The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-14 00:00:00

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LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 1841.

The 'eteetlOnS are now so nearly terminated
that, the few which remain to be decided can
make. no important difference in the great result.
We .do not conceal our mortification that it is
extremely different from our expectations. We
anticipated at the very worst only a small ma-
jority for the Tories; that all the large townS,
which have so vast an interest in freedom, would
have returned Liberals; that all the counties in
which manufactures prevail would at least have
retained their Liberal Members;if they did not
oust anti-free-trade .representatives ; but our an-
ticipations have been much disappointed.
Not only will the Tories have a majority of
upwards of sixty in the new House of Cola-
mons, but no inconsiderable number of that
majority consists of Members for large towns
and manufacturing counties. London, West-
minster, Leeds, Dublin, the West Riding of
Yorkshire, and North Cheshire, making a dif-
ference of eighteen votes on a division, have
turned out Liberals, and have deprived us even
of the power to say that the town and manu-
facturing population is on our side. The fact
certainly is so, and it now becomes our business
to draw from it what instruction we c.ai.
_From the first we ascribed great influence
to the metropolitan elections, and when we
saw the half of the City lost, notwithstand-
ing the utmost exertions, and the half of West-
minster lost without any exertion at all, we were
at once convinced that little or no enthusiasm
was felt in favour of the Ministers and their
measures. We then saw no hope of success in
a battle to be. fought on ordinary electioneering
principles,- and decided by the length of the
purse and the previous attention to registration.
On both these points the Tories bad a pre-etni-
mut advantage. They assert that they have
paid attention to the registry, and their oppo-
nents conlegs that they have neglected it.
Both,' parties accuse each other of pur-
votes wherever they were to be pur-
chasii4
chased, and the Tories having the advantage on
this point as well as attending to the registration,
explains
svccess. The present failure must
make the Liberals look better. in future' to the
registration of their Friends.

But'Why was there no enthusiasm in favour
of i\liuisters, and in favour of measures
which ,prqmise much if they fill short of
zneu'g''' 'hopes ? The Leed's Times,. in the
paragraph we copied yesterday, headed the
West ititiing Defrat, partly accounts for if by say-
ing that tile Ministers had lost the confidence of
tWc Reform Act constituency. It would be folly
now to deny their loss of popularity, and the
mistrust they have excited, however unfounded
and unjust ; but these circumstances are not the
sole causes of the great loss of the Liberal party.

It must be remembered that the Anti-Corn-law
agitatibii had beea directed to the total abolition
of the corn and provision laws; and the modified
measure .of the Ministers fell far short of the
hopes‘i4lich the League had excited. In fact,
th tlit.fd duty . ei:coantered no inconsiderable
hostility from the population of the manufac-
turing towns, while it found few or no friends hi
the agricultUral districts. We derive from that
.circumstanee on,. consolation. It would have
been as easy, or easier, to carry the total abo-
lition as a 'fixed duty. The compromise of the
Ministers has failed as completely at present as
the ultra and extreme opinions of the League ;
and while it is, manifestly as unjust as the slid-
ing scale, it is at present as impracticable as total
repeal. The compromise did no good to the
.Ministers with the Tories, and it put an end to the
,enthusittSm of the total repealers.
Another most important fact is, that the ma-
facturing districtS are in great distress ; and
when men suffer intensely, they are not nice
discriminators of causes. In general, the Exe-
cutive Government 'is confounded with the Le-
gislature, and the Ministers for the time being
are always blamed for the consequences of tin-
iust legislation. The present distress is not
caused by mai-admin. istration, but by Tory-
made lays. The MinistersMinisters therefore, are pull-
is lAA 11, 7. a mistake''„ofthe constitueacies) for

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their ith the peopie,
_they are equall3, the vie(ims 'of landlord
shouldmake thein,wh ere %,er they have
the means, eager to redress - the public Wrongs,
and restore the “atioual prospe,lity. According
to this view, the temporary triumph of the Tories
is mainly due to the laws which they enacted,
and which the Whigs have not been allowed to
alter.

The Times of Monday contained the following
observations, which describe the principle on
which Tory statesmen essay to govern man-
kind :

In a small volume of fragments from the prose writers
of Germany, not less remarkable for the taste with which
they have been selected and illustrated, than for the ele-
gance with which they have been translated by Mrs.
Austin, we have met with the following passage from the
letters of M. Gentz—a man of whom no more need be
said than that he was the confidential friend of Pitt and
Metternich :

" Two principles govern the moral and intellectual
world. One is perpetual progress ; the other, the neces-
sary limitations to that progress. If the former alone pre-
vailed, there would be nothing steadfast and durable on
earth, and the whole of social life would be the sport of
winds and waves. If the latter had exclusive sway, or
even if it obtained a mischievous preponderancy, every-
thing would petrify and rot. The best ages of the world
are aways those in which these two principles are most
equally balanced. In such ages every enlightened man
ought to adopt both principles into his whole mind and
conduct, and with one hand develop° what he can, with
the other restrain and uphold what he ought."
We have quoted these words because they describe
with truth and with authority the real principle on which
the policy of those statesmen who are called to war with
the angry state of agitated nations must perpetually rest.
If that policy was confined 'to mere resistance to change
—if it were a mere negative and denial of improvement,
the barriers so raised would speedily be o'erleapt and
carried away by the stream. But whilst the Conserva-
tive party uphold what they ought, that is to say whatever
belongs to the solid basis on which the social edifice
rests, they are ready to develope and improve what they
can, that is to say whatever admits of practical improve-
melt not purchased by the surrender of more certain and
permanent benefits.

