. We abstain
from doing so until such request be made, because we
do not think that any such benefit to his Lordship
could accrue from their publication.