The Sun.
London, England, 1841-09-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNAIIS,

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
Hebert Peel, wafted hv erea de-
eision (the general election) into the functionS of Go-
vernment, has formed his Administration, and remitted
bimself and his colleagues to their country, for a sane-
tioa or a veto on his arrangements ; and though two
months have not elapsed since the triumphant return of
all these individuals to the House of Commons, Whie-
hopes are again on the alert, and Whig speculation ad-
dresses itself to most of the elections. There is hardly
a man among the new Ministers whose constituents the
Whig papers are not endeavouring to bias against his
re-election. Sir Robert Peel, they tell us, for instance,
is afraid of personally facing his friends at Tamworth,
lest he be called on to declare his intended measures ;
as if, after distinctly declining at his late election, and
more lately still in the House of Commons, to commit
himself by premature disclosures, there were any greater
or more stringent reason for his making such communi-
cations to that particular audience, which, of all others,
would be the least inclined to press him—the circle of his
own immediate neighbours, tenants, connections, and
friends. We will not detain our readers by entering
into details respecting the claims of the other recently
appointed Ministers to a renewal of the honour which
they are seeking from their constituents. But there is
one consideration which we should have thought must
needs have suggested itself to the Whigs, as a conclusive
damper to their still prurient hopes of hampering and
baffling Sir Robert Peel's Administration. It is. that
among all the Ministers in and out of the Cabinet, who va-
cate their seats on these appointments, a number amount-
ing to almost thirty persons, there is not one—no, lite-
rally, we believe, not one— who is threatened with even
an attempt at an opposition, unless the idle address of
Mr. Acland against Sir Robert Peel can be regarded as
a serious demonstration. To politicians who affect to
adjust themselves by the glass of public opinion, such a
reflection of it would, we suppose, have been a sickening
sight ; and it is probably for that reason that they have
carefully shut their eyes to it. At all events, say the
mortified Whigs, our return to power is not more hope-
less now than the reinstalment of the Tories appeared
to be nine years ago, when the Reform Bill was passed
into law. -Yes it is. The Tories, it is true, were at
that time, like you, unpopular ; but they had not made
themselves, like you, contemptible. Their policy was
condemned ; but their good faith remained unques-
tioned. Much of what they professed, the people then
disapproved ; but the people did not suspect them (as
they have convicted you) of professing what they did not
mean. Therefore, when, in process of time, a change had
come over the popular mind, and Conservative principles
re-assumed their just consideration, there was nothing to
disgust the people with the ledders through whom those
principles were to be made effectual. Moreover, even in
the darkest period of the Tory prospects, when Conserva-
tive opinions were most at a discount with the multitude,
there remained always a large body of the country's in-
telligence, property, and rank, among whom those opi-
nions found shelter during their season of exile and dis-
couragement, and who willingly formed a nucleus and a
rallying point for all rational attempts at restoration.
Now the Whigs have no such body to aid thetn in their
attempts at a rally. They retain the friendship of a
few noble families, of a little haughty clique, the
rump of Mr. Fox's coalition with Lord North ; but the
mass of the pf ople, or even the " fierce democracy,"
they are no longer permitted to wield. Those mul-
titudes are led, some by Radicals, some by Chartists,
but none by Whigs. The whole nation is by this time
ere that the modern Whigs, having no fixed opinions
_do but trim between prerogative and popu-
ot their
' ^ Constitution and the mob, as it suits
larity, between to 'o appear Conservative or Re-
their designs upon office -seteristic of their faction.
publican. This is no new dm- e‘n.
'nosh treason, a
So long ago as the trial of Harly
e etoaeditious.oue
con-
letter was produced from a member of Mk,:
thy ~,
spiracy of that day, who, in writing t
Margarot, about two brother incendiaries in tari;,ia;ludi
says therein, "Between us, Muir and Palm _
themselves into the hands of the Opposition ; who,
fear, will use their case -ao further than as an argument
to help themselves into Administration," What Lord
Grey's partisans were then, Lord Grey's paraegns are
now ; and it is because the people have at length feafit44
this out, that we believe the Whig hopes of restoration
to be utterly fallacious. Whatever dangers the coliatry
be doomed to behold, Whiggery, at least, we fully per-
suade ourselves, is at an end. "As the wind goeth
over it, it is gone : and the place thereof shall know it
no more."