- The Tories assume to themselves the power of
placing necessary limitations to the progress of
society. They develope what they can, and re-
. strain and uphold what they ought. They war
with the angry spirit of agitated nations. But
we should like to know what are these necessary
limitations, and how are they ascertained ? We
should like to see some definition of what ought
to exist, and we should like to have some better
authority for condemning the agitation of na-
tions than the assertion of those mischief-ma-
kers, of whom nations seek to get rid.
Certain notions of what ought to be preserved
exist in the minds of the Tories, formed not from
what will be,—for of that they know nothing,—
but of what has been. For example, in the
country in which M. GENTZ wrote, no per-
sons but the aristocracy are admitted to be hold-
ers of land, or to possess certain offices of the
State. The soil cannot be freely sold and freely
purchased, nor is merit sure of its reward. To
oaintain those means of ensuring in Austria the
domination of a class, is for the Tory statesman of
Austria a necessary limitation to the progress of
society, It is one of the things which he ought
to uphold, and which he does strenuously up-
hold, at great cost to the country.
For example, too, in our country, the right of
primogeniture, and the practice of entailing
land, though pregnant with evil to all the mem-
bers of those families for whose advantage it is'
instituted, and an invasion of the rights of pos-
terity, which posterity is not bound to recog-
nise, are conceived to be necessary limitations to
the progress of society, and statesmen war with
the angry spirit of the agitated nation to uphold
them.
Unquestionably there is a necessary limit to
the progress of society, set by the laws of the
progress itself; and the cherished limits of Tory
statesmen, whether in Austria or England, are
mere arbitrary and unfounded assumptions—false
and baseless theories, in endeavouring to give
effect to which they wreck society.

The quotation made by the Times admits a per-
petual progress in society, which admission is of
infinite importance, because it demonstrates that
social progress, which has taken place under
every form of government, is independent of
varying and arbitrary legislation, and is deter-
mined by the natural laws of society. But the
progress being perpetual and not periodical, or
returning into itself like the motion of the
earth in its orbit, and man having only a very
imperfect means of conjecturing the future from
the past progress of society—however certain it
is that this progress has necessary limits, it is
plainly not given to man, and certainly not given
to Tory statesmen, to ascertain those limits.
They are continually thrust further off. For
them, however, Tory statesmen substitute their
own fancies, or some institutions heretofore esta-
blished, which, far from coinciding with the future
of society, do not agree with the present, and
fAunge statesmen into a perpetual war with the
angry fririt of agitated nations, in onler to up-
hold what tLey think they ought to uphold.
This theory of •M: GENTZ, of the Times, and of
the Tories, which theraze now to act on, is, we
believe, quite modern, and is it greater innova-
tion on old thoughts and practices that the de-
mands and schemes of" democratic innovator's."
To the period of the French Revolution, which
frightened all the statesmen of Europe out of
their senses, it was not supposed that statesman-
ship consisted in setting hounds to social pro-
gress; on the contrary,the feudal Governments of•
Europe, the subsequent Governments which gra-
dually abated the power of the feudal nobles, the
Governments which nourished commerce and pro-
moted the reformation—the Government of the
revolution in England, and the Govern-
ment of the United States, were all founded
on the principle of forwarding, not re-
sisting and restraining, the progress of society.
The French Revolution was an attack on
Government, and since then Government has
been organized to oppose social progress. M.
GrxTz was brought up in the anti-revolutionary
school. Germany was filled with dread at the
revolution in France, and from that time the
Governments of Germany have assumed the
character of antagonism to social progress, and
have elevated their own theories and fears into
its necessary limits. According to the Times, the
Tory statesmen of our day are now to adopt this
.false and exploded theory, the birth of a momen-
tary panic, and are to form the Government on
a principle of " warring with the spirit of the
agitated nation."
For that' the Conservatives are to take office;
they are to affix limits to social progress, and
to uphold, not what society requires, but what
in their opinion ought to be upheld. For ex-
ample, they take office to uphold the monopoly
of the West India
planters, the monopoly of the
Canada timber cutters,
and London rotten-ship
owners, and the monopoly of the -Lords of the
soil. Their war against the angry spirit of the
agitated nation is a war of wrong against right—
of plunder against honesty—of idle opulence
against industrious poverty. It is an avowed
war against the bulk of the people ; 'and to this
perilous contest our Tory statesmen
are prepared
uponit,
to commit the Government. Depend
ho more
sters
as Sir ROBERT PEEL frequently and emphatically
says, so sure as they do, so sure will the per-
petual progress of society, which can be n
stopped and restrained by such puny whipsters
as Tory statesmen than the sun can be plucked
from the sky, come into collision with the Go-
vernment, and sweep it, with all its depen-
dencies, out of the way.
M. GENTZ, the Times, and the Tories, speak
as if there was nothing steadfast and durable on
earth, except—GoD help the mark !—the theories
of GENTZ and METTERNICH, of the Times, and
PEEL. But there is steadfastness in thatper-
petual progress which they admit. ,There is
steadfastness on earth as well as in the sky,
though absolute rest is utterly unknown in both.
The desire for social improvement exists in
every age, and is permanent and steady. The
increase of population is regulated by laws quite
as certain as those which regulate the seasons.
Commerce gradually and regularly extends on
definite principles, and it only becomes irregular,
and therefore inappreciable, when your GENTZES,
your Times, your PEELS, your STA MAYS) and

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