The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

'[Owing to the press of Parliamentary matter we
were compelled to omit our Summary of the Daily
Papers of Monday, which we now furnish our readers
with.]
The Morning Herald of Monday, alluding to the affair
cf the Caroline now occupying the attention of this Go-
vernment and the United States, observes :—" The whole
question uplm which Mr. Fox has a right to interfere is
simply this. Was the destruction of the piratical vessel
Caroline authorised and directed by the Government of
Great Britain, or of Canada, which amounts to the same
thing ? If so, the question is one between the two Govern-
ments, and not between the Federal Government at Wash-
ington, or the State Government at New York, and Col.
WU:Od, who, if he did wrong, only carried into effect
the orders of his Government, which is, therefore, the party
really respon ible. This is the ground for the British Go-
vernment to take—this is the ground to stand upon." The
Morning Chronicle remarks, with reference to Lord Stan-
ley's Irish Registration Bill: —" If the people of England
allow Lord S:anlcy's Bill to pass, they do, to all intents and
purposes, thug defiance into the teeth of Catholic and
L;hersl Ireland. The die is cast, and from that moment
the union cf Ireland with the British Crown depends on
military force—en the array of British bayonets and the
Orange militia of the north. From that moment it be-
comes certain that if a war should arise, and a hostile
army should effect a landing on any one point of the ex-
trels•ve coast cf Ireland, with the exception of the pro-
vince of Ulster, that hostile army would be received
as friends and liberators by a numerical majority of
the popul e'en." The Morning Post thus expresses
itself em the subject of Lord Morpcth's Irish Regis-
trstiou Bill :—" It is a proposal for the abolition of ad-
mitted fraud, and yet only a conditional proposal. It
is in the nature of a bargain with those v;ho detest the
fr:iud. They may have tne fraud removed, but they roust
pay a price for it, and that price must he the absndoamtnt
or -1 certain part of the representative constitution as F.xe'l
no long' r ago than 183." The Times, speaking of Mr.
La,;ouchere's measure for the batter regulation of rail-
ways, cbserves it relates exclusively to the protection
of the public safety ; sod, if carried with such amendments
os arc accessary to effectuate its leading provisio.%s, will do
ail that legislation cAn, cr, at all events, as much as in the
present state of knols ledge it is prudent to attempt, to-
tvarda secnrirg travel rs against the prem iture opening
rtillways, the employment of improper awl impe-
-1 fied persons in the management of engines and
trains, and the neglect by directors of railway Com-
p- flies of prudent or necessary precautions." The
Morning Adrortiser has the following remarks
On the Monmouthshire election :—" The Monmouthshire
election takes place, we believe, on Tuesday next, and a I
new candidate has started in the person of Charles Octe-
VIUS Swinerton Morgan (what long names these Welsh-
n c.: have), and it is more than probable that he will win
it ; but be it observed, that the contest is not a party, but
a tdmily one. In the county the Beaufort and Meagan
families are predeminant, and Mr. Banbury Tracey
is simply sueported by the Liberal interest, not
ee• rcised during the last hundred years. We do not
flitter ourselves that he will be successful ; but if ho
be so, the triumph of Liberal principles will exceed
anything which has occurred in recent elections. Mr.
Morqan's principles will be easily gathered from the fol-
lowing extract frem his address. How supremely ridi-
euleus they are it is not necessary for us to expose As
I have not hitherto had an opportunity of publicly avow-
ing my political opinions, I beg leave to state, that I shall
be ready to support the agricultural, commercial, and ma-
oufacturing interests against all innovation that I shall
ever be found a true and steady friend to our present in-
stitutions in Church and State ; and should you honour me
be electing me your representative, my earnest endeavour
will be to watch over your local interests."
(From the Globe.)
