The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-02 00:00:00

MORNING EDITION.

' lurking place for guile and fraud, tied might contain
tf e seeds of much future mischief. The people, inipa-
tisnt as they would be to see their new Reforn! Bill,
wculd be with difficulty induced to pay attention to
such matters. In particular localities, parties would
be quarrelling about what the boundaries should be.
If it were made the part of such a plan that each divi-
sion of the United Kingdom should have a number of
electoral districts in proportion to its population as com-
pared with the other divisions of the kingdom, national
jealousies might be roused ; and of all such divisions of
interest or opinion, the Anti-Reformers would not fail
to avail themselves. These intricate and delicate
questions should be committed, therefore, in my opinion,
not to a Parliament as now constituted, but to one re-
turned under the auspices of the new electoral law after
the primary measures of Reform had been carried into
effect, to whose honesty of purpose it might be con-
fided to arrange such matters involving detail.
There is another question mixed up with that of
what the future constituencies shall be, the question,
how many representatives each constituency should re-
turn ? The settlement of this must necessarily be
deferred until it was decided what the constituencies
should be.

I return, then, again to the primary measures with
which I began, and which, I think, we ought to try to
win from Parliament as now constituted; and to tbe-
endeavours to obtain these measures Reformers ought,
I think, at present to confine themselves.
1. Extension of the Suffrage.
2. Secret Voting.
3. Triennial Parliaments.

The second and third questions are well understood,
and I therefore shall not say a word in favour of them,
as it would be unnecessary.
On the first of these three questions, the Extension
of the Suffrage, it is requisite I should explain my
meaning clearly ; since it is upon that question princi-
pally that a difference of opinion exists between the re-
formers of the middle, and the reformers of the working
class. I then recommend that the right of voting
should be given to every male person, of age, not civilly
incapacitated, who could read and write fluently, who
had had a fixed habitation in the place for which he
proposed to register himself during the six months pre-
ceding the time of registration, and had not during the
preceding twelve months received parochial relief. The
registration should, perhaps, be triennial : and to pre-
vent manoeuvre as well as tumult at the elections, and
to reduce the number of out-voters as much as pos-
sible, all elections in the United Kingdom, in case of a
general election, ought to take place on one and th©
same day, and during the same hours.

I have endearoured to make my meaning explicit.
Dear Sir, your faithful servant,
HENRY WARBURTON.
J. G. Marshall, Esq., Chairman of the Leeds
Parliamentary Reform Association.

VOLUNTARY CHURCH SOCIETY.

The seventh Annual Meeting of this Society was
held at. Edinburgh last week in the large Waterloo-
room. The Rev. W. L. Alexander, President of the
Association, in the Chair, supported on the right by the
Rev. Dr. John Ritchie, of Potter-row Church, Coun-
cillors Black and Falkner, George Yule, Esq., Rev.
George Jacque, Auchterarder, Wm. Miller, Esq.,
S.S.C., John Ritchie, Esq., James Peddle, Esq., W.S.,
and Rev. Wm. Bruce, Cowgate Church ; and on the
left by the Rev. Andrew Marshall, Kirkintulloch, Rev.
George Johnston, Nicholson•street Church, Rev. Wm.
Marshall, Leith, Councillor Gray, James Greig, Esq.,
Councillor Ralph Richardson, A. Fyfe, Esq., writer,
Rev. James Robertson, Portsburgh Church, and Tho-
mas Russell, Esq. About 600 persons were present.
After speeches from the Chairman and the Rev.
Andrew Marshall, of Kirkintulloch,
The Rev. Dr. RITCHIE moved the following reso-
lution :

