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

Puna.= OPINION.

The Morning Advertiser urges Ministers to take
the opportunity of recommending in the Queen's Speech
decided measures of Representative reform and Commer-
cial amelioration. " Whatever (adds our Contemporary)
Ministers mean to do for the redemption of their charac-
ters, and the furtherance of the popular cause, they must
do quickly. In three weeks they will be comparatively
powerless for good. If they suffbr the Queen's speech,
and the discussion to which it will give rise, to pass with-
out identifying themselves with one or more popular
Measures, they will neglect the only opportunity which
will ever be afforded them of regaining the good opinion
of their countrymen, and of promoting the principles
on which their Government professes to have been based.
They will perpetuate for ever their own exclusion from
office, and sink, as Statesmen, into utter insignificance.
The Post professes to be quite shocked at the abuse
which the Liberal party is pouring forth on the devoted
head of Sir Robert Peel, and says—" We call upon the
reasonableness and the good feeling of this country to
meet such a torrent of malignity—such a depraved out-
pouring of selfish hatred and party spite—as it deserves
to be met. And we feel satisfied that we shall not
make the appeal in vain. Englishmen, at all events, are
not so mentally constituted as to look on with approval
at the paltry and detestable warfare which is carried on
against the proximate Minister. They will demand fair play
.ands judgment upon his Ministerial acts, and thespiteful
calumnies of the defeated par tywill recoil upon them selvte
Sir Robert Peel has certainly a right to demand " fair
play" from the country ; but why does not he himself
set the example of " fair play ? " Wherefore all his
studied reserve and mystery on the subject of his reme-
dial measures ? Has his patient no right to, at least*
the promise of a speedy cure of the malady that afflicts
him ? Is it " fair play" to keep him in all the torture of
suspense when he is daily growing worse ? How can
John Bull have faith in a physician who, when he calls
on him to explain the nature of his prescription, gravely
shakes his head and says nothing ? It is neither just
nor fitting that the "fair play"—like Irish reciprocity—
should be all on one side,

The Hercdd contains a lengthy article on the sub-
ject of colonial sugar, which ends as it begins, with an
egregious sophism. •

The Chronicle observes ;—" The Corn-law .ques-
tion is truly a religious question, if we are to take our
religion from the New Testament. Our Saviour hardly
ever opens his mouth in the Evangelists, without mani-
festing his anxiety for the support of the poor. To feed
the poor, as well as to instruct them, was his constant
theme. Inded, -whir- all-due submission to Mr. W.
Gladstone and the Puseyites, who look with such
disdain on the simple beginnings of Christianity, and
fasten their eyes on the hierarchical and worldly struc-
tures which have been raised on them, the collection
and distribution of the funds for the support of the poor
was long the chief business of the successors of the
Apostle." The Corn-law question being, as our Con-
temporary justly calls it, " a religious question," we are
surprised that it has not yet received the support of
those pious Evangelists, the Bishops. What is Exeter
about ? Why does he not3come forward with a pamph-
let in its behalf ? And London, too ; surely he would
be much better employed in advocating the abolition of
this monopoly, than in summoning Middlesex Rectors
before him, for sitting in their drawing-rooms reading Sun-
day newspapers, with their legs cocked up on the window
ledge?

The Times puts forth a remarkable article, the ob-
ject of which is to exhort the proximate Ministers to
stick, like wax, to Mother. Church. The Whigs, says
our Contemporary, fell, because they treated the old
lady with rudeness ; and the Tories will fall, too, if
they be guilty of the like incivility. Mother Church
is now all in all with the Times. He is never weary
of preaching in her praise. In his pious eyes she is a
paragon of perfection. Our Contemporary has been so
often converted and re-converted in the course of his
weathercock career, that we should not be at all sur-
prised if his next conversion were to be to rank Me-
thodism ! From the subjoined paragraph, it would almost
appear that he was qualifying for an Indian Missionary :
"India is a heathen country, and we, who profess to be
Christians, not merely tolerate (for that we are bound
to do), but we cherish, honour, and all but worship the
idolatries of the most abjectly submissive population upon
the face of the earth. So far from attempting their
conversion to Christianity, we throw direct obstacles in
the way of it ; reviling, and even persecuting (by dis-
missing from public employments), the few converts
who are made. This state of things, we repeat, must
cease, or there can be no moral support given by the
Church of England to a Conservative Ministry."
The Brighton Guardian, speculating on the pro-
bable conduct of the Tories, says :—" Sir Robert Peel
has not the character of being a bold politician, and he
is nothing of a schemer. His friends want the enjoy-
ment of place, not its annoyances. They want to
exercise freely their little spites and their petty extor-
tions. They will be for amusing themselves with turn-
ing out this man and putting in that, getting this one
to resign that some other may have his place ; and so
nestling themselves and their dependents snugly in all
possible vacancies. They would be startled and annoyed
by a novel proposition, or a large plan of any descrip-
tion ; it would give trouble, and its consequences could
not be foreseen.. Thus the wishes and disposition of the
Tories, as well as Sir Robert's own character, forbid us
to expect a bold or comprehensive policy."
The Cambridge Advertiser says, " After having
secured power by the aid of the people's worst enemies,
Sir Robert's next object will be to obtain just that degree
of popularity which will enable him to make use of
the power he possesses. The imposture of a pre-
tended great discovery in finance will be exposed on his
first assumption of office, and for a time he will endea-
vour to amuse the people with pirated copies of those
measures which his predecessors have introduced."

The Dublin Pilot, referring to the recent proceedings
in Exeter Hall, makes the following remark :—" Sir
Robert Peel was of opinion, some two years ago, that
Ireland was the chief difficulty in the way of his ac-
cepting office. He fancies he has got over the difficulty;
but he will find, before he is a month in Downing-
street, that the Orange Associations of Ireland, and the
associated slanderers and fanatics of England, will be
the chief difficulty in the way of his retaining it."
The Tyne Mercury thus expresses itself on the sub-
ject of Tory statesmanship :—" A more blind or bigoted
race than the present Tories, from their representatives
in high rank and in the newspapers, we never yet saw or
heard of, and at the present day could not have expected.
We had looked for a change in Toryism ; we see at pre-
sent no signs of any favourable alteration."