There is always something characteristic in the
hopes, and the fears, of Teryism. The latter were
in the highest degree excited in the Times' correspon-
dents (honoured with the largest type and the most
prominent situation) by Sir Robert Peel's late address
at Tamworth to some reading society, wherein he
blandly begs Churchmen and Dissenters to avoid,
if possible, going to loggerheads on points of
controversial divinity, when they meet for the purpose of
mutu :1 improvement. This is a terrible heresy in the
view of the Times' type-honoured correspondent. Ou
the other hand, the hopes of the party arc as easily ex-
cited as their fears, if we may judge by the exultation
expressed in the Times and the Post of this morning
at a scrap of correspondence which appeared in our
columns of Saturday, the writer of which reports that
the Carlton Club have sent 20,000/. for the " secret
service" of the ensuing election contest in Monmouth-
shire. This piece of intelligence, and the rather un-
reasoned inferences of the writer, reached us at a late
hour on Saturday, or we should have remarked on the
naivete of anticipating Tory success as a matter of course,
from the fact that the Tories will spend money, and
exert their other " natural infleencee." No doubt they
will ; but we do not pay so ill a compliment to the
Monmouth electors as to suppose that the subsidies of the
Carlton, and the dictate of the Duke of Bcaufort,arclikely,
at the eleventh hour, to oppress their independent suf-
frages. In the mean time, the excitement of Tory hopes
in behalf of " religion and morality," from the " opening
of every house in Monmouth," and the influx of the
" sinews of bribery " from head quarters, throws light
upon the quality of Tory fears for the same high ob-
jects from Sir R. Peel's depreciation of the " asperi-
ties " of theological controversy ! Perhaps, however,
the Times' correspondents may have been too prompt to
condemn their leader. He may only have meant to
appeal from John Bull sober to John Bull drunk—to
deprecate divinity when it can do no party service—
and recommend that the " drum ecclesiastic" be
sounded only where spiritual zeal has been made fiery
by spirituous liquors, and applause of bigotry comes
with a soft and mellow smoothness from greased
palms !

(From the Standard.)

We now approach the class most nearly corresponding
in interest of term with the new class of electors whom
Lord Morpeth gives to Ireland—the class of leaseholders,
for term of no more than 2o years. What. is the qualifica-
tion of electors of this class in Great Britain ? Fifty
pounds, over and above all rents and charges ; here egain
the electors must be rated atfijt.eporatd.s at the least, pro-
bably a great deal more, inasmuch as rent is almost al-
ways reserved upon short leases. Lastly—We have in
counties the occupier, paying a rent of fifty pounds—he
must of necessity be rated a great deal above 501., or he
farms without a profit, or even repayment of seed and
labour—probably his rating must generally exceed
1001. The 101. qualification in cities and boroughs
presents an index slightly different from the
county qualifications. The House itself is not sup-
posed to be the property which is assumed to afford a
status promising intelligence and independence : it is
taken as a proof of that property, as a proof that the
householder has in possession, in trade, or in estate,
wherewithal to support a decent position. Let us now
turn to Lord Morpeth'a Irish revolution Bill. We
give his Lordship's account of it in his own words :
" Alsch as I value the enlargement and extension of the
franchise, I own I set a higher value upon the harmony
and good-will of the several classes of society ; and
while I would discountenance, arid do what in me lay, to
suppress all unauthorised aggression, all tyrannical
opyressicn of one class upon another, I would
not originate any proposition which I think would have
the effee'. of materially heightening and aggravat-
ing the dependence of the humbler upon the higher
classes. I therefore would propose to annex the qualifica-
tion of a tenement rated at the net annual value of 5/.,
an interest in the holding of not less than fourteen years,
being the lowest tenure at present retained in the Irish
Reform Act, and within which two denominations of elec-
tors are comprised."
The English leaseholder for a tarm of not less than
twenty years must, in order to possess a vote, have
an estate of the clear yearly value of fifty pounds,
above all rents and charges. The Irish lease-
holder elector for not less than fourteen years must
not, in order to possess a vote, have an estate y
any value above rents and charges : it is enough that
he has an estate of five pounds, rents and charges
ine!nded—an estate rated at less than one-tenth of
what must be the rating of the English leaseholder,
whose term falls a year short of six/y years. Again,
the Engli-h ten-pount. householder I h • -eL'oldL tr must have some-
thing besides his house—a profession,
i, trade, or pro-
perty to live upon ; but Lard Nlorpet.i :,h free-
holder is to have nothing but the rude labour which
he may bestow on the acre of rack-rented land sur-
rounding his mud hovel. Is this justice to the Eng-
leasefilder, who may not vote himself, but must
submit to be ruled by a Legislature elected by poor
creatures not approaching his condition even in the
ratio of five pounds to fifty pounds ? Are Eng-
-I.shrnen to be to told that they are less honest and inds-
pendent in temper and character than titeir Irish fel-
low-subjects ? or is it because the abj•et prostration
of the Remish peasantry before their priests places them
in angry and unreasoning opposition to their landlords,
that they are to be deemed so much better qualified
then Engiishmen of far higher station for the exercise
of political power ?if such be the case, Romanism
has a charm which even its warmest friends never be-
fore ascribed to it, and we cannot do better than all
turn Pspists at once.
