The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

• 4 I
FROM THE MORNINti FAPERt OF THIS DAT.
i `rofri the I Lnes. 5
The " eipeament," as it has been called, upon the
moral and physical natures of the lower classes of thi
country, has now been tHed for nsarly sit years. Mow
than five hundred thousand pounds have been spent in
the fruitless endeavour .to persuade the rieli that the pool
have no.blaibv oh, their for, vi-pteetion that all their old
assoeiaiions Peat' be sorely bt'oken theit feelings
trampled upon ; and to reduce the I bor to that degraded
condition in which they are assumed tp be alrea4v—a bur-
den to their countiy—citiiens not of Englane; but of the
workhovsse,,,,:ub.leett. not a the English taws, not even of
the Boards of Guardians; but of their high mighti-
nesses the Poor=lakv Commissioners.. 'Yes} this precious
lesson has been ts..titht 1,11; as a Ample of the en-
liglittned benevolence of the 19th century. Like
other Utopian scheines; it was to bb a panacea fcr afl
the evils of improvidenbe nnsl faisfortunb. Happi
nes.; and e,rhteniment were promised as its result. Have
they followed ? Ask the clergy, the natural, and, as we
must believe, tbe Divinely Appointed guai-difins of the
poopr,i, tlitisC Of litchi bgliv Mitttjebit at tirt2t Slght
&nine° ny tne sophistries Of thiS new system ; and the;
will tell you, that wherever the New Poor-law has been
carried out, the ties Whibh band together, the wealthy
and poorer 'elaffros bk,-Qn thk latter,
hate L',',nme Alienated from the lormer, and hare learned
to regard them
were to hate been indSt benefited, and
no.lohger as prcitcetors, but, as enemies.
Ask the fairrnelk "'e
they enrintit neN.y CM.! th6L
y 11 beeii ffi!kiably disap-
pointed. Ask the manufdettirer he, indeed, can hardly
be supposed capable of judging of a teitiedy which its au
thorn hate bet TO dared to apViy °ls6.

,( From the jio- rtz. ing Pest)
A sort of derrih-official article appeared in a morning
paper of 'esteridiik; coolly endeavouring to persuade the
public ibat all their apprehension of wat with the United
States of America was merely the result of Tury machina-
tions; and that there was in fact no sort of ground for any
such aPtirehention. We retognise in this article the
flippant impudence and careless contempt of truth b 3
which the Foreign Department under its present direction is
distinguished. The apprehension entertained by the public
is founded on official documents communicated to the
Congress of the United States by the President, and
since the publication of these documents in this country
politicians of all parties have felt that there was at least a
great danger of war. Whatever may be the result of
submitting the principal question in dispute to another
award, the pres..ing and immediately dangerous point is
the preservation of the terms upon which it was agreed
that both parties should stand while the disputed point re-
mained unsettled. It seems that a violation of the agree.
ments which were made last year is likely to lead to
military interference, and if it do, how then is war to be
averted ?

(From the Morning Herald.)
The
,question of the abolition of neyro slavery should
not be mane a party question. It is a question of morals,
of social improvement, of humanity. Yet how often is it
treated as a question of mere party politics, in which L
spirit of zealous partisanship is far more apparent than
any dispassionate and impartial consideration of the real
merits of the case. The Morning Herald was the first of
the daiiy journals of London that raised its voice in behalf
of the emancipation of the black slaves of our sugar
islands. It did so because it looked at the subject not
as a mere Whig or Tory one, but as a question of
Christian ethics, which ought not to be argued or
decided upon mere party considerations. Surely a ques-
tion involving the personal freedom or slavery of 800,000
of the human race—about the number of captive Africans
at that time in our sugar islands—was of too high and sa-
cred a nature to be made the mere foot-ball of party con-
fl'et. Whether within the limits of the British dominions,
and under the sceptre of a free monarchy, man should con-
tinue to have a property, a freehold interest as it were, in
the person of his fellowman, we took to be a question
which a Christian people ought not to determine on any
other grounds than those of a moral and religious nature.
The people of England have determined that perEonel
slavery is immoral, unchristian, and impolitic. We are glad
they have so determined.
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
It was a heavy blow to the established religion of the
country which: the Tories gave when they determined,
as a master stroke of party tactics, to make every question
a Church question. They have thus contrived to put the
Church religion in an antagonistic position towards the
civil rights of Dissenters, the municipal and political liber-
ties of Ireland, the safety of our reMaining colonies across
the Atlantic, and. the prospect of a national education, at
a time when itstseed and urgency have become universally
felt. . In such an unprincipled game, whoever gains, the
Church religion is sure to be damaged. Hitherto, the
trick has net served the party. They are where they were
when they begun to, play it. Not so the Church.
Toryism may be strong enough to prevent any reform in its
temporalities. Its incumbents may still have their ave-
rage receipts of five hundred pounds per annum, and
its working clergy be still kept down to their seventy or
eighty pounds,per annum. Its estates may still be jobbed,
for the enrichp;ent of individuals, at the expense of the
body. Its taxation of Dissenters may still be kept up,
with all the concomitants of parochial animosity. But it
has suffered, and does suffer from day to day, in its spiritual
character and influences. It has lost the power of making
any material p►ogress, amongst the poorer classes. Tory
politics have crippled, its principle of extension. The
spiritual has been sacrificed to the sordid. The true re-
ceipt for Church Extension is to abandon all attempts
upon the public purse, to release the Church-rate pri-
soner, and forego the Church-rate impost ; to pay its idle
clergy less, and its labouring clergy more, and to throw
down the abominable barrier it has raised against the edu-
cation of the people. Then will its prospects revive, and
not till then.