The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-19 00:00:00

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF SATURDAY.

CHRONICLE.—The first and greatest object of the Tories,
when once of official power, will be that of entrench-
ing themserssetisis:rdein so as to defy public opinion in its efforts
for their expulsion. For this purpose, the scheme of creating
a huge mass of ecclesiastical patronage in the colonies, and
rendering the exercise of that patronage independent of the
Crown and its Constitutional advisers, is not badly constructed.
The appointment of well-salaried bishops and clergy, with
which the Ministry for the time being should have nothing to
do, would be an awkward difficulty for any future Whig Go-
vernment to contend with. The plan is not less impudent for
affecting to regard the endowments of thirteen new bishoprics as
the possible creations of voluntary contribution. Nor, were they
ictually to be se, would it materially signify. Suppose any.
clique were to subscribe for the salaries of Governors
of Canada, of Jamaica. of India; or of any new colonies to be
settled or acquired. The argument from such contributions to
the alienation of the appointments from the Crown, would not
be more incompatible with the rights of the Sovereign and the
interests of the nation than a similar alienation as to the thir-
teen new bishopric,. Let the spiritual functions of a Bishop
be what they may, as the Bishop of a province or district he is
a creature of the State. To render him independent of 'its
authorities, is to subject the State to any faction which may
bid highest for episcopal favour. Toryism speculates upon
purchasing the spoils of office by transferring a portion of the
prerogative of the Sovereign, held for the people, to an Eccle-
siastical Corporation ; and thus forming a power too strong
for both Sovereign and people. The plan is also an intima-
tion to Sir Robert Peel how little he is trusted. Just on the
supposed eve of his becoming Premier, it is disco-
vered that the religious enfranchisement of Dissenters
and Catholics has " tended to disqualify the Ministers
of State for the office of ecclesiastical advisers of the Crown."
And the prelates, we are also informed by the Times, " adopt
throughout a tone which would be inconsistent with the idea
of their consenting to surrender (the new ecclesiastical
patronage) into the hands of men who may, possibly, be dis-
senters from the Church, or may be actuated by merely poli-
tical and secular motives in their use of Church patronage."
.But is Sir Robert Peel a Dissenter? Are any of the Mem-
bers of his Cabinet likely to be Dissenters? No ; .but the high
Church and Tory party will not trust him. They declare so
beforehand. He must give them security for his good be-
haviour ' • the security of being tied hand and foot, and of trans-
mitting his bonds to whatever successors the nation may
hereafter raise to office. It is not power for Sir Robert Peel
that will satisfy the faction, but permanent power for Teryism ;
power independent of the Crown and the people; the power of
bigotry and exclusion, of monopoly ecclesiastical and political,
of plunder and oppression, in secula seculoru'n.
TIMES.—The Scotch returns, if not answering our expec-
tations in every iota, have certainly occasioned us no material
disappointment. North of the Tweed, there are various cir-
cumstances, as we have often mentioned before, which render
the steady progress of Conservative principles less rapid and
less active than in other parts of the kingdom. Overlooking
the historical fact that the very restricted franchise prevalent
in Scotland previous to the Reform Bill was entirely attri-
butable to the Whig party, who, when passing the act of union,
adjusted the Scotch representative system to their own nar-
row views, a large proportion of the new constituencies in
that quarter, otherwise favourable to the established insti-
tutions of the country, were no sooner invested with
electoral privileges, than they attached themselves zeal-
ously and indiscriminately to the movement faction as
that which in their opinion had given them a po-
litical existence. Perhaps the infirmity which generates
vindictiveness under a sense of supposed injury may also have
stimulated them to a course of determined resentment against
the Tories, whose reluctance to try the experiment of a revolu-
tion (such was the phrase which Lord John Russell himself
applied to the Reform Bill) was uncandidly interpreted as a.