( From the Courier.)
special delight of Lord PAI-
L, would seem to he the
merston to Is:t ever in hot water, and, as a ready means
to the end, it may be that the spirit of perpetu id pre-
charged as the salient tea-
`
erasiination so often justly
vice of his policy, i, in reality that
particular perfection of diplomacy upon which he most
prides himself. If the fact be se there is no denying that
results have corresponded evooderonsly with design,
in every one instance of his Ministerial career, that
is of his " juvenile" Whig career, his long protracted
negotiations have invariably terminated, not in the restf,
ration and consolidation of peace by peaceful acts,
in resort to arms and the arbitration of force. Witness
the never-ending protocols on the Dutch and Belgian
question, which finally were stayed and extinguished
only by the flames of Antwerp bombarded and the
coasts of Holland blockaded. Witness the questions
of Spain and Portugal unsettled still after eight years
of civil war and crooked diplomacy. Witness the
Egyptian question.. just now at its solution after three
years' negotiation and six months' warfare. Witness
the China question still in nitbibus: where war wee
deeply plotted and prepared for, and tire Sup,_srint,micnt
left for soma three or four years without
theinstruc-
tions anxiously besought by every vessel, as the only

means for the prevention of mischief, in order, as
uncharitable persons might almost be led to pre-
sume,
that he and the Canton merchants might be
hung, drawn, or quartered, by Lin, so as to fur-
nish an admirable pretext of the casus belli. Wit-
ness also the Boundary of Maine question still pend-
ing, and as far off adjustment as ever, after nego-
tiations drawling and dragging their " slow length
along" for the whole ten years of Lord Pdlmerston's
Foreign Office life. And witness, lastly, the steamer
Caroline question, which his Lordship has been dangling
and dallying with for the last three ye:i.rs, and which is
now upon the point of winding up in the climax of the
judicial murder of Colonel N.l.Leod, an unoffending
British subject, by an usurping and unauthorised tribunal
at New York, to be followed by a fratricidal war, the
worst of all wars, between the United States and the
mother country.

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
The Morning Herald, speaking of Lord Morpeth's
Irish Registration Bill, says, " the principle involved in
its postscript is the principle of Universal principle
thinly
concealed and cowered over with a nominal five pound
qualification." The Times contains a leading article on
the subject of the New Poor-law Bill, suggested by last
night's debate in the Commons, in the course of which our
Contemporary expresses regret that Sir Robert Peel should
think it expedient to temporize with sueh a question as
that of the Poor-law, and to give even a colourable sup-
port to the present Government measure. The Morning
Chronicle, in an article on Lord Morpeth's Irish Registra-
tion measure, defines it as a plan which frustrates the in-
sidious design of reducing the representation of Ireland to
one vast rotten borough, available for the purposes of
Orange ascendancy and Tory tactics.
(From the Globe.)
The Poor-law -Amendment B,il was last night, on
the motion of Lord John Russell, read a second time
—a majority of 147, out of 235 Mceubers, affirm-
ing, by their votes, the p:inciple of the new law,
and the propriety of -eontinuing its operation. The
debate, athough lengthy, elicited nothing new in ar-
gument. The subject- has well nigh exhausted the in-
genuity of opponents, itho are now driven to gather up
fragments of the fragile weapons they formerly dis-
charged against the Biil, and to hurl them with all the
force their feebleness can collect against the measure
now before Parliament—with what result within doors
the division of last night attests. As the advocates of
the Bill included the most distinguished men of the two
great parties, we may safely assume that their sup-
port is sincere—the result of conviction, derived from ob-
servation and experience, that the new law has wrought
extensive good to all classes of the communi'y. If
the debate produced nothing new in argument, it
furnished new and striking illustrations of the lengths to
which popularity-hunters will proceed in the path of ab-
surdity,
end the sacrifices of consistency they will make
to the passions and prejudices of the multitude, in order
to obtain the object of their ambition. On the other
hand, we see the difficult position in which the indivi-
dual is placed, who, in the prosecution of an impera-
tive duty, undertakes to arrest the course of evils which
have gradually incorporated themselves with the habits,
and have ministered to while they created many
of the vices and miseries of the poor. The Government
by which the New Poor-law was introduced, and un-
der which - its machinery has been wrought, has
been placed ia this difficult position. Nothing but
a firm confidence in the principles of the law, and
in the urgent necessity which demanded its itv re-
duction, joked with a consciousness of their own
integrity in its construction and administration,
could have sustained them. The opponents of the
change have had much to recommend them to the par-
tiality of their auditors. They appealed to their hu-
manity—and in behalf of the poor ! They exercised
their powers, lifted up their voices, and employed their
pens, in behalf of the destitute, who had no other
friends, and of the helpless, who had no other helpers!
