The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-04 00:00:00

MORNIN'I3- SUN.
SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

--
FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OP YESTERDAY -
CHRONICLE—It will be very amusing should we
find ourselves under the necessity of supporting sir R.
Peel. And we certainly shall support him when he pro-
ceeds " to apply those renovations and repairs which the
lapse of time or altered circumstances may have rendered
desirable in our ancient institutions." These are.,the
very things we want, and for the sake of which we have
supported the present Ministers. True, we would ra-
ther have the repairs from honest hands ; but 'Setter
from dishonest, than-not at all. 'We are not of ttie opi-
,nion of those Eroftsged free traders, who silted in'a mo-
nopolist .*Sorify. because they doubted, or affe:eted to
doubly_ tlie'integrity of the Whigs in their commercial
reforms. We are willing to take all the good we can
get. When the " alarm or apprehension" begins—and
it will be pretty soon excited—we shall -do our best to
help on the renovation, and render it " 'more easy" even
to the contemptible equivocator by whom the useful
change may be wrought. It will nbt be the . first
time that we have had such work to.'do ; nor, should
the trimmer whom Tory Immutable§ and Impracti-
cables have 'toiled to shoulder . ioto office continue
there, will it be the last. Timed ,Vanaos shall not make
us refuse any dons by which•the. public can profit. We
wonder what the first boon will be ; a commercial re-
form, an ecclesiastical, or a political ? The Tories them-
selves are, notwithstanding their angy rebukes of our
curiosity, wondering just as much as we do. But, after
what has passed, they are in the predicament of the
heretical bishop with the creeds, " I dare not inquire, I
dare not inquire." Each section of the Tories thinks it
has hoaxed the other, while their common leader, their
sole bond of union, is hoaxing them both. A pretty ex-
hibition of public virtue ! How long can this combina-
tion of rottenness last ? How far is the farce to go, of
securing the ancient foundations of religion by the pro-
fligacy of " tainted" characters forcing themselves into
office ? Of how many more candidate chancellors,
judges, secretaries, ambassadors, or chamberlains. are we
to receive public assurance, from journals tainted or un-
tainted, that they are not the profligates whose exclusion
is so very expedient ? Amongst the renovations which
Sir Robert Peel promises to effect, when renovation
shall no longer alarm corruption, we cannot anticipate
the restoration of " the ancient prerogative of England,'
of teaching the nations how to live."
POST.—Enormous mischief has been done of late
years by the encouragement which a loose system of edu-
cation has given to speculation. Upon the chance--often
an extremely bad chance—of a profitable demand, the
speculator sets to work. lle soon finds his capital insuf-
ficient. He has accumulated a stock, but there is no one
to buy. Perhaps there would be if he could wait. He
soon finds a bank, ready like hiniself to run almost any
risk for the sake of business. They give him credit. He
gets money to go on. He continues to produce, because
he has an expensed establishment all prepared for pro-
duction, and thinks he can afford to stand still. Perhaps
a demand does arise, and he gets rid of his stock, pays
his bills, gets a profit, increases his household expenses,
and builds another wing to his factory. Perhaps a de-
mand does not arise, and as he has traded far beyond his
capital, down he goes. He cannot sell his stock, and,,
therefore, he cannot pay his bills. The bank grants hits
time, but at last insists upon payment. Still he cannot
pay, and he is obliged to stop amid great grash and
rum, though if he could but sell his produCe at the price
he calculated upon when he produced it all would
still be well. The whole misfortune is that he has
done too much, having been thereto tempted by the
too-easy acquisition of other people's money, that is
to say, by the too great accommodation of an over-
trading bank. This is the ayitem in all directions, and
all sorts of markets get stuffed with worthless quantities.
Even in literature the system is as bad as anywhere else,
if not worse. Books are brought out in preposterous
thousands and millions, as if purchasers, like printed
sheets, were thrown off by the steam-presS, and had nt)
limit which prudence and common sense might calculate.
But all this straining and striving nonsense comri to an
end, and grieving creditors are left to ruminate upon the
monstrous folly of creating a supply without any pre-
vious inducement from the demand. It is in such times
as these that frantic men would peril the demand which
they may calculate upon, for the chances-of a demand
which they may not calculate upon. It is in such times
as these that persons calling themselves Statesmen, want
to become purchasers from foreigners at the imminent
risk, not to say certainty, of ruining those who
must purchase from them. Our home and our colonial
markets are sure, our foreign markets are not, and cannot
be, sure. What worse political madmen can there be
than they who would direct us to the foreign market for
that which the home and colonial market can supply ?
The great—the ruinous—defect of our commercial sys-
tem of late years has been its want of certainty. Menu-
! facturing and mercantile counting houses have assumed
more or less the character of lottery shops, or offices
where the transactions of enormous gambling are re-
corded in waste book, journal, and ledger, by the system
of double entry. To aggravate this uncertainty we are
recommended (and by the Government too !) to resort
to foreign markets for the commodities we require—mar-
kets which may or may not demand, or choose to admit,
our produce in exchange—markets in which we shall he
purchasers of the labour of foreigners while thousands of
our own labourers are sighing for something to do, and
pining in the poverty which awaits even upon voluntary
idleness.

