The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-17 00:00:00

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EVENING EDITION.

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' DISSOLUTION or RESIGNAT lON.
The adjourned debate is still proceeding, kid likely
to extend into next week. The foul and Unnatural
hfederacy of the monopolists makes the reelt Car..
tab. Miniitcrs will be in a minority. Will theyiclitet
~olve, then, or will they retkigZ ? is the common in-
quiry. How it is that there can be a question cr a
doubt as to the choice we cannot under:tAnd. Minis-
ters must hara fore-known the opposition of the amti‘
national ittdrests which their project would encounter ;
and with what view did they bring it forward if not
with the intention of appealing to the country ? To
resign now eithout a dissolution -would he to deliver
the nation, bound hand and foot, to the monopolist
majority in Parliament. When Ministers brought for-
ward their plan for the relief of the country, and the
improvement of its finances, they, in so eking, rendered
it at the same time their duty to enable the people to
make all constitutional efforts to e.htain the great object
proposed. K.-lowing that the project would be
tented in this Parliament, Ministers must surely have
been prepared to give the people the oppattan ty of
exerting theinselves for the return of a Parliament
which would more fairly treat. their wants and interests.
The prowb says, that Heaven 'helps those who
help themselves ; but how arc the unfortunate people
to help t'lernselves, if the resource of an election be de-
nied them ! .

Lord John Russel', in his great wench, memorably
sai .1—

“ All these combinations I am prepared to meet, avid I
know at what. disadvantage I stand here, not having to
represent gentlemen belonging to any large branch c f
commerce, or-connected with our colonial interests ; not
speaking the sense of members of a great body com-
bined and associated together, having their subscriptions,
and advertisements, and meetings regularly marshalled
before the eyes of the public ; not speaking of any other
body than that—and a very helpless one on most occa-
sions, the great mass of her Majesty's subjects—whose
interests, whose welfare, whose fortunes are so deeply
involved in the decisions to which this House may coma.
—(Cheers.)”

Helpless- as this body generally is, to refuse it the Op-
portunity of making an c ffort to struggle for the inte-
rests, the waare, and the fortunes at stake in this mea-
sure, would be to condemn it t 3 a helplessness which is
not among its necessities. This would be like locking )he
crew under hatches when the ship is sinking, instead of
calling them up to exert themselves to save her.
Government has done its duty honestly and con•
rageously in taking the field for the country agaidst
the monopolists, but it is a consequent duty that upon
is defeat it sills!l call the people to the rescue of their
interests. Indeed no project of such dimensions of
impo: Lance was ever proposed by a Government, with-
out ti,e intention t's appe..l to the country on the
merits of the question, in the event of a defeat by
a major:ty influence] by factious and interested motives.
A scheme having been brought forward to provide
for great difficulties, to obviate grievous distresses, and
to effort] much needed :Aid, a vr.st agitation must
cattle, and the only question is, whether it is to be
left to work by irregular and stormy means, or whether
it is to flow in the constitutional channe', of a general
election ? ro excite the country greatly, without
giving it the legitimate vent for its excitement, seems
to us as little the past of prudence as of patriotism in
the present csisis.

Whether the people, by any efforts and sacrifices 0r
enthusiasm, can return a majority against monopoly in-
te'eAs in the pre'eot state of the electoral system, in
which t!le landed interest has such confessed prepon-
derance, n:ay be a question, but the right to be allowed
to make the trial is surely theirs.
As for views of party tactics, we have always a great
distrust of them, and against some notions of stratagetie
advantages to be gained from resigning the Government
with the pteerit Parliament to the Tories, we have to
consider the great wrath with which the Tories are in-
flamed when contemplating the possibility of n dissolu-
tion under the-existing Ministry. As the '!'ories are the
wealthier party, it is not the cost of election that so dis-
turbs them—it is the consciousness that they cannot
meat the country on this question,, for that they ,will
lose in the towns more than they can hops to gain in
the counties, which are already aln'ost as much their
own as they can be.

As for their recent successes in single contests, we
have seen the same desultory victories before, followed
by great reverses to them in general elections. For in-
stance, after the general election in '3l, in the enthu-
siasm for reform, when a large majority had bcea re-
turned for the Bill, several corte.ts for boroughs fol-
lowed in a few months, and in all, or nearly all, the To-
ries suceeeded. But of what was this a sign ? Of nothing
but this fact, that the 'rics can bring their powers of
the purse to bear on single points more effectually than
they can distribute them in ageneral contest. And the
next trial bore out this explanation, for in the geneaal
election of '33 the Tories were beaten by the largest
majority against them ever returned. But the predica-
ment of the Tory party is now a new and a more trying
one than they have ever yet been placed in. The To-
ries are not all men of Parliamentary views and expec.ta-
tions. There are Tories in commerce and Tories
trade, who recognise the benefits proposed in the Minis-
terial plan, and who =not be disposed t) sacrifice
their great commercial interests for a party triumph,
which, in effect, would be a victory over their own in-
terests, fraught with the most calamitous results. Skv-th
men will support the Government, which they have
hitherto bean adverse, in measures which they know to
be beneficial to themselves, and essential to the relief
and prosperity of the country ; and a'r, ady, in earnest
of their views, we see Tory journals in the great com-
mercial towns, the Manchester Chronicle for calinple,
exposing and combating the errors of their Tory Mem-
hers, in their opposition to the project of Ministers.
Well, then, may the Tory tacticians tremble at the idea
of a general election with this rent in their how-z.,

131 it to return to our text. We ha►e no reason to do
Ministers the injustice of supposing that they contem-
plate the abandonment of the great cause they have un-
dertal.•en without a blow—without enabling the people
to makS a struggle in their own behalf ; but we have
taken the alarm at the mere fact that we have found
that a m-ttter of question wh;ch ought to be no question
Whatever..-Examiner.

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