The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-06 00:00:00

" That a consciousness of this fact acts as a damning
and retarding force among the partisans on either side
among the people is quite certain; and this is to be
lamented, inasmuch as the party which gains most by
public apathy must be the party in possession."
Much as " the party in possession" may gain by
public apathy, the party out of possession, that is, out
of office, gains still more. For the apathy which allows
one party to remain in, allows another party to exer-
cise a greater influence than, were it in ostensible pos-
'Toe a ralltrre-IrTSB-Th." it —ii—fde -the Tories to be ware
how they rouse the nation from that apathy which so
so long endured their own mismanagement of public
affairs, and since endured, with equal patience, its con-
sequences under an Administration professing less illi-
beral principles. There is no question upon which the
Times could have more inopportunely challenged the
national decision than on this of the Poor-laws and
the Corn-laws. Abolish the Corn-laws, and from
the means of employment and cheapness of food thus
afforded, the Poor-laws would) in a short time altogether
become unnecessary ; but abolish the calumniated
Poor-laws, and leave the Corn-laws still blighting
the general interests, and what will be the condition of
the nation ? We dare and defy the Tories to answer
the question.

(From the Globe.)

" Chartism," says the Herald, has grown out of
the alienation which the New Poor-law has produced
between the poor and the rich." The word Chartism
certainly is new, but the thing is of indefinite antiquity.
The leading points of the Charter were embodied in
a declaration signed by William Pitt in his uncon-
verted state, and the practical principles were caem•

'Allied by the followers of \Vat Tyler, the Jacquerie
and the Munster Anabaptists. Tnat those who have
nothing to los? should find some comfort in being
taught that the law of nature allows them to help
themselves from the stock of those who have, is not

surprising—and rogues will be found to teach it. co long
as the tutor's fees are p rid. The law provides for the
relief of those who are destitute ; it it takes one men's
money to give to another, who can do without it, that
is done by law which the. Jacquerie did by force.
One word upon the Herald's remedy for Chartism—
the removal of ignorance. In this we agree ; but deny
that the Whig Radicals, or her ;Majesty's Attorney-
General, are the men " who seek in the felon's dock for
the best defence of society—who consider the hangman
to be the great moral teach©r of men, who place their
faith in ball-cartridge and bayonets, and look upon her
Majesty's red coats as the best bulwarks of social life.
Tneir creed is, we have shown a recent instance of its
mingled crime and folly—' cut down, shoot, gibbet
Chartism.' " Tue Herald, citing the case of Frost, says,
"Correct and educate." We have never seen much grace
in the grown gentlemen who have been taught to dance,
even when willing to learn ; and we do no., know any pro-
cess by which the Whigs could have taught the New-
port rioters their duties. The leaders had grown up to
be middle-aged men under Tory rule. The Whigs,
on coming into office, found them such ; and we do not
think that when marching down the street at Newport,
even the Herald would have placed so. much reliance
on the most orthodox teaching as on the ball cartridge.
However that may be, the put:ing down a ruffianly
mob, even at the expense of some loss of life, when
otherwise the lives and properties of unoffending parties
would he sacrificed, is not peculiarly a Whig prac-
tic we trust that it will he resorted to, in case of
.'necessity, by whatever patty may hottLthe Cvovernmea.
Our Contemporary has yet one mere vituperative word
to apply to his opponents, which is " unchristian." So
the Poor-law Amendment Act is a Whig and unchris-
tian measure, supported by the Duke of Wellington and
the Bishop of London. It trees are to be judged by
their fruits, according to the Herald the Lord Spiritual
and the Lord Temporal are Whig-Radicals and Infidels.
(From the Courier.)
It is matter of sufficient notoriety, and on all occa-
sions maWe a standard repro by the opponents of
both, how little of sympathy apparently exists between
the press representing Conservative opinion among the
public, and the leaders or members representing tire
Conner vetive party in the Legislature, upon the one most
special subject of the Poor-laws. The almost exclusive
advocacy and odium of the more unpopular side of most
public questions has usually been the fate of that Press,
front whose cause and course leading legislators have
been seen to separate themselves on the day of trial,
sheltering their apparent abandonment, or deviation,
from before understood opinion or resolve under a pica
of the expediency of compromise in same cases, and of
an overruling necessity arising out of some peculiar emer-
gency in others. Fairly to speak, the political position
has not unfrequently been such in the extraordinary times
we have lived in, as on many occasions to justify the
validity of these pleas, as least in a considerable degree.
The Poor-law question, however, is eminently one in
which the Constitutional Press and Parliamentary leaders
stand in somewhat reverse order ; for the former,
for once, is left in the exclusive monopoly of the
popular side, whilst the latter-swayed too readily in the
first instance by dislimm','st reports of low ministerial
agents, to the prejudice of the poor, misled besides by
economical considerations, of which the value at best
was doubtful, as reposing on assertions alone, and in-
fluenced perhaps also by the mistaken however loudly
trumpeted assumptions of middle-class sentiment, were
found co-operating either actively or by acquiescence in
the enactment of new Poor-laws, and have since been
seen passive spectators of their baneful operation, as if
ashamed to retract error or unable to repair it. This
dissonance of action and feeling between Conservative
statesmen and the Conservative press has been a
source no less of discouragement and weakness to the
cause than of exultation to the Government and its new
Poor-law satellites, who profit by Laid can exist only upon
its continuance. Disunion in the councils is not the means
of success to an end. Experience has now been carried
far enough to force conviction of the unconstitutional and
most unwholesome tendency of the new Poor-laws on
minds the most prepossessed, and the time, we appre-
hend, should now be approaching, when a remedy must
be applied of potency equal to the virulence of disease
generated, and the laws themselves in their present
shape swept from the book of statutes, or essentially
modified.