The Sun.
London, England, 1840-05-19 00:00:00

LONDON:
TUESDAY, MAY 19, 1840

The House of Lords met yesterday only to re-
c,ive petitions and transact some routine business.
Lord LYNDHURST atmeunced his intention of
moving to-day for the correspondence between Mr.
r;PGlttectatt and Lord PALMERSTON relative to
Naples. Their Lordships immediately adjourned.
In the Commons a ccnsiderable number of peti-
tions was, as usul!, presented ; several of them
were for, and several against, Lord STANLEY'S
Bill. Onc from an aggregate meeting of Connaught,
presented 1.. y Lord STANLEY, gave rise to a little
dispute as to its value ; and another presented by
Sir JAMES GRAHAM, from a Roman Catholic
Gentleman of Roscommon, was remnrkable for the
manner in which it denounced the present system.
Captain PECHELL gave notice of a motion to
exempt furnished houses from the increased window
tax, which will fall heavily on the lodging-house
keepers of Brighton.

Mr. WALLACE inquired whether Spain had not
passed a tariff injurious to Newfoundland. Mr.
LABOUCHEItE answered that the Report of the
Spanish Commission appointed to inquire into the
subject had not been received.

Sir R. INGLIs is to state this day the precise
crms of his motion for Church Fxtension.
In reply to Mr. MACKINNON, Mr. LABOU-
CHIME stated that he should be very desirous of
bringing in a reasonable Pilotaqe Bill if he saw a
prospect of the House of Commons passing it.
Lord STANLEY moved that the Irish Registra-
tion Bill be committed.
Sir WILLIAM SOMERVILLE moved that it be
committed in six months. A debate on this sub-
ject followed, which occupied the House the whole
evening. Mr. J. GRATTAN, Dr. LEFROY, Lord
CLEMENTS, Sir ROBERT BATESON, Mr. LYNCH,
and Mr. LITTON, were the speakers in the early
part of the evening.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL, who rose at a later
period, spoke strongly against the Bill, as a violent
invasion of the Reform Act ; and made a vigorous
ar,cl able speech to expose its tendency.
Lord STANLEY defended his Bill in an ani-
mated manner, disclaimed the motives attributed to
him, and declared that he was not invading, but
completing, the Reform Bill.

At the close of the Noble Lord's speech, which
wa shall not now further analyse, Major MActia-
Ma RA moved the adjournment of the debate. There
seemed a disposition to agree to this, on the under-
standing that the debate should proceed to-morrow ;
but Mr. OCoNNELL declined to facilitate the pro-
gress of this bygiving way, and the House divided on
the question that the debate be adjourned, which
was lost by 281 to 262.
Mr. CeCONNELL then mo,•ed that the House do

adjourn. This motion was ipposed by some of his '
own friends, but Lord HOWICK having expressed a
desire to take part in the debate, and several other
Members wishing to speak, it was finally arranged
that the debate should be adjourned to this day,
which it accordingly was, and that no opposition
should be offered to Mr. O'CONNELL'S motion for
some returns, which he would not waive to proceed
with the debate the first thing. At a Quarter past
One o'Clock the House Adjourned.

It is plain from the remarks of the Tory Press
that Lord STANLEY'S Bill is directed against
Mr. O'CONNELL. The Times, Standard, and
Post, all howled in concert yesterday against
that gentleman. We take an example from the
Standard :

" We cannot therefore wonder at the alternate rage and
apprehension with which Mr. O'Connell and his proteges
regard it" [Lord Stanley's Bill].
" The grotesque contortions which he has aleady exhi-
bited whenever he has ventured to dwell upon the subject,
afford satisfactory evidence of his conviction that the
" rent" is in jeopardy. His renewed howl for repeal, with
a subscription of a shilling a head from 2,000,000, proves
that he is aware that the staple of his trade is slipping
through his fingers; and if he can no longer enjoy an im-
punity in fraud, what is to become of her Majesty's Mi-
nisters ?"

