The Sun.
London, England, 1841-09-22 00:00:00

PARLTAIKEZTTAN.T.

The Speaker last evening, in compliance with the
understood wish of the House, postponed the first meet-
ing of the Selection Committee on Controverted Elec-
tions.

After the recess, Sir Charles Napier will bring for-
ward, as he gave notice, a motion to place a naval man
at the head of the Admiralty ; and Mr. P. M. Stewart,
before again going into a Committee of Supply, will
move that the distress of the country be considered.
Sir Robert Peel consented to Sir Thomas Wilde's
motion relative to Ripon, thereby tacitly admitting that
Sir Edward Sugden ought to have vacated his seat be-
fore, and a new writ was accordingly ordered to be
issued for that borough.
Mr. Wakley having on Monday said that Sir Robert
Peel had not said anything which could lead to the in-
ference that Parliament would be prorogued till Febru-
ary, Mr. Villiers asked Sir Robert to what period it
would be prorogued, but Sir Robert declined to give
any other answer than that he could not say, it would
depend on circumstances.
Mr. Ewart moved a series of resolutions to assimilate
the inquiries of private Committees to those of judicial
tribunals, but after a brief discussion withdrew them.
Mr. Rennie moved an humble Address to her Majesty
to fill up the holes of the Serpentine, &c., in order to
prevent skaiters being drowned, but, after a few words
from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, withdrew the

motion.
Sir Robert Peel obtained leave to bring in two Bills,
one to continue the Poor-law Commission, and the other
to continue certain expiring laws. The Bills were
brought in and read a first time.
Colonel Acton expressed his great regret that he had
the night before gone into the wrong lobby, and voted
for, instead of against, the grant to Maynooth.
Sir Charles Burrell informed the House that 800/.
had been given for a picture by Perugino, which was
bought by Mr. Beckford for 50/., and is worth very
little. So the money of the hard working people is
lavished. _ . -

•
The Navy Pay Bill was read a third time, after Capt.
Berkeley had called the attention of the Government to
the fact, that the sailors who are paid in the Mediter-
ranean lose fourpence on every dollar, or the twelfth
part of their pay.
In a Committee on the Lunatics' Bill, Mr. Wakley
made a useful and sensible speech, exposing the errors
and defects of the Bill, and doing justice to its merits.
He moved that it be continued for one year, instead of
three, but finding that Sir James Graham would vote
against him, he withdrew the amendment. We regret
this, as the measure requires improvement. The House
did no other business of importance, and rose at an early
hour.

