The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

lIIROM THE DAILY PAPERS OP YESTERDAY.
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
The important changes in the French law of recruit-
ment, proposed in the Chamber of Deputies by Mar-
shal Soult, and already approved of unanimously by the
commission, called from us last week some sharp corn-
meats on the policy of straining to the utmost the mili-
tary development of France at this particular period.
We were far from saying then, nor do we now think,
that M. Guizot or Louis Philippe meditated actual
war. What we deprecated was, to see, in the unset-
tled and uncertain state of France, the most pacific of its
monarchs applying himself to laying up such :ormidable
stores and means and materials of war, so gigantic in
their nature that the mere consciousness of possessing
them would be calculated to inspire a nation, with
some new and improvised leader at its head, to rush
to war and rapine as an obvious and advantageous
policy. We admit the great temptation offered to the
French Government at present to take advantage of
the warlike vein, which, in and out of the Chamber,
controls all ideas of economy, and places the purse-
strings of the nation in the hands of the Minister of
War. Two years back the French War-Minister eta-
treated the Chamber to grant him a few entre thousand
pounds for the purchase of horses to remount the
cavalry, to re-supply the worn out niateriel of the ar-
tillery, as well as saddlery, and a host of minor, hut
expensive wants. The Chamber, in mistaken economy, I
refused to vote a single sou. This niegardliness io
peaceful times on the part of the Legislature renders it
imperative on the pert of the Government to seize
whatever opportunity offers for ruler mon-y, and re-
fitting the materiel of war. This was the s=scret of the
approbation which Louis Philippe gave to M. Tniers's
first warlike expenses and prep:rations. Marshal
&mit may be actuated by similar motives in his project
of levying, and drilling, and making more soldiers. Bat
as we said before, this scheme is menacing for the fu•
tare, more than for the present.
(From the Times.)
The division upon the question of the Poor-laws, on
Tuesday night, however far from satisfactory, proves at
any rate, that the cause of the poor has gained consi-
dcrably in strength since last Session. The debate is
sine which we trust will obtain a careful perusal through-
oet the country. Among the many points challenging
observation -.chich it presants, we shad confine ourselves
for the present to one alone. Nothing could snore
wrongly mark the consciousness of those who advo-
cate the existing system that upon its awn merits
it cannot be defended ; then the pertinacity with
which they think proper to misrepresent the question
at issue between themselves and their oppoaen's.
The single argument echoed from mouth to mouth
was this :—" Under the previous law in MI, the
coun!ry, and the poor especially, were labouring
under a mass of accumulated evils, and if we arc
not to go back to all those cvilr, tho present system
must he supported." Thus, Lord Howick confessed
that he had heard the debate of the night with great
:satisfaction ; Incense it must have struck every Member
of the House, after hearing for so many months, nay,
years, denunciations of the cruelty and atrocity of thc
New Poor-law, repeated hy the Press, 4.5-c., that when
the measure came to be discussed by the House of Com-
mons, before those who were ready to defend ;t, it was
singular that not a single individual could be found on
either side of the House wise ventured to recommend a re-
turn to that system of Poor-law relief which existed previ-
ous to 1834." Why singular, my Lord Howick? What is
there so striking in this, that no one should have recom-
mended in the House what no one ever thought of re-
commending out of it ? It is pretty well acknowledged
on alt hands, and has been asserted by none more stre-
nuously than by ourselves, that the state of Poor-law
administration in 1833 was in the south of England suf-
ficiently unsatisfactory ; and, though we are free to
confesi that we think the evils of the new law art
greater than those of the former administration, we
have never entertained the idea that our alternative lay
between continuing as we are or replacing things in the
exact position which they occupied in 1833. Yet this,
as we have already said, was more or less assumed by
every Member who spoke in favour of the existing sys-
tem on Tuesday night.
(From the Morning Advertiser.)
As every individual in society is one way or other
afected by the mode in which provision is made for the
poor, it is incumbent on all parties to consider the question
of the New Poor-law on its intrinsic merits and demerits,
entirely aloof from the temporary advantages or disad-
vantages which may arise from the adoption of particu-
lar or partial views. On this, however, as on all other
questions, appear certain political mongers in popu-
larity, ready to array themselves at either side to the oc-
casion that may best befit the hour. For our own part,
having no interests to serve but national interests—no
party but the people—we shall, as we have hitherto
done, give free expression to our convictions, no matter
how unpalatable they may prove to those in power, on
one side, or how they may expose us to the uaracciing
imputations of those believing themselves oppressed,
on the other. From the first, we pronounced the New
Poor-law Act to be a measure fraught with th© ele-
ments of the country's salvation ; and from the first,
also, we pronounced an unqualified condemnation on
several of its clauses as operating with undue severity
on the unfortunate pauper, as severing the ties of na-
tural affection, and vesting in a central commission a
despotic power over local administration, of the cir-
cumstances of which they could possibly have no cer-
tain or positive information. These latter are the evils
to which we wore desirous of seeing the attention of
the Legislature addreessed, in the motion made on
Monday night in the House of Commons by Lord
John Russell ; and though no provisions against these
evils were made in the Bill then introduced, we look
with confident expectation to see the omissions in some
instances, at least, supplied in its further progress.