To O'CoNNELL the Times adds the Romish
priests, and declares that it is from their
monster power that Lord STANLEY strives
to save the people of Ireland and the imperial
crown. Again, therefore, under the auspices of
Lord STANLEY, legislation is to he directed against
a class, and against an individual. The Clare
Election and the Emancipation Act have been
thrown away on the Tories. In 1829 the House
legislated against Mr. O'CoNNELL, and was de-
feated ; it may possibly succeed now, though we
hardly think it will. But what will it gain ? Dis-
grace ; nothing but disgrace. The very idea of
the Legislature of this great empire framing and
directing laws against an individual, is a degra-
dation which no Legislature will long survive. This
Registration Bill, and the whole of the proceed-
ings with regard to it, are a mere contest between
two factions which shall have political power ; and
my Lord STANLEY does not add to the respecta-
bility of the House of Commons, by making it the
arena of such a conflict.

Last night Lord JOHN RUSSELL was asked
when he means to bring totward the Canada Union
Bill, and he said Friday se'nnight. That Bill was
the great legislative object of the Session, and to
find it only about to go into Committee at the
beginning of June, shows how completely the time
of the Legislature has been sacrificed to those party
squabbles—those contentions for political power,
of which the Irish Registration Bill is one. We
know quite well that we shall preach in vain to
Lord STANLEY and the greedy, insatiate crew who
follow him. But we shall not remark in vain to
a public already little disposed to respect the House,
and sharply watching all its proceedings, that
this body, which is so careless of legislation
and so intent on party strife, is the great author of
all our laws. We now see them growing as it
were, not from any calm and deliheratlgisdom—
not from any slowly formed and mature judgment,
deciding that they are for the good of the whole
community, but from the passionate contentions of
of angry, empty brawlers..We see one man, under the
influence of a feeling of personal hatred or of bigoted
attachment to some narrow sectarian creed, pro-
posing a Bill which is to extend over the whole
community, and to last to all time—we see him
connecting it with the interests of a party thirsting
for office, and if he can cajole some, thrcaien
others, and terrify more, he will get his Bill passed
into a law, and future generations will be called on
to obey and reverence the spawn of his bigotry or
i his malice. But what we now daily sac—for Lord
STANLEY is not worse than his predecessors on the
floor of the House of Commons, and ou- so-called
Legislature has always consisted of political
eladiators—is only a repetition of what has before
occurred ; and the very laws which we are called on
to reverence, though they take away our bread, or
consign as to a dungeon, or pro!) ihit us from honestly
expressing the sentiments of our hea;ts and the
convictions of our minds, like Lord STA N LEY'S •
Registration Bill, were in their time the offspring of
personal malice, private interests, or sectarian bigotry.
That is the spectacle which the Conservative Lord
STANLEY is now making familiar to the nation, and
that is the conclusion he is forcing on millions al-
ready discontented with the law, and desirous, if
not resolved, when an opportunity offers, to over-
throw it.

We have of late taken but little part in the angry
and magniloquent pleadings which have been car-
ried on in the press concerning this Bill, because
we care little for party contentions. The community
is wholly disregarded in these contests for political
power. It may be of great importance to Lord
STANLEYancI to Lord JOHN R USS EL L which holds
office, but the public see with displeasure the Le-
gislature wholly taken up with party squabbles.
Whoever may succeed, that will be degraded ; and it
is doubtful whether the Bill, should it become a
law, will correspond in its effects either to the fears
of its opponents, or the hopes of friends. Its im
portance, in a public point of view, is enhanced in
the minds of those who discuss it by the great in-
terests which they suppose they hare at stake.
We do not believe if it were passed to-morrow,
however much it might annoy individuals, that it
would abate the power of the Catholic priests one
jot. Their's is a real, substantial, mental power It
does not depend on parchment statutes. The
Legislature does not grant it, and cannot take it
away. It could not deprive the Catholic
priests of power when it passed laws tenfold
more restrictive than Lord STANLEY'S Bill,
and when the Protestant Church and the
Tories were in all their vigour. The priests will
find some means, Lord STANLEY may rest as-
sured—having the power—to exercise it ; and his
miserable indulgence of party and personal spleen,
which degrades the Legislature, will not enable
him to upset the influence of the Catholic priest-
hood and of Mr. O'CONNELL. They will, by some
kind of smuggling, or chicanery, or violence—and all
are justifiable against such cunning, unrelenting ty-
rants as Lord STANLEY and the Tories, who use the
forms of law to accomplish the most refined ty-
ranny, and gratify their own savage lust of power—
they will succeed under his:Registration'Bill as under
the old law. He will but sharpen their wits, and
augment their appetite. In vain, therefore, he is
throwing the empire into confusion ; in vain
he is preparing the way for convulsions and
revolution ; in vain he degrades the House of Com-
mons by making it the instrument of his party pur-
poses or his bad passions ; he will be unable, by
any law he can pass, to deprive Mr. O'CONNELL
and the Catholic priests of the substantial power
which they possess. The Times, the Post, and
the Standard, may howl in concert to aid Lord
STANLEY—they never will put an end to the
/river they object to, but by allowing the people
to enlighten themselves, and by acting towards
them with kindness and justice. To build up
pries to put
tcraft in England is never the way
down priestcraft in Ireland.