POST.—The opponents of steady Conservative go-
vernment are doing all they can to impress the public
with an idea that the new Administration in Ireland
cannot succeed. These writers and speakers are in the
condition attributed to the Bourbon family when they
returned to France : in the experience of the last twenty
years they have learned nothing and they have forgotten
nothing. They describe, and they argoe, as if the con-
dition of Ireland, and the position and the feelings of its
political parties, were just the same as they were twenty
or thirty years ago. They talk as if red-hot Orenge-
men on the one hand, and frightened, discontented) so-
bellious Romanists on the other, were the sole occupants
of the political field of Ireland; as if Dr. Diguenan were
still the life of the Irish Privy Council, and Mr O'Con-
nell the venturesome and cunning orator of the old
" Catholic Board." This is extremely absurd. No part
of the United Kingdom has been so much changed—
no, nor anything like so much changed—within the
last five-and-twenty years as Ireland has been. There
have been many causes fur this, which to enumerate in
a descriptive and intelligible manner would occupy more
space than we can afford to the subject. The three
principle causes, however, we may briefly state, namely,
first, the dying away, by the mere operation of time,
of the fierce resentments and bitter recollections arising
out of the rebellion of 1798 , and the insurrection of
1803. Secondly, the change of policy feom that of un-
disguised ascendancy of one party over another te a show
and profession of equal justice to all. Last (and cer-
tainly not least) the immensely increased intercourse
with England, both commercial and social, owing to the
invention of steam-boats. No one who has not had some
opportunity of observing it can well imagine the extra-
ordinary revolution in the affairs of merchandise, manu-
facturing, and employment of the soil which has been oc-
casioned by the facility and certainty of communicating
with England. Among the better classes not only English
habits of living, but English modes of thinking, have made
wonderful progress, and the extravagance of Irish opinions,
and the impetuosity of Irish conduct, :lave proporuonably
diminished. Meanwhile, it is to be observed as a very
remarkable fact, which we have never seen satisfectorily
accounted for, that little or no alteration seems to have
been effected in the habits of the Irish Romanist pea-
santry. They come to England in great numbers, some
of them settle here, and others return ; but whether
they remain or go back, they persevere in their old ha
bits of reckless life, and gross neglect of the lesser mo-
rals, such as cleanliness, punctuality, orderly arrange-
ment, and so forth. St. Giles's is St. Giles's still, with
all its revolting barbarism—though nothing but a line of
houses separates it from the orderly English gravity of
Great Russell-street, and the scientific treasures of the
British Museum. The " Tipperary boys" are as ready
as ever for a row, and as content us ever with
wretched habitations which a little common in-
dustry might make comparatively comfortable,
though hundreds of them visit England every year
to reap the harvest, and must see how much better
their class =image affairs with us. But we speak of the
classes above the peasantry—of those who give the tone
to public opinion. The fierce, domineering, swearing,
drinking, Orange party is gone. There are knots of in-
dividuals here and there who indulge among themselves
in the old truculence, but the party—the public body-7
is gone. In its place has arisen the comparatively mo-
derate, but still firm and well-principled, Conservatives.
Hitherto " conciliation" has been very badly managed.
It has not meant a system of mild, equal, generous Go-
vernment, looking to what is just and fair without dis-
tinction of party, but it has meant the ascendancy of the
Romanist leaders, of the advocates of Radicalism, and
the ostentatious haters of the British Constitution, over
their old masters. There may have been something
like retributive justice in this, and if the object had been
to punish the old Orange party, the system was reason-
able enough. But Government ought to have something
else to do than to punish the abusers of one era, by conti-
nuing the abuse in a contrary direction throughout another.
CHRONICLE.—Whatever our own suspicions may
be, we will assume that Sir Robert Peel possesses the
power which the Times asserts he has, and hold him to
the responsibility. And that responsibility at the pre-
sent crisis is truly of a most momentous description. In
a few hours upwards of one thousand of the first firms in
Manchester signed a requisition for the meeting to•pre-
vent the prorogation of Parliament at this time. Ile
that runs may read the signification of this step. Man-
chester is the heart of the British manufacturing world,
and the distress which has long been felt in every
branch of our manufacturing industry has now reached
the heart itself, and a general paralysis is anticipated.
Men of capital perceive that, in the general prostra-
tion of industry, all property is insecure, The work-
man is wholly or partially unemployed, the Mills are
standing still, all the dependent traders are sufferings,
capitalist after capitalist sees his property take wings
and flee from him—and society is shaken to its inmost
foundations. There is literally at this 1110lnerit serious
apprehension of a social convulsion in the manufieturing
districts. It can only be prevented by the sudden adops
Lion of measures calculated to chase from men's minds
the despondency which has taken possession of them,
a Robert
h
d t ohold outas the
to them
power.Bei
the hopets. He should oo f a brighterld noth
se
future.
Sir
credit for power, without being made to know that he lies
also responsibility. Wlrat is expected of the Prime Minis-
ter of a great empire like this, threatened in the very cen-
tre of its industry with paralysis and convulsion ? Surely
something more than to distribute places and patron-
age among his followers. There may be difficeities in
settling rival pretensions, in calming disappointed are,
bition, and in putting the new executive in motion. But
these difficulties are not surely to engross for ever the
statesman who aspires to wield the destinies of this ,great
empire. The time has already come when we are justi-
fied in reminding the Premier of the great object of
aovernment. The people want bread. The Ministry
exist, not for the sake of their emoluments and their
patronage, but the public welfare—tom public safety.
Surely Sir Robert Peel cannot have eo Jow an
opinion of the responsibility which attaches Kee his
position, as to suppose that, when he has construoteet
a Cabinet, and distributed his patronage among his
followers, he has done all which the country
expects of him at this alarming crisis. Surely he cannot
contemplate the deep insult to the distressed industrious
classes of this country, which is great only by its indus-
try, of dismissing the Members of both Houses to the
pleasures of the chace and other such amusements, at a
time when millions of the people are in the utmost des-
titution, and have their eyes fixed on the Legislature.
Through Parliament alone can remedial measures for the
distress of the people be obtained ; and to postpone the
the business of the country for six months, is, at a crisis
like the present, a direct incitement to revolt. The petty
pleasure of petty minds must nut be allowed at a time