The Sun.
London, England, 1840-03-27 00:00:00

We hope it will be successful. Prince ERNEST
'holds the annuity from the grace of Parliament ; it
is pressed from the people's earnings ; it is in no-
wise necessary to the dignity of the Throne, or the
'protection of the people ; the payment in no man-
ner contributes to the preservation of order or the
carrying on the Government, and justice to the
people, therefore, by whom and for whom the Par-
liament exists, requires that the annuity be stopped.
There can be no question that some dower to Queen
ADELAIDE is essential to the dignity of the Throne
I —no question that an independent income to the
QUEEN'S husband is due, both to him and her—
these are parts of the necessary price of Royalty—
but an annuity to a foreign Sovereign is required
neither for the comfort nor the splendour of the
Monarch.
The Tories say that the Duke of CUMBERLAND,
is the favourite son of the good old King GEORGE
111. To all the Catholics of the empire, to whom
the Good Old KING was a determined enemy, like
his son, that is no recommendation. The priests
whom he sustained, the tyrannical Tory faction
which he nourished and honoured, all the lovers
of jobbery, corruption, and misrule, by which his
Government was carried on, may properly honour
the favourite son of their favourite King ; but the
hulk of the people, remembering his obstinate
hatred of freedom, which gave rise to two great
and expensive wars, groaning still under the debt
which was so much enhanced by his malignity,
bearing still in mind the invasions which he and
his servants made on the liberties and properties of
the people, their obstinate resistance of all reform, and
' their continual attempts to crush the rising freedom of
mankind, both in the old world and the new—the
bulk of the people, remembering these circum-
stances, which recommend the King of HANOVER
to the Tories, will find in them the strongest
of all reasons to put an end to his pension.
GEORGE 111. was no better than the chief of a fac-
tion, the head of a narrow and dominant
sect, and ERNEST, as he was the favourite
so he walks in the footsteps of his father. The Par-
liament is bound to appropriate the public re-
sources to the encouragement of public virtue, to
reward public services and public merit, and it will
be guilty of a gross dereliction of its duty if it con-
tinue to vote money to a man, who, while he was
in England, was an enemy of the people, and since
he has left it, has been diligently employed in op-
pressing the Hanoverians.
But it is said that the nation made a bargain
with GEORGE 111., on his accession to the throne,
by which he surrendered all his hereditary revenues
to the State for a provision, including a pro-
vision for his children. Admitting that (though
it was completely optional to the Parliament to vote
1,0001., or 40,0001. to the Duke of CUMBER-
LAND, and what is optional cannot be an impera-
tive condition), if the Duke of CUMBERLAND
had entered into the service of BONAPARTE,
would the nation have been still bound to pay
him his annuity ? Every man will at once
answer No. Then the annuity is not the property
of the King of HANOVER, of which he cannot
with justice be despoiled, but a salary contingent
on good behaviour. Now, neither as a Prince re-
sident in England, nor as a foreign Sovereign, has
he so behaved as to merit the continuance of the an-
nuity. If the nation would not have been bound,
by a presumed contract with GEORGE 111., to have
continued the annuity of the Duke of CUMBER-
LAND, had he taken arms against England under
BONAPARTE, neither is it bound by that contract
to continue it, now that he has become a foreign
and independent sovereign, who may go to war
with England.
We maintain, further, that the State has com-
pletely fulfilled its contract with GEORGE 111., so
completely, as to be entirely at liberty to deal with
his son's annuity as is just to the people of Eng-
land. It not only paid him the Civil List agreed
on to the end of his life, it augmented the Civil
List. It paid the debts of the Crown, and the
debts of his sons. It provided incomes for their wives,
and has been for many years far more munificent
than was necessary. There is not a shadow of obli-
gation on the House of Commons to abstain from
repealing the Act of Parliament which confers a
sum of 21,000/. a year on the King of HANOVER,
but a strong obligation on it not to squander
on such a man the money of its constituents.