PUBLIC OPXNXON.
The Morning Post treats wiLh great contempt the idea
that the country is dissatisfied with the present Minis-
try, observing :—" Even the opponents of the present
Government—such of them at least as have any preten-
sion to reasonableness—allow that time for considera-
tion is necessary, and that a Ministry which has just
come in ought not, in justice or in prudence, to offer to
the public permanent measures of great importance to
various rival interests. The " motion " of the whole
country is merely an imaginary motion, and all the ho-
nours which belong to it are likely to be engrossed by such
interesting localities as New Brentford and Whitechapel."
The Advertiser thus refers to Sir Robert Peel's first
Ministerial declarations in Parliament :—" The speech
and the moment, in themselves, constitute a portraiture
of the times. The pen of Tacitus might, in vain, labour
to reduce within a circle of more compressed limits the
picture of events : that speech, and that moment—they
live in mutual relief, exposing the insolence of the Mi-
nister, and that temporary exhaustion of power, under
which a series of unconstitutional procedures had mo-
mentarily placed the people."—lt is not so much from
"exhaustion" or indifference that the country is now
apparently 'quiescent, as from that, love of fair play for
which it has ever been, and we trust will ever be, remark-
able. It is unwilling to stir, except from a deep-seated
conviction that nothing is to be hoped for but from
strenuous agitation; and the late Tory declarations will
tend in no slight degree to produce this conviction.
The Chronicle remarks, in allusion to Sir Robert
Peel's want of decision and straightforwardness on the
Corn-law question :—" In his present position, Sir Ro •
bert Peel can only play Mrs. Candour at the expense of
his own character. If he will not allow us to consider
that the election of a landlord's nujority has ascertained
what is to be the'state of the law affecting the importa-
tion of corn,' he is bound by his own previous profession,
in ,Tune last, to tell the public what he means the state of
that law to be ; and if it is, as his conduct intimates,
open to alterations, what he intends those alterations
to be. Of course we mean, not in subordinate and
unimportant details, but what they will be substan-
tially, and in their bearing upon persons engaged
in commNrcial speculations.' If unprepared to do
this, he should have cast no uncertainty over the subject.
He should have quietly left it where it had been placed
by the fact of his monopolist majority. He should not
have destroyed an immense advantage' for the sake of
cajoling the people into an expectancy which he has no
reason for believing he can ever satisfy. He is practising
a delusion now, as he did before."—To expect boldness
and decision from Sir Robert Peel on the Corn- law
question, is as ridiculous as to expect eloquence from a
Sibthorp, or statesmanlike sagacity from a D'lsraeli.
With such a colleague at his elbow as the Duke of Buck-
ingham, and such a monopolist majority, to keep a wary
eye on his movements, as the Ninety-one, the Right
Hon. Baronet cannot be decided, even if his turn of mind
allowed him to be so.
The Herald is of opinion that the Tory Premier is at
perfect liberty to do what he pleases with the new Poor-
law, for that he had nothing at all to do with it, the nra-
iure having been exclusively one of Whig fabrication.
Our Contemporary appears to forget that the Right Hon.
Baronet was one of the chief supporters of this law, and
that it could not have passed without his concurrence
is :
"It is false to assert that Sir Robert Peel bound to
the present Poor-law ;heis no more bound ito ts vices
and errors than he is not to alter the timber duties or
improve the corn duties. Sir Robert Peel was content
to give the Whig Poor-law, what the Whigs refuse to
give him—a fair trial ; but for having done so, his
course in office is not to be embarrassed by all its defects,
its cruel administration, and its heartless officials. The
Whigs alone are responsible for the present Poor-law ;
and for it, so long as memory lasts in England, their
party will be handed down to execration from age to
age, as the poor man's enemies."
The Times is exceedingly displeased that Lord Mor-
peth should have accepted a public dinner from the Irish
Reformers, and
condescends to read his Lordship a lec-
ture on the subject in these terms:—" A high-minded
officer, more concerned about public interests than about
personal vanity, would, under all the circumstances,
have peremptorily declined such a dinner. Lord Mor-
peth. knew perfectly well the Repeal principles of the
great majority of those who meant to dine him.
Equally cognizant of the fact, that how sincerely soever
he himself may be attached to British connexion, the
treat was really given to him by a disaffected party f from
a conviction sub rosy that their guest had essentially pro-
moted their objects by his official influence, his Lordship
was bound to have repudiated in the most emphatic
manner the very discreditable compliment which they
wished to pay him."
The Ipswich Express makes the following comments
on what it calls the " first act' of a Tory Ministry :"
Sir Robert Peel has spoken as Prime Minister of the
Restoration, and has plainly told a suffering people that
to relieve their distress he will do nothing-. The esti-
mates of his predecessors are to be taken without altera-
tion, and the deficiency of the revenue is to be met by a
vote of credit ! And then the Legislature is to adjourn
until February ! ! There can be but one cause for this
impolitic proceeding—namely, Sir Robert Peel's utter
inability to manage his high-flying, aristocratic Cabinet.
The I3ulton Free Press observes :—" Let the reader
peruse our brief notice of Sir R. Peel's evasive speech
in the House on Thursday evening, and, in connection
with it, our report of the great meeting . held at MFI-•
chester on the same day, and ask himself if our shuffling
Premier is not paving the way for a violent revolution.
Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementit. Had a speech

like that which we find set down for Sir R. Peel in yes-
terday's papers been published in waggery, by anticipa-
tion, it might well have been pronounced a burlesque. '
The Cambridge Independent remarks as follows c n Sir
James Graham's recent speech at Dorchester :—" Sir
James Graham's speech was altogether a miserable
failure. After a deal of abuse bestowed upon the late
Whig Administration, the Right Hon. Baronet did not
tell his audience a syllable as to the measures which the
Tory Government intended to introduce. Indeed,
wherever we look through the speeches delivered by
members of the Administration, at the recent re-elec-
tions, for anything tangible or straightforward as to Sir
Robert Peel's course, it is all labour lost. Our political
future is still a secret."