The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM TILE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.

TIMES.—In approaching th-, important subject of
the relations which may be expected and ought to sub-
sist between the Church of England and a Conservative
Government, we feel that we touch more closely upon
the vital principle of Conservatism than we' have ever
done before. If the Whigs had not attacked the Church,
their tenure of office might have been secure at this
moment ; and if the Conservatives de not faithfully,
steadily, and courageously adhere to the Church, vindi-
cate her rights, and assert her liberties, they will soon
have reason to regret that they have assumed office at all.
They may depend upon it, that the confidence of the
Church is the real secret of their power, and that the
reaction by which they have been borne back to as-
cendancy has been essentially her work. It will, there-
fore, be as much their interest as it is their duty to
show themselves worthy of this confidence, and to cling,
as to the very rock upon which the State of England is
built, to those fundamental institutions which connect
our Civil Government with the Church. In strengthen-
ing her, they will infallibly strengthen themselves, will
satisfy the expectations of their most valuable supporters,
and will confer the greatest possible benefit upon the
people. In discharging this duty, however, there are
two considerations which they ought chiefly to bear in
mind--on the one hand, the inviolable obligation under
which they lie to maintain and respect the religious li-
berty of every British citizen, Dissenter as well as Church-
man, and Churchman as well as Dissenter—and on the
other, the sacred and spiritual character of the Church
herself, and the infinitely greater importance of her as-
cendancy over the hearts and consciences of men, • than
of any outward show of extension which a secular in-
fluence might be able to confer upon her. The only
test of expediency, when measures consistent with tolera-
tion are proposed for the ostensible purpose of benefit-
ing the Church, should be the question whether they
are conducive to her real, or only to her apparent,
strength. The flying source of the Church's strength
is, undoubtedly; the faith which she professes and
the Divine gosh- ority which she claims. These are
matters with svkich it does not become secular politi-
cians to. rrie-.:110 ; it is not their calling or their craft ;
no states:: has ever attempted it without, sooner
or later discovering his mistake. If there are cir-
cumsts. in the aspect of the present times which
may seem to impair the full development of this
essential and inherent power of the ChurCh (and who can
deny that such circumstances exist in the theological
differences which now unhappily distract her commu-
nion ?), this is a knot which must be untied, but which
cannot be cut asunder. Where there are differences,
there must be error ; and error cannot be got rid of
without controversy, however painful and embarrassing
controversy may be. Magna est veritas, et prcevalebit,
if its triumph is not damaged or retarded by the inter-
ference of incompetent arbitrators. A statesman who
should attempt, in the present state of the Church
of England, to silence controversy by persecution, or
by throwing the weight of political favour or prefer-
ment exclusively into either scale, would only irri-
tate the wounds which it ought to be his wish to
heal. The spiritual rulers of the Church must be left to
regulate such matters as these for themselves. We say
this, net that we have any fear of an attempt, on the
part of Sir Robert Peel's Government, to transgress the
bounds within which the influence of the State upon the
Church ought to be limited, but because of the precarious
and unsatisfactory nature of the defences by which the
Church is protected against the insult of theological
legislation in Parliament. We know there are hot-
headed partisans, who would as willingly invoke the aid
of Parliament to settle religious questions in their
favour, as Lord Ponsonby did that of the Turkish
Sultan to depose two Christian Bishops who successively
filled the office of Patriarch of Constantinople. Con-
stituted as the Legislature now is, it has no more com-
petency or right to interpose in any matter affecting the
faith or doctrine of the Church of England, than of the
Wesleyan body, or of the society of Quakers.
CHRONICLE.—Lord Ashley has been visiting the
manufacturing districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire,
and holding meetings which have generally resulted in
the adoption of the following resolutions
" 1. That it is the minion of this meeting that a Ten-
hour Factory Bill would be advantageous to both the em-
ployer and the employed. 2. That no child under twelve
years of age ought to be admitted into any factory. 3.
That no woman ought to be employed in any factory
after marriage. And 4. That all dangerous machinery
should be boxed off to prevent the misfortunes which
so frequently occur from its unguarded state."
