The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-22 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
CHB•ONICLE.—The House of Commons which has
declared itself in favour of new taxes and monopoly will
this day be prorogued by her Majesty, in order forth-
with to be sent about its business ; and to the hands of
the constituent bodies will be confided the cause of the
Queen and the people. No friend of his country can
look unconcernedly, or without anxious feelings, upon so
momentous a conflict. It is not the truth or falsehood
of anti-monopoly principles that is at issue ; or the
prevalence of those principles wherever popular intel-
ligence exists. Being true, they must eventually
prevail, and their connection with national pros-
perity is a fact which no voting can falsify. But
their timely application to our own country is at stake.
In no other way can the already commencing decline
of our commercial prosperity be arrested. And yet that
application is contested by men who can neither deny
the truth of the principles, nor the urgency .of the oc-
casion. • In London, we have Mr. Alderman Pixie, a
candidate for the opportunity of voting against the
policy for the adoption of which he lately petitioned ;
and his co-petitioner, Mr. Horsley Palmer, actively
supporting him in a similar spirit of antagonism to-
wards his own avowed convictions. Such is the politi-
cal morality for which we are indebted to Tory partisan-
ship. The faction preserves its skulking tactics to the
last, and goes to the poll only as an universal negation,
hoping thereby to catch the support of all sorts of ob-
jectors,.however incompatible the grounds of their hos-
tility to the Ministerial policy, or of their discontent
with Ministers. In this negative character consists its
strength.. It reckons both upon those who object to the
persoes now in office, though approving their measures ;
and 'those whose hostility is only to their measures and
not to their persons ; and it cultivates with unceasing
diligence . the wide field of misrepresentation which is
left open by this systematic indefiniteness. But the
electors must be reminded that they cannot restrict the
effeei of their votes to the simple negation of what they
deem objectionable. There is no such thing, for in-
etance, as a vote which shall only tell against the New
Poor-law. The elector who hates it' ever so much, if lie
poll on that exclusive principle, may be polling infavour
of -bread-tax, of ruined mauufactures, of military coer-
cion. Every voter should sufficiently mitigate the fer-
vour of his objectiveness to ask himself what he is about
to vote for. The positive results are much moae im-
portant than the negative.
TIMES.—On more occasions than one we have assured
the country that the Whigs, though resorting to a disso-
luthee as their last desperate appeal to the wheel of for-
tune, entertain. nevertheless, a sure presentiment of their
own defeat. Of this fact we have furnished, very re-
centiv, several decisive proofs. When, for instance, thehe
pettishly flung up the Administration of Justice Bil' _
ply because the House of Commons refused to allow its
provisions to come into operation till the - 7
.donta. of Octo-
ber, we clearly demonstrated, that as, such a postpone-
ment had no other effect than to relevent the Whigs from
immediately securing a high egal appointment for Sir
John Campbell, their sucl(l'n abandonment of that measure
eehreed indisputable ehidence that they did not expect to
be in a condition, ;,our months hence, to confer upon Sir
John the profeehional promotion which they had reason-
ably promie:ed him. Subsequent occurrences, as we
shall now show, place this fact beyond the possibility of
a dunhe. The Learned Attorney-General having neither
succeeded in obtaining his expected preferment, nor
taken the usual steps for securing his re-election at
ledinburgh, found himself in that very embarrassing
predicament which the Scotch humorously desig-
nate " between • the leeil and the deep sea." Half
endowed with the Stratheden Peerege, barren in
tarry thing except a hopefal succession, and yet pos-
sessing neither the permanent means of supporting
et, nor even the certainty of preserving his Parlia-
nientary position as an indispensable ladder to better
enospents, Sir John is understood to have discovered
eleee, the question between himself and the Dell had be-
t 0... re a very serious one. Words ran high. Here was
n laborious servant of the Whigs who, for the last
ve years, had fagged for them night and day. His
eight of advancement had been repeatedly foregone
by him at their own earnest entreaty. Extraordi-
nary, bad luck had at length overtaken them. For-
sakea by all their more respectable friends, one after
enother—forsaken by the public press—forsaken by
their own hack Parliament—forsaken, indeed, by
nearly the whole kingdom—nay, forsaken by every
ileflUential party that could afford their old de-
?entlents the slightest chance of a retiring compe-
tenee—what, in the name of mischief, was to be done ?
The expected appointment under the Administration of
Justic,2 Bill, which had prevented Sir John from solicit-
inghis 're-election for Auld Reekie (the Deil's peculiar
domain), having provokingly failed, a wistful eye was
turned from Edinburgh to Dublin, and a dead set was
eaade at the great seal of Ireland, now dangling from
the fob of Lord • Plunket's slippered pantaloons. The
election in the north was at hand. Not a moment's delay
could be brooked. The necessary badgering was prac-
tised apes Lord Melbourne forthwith. A refusal could
not be thought se Off went an official letter to. Lord
Plunket demanding his immediate resignation in the
eirilet;t way. -
POST.—Whatever may be smi7)ectel of joh')ing or of
trickery in the other changes, aft the rest sink into in-
significance in compareeei th the gigantic job of
forcing the Lord Chancellor of _lreland out of office in
crder to make an opportunity for giving to Sir John
Campbell a legal right to a pension of 4,0001. a year for
the-remainder of his life. All the accounts from Ireland,
the newspapers of all shades of Liberalism .and of all
shades of Conservatism, concur in the assertion that
the resignation of the Irish seals by Lord Plunket
was not a voluntary act ; that his Lordship was
literally dragooned and insulted into retirement.