As there are to be more trials like that of Mr.
CLEAVE, a few more observations tending to ana.
lyse the imputed offence, may not be misplaced.
A kw weeks ago most of the Tory Journals were
loud in their condemnation of the House of Corn-.
mons for claiming a power to libel Mr. STOCK-

DALE, and any other persons the House might think '
proper to libel. A man's character, it was said,
ought not to be taken away, nor his fortune ruined,
by the calumnies of an irresponsible body, They
insisted on making the House of Commons respon-
sEvie to the law for injuring the character of Mr.
STOCKDALE. The gist of their remarks, all the
uproar they made, centered in this, that the libels of
the House of Commons inflicted, or might inflkt,
an injury on individuals. A similar fact may be
traced in most other libels, private and public. An
individual, in most cases, like Mr. STOCKDALE,
pleads for special damages, or, like Sir JOHN CON-
ROY, by criminal information, proves both malice
and injury, and procures a punishment on the of-
fender proportionate to the offence. In the case of
public or seditious libels, if no Minister or Officer of
the Government be specifically injured, it is proved,
or attempted to be proved, that the authority of the
Government is weakened, it is implied that this au-
thority is essential to the security of the many, and
it is concluded that the many, or the community, is
injured by the seditious libel, which is therefore
liable to punishment. Not supposing that all
which the lawyers call seditious libels are really at-
tended with these consequences, we only affirm that
such is the train of reasoning which traces injury
to the community from them, and classes them as
deserving punishment. The element of offence,
therefore, both in public and private libels is da-
mage to individuals.

Now who is injured by what is called a
blasphemous libel ? The prosecution is instituted
in the name of the Government. Is the ATTOR-
NEY-GENERAL injured by it ? Is Lord MEL-
SOHRNE ? Is her MAJESTY ? We have, fortu-
nately, not yet so far imitated the despotisms of
the Continent as to have a minister of religion, or
perhaps he might be the injured party. The
functions of that officer, so far as they are performed
at all here, fall to be fulfilled by the Home Secre-
tary. Is Lord NORMANBY) then, seriously hurt by
Mr. HASLEM'S "Eighth Letter ?" We answer no,
and a so-called blasphemous libel is wholly deficient
in that element of offence in private libels, the
inflicting of damage on an individual.
But it may be said that, like a seditious libel,
it inflicts injury on the community. But the mode
in which a seditious libel injures the community is
by weakening authority; and what authority is weak-
ened by a blasphemous libel ? Is that of the AL-
MIGHTY? Ridiculous and absurd. The wisest of
men has has taught us that we can only conquer
Nature by observing her laws, and to fly in her
face, or to fly in the face of the ALMIGHTY—if
we may so express ourselves—is utter annihi!ation.
Those men must have a most degrading notion
of almighty power, who suppose that He
whose hand holds uncounted worlds can be af-
fected by the fLeting breath, or stamped words, of
one Mr. HASLEM.