We fear that these resolutions smack of that one-sided
and purblind philanthropy which usually blunders into
an accumulation of mischief. If the first be sound, it
supersedes all occasion fur legislating, and will execute
itself. No compulsion is requisite for enforcing the par-
ties to consult their own advantage. The second resolu-
tion, if legalised, would be evaded as the existing regula-
tions are. When parents and masters conspire to cheat
the law, as to the age of a child, the restriction is not
easily maintained. The same pressure that renders the
labour of a child needful for its parents, will continue to
tempt them to falsify its age. The third resolution is
an interference with a family which is most likely to be
cruel unless it be inoperative. It tends to the encourage-
ment of concubinage amongst the poor instead of mar-
riage. The lawful wife is.. disqualified from adding
to earnings which may, Without her aid, be inade-
quate to the support of the family. And Lord Ash-
ley's generous interference, under the existing laws,
by which he obtained &wage. of toot. for .._ pour
girl who had suffered front unguarded machinery,
and practically muleted the mill-owner of 6001. for
his carlessness, shows that the object of the fourth
resolution may be attained without adding to the pile
of penal statutes. We cannot, therefore, anticipate a
great amount of good from any legislative measure
founded on these resolutions. The great extension of
child labour and female labour is owing to the taxes on
food. While the man's wages will earn the family's
bread, only the man works. The monopolist cuts a slice
off the operative's loaf ; that sends the wife into the
factory. He comes again for-a larger slice ; that takes
the children from school or play, and then they go
into the factory. Such is the first sacrifice of natural
affections, and abuses are sure to follow. Parents
learn, when they have the opportunity, to live a
wretched life of indolence and gin-drinking upon
their children's earnings. The horrible result only
marks the progress of bread-tax demoralization. Land-
lords' Parliaments and Landlords' Laws have brought on
this unnatural condition. Triumphing over patriotism
and justice, in the first instance, their influence stops not
short till it has also triumphed over the elementary
feelings and deepest emotions of man's moral
being. To see the Landlords' Parliament and
the Monopolist Ministry, the one elected and the
other installed, to uphold the Corn-laws, perpetra-
ting the hypocrisy of entertaining a Ten-hours' Fac-
tory Bill, and similar affectations of philanthropy,
will be a spectacle to make hell laugh. Will Lord
Ashley himself again patronize the poor, by re-
fusing to give them their bread, while he offers to
give them his Bill ? What have the enactments against
child-labour already done in the manufacturing dis-
tricts ? Diminished the number of children employed
in cotton, flax, and woollen factories, to the amount of
40,000. This is probably equivalent to the reduction
-of the incomes of the poor and large families by a
sum of a quarter of a million sterling per annum.
And so the poor pay for the philanthropy of
their betters. For those who cannot sustain
Cie reduction, a resource has indeed been found.
And what a resource : The coal pit is open to them.
A stimulus has been given, by the factory. restric-
tions, to the employment of young children in mines,
where they sit and wither in the dark for hours to gain
such wages as are paid for opening and shutting the
doors when the coal trucks pass '.ed repass. Accidents
happen hero as well as in factories. When the water
burst in upon one of the Silkston collieries there were
forty-four children in the mine, of whom eighteen es-
caped, and twenty-six were drowned, including eleven
girls, and nine children under ten years of age. None
of the men were drowned. The kindly spirit which cora-
- :nes with the erring intellect of Lord Ashley, may
!"id him to take the mines also under his regulating
care. But he cannot regulate the children of the fa-
mishing out of all employment. 3,‘lcre wages their must
have, or more bread for their wag;: s. We should have
imagined that philanthropy would hesitate a little at such
an alternative.
POST.—The journal which Lord John Russell uses
as his organ of communication with the public, en-
nounces that Sir Robert Veal. will " soon find that he
has nz) encounter powers much more formidable than the
combatants of party interests," As to the "formidable"
powers which the Conservative leader will have to en-

counter, we must own that we have to look to the future
for their development. As yet we have seen nothing of
them. But if spleen, disappointment, and malice, car-
ried almost to insane hatred, could be considered " for-
midable powers," there were no need of waiting. Such
things as these he has to encounter every day. We can
remember the hissing spleen of :nialignant Whiggery
in days of old ; but sever do we recollect such 3,
sputtering of malignant venom—such a pouring out of
rage and falsehood, as the Whig-Radical party has ex-
hibited ever since it was beaten by the people in the late
elections. It is positively a disgrace to human nature.
They who have seen a swarm of wild wasps attacked in
their nest, and witnessing its destruction, can alone im-
agine to themselves such an exposure of venomous fury
as that which the Whig-Radicals have made for the last
three weeks in their attacks upon Sir R. Peel. And what
is all this for ? Simply because, by steady perseverance,
he has beaten the party in what used to he called " their
own reformed House of Commons." Is it Sir R. Peel's fault
that the electors of Great Britain prefer his politics, and
his management of public affairs, to the politics and
management of the Whig-Radical leaders ? All this
fury against Sir Robert Peel and his party is, in fact,
fury against the judgment of the people of England, who
have given to him and his party their confidence after
having withdrawn it from the Whig-Radicals. These
wasps have not the reasonable courage to attack the
people of England for their votes—they are afraid of
any such exploit as that, but they cast their calumnies,
their falsehoods, their rancorous abuse at the head of
Sir Robert Peel, merely because he is in that triumphant
position in which the people have placed him through
the privileges derived from the old legislative constitu-
tion; and enlarged by the Reform Act of 1832.
ADVERTISER.—The last official pulsation of Minis-
ters is about to beat. In three weeks from this date
the Administration of Lord Melbourne will be in its
tomb. The Ministers of religion admonish dying sin-
ners that, in proportion to the shortness. of their time
on earth, ought to be their diligence in improving the
little that remains. We would tender a similar exhor-
tation to the Ministers of her Majesty. We would
earnestly beseech them to improve the short remaining
span of their existence in expiating the guilt of their
previous conduct. They have been transgressors of no
ordinary magnitude. Their turpitude in many in-
stances has been only of a 'die less deep than that of
their Tory opponents. If they had not grievously
sinned against their own professed principles, and ,