There is something in such an exhibition that is calcu-
lated to prepossess the mind in favour of such advo-
cates—to hold them up in a light of very advantageous
contrast, either with the selfishly indifferent, who "care
nothing about the poor," or with the " cruel oppressors
of the poor," who introduced and employ the law as
the instrument of their oppressien and cruelty !
. _

(From the Standard.)
Tae facts that transpired in the discussion of Mr.
M'Leod'a case, last night, illustrate, in a remarkable
manner, the danger of leaving unsettled all disputed
points of international relations. It now appears that
the question of the seizure of the Caroline has never
yet been adjusted, though surely nothing can be
imagined more capable of a simple arrange-
ment than the case in question. The fact
that the Caroline was employed in a piratical war
against the British territory, and that in order to
defend her Majesty's dominions and her subjects, it was
necessary to seize the vessel, is unquestioned, and, in-
deed, admits of no question. Whether it was right
to seize her in the waters of the United States is the
only topic of inquiry ; and this, in -our view, could
not be a difficult topic to deal with. • If the American
authorities affirm, contrary to the fact, that the law
and government of the States were in full vigour at
the port from which the Caroline conveyed arms,
I •
provision*, ammunition, and reinforcements to the
pirates at Navy Island, they acknowledge that the
States prosecuted an undeclared war against Great
Britain. If, on the other hand, they admit, as truth
would compel them to admit, that the Caroline was
sent from a port that had renounced the law and govern-
moot of the States, they have no cause of quarrel,
lo: the port in question for the time constituted
de facto no part of the Union. In punishing her
own enemies, Great Britain was only chastising
their rebels. The neighbour who pursues a
burglar into another's house, and seizes him
there, surely commits no wrong to him whose
house he may unceremoniously invade, but rather ren-
ders him a service. But, however the question of strict
law might be decided, there was still to be considered
the necessity of the case. It was accessary to the safety
of her Majesty's territory, and for the protection
of her subjects, that the pirates of Navy Island should
be deprived of the vessel that constantly supplied them
with whatever they wanted from the New York shore.
Now, in cases of necessity, it is permitted to supersede
the authority of strict law, as houses are often pulled
down to prevent the extension of a fire ; all that can be
expected in such cases is that the party who suffers loss
shall be compensated to the full amount of the injury
sustained. If, therefore, the parties interested in the
Caroline and the authorities of New York felt them-
selves guiltless of wrong in the matter, they ought to
have demanded compensation for the loss of the vessel,
and an apology for the insult offered to their soil, and
it would not have humiliated the British Government
in the slightest degree to render both.
(From the Courier.)
According to notice, Lord Stanley proceeded last
evening to question the Secretary for Foreign Affairs
about the untoward incident which has arisen to jeo-
pardise our relations with the United States—in the
arrest, in prisonment, and approaching trial of Mr,
M` Leod, a British subject, on a charge of murder. The
result of this trial, those best acquainted with the con-
struction and official quality of the judiciary tribunals of
the separate states of the Union, as well as with the
state of morals and the unbridled passions of a too
depraved and excitable population, are disposed to
regard already as a foregone verdict of guilty against
the innocent and incarcerated party, and after sen-
tence we are told that execution must surely fol-
low. And, indeed, it needs but slight consideration
to induce the same conclusion in the minds of all men
who reflect on the enormity of the original outrage
committed on the person of this loyal and unoffending
citizen, for those who have not hesitated to kidnap are
little likely to be so dainty of conscience as to stop
short of his judicial murder. Leaving out of sight for
the moment the disloyalty and dishonesty of the pretexts
on which Mr. M'Leod was arrested, we are bound to
say it, although with deep regret, that the fixed convic-
tions, practical or theoretical, of every man and every
the State
i
writer, of whatever country, who has followed the work-
ings of judicial system in America, stand re-
corded n the sentence almost universally pronounced that
in cases involving party interests or enlisting political pre-
judices, to go no further, it would bees reasonable to ex-
pect grapes from thistles as justice from State tribunals
as now constituted. There is but one Court in the United
States whose decisions command respect and are entitled
to confidence, and that is the Supreme Court of Judi-
cature of the Federal Republic. Unhappily it can
have no action on the present occasion, for the state of
New York has taken the initiative and the right of
jurisdiction into its, own hands, and we know with
what jealous:- State's rights, as against Federal rights,
are pleaded and insisted on, so that exactly in
pro-
portion with the notorious partiality and corruption of
these State tribunals is their supremacy within the
State asserted, and will be asserted, even in defiance
of that just claim to superior attributes on questions
i
of general and international nterest, which, accor-
ding to the Constitution, are inalienably assigned
to the Supreme Court of the Union.