And why was this ? Surely not • because his Lord-
ship had suddenly become incapable of holding the seals
during the few weeks that are to elapse before it will be
finally determined whether the present Ministers of the
Crown shall remain in office. No ! Lord Plunket was
goaded into the reluctant act of resignation, because
Ministers knew that this question was already virtually
determined—because they knew that if the resignation
of the Noble Lord were postponed, it would never take
Place for their advantage—and because they wished for
an opportunity of giving a legal title to a pension of
4,0001. a year to one of their own partisans. We are
told by the Morning Chronicle that there is an under-
standing in virtue of which Sir John Campbell is not to
have the pension of 4,000/. a-year on retiring from the
office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, from which Lord
Plunket is just turned out to make room for him. We
attach very little value to the " understanding" of which
the Chronicle speaks. Will not Sir John Campbell ac-
quire a right to a retiring pension from the moment the
seals are in his hand ? And does our Contemporary
believe that the " understanding" of " plain John Camp.
'bell" is of that kind that renders his relinquishment of
a legal right to 4,0001. a-year in any degree probable ?
The Globe, in announcing the fact of Lord Plunket's re-
finement, which it intimates ought to have been a
little earlier, says that " Sir John Campbell, the At-
iorney-General, is to be his Lordship's succes-
sor, and will be elevated to the Peerage previous to his
receiving the seals of office," but makes no allusion what-
ever to the relinquishment of the retiring pension. The
Globe is certainly in this instance the better informed, or
the more prudent of the two Ministerial journals. The
ea and the cruelty, therefore, stand confessed. Lord
ilunket has been insulted, and coerced to resign, for the
Undisguised purpose of putting 4,000/. a year of the
country's money into the pocket of Sir John Campbell
for the remainder of his life.
CHRONICLE.—The Tory Lords have succeeded in
defeating the Criminal Justice Bill. They have de-
("Area plainly enough, tint whatever job any one of
texm may fix upon as the price of his consent to useful
legislation mat be conceded, for that they are reckless
of mischief, and will do all in their power to revenge
the disappointment of any of their creatures whose bribe
has been refused to him. The Criminal Justice Bill was
brought in for the purpose of enabling large towns to
build gaols where they were wanted, and to obviate the
Consequences of that sapient decision of the Court of
Queen's Bench, that a borough which has a gaol of its
own may send its prisoners to be confined in the county
prison, but that a borough which has no gaol may
not. These provisions, which constituted the whole
Bill as at first framed, passed both Houses with
very little discussion, showing that there was nothing
in them which was not generally recognised as use-
ful and desirable. In filet the passing ,of this mea-
sure was looked for with the greatest anxiety in many
very important towns, and the loss of it will be felt with
proportionate disappointment and anger. It occurred,
however, to certain parties who had been recently de-
feated in an attempt to dispute the validity of the char-
ters of incorporation granted to the towns of Ma" h s-
ter, Birmingham, and Bolton, that they might otherwise
attain their ends, if their friends in the Senate would in-
esist upon their claims being recognised as the condition
e
of this Bill being allowed to pass into a law.
Attorney-General, who had charge .of the Bill, protested
ageinst the addition of these compensation clauses (as
they were called), which, in fact, might have been tacked
with as much propriety to any other Bill of the Session.
However, the jobbers at length succeeded in sending
tip the Bill to the House of Lords, evith the addition
. clauses securing certain annuities to the Coro-
ners of Warwick and Lancashire, and to the clerk of
Peace of Warwick. When these anomalous excres-
cences were noticed there, the observation was made that
there were other parties as well entitled to compensation
as those whose cases were there provided for, and Lae
length an arrangement was made that the progress of
this Bill sheuld be suspended, until another opportunity
was given to the House of Commons for reconsidering
those other claims. It is important to observe that
the Lords were very well aware at this stage that
they could not themselves meddle with the compen-
Baden clauses, for that such a course, according to
the established usages of Parliament, would infallibly oc-
casion the loss of the Bill. Accordingly, another Bill
was brought into the Commons for compensating the
clerk of the Peace for Lancashire, who held a patent
office in reversion before the granting of the Manchester
charter, and in the course of that Bill through the Com-
mons, the clerks to the justices of Birmingham were
added to the swelling list of annuitants. One only re-
mained unprovided for, the clerk to the justices at
Manchester, and it may be thought that not' much
could be said for his claim, since, upon its being
• brought forward on this second occasion, Sir Robert
Peel and Lord Stanley were found voting with
• . the Goyernment, that " really this was too bad." Ac-
cordingly, the second Bill (known in the House as
the Lancaster Clerk of the - Peace Bill) was sent up
tee the, Lords, omitting the Manchester Justices' clerk.
Wilton,shosveVer, was more easily 'earwigged than
the Rouse o 3; 4j
Sir
Robert, 'and -he
.determined that if
his
annuity, would not 'consent to give Mr.
Venchettee ot.AZeiei,A the House or Lords should deprive
benefit
as bauipurpose itsel(v'us malicious H
d ering as the
bve
y: 11;roi
jectpostriar%toina therike out the Word Manchestc
Bill. This he barely carried