But he tray weaken the authority of the Bible,
and weaken the authority of the priests. That is,
in fact, the offence. Then it follows that the law
is required to uphold the authority of the Bible and
the authority of the priesthood, and they are not
sufficient to stand alone. It is implied that this
book, which is said to be divine, which is to
subdue the hearts of savages, and prepare them for
civilization, which is given to mankind by the
Deity as a guide and teacher ; and that this priest-
hood, who derive their power from that book, are
really so feeble and so false that they arc unable
to resist the poor attack,; and weak tirades of Mr.
HASLEM. Government is of human origin, and
punishment is devised to support its authority ; but
the Bible is of divine origin, the priesthood claim
their power from it, and to ask for it the support of
the punishment of the law, is to degrade it below a
poor and very imperfect human invention.
It may perhaps be said that the community is
injured by an attack on opinions prevalent in it.
It that be a good ground for inflicting punishment
on a writer, every philosopher who makes an impor-
tant discovery deserves punishment, and GALILEO
was justly condemned as well as CLEAVE. This,
however, is punishment or persecution for opinion,
which is now universally reprobated. Who shall
judge, too, of the validity of opinion ? What truth,
however prevalent at one time, has not been
generally questioned or denied at an-
other ? Changes, in opinion have con-
tinually occurred on matters of religion, on
matters of government, on morality, oa conduct,
and on all the most important interests of man-
kind ; and to make the authors of such changes
liable to penalties and punishment,. is arrogantly
and self-sufficiently to inflict gratuitous pain on
others. Nobody can tell what opinions may be
popular and prevalent a few years hence, and to
punish opinion i 5 to give a licence to those who
differ from us to punish us when they have the
power.

Up to the time of the French Revolution pro,
secutions and punishments for matt•;rs o.

opinion were common in France. There, as here
now, the formalities of religion were substituted
for its essentials. There was much worship and
little piety. Churches abounded, and were maenifi-
ccntly adorned. Holidays were numerous, and
rigidly observed as the Sabbath with. us. The
bulk of the community, like our agricultural
labourers, whose families live on 2id. a•dav per
head, or like the stocking •weavers at Tewkesbury,
who earn 3s. nid. per week, were crushed into
the most abject poverty. The priesthood, like our
priesthood, taught the virtues of poverty, and
revelled in wealth. The nobility and the Govern-
ment preached justice and committed oppression.
The press fanned the passions or enforced the opi-
nions of the Court or the populace, as it was en-
gaged on one side or the other. The Government
and the law were contemned, and the Revo-
lution came. When the populace got power,
and drowned the priests and beheaded
the nobility, they only imitated the example
of their ancient oppressors, and punished them for
entertaining obnoxions aristocratic or ' priestly
opinions. They carried out the principles and
practices of their teachers, boasted of their huma-
nity, and sent the innocent to the scaffold—ex-
ulted at their loge of justice, and condemned
men to death on a suspicion of being sus-
pected. Such outrages are, we believe, the ne•
cessary and natural consequence of a perversion
of religion and government, such as prevailed
in France before the Revolution, and such
as seems now to prevail amongst us. If, in
the changes to which society is doomed, the now
oppressed and insulted masses should ever get the
upper hand nere, a similar proscription of those
who are now proscribing and punishing their poli-
tical and religious opinions may be expected. What
right will they have to complain if the dishonest
oppression they are now exercising on others shall
hereafter be exercised on themselves ?

We learn from the Paris Journals of Sunday
that M.M. TRIERS and DE REMUSAT were
forced to admit on Saturday, in the Chamber of
Deputies, that the Government had purchased the
support of two Journals, and the merging, or, more
properly, suppression of two others, which at the
outset had appeared hostile to M. THIERS and his
colleagues. One of the editors of the Presse, and
by far the most formidable, the Nlinistry got rid of
by giving him a lucrative appointment in the Colo-
nies, although it was pretended by them that he
sought the appointment, to which he had just
claims of aspiring. The venal character of the
the French Press is well known, but surely nothing
can be more disgraceful in a Mini.ver than thus to
plunge it still deeper in the mire of venality. When
left to itself the daily Press of every country must
become either the honest echo of the public opinion
of the class to which it looks for support, or it
must perish. It thus discharges the important
function of an interpreter of the wishes of the
party it represents to the Government, and in its
severest strictures on public men, the most ardent
and most dangerous partisans read the expression
of their own feelings and convictions, and in a
harmless fit of momentary triumph at being so well
represented, allow their angry feelings to evaporate.
Nay, they sometimes pity their political adver-
saries for being exposed to such broadsides of ar-
gument—such showers of arrows from the quivers
of wit, raillery, and sarcasm. But it is quite
a different matter when a Minister, only allowing
the echo of his own voice to be heard, stifles the
honest expression of public opinion ; thus forcing
the feelings which gave it birth into some more
dangerous channel. In such a case not only is
the morality of the press destroyed, and doubts I
raised of the very existence of public virtue in the
minds of the multitude, but its legitimate influence
is lost, and it becomes the bane of the society for
Which it was destined to be the blessing.
But a monopoly 9f the Press is not enough of