proof of their hostility to popular rights. On the other hand,
viewing the Whigs rather as the parents and guardians of their'
new-born privileges than as the mere instruments of bringing
forth a great national gestation, which, being matured
by a Constitutional necessity, could neither be accelerated
nor retarded -by any political party whatever, the feeling of
filial attachment thus created (similar in, intelligence to that of
ducklings hatched by a hen) was considerably strengtened by
the vulgar pride and conceit which have latterly sunk the in-
ferior portion of the middle classes in Scotland almost to a par with
the swaggering braggadocio of the United States. Piquing
themselves upon that superior education and intelligence which
used formerly to boast that no English dramatic actor could
establish his fame until he had passed the ordeal of an Edin-
burgh audience (we involuntarily smile at this ludicrous and
contemptible vanity), a vast.number[of the Scotch ten-pounders
who can possibly conjugate Awmo, have taken it into their tre-
mendously long heads that they must needs be a century in ad-
vance of all England and Ireland in point of leeterature and
leeberality. Liberalism therefore—not an independent and ra-
tional preference for enlightened statesmanship, but a mere prag-
matical ambition to be in the van of the grand army of
cal sappers and miners—is considerably more to their mind
than the moderate and discriminating politics of sober-minded
citizens. Time and insupportable ridicule have doubtless done
much to lower their combs and thirr their ranks.
ADVERTISER.—Reformers of Great Britain, until Tues-
day next let the registries be the sole object of yonr attention.
See that the name of no friend to popular principles of Govern-
ment, entitled to the franchise, be omitted from the registration,
and that no enemy, unduly claiming the suffrage, usurp that
distinctive right which marks the freeman from the slave.
The contest just concluded was a contest of parties, not of
principles, and the verdict returned by the country may be re-
garded as a verdict upoa the men rather than upon the mea-
sures, with which in their extremity they sought to es:ablish a
dubious association. If it were a question between the Minis-
ters and the country, the sentence pronounced by the result of
the elections might not be considered altogether unmerited ;
but as a question between Whigs and Tories, it is to be re- .
gretted that the defeat of the one could be achieved only by the
triumph of the other. This election was a struggle for power,
not for principles, and many voted for the transfer of the helm
of the state from the hands at present directing it, without
reflecting upon the capacity or qualification of those standing
eagerly watchful to clutch it for their own selfish interests.
The next election must, necessarily, be one of a different cha-
racter. The people must then have some palpable and cer-
tain good to struggle for, and the men soliciting their suffrages
must represent measures on which the popular sentiment has
already fixed the seal of its approbation. Prepare. therefore,
for the c, ntest. Reformers, your next battle will be for your
own rights, and not merely for the possession of office by men
ambitious of authority. Prepare, therefore, to strike for your
freedom. The time of action may arrive sooner even tha.P:ts
anticipated, and he who has a qualification for the frapicbise,
and be not then in a position to exercise it, will der- rye to be
stigmatised as a voluntary slave, desei vino the contempt of
every true citizen.
POST.—In the absence of anything in.',"he present state of
aff .irs to comfort them, the Whig-Re__ -.lca! party try to keep
up the spirits of their friends by o'etailing all the difficulties
which the Conservative leaders-will have to encounter by and
by. These sagacious poli".cians have already framed a chart
of the political way for tvoe next twelve months, and have laid
down a very great ai`,undance of rocks and shoals, upon which
the poor Conserse:oves are sure to make shipwreck of their
cause. We eaould be very unwilling, in the present very
sorry plight of our Whig-Radical opponents, to debar them
from ao•.-, comfort of which they may deem it possible to avail
them ;elves, but we really think that for some time, at least, they
wrsuld do as well to steer clear of prophecy. When we con-
sider how very plainly they foresaw, about a month , ago,
that the elections were to be greatly in their favour,
and to rebuild, and more than rebuild, all the
majority which had been crumbling away from *1835 ;
and when we compare this speculation with the fact as it
stands now accomplished, it is quite impossible to think that
the gift of prophecy is actually among those eminent endow-
ments to which Whig-Radical-modesty lays claim. They may
be great engineers of Reform, though that which they con-
structed ten years ago has greatly disappointed their own cal-
culations. They may be very wonderful hands at retrench-
ment, though an it crease in our expenditure of two millions
three hundred thousand a year, while the revenue has dimi-
nished by the same amount, is rather an odd way of showing
it. They may be very faithful friends of peace, though to
carry on even "little wars" in every quarter of the globe is
not the most seisfactory evidence of peaceful dispositions. But
prophets they certainly are not, as the result of the general
election very satisfactorily proves ; and, therefore, we think
the less they say of what must happen when Sir It. Peel takes
the helm, the better for their:own reputation as politicians.