(From the Morning Post.)
The O'Connell Government party maintain that
the government of Ireland must be conducted upon
extreme principles. They say you must adopt either
the extreme of military despotism, and hold Ireland by
means of a dragooning system of absolute tyranny,
or you must adopt the system which is in the opposite
extreme, and allow the Government of Ireland to be
managed in conformity with the sentiments of the mil-
lions. This we regard as merely wild and whirling as-
sertion, very meet, perhaps, for those who think in ex-
tremes, but utterly absurd in the contemplation of all
persons of sound judgment. The better plan, we sub-
mit, is to take the principles of the British Constitution,
to which the rule of absolute force, and the rule of the
will of the populace, are equally abhorrent. The sober
middle way, with which the practice of our Consti-
tution makes all patriotic statesriten familiar, will un-
doubtedly be much better than either of those extremes,
one of which, the O'Connelites assure us, must pre-
vail. The gross injustice of that party which is con-
tinually making a noise about " justice for Ireland,"
lies in this, that they want to establish the despotism of
their party. There has been an Orange ascendancy,
which became drunk with too much power, and aban-
doned itself to coarse and violent habits of exasperation.
The Popish party is not content with having got rid of
this ascendancy. It wants to have a Popish ascendancy
instead, and to establish a truculent and brutal tyranny
over the Protestantism and British sentiment in Ire-
land, just as the Orange ascendancy overpowered and
bore down the superstitious fidelity and national emo-
tion of the Romanists in bygone days. The O'Connell
government, to which the present British Ministers sue-
cutnb, is that of the Popish ascenu,.rtcy.
(From the Morning Herald.)
We do not and cannot understand that sort of " Con-
servatism" which is not at careful of the rights and
comforts of the poor as of the property of the rich.
Tne moral law and revealed religion recognise the right
of the poor to real and substantial relief and support
from the affluence of the rich ; and from the reign of
Elizabeth until the passing of the Whig-concocted statute
called " the Poor-law Amendment Act," that right was
acknowledged by the municipal law of England, and con-
secrated, as it were, in the temple of the Constitution.
Of that right the poor have been deprived by that arbi-
trary and tyrannical statute, which treats poverty as crime,
and installs " public charity" is a union-prieon, not in-
appropriately called " a bastile," to ndminister to the
unfortunate the semi-starvation relief of the " dietary
tables," and the torture arid degradation of the " penal
test of destitution." By the arbitrary and most uncon-
stitutional powers which that iniquitous statute con-
fers on. the " board of central Commissioners," they are
enabled to make laws for all the parishes or unions in
England, with only this restriction—that if any parti-
cular regulation or order of theirs is a general one, or re-
lates to all the unions, it requires to be submitted to a
Secretary of State (nit to the Queen in Council), when,
milers he places his veto upon it, the order, however
tyrannical, becomes as valid and effectual a law as if it
bad been made by the power and authority of the three
ertates of the realm. It is under this monstrous power,
given by a general provision of the statute to the C
an-
tr Commissioners, that those odious and unchristian
regulations have been made, which tear from the poor
mart (good Heaven! as a condition of charitable relief)
the wife of his bosom, and the child of his affections.
As if poverty—the moat deserving (not deserved) po-
verty—was too criminal to entitle it to a subsistence
from the public funds of society, without being made to
feel the privation end torture of bereaved affections—
the agony of separation from the most loved objects—
the bitterness of that suffering and solitude which no
touch of kindred cheers or lightens.
(From the Standard.)
The country must be shocked and disgusted by Lord
Palmerston's reply to Lord Stanley when questioned
as to the fate of Atr. M'Leod. It was only on Satur-
day, said his Lordship, that be had received Mr. Fox's
final communication—which must be the ultimatum of
the Government of Washington—and that day, Tuesday,
he
(Lord Palmerston) had sent 41
final instructions.
The life of an English
Mr. M'Leod is in thehands subject is in jeopardy
shown their contempt of all law, of
prong who have
law, public and mu-
nicipal, by the seizure of his person, and by a thou-
sand previous crimes. They wish for a war with Eng-