The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-08 00:00:00

C

LONDON:
THURSDAY, JULY 8, 1841.

It seems right to remind our readers that two
distinct questions have been put to the electors
by the late dissolution,—the first concerns the po-
pularity of the Ministers, the other their mea-
sures, or rather the principle of their measures, to
increase at once the resources of the State and the
prosperity of the people. To the second of these

questions, the almost universal answer of the in-
habitants of towns has been favourable. Neither
at Liverpool nor at London, was the battle won
under the black flag of monopoly. The Tory
candidates were in favour of free trade, but they
objected to the men by whom it was offered, and
to the time of offering it. At Leeds the return
of Mr. BECKETT was due, we believe, to his local
influence. It was the victory of a townsman over
a stranger. If the majority of the counties have
answered, or will answer the question as to the
measures unfavourably, the great majority of the•
towns have answered favourably, as to the prin-
ciple of the measures proposed by the Ministers-
In fact, we have quoted from the Times, for
two successive days, unanswerable proofs of the
great popularity of the principle of the measures
in the opinion of that journal. It expected to be
overwhelmed, and its gratitude, for a victory or
two, contrary to its expectation, has been un-
bounded. These measures speak to the purses
and understandings of the people, and to govern
them, the Tories must propose measures coinci-
dent in principlewith those they have now stirred
up the people to oppose.

The other question has been answered, we
regret to say, in the negative. It is neither de-
sirable nor just to conceal the fact that the popu-
larity of the Ministers has very much dimi-
nished. Something is due to their possession of
office. Government is, in its own nature, a tres-
pass on the natural rights and freedom of men,
and those who have to administer it must, of
necessity, frequently come into collision with in-
dividuals or bodies of men.

To quote one instance. The powers of the
Government -were never, we believe, under
similar circumstances, more leniently exercised
than by the. Whigs in the case of the Chartists.
We know, as we have frequently before stated,
that the leniency of the Government was ob-
jected to by many of its supporters. We do not
say or think that the Chartists committed any
offence ; but the law of England is a wide net
with which barristers and judges can entangle
almost every action. Neither do we say that
the Whigs were as lenient as they might have
been. We expressed a different opinion at the
time, and we maintain that opinion now.
Nevertheless we repeat, that, looking at the be-
haviour of previous Ministers in similar circum-
stances, and looking at the behaviour of other
Governments, the powers of Government were
never more mercifully exercised.

But though the . Government only executed
the law in no unjustifiable manner, the being
obliged to execute it brought it into odium with
a great body of the people. Other similar in-
stances might be quoted to illustrate the princi-
ple that to administer the Government neces-
sarily carries with it unpopularity; but these
will suffice to explain one cause why the Minis-
ters are not so popular in 1841 as in 1836.

Without ea;tering into minute particulars,
it is plain, that with the clergy, the
landowners, the monopolists of all kinds, with
those they have turned out, and those they
have kept out of office, the Ministers must be
unpopular. They are also unpopular with the
Chartists and some extreme Liberals. They
have yielded, it is thought, too much to the
Tories, and have excited, by apparent weakness,,
the contempt of their opponents, and the mis-
trust of their allies and friends. They have been
bitterly and most unmercifully assailed by a
lying Tory press, which has not been wholly
unsuccessful. So far as the town elections have
turned out unfavourably, then, we must ascribe
the result rather to the unpopularity of the Mi-
nisters than to the unpopularity of their recent
measures.

The Tories, we believe, take a similar view.
They are well aware—and every hour, as com-
mercial distress increases, strealgthens their con-
viction—that Sir ROBERT PnL cannot govern

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