HERALD.—If the reformed system of election be worth
anything, it must.. in some sort represent the opinions of
those to whom the electoral power is committed; and as
that system was created and established by themselves, we
do not well see how they can fairly complain of its being
assumed, that in their sense of political speculation it has
been doing so for the last 11 years. Now popular opinion
in this year 1841, is expressed by the forcible ejectment
of the Whigs in almost every place where the influence of
Government, or jobbery, or priestcraft, has not turned the scale
the other way. It is no doubt affection for the Whigs that lost
Liverpool to their Foreign Secretary—Yorkshire totheir Irish
Secretary—London almost to their Colonial Secretary—Dublin
to their indispensable patron—Leeds to the eternal Joseph,
who now inflicting himself on the East India'
who is, we
Company—which scattered in flight nearly as bad as that of
Iran, Sir De Lacy Evans, and Mr. Wyse., Mr. Whipper.in
Stanley, Sir Hussey Vivian, Sir Edward Lytton Bolster, the
great novelist ; Mr. George Grote, the equally great political
;thaend lists°
economist; Sergeant Talfourd, renowned in drama; Mr. Gil-
lon, renowned for his patronage of theDukeoak
fSeusoseuxt
many other illustrious personages, that to m
would fill our columns to overflowing. If these be proofs
of
popular affection for the Whigs, we can only say that they
marvellously resemble that of the poet who appeals to his ten-
der mistress—
"‘‘ Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But why did you kick me down stairs?"
Kicked down stairs they are at present, and "no mistake."
GLOBE.—It was left for the elections, now nearly ter-
minated, to reveal the full extent to which the fifty-
pound tenant-at-will clause was capable of being carried
by the landlords against the other great interests of the
country. The dread of a change in the system of corn
restriction, with which the lords of the soil ignorantly
suppose their ability to exr.et high rents from their tenan-
try is bound up, has ir;tticecl them to put in operation, to
an extent never ber.ore known, the powers of coercion con-
ferred upon the-,a by that insidious interpolation into the
Reform Bill, When the returns exhibit a propor-
tion of 1 -47 Members pledged to uphold the monopoly
in cores while but twenty-three who are willing to relax
thus d restrictions are able to carry their elections as
Kenibers of English counties, we may form some idea
of the formidable powers which the Marquis' of
Chandos' famous addition to the county constituencies
(aided by the division of counties) conferred upon the
landowner. This clause enables him to command the
votes of his tenants-at-will, with as much assumed autho-
rity over them, as the baron of the feudal times exacted
the suit-and-service by which his serfs held their lands,
who were indebted for protection from marauders to his
'prowess. The fifty-pound tenant-at-will clause, unac-
companied, as it ought to have been, by some protection
to the voter, places the representation of the English
counties at the disposal of the landowners, as completely
as Gaon and Old Sarum were at the disposal of their
proprietors in the pa'my days of boroughmongering Par-
e.n ts. The Very phrase. tenure. at-will, is inconsist-
ent iiith theidea of freedom in the exercise of the fran-
chise it confers, and cannot exist in connection with it.
SuCh a title to the right of voting can never be established
4
in a &country but at the sacrifice of the moral and poli-
tical atom of the tenant. It is a general principle of
huirtan conduct, that men will not act in opposition to the
desires of a man who haS it in his power to injure them for
so Ooing, and so long as a farmer holds his farm at the mere
44 of his landlord, so long has that landlord the means
•
Or compelling him to vote as he pleases. Yet this is what
~:Lord Stanley, in the House of Commons, designated
" the legitimate influence of property," with which it
would be unjust to interfere, and of which it is unrea-
sonable to complain ! The right of suffrage is a
public trust ; and,
tibiZfi as such, includes a moral obliga-
with ebtseill those who hold it to discharge it
is a tens delity. But can a farmer, who
discharge his conscience at
bury or
the litustitigsQH romes to the• poll; say at Ayleas
A
date—is 44) Lgive his vote for the candi-
• • choice ? the luau whom he con-
.