" That this meeting are of opinion that Civil Estab-
lishments of religion are unscriptural ; that it was a
sincere conviction of the truth of this that induced them
at first to organize a system of opposition to their ex-
istence : and that, cherishing still the same views, they
feel themselves constrained, by the authority of the
Divine Head of the Church, as well as cheered by the
countenance He has hitherto bestowed upon their ef-
forts, to persevere, with renewed vigour, in the promo-
tion of Voluntary Church Principles."
The resolution was seconded by Mr. JACQUE, of
Auchtcrarder, and agreed to.
The CHAIRMAN then rose, and, in the name of the
Committee of the Association, presented Councillor
Black with an address expressive of their gratitude to
him for the manly stand he had lately made on behalf
of the principles of civil and religious liberty, and their
admiration of the manner in which he had maintained ,
the struggle.
Councillor BLACK, in returning thanks, explained
the circumstances under which he had been induced
to come forward as a candidate for the civic chair. It
was no spontaneous act of his own. It was a consi-
derable time, indeed, before he would allow his name to
be used ; but having once come forward, and finding that
the objection to him was not to his merits as a man, but
to his principles as a Dissenter, he felt that to with-
draw under these circumstances would be to act as a
recreant to all the principles he had ever maintained.
So determined was he to resist the illiberal doctrine
upon which his election was objected to, thet when, in
the courseof the contest, it was proposed by some, in ( rder
to unite the Liberal party, to bring forward Sir James
Gibson Craig as a candidate, he (Mr. Black) said to
Sir James—who, however, laughed at the proposal
himself—" Sir James, I will not retire for you, nor no
man living." Sir James replied, " No, you would be
very wrong if you did."—(Applause.) To show that
the same feeling which defeated his election was still
at work, Mr. Black referred to the society which had
lately been instituted by the Non-Intrusionists, for the
purpose of looking after the registrations, with the view
of excluding every man from Parliament and the Town
Council who does not belong to their party. He proceed-
ed to express his satisfaction with the tone of the friendly
address to Dissenters, lately issued by certain Ministers
of the Establishment. If the friends of the Establish-
ment had only acted in that spirit from the beginning,
it would have saved a great deal of bitterness and acri-
mony. After showing the danger of allowing any esta-
blishment to be relieved from the control of the State,
Mr. Black remarked, that though be considered patron-
age to be in itself a bad thing, he thought it indispensa-
ble in the case of an establishment, just on the same
principle as chemists found one poison necessary to
counteract the effect of another poison. Ho the❑ re-
ferred to the great progress which the voluntary principle
had made within the last few years ; and concluded by
expressing a hope that, by persevering in the cause of
truth, they would ultimately not only work out their
own deliverance, but also release the Church of Scot-
land from the chains in which she was at present bound.
Mr. THOMAS RUSSELL moved " That in the opi-
nion of this meeting, the religious establishment is
England is peculiarly obnoxious, because of its noto-
rious expensiveness, Erastianism, and inefficiency—
that that in Ireland, while liable to the same condem-
nation, is, besides, eminently offensive, being forced
upon a people holding a different religious faith—and
that the one in this country, though, on several ac-
counts, less odious than either, is at the present mo-
ment, in consequence of its resistance to the law of
the land, as interpreted by the highest authorities in
it, worthy of the severest reprobation of every man
who is a lover of his country, or the friend of civil
order."

rArlhre. JitoellyN.
JDioutENscAltc,
ROBERTSON,
secondedEßTSON,in the
anexeo resolution
ient
speech
which we are sorry our limits forbid us to insert
in‘e‘nTchaantnotthoips
operate moved,C c eeevrtiintigi
thhoeld,
Anti-Patronage'
t-PVatorlounnatgaery
and Independence' party in the Church of Scotland,
for these reasons amongst others—because that party,
as formerly stated, are engaged in a course of opposition
to the law; because, by popularizing,as it may bo called,
the Church of Scotland, they hope to weaken sad even
to extirpate Dissent ; because, an endowed body ought
on no account to be an independent orirresponsible one,
and because, even if independent, yet if endowed, the
Church of Scotland would be setting at defiance the
grand financial law of Christ's house, the recognition of
which law in the case of every Church it is the leading
ed the Resolution.
objectAlr. ofc SocietyLEs s Esto c s.
n d
Councillor GRAY then moved a vote of thanks to the
Chairman, carried by acclamation.
The meeting
whicheting wasthen broke up.

"
Colonel I3rucn is now one of the sitting Mont-
berg for Carlow County. A tremendous price has been
paid for the honour, and enjoy it he may as long as the
present Parliament continues—but not one single instant
longer. We have already noticed the Reform movement
in operation in Carlow for the effective registration of the
Liberal interest, and the decided success which has at-
tended it, even in the very ouset. —Dublin Evening Post.
The spirit of emigration seems to be upon the
increase, owing, no doubt, to the want of employment and
low rate of wages. On Thursday, as many as twenty
families lett Nottingham as emigrants to Australia.—.
Notts Review.

MR. RICHARD OASTLER.—On Monday
evening, a public tea-drinking and ball were held in the
Philosophical Hall, Huddersfield, for the benefit of Mr.
Oastler, late candidate for the representation of that bo-
rough, who is now immured in the Fleet-prison for debt, at
the suit of Thomas Thornhill, Esq., proprietor of the
Fixby Estates, for which estates Mr. Oastler was stew-
ard. The charge of admittance was ls.—upwards of 600
were present. The company was a mixed one, and corn•
prised the personal and political friends of Mr. Oastler,
high and low Churchmen, Methodists, Dissenters,
and Socialists, and also a large number of factory youths
and maidens.—Lecds Times.
THE ROYAL CHRISTENING.--We understand
that the baptismal names of the infant Princess are to be
Victoria Adelaide Louisa; the first after her Majesty and
the Duchess of Kent; the second of the Queen Dowager;
and the latter, of the Queen of the Belgians. The spon-
sors will, we hear, be the King of the Belgians, the Duke
of Sussex, the Queen Dowager, and the Duchess of
Kent. The Royal Chapel, St. James's, is in course of
preparation for the cereinonyo-pllinisterial .Paper.