Finally we will conclude by putting the question on
this issue : Would the grant have been made uncon-
ditionally had it been foreseen that the Duke of
CUMBERLAND was to be King Of HANOVER?
We believe nct. The accession of the daughter of
the Duks of KENT to the throne could not then
possibly have been contemplated, or the present
King of HA HOVER would only have been endowed
with 21,000/. a-year as long as he remained an
English subject. By now repealinr, the law the
Parliament will fulfil the intention of the grantors,
and do its duty to the public.

`We are perhaps unfortunate or singular, but we
have no sympathy with the present pursuits of Par-
liament. When we say Parliament, we mean the
House of Commons. The Lords are nonentities,
and do nothing. The long discussions on the pri-
vilege question seemed to us, in the present condi-
tion of the country, a miserable mockery of the
public feelings and public expectations. Again,
when so much is demanded of the House of Com-
mons, it has occupied two nights with a debate on
a Bill of Lord STANLEY'S concerning the regis-
tration of voters in Ireland, and is as intensely-in-
' terested with the subject as if the fate of the empire
depended on it. Let us look calmly at the evil
about which the Tories have written, spoken, and
published many volumes, and which th!) arc
anxious to put down by legislation.
That a great deal is said or written on a subject
is no proof of its importance. The Cock-lane
Ghost in its time produced as much fine writing as
the Irish fictitious voters. The Tories complain
that many names are on the registry that have no
business there—that many persons vote who have
no right to vote, and that false swearing and misre-
presentation are the consequences of the present sys-
tem of registration.
For the Tories, who at the Universities smile at
perjury, and are taught to smile at perjury, to pre-
tend to any great sensitiveness as to what are vul-
garly called white lies, is a piece of humbug ; but
they make a great fuss about it, because those whom
in their wrath they accuse of telling white lies ge-
nerally vote against them. We set down their holy
horror of electioneering perjury as mere hypocrisy ;
but, if they wish to extinguish it, let them remove
the legal restrictions on the franchise. They are
the causes of all the atempts, whether involving
perjury or not, to circumvent them. So much for
the terrible crime of electioneering perjury in Ire-
land, which, in the midst of unbounded distress,
suffering, and discontent in all parts of the empire,
absorbs the whole souls of the Tories.
Besides the perjury, the Tories complain that
persons vote at elections who have no right to vote.
Who are they ? Are they Turks, Frenchmen,
Chinese, or Russians, seeking insidiously to
overthrow our power ? No ; they are our fellow-
citizens. In almost all cases they are inhabitants of
the towns or counties for which they vote. They
have naturally a good right to a full share of the
representation, though legally a faction, a sect, or
athse etef
plunderers have succeeded in taking away
right. There may be, as Mr. E. TENNENT
says (though we place very little reliance on the
assertion), only 1,900 persons in Belfast legally
entitled to vote, while on the register " there are no
less
than the names of 6,000 ostensible electors ;"
still they are all Irishmen, mostly inhabitants of that
town, and by their votes the Hon. Member sits in
Parliament. NOW though the Tory Members of
the House of Commons make a prodigious fuss
about poor Irishmen voting for a
crMember of Par-
liament, who have no lear
right
toovote, we cannot
instant
see that the least injury is thereby d
pub-
lic, or that the evil is so monstrous thatne
t o
an the
remedy must be applied.
What, too, is the remedy ? Lord STANLEY
proposes to transplant to Ireland, with some tri-
fling alterations, the English system of registra-
tion. That which Englishmen consider as the
curse of the Reform Act, the mischievous, costly,
unnecessary system of registration, the wise Lord
STANLEY IS anxious to inflict on the Irish, there-
with to vex them as the English are vexed. Be-
twixt the public evil of a few Irishmen illegally
voting for Members. of Parliament, and the enor-
mous public evils felt
En
everyola
England,
arisingrinev from oureryborougli
and every county of
vexatious system of registration, there is the same
sort of resemblance as exists between a chilblain on
a finger, and a scaly' leprosy over the whole body.
Our State doctors, however, bawl continually
against the chilblain, and wish to supply its place