ADVERTISER.—The plot thick6ns. Matters era
rapidly approaching a crisis. The darkness in which
Sir Robert Peel has hitherto shrouded his principles and
purposes as the proximate Premier of England, is on
the eve of being dissipated. Before three weeks 'have
elapsed we shall be able to come to some conclusion as
to what we are to expect from the advent of is Tory Go-
vernment under the auspices of the Right :ion. Baronet.
Let us not be misunderstood: We are not simple enough
to suppose that Sir Robert is to publish to the world be-
fore that time a programme of the measures which he
means to prOpound to Parliament. That he will post-
pone till the latest pos,sible moment which the circum-
stances of the country will allow. The test to which we
allude as the one by which we shall, ere the expiration
of three weeks, be enabled to try the character of Sir
Robert, relates to the course which he shall
pursue on the question of the Speakership. It
is matter of notoriety to all, that there exists at
present a most serious quarrel between the Right
Hon. Baronet and the majority of his supporters as to
who ought to be the Speaker of the new Parliament.
The Tories, as a body, had made up their minds the
moment the late elections ensured a majority in their
favour, that Mr. Shaw Lefevre should, -as a matter of
course, be unceremoniously ejected from the chair of the
Commons. The only difference of opinion among theta
was, as to which of their own party had the preferable
claims to be appointed his successor. Imagine then, what
must have been their surprise and mortification, when
they made the unexpected discovery that their chieftain.
was resolved not to suffer the disturbance of Mr..
Shaw Lefevre in his official seat. At first they re-
monstrated in gentle terms ; then they besought the
Right Honourable Gentleman not to embitter, by so
heavy a blow and great a discouragement to their party,
the cup of bliss which the result of the late elections
had prepared for them, and which they were in the act
of putting to their lips. Sir Robert disregarded their
remonstrances, and lent a deaf ear to their interests.
This was not to be borne. If it was an earnest of the
manner in which he meant to treat them, they came to
the conclusion that the Liberals might just as well have
tenanted the Ministerial benches, and they remained her
Majesty's Opposition till the end of the chapter. Ren-
dered desperate by the cold indifference which the Tam-
worth Baronet displayed to their wishes, they have now
resolved to try the effect of an attempt to bully him into
their views. Hence the " Thunders" of the Jove of
Printing-house-square which rolled throughout the me-
' tropolis yesterday, and whose reverberations will doubt-
less be heard to the remotest extremities of the empire
for days to come. The poor expectant Premier is
threatened, abused, and assailed in every possible forme
and.in every conceivable variety of language, because
he
will not sacrifice his own opinions and feelings on the
questiofonbecofomthinegSptheeakselarsvheipoi. ahnisd
psaurhtmy.it to
in considering
TIMES.---We were lately employed the degrada-
tion
principles ought to
consolidation of our
btheeamppalinednertointbewmhiaichn t
enani Conservative
co
thea b
of Conservatism, with
legislative department.
to be the preservation
fundamental institutions
to rbailz in principleter,
reference to this subject_
the Conservatives stand pledged to
show-
ing that by this rule
integrity and freedom of action of all the
vindicate the
constituents which compose the legislative
classes and .
of the ancient consue-tuton.ial balance of power, and
"thin its separate limits, without either
authority', each class to encroach upon the rest, or
suffering any one
l together isolatethemselves
e e e d to exhibit
from the 37 people,v‘vtoproc
Its of these considerations, with,
some practical results
regard to questions agitated at the present day con-
cerning
permittingbodtheofw.ge.e
test, the scheme of vote by
the Parliamentary franchise. Tried by such
device for reducing the United Kingdom to the con-
dition of one immense rotten borough, and converting
a constituency of limited numbers into the most close
and irresponsible of corporations. But the same test,
while it rejected this spurious remedy, clearly established
the duty of adopting some means for purifying the elec-
toral system, and protecting the possessors of the fran-
chise as well against intimidation and violence, as from
the intrusion of non-electors and voters disqualified by
corruption. Upon the measures necessary for securing
liberty of election, defining ambiguities in the law re-
lating to the franchise, and reforming the process of
registration, especially in Ireland, we then took oc-
casion to offer some observations ; but in the last
article which we devoted to the subject, our space
was exhausted before we found ourselves able to sp.
proach the question of bribery. There is no question
upon which such unanimity of profession, and (we fear)
such uniform inconsistency of practice, prevails among
men of all parties, as this of bribery. All politicians
talk about purity of election ; and if a stranger were to
judge by the letter of our law, he would suppose that we
were the most scrupulously incorruptible people upon the
face of the earth—so uncompromising is the subtlety
with which it pursues not merely the direct negociation
of votes for money, but-the auxiliary system of treating,
into its remotest and apparently most innocent modifica-
tions. Yet our actual practice is so very different from
this fair show of virtue, that we suspect there ate seldom
ten Members in any House of Commons whose elec-
tion, if all the circumstances attending it were disclosed,,
and if a Minos or Rhadamanthus -were the jud"
could be legally sustained. That this 'should be so, aiessie%
undoubtedly some captiousness in the law, as well as much'
overstrained.
laxity on the part of the people. It would be most untrue,
to say that there are not many members in the present
aff'-etation of an House of Commons who owe their election tote tree
choice of their constituents, apart from all co- rm.,;‘,"„"
whatever. In this case, as in many others, an -r
--
theory has defeated itself ; and the
ex-
cessive zeal to suppress bribery, '0 -
are not
veAanisimpuhilse to the evil
tAhi
cg things ot,
haswbue mloengelanayllecityecontdoreetli p t
check,g chY f,:11.:111 be se
w w eb neglects