The Sun.
London, England, 1833-10-05 00:00:00

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ample columns of the daily press may allow it
occasionally to diverge from the main points
which time and opportunity require to be
urged, or even sometimes to discuss mat-
ters of pure principle, without regard even
to their remote application. But it is matter of

regret that an able monthly or quarterly coad-
jutor in the field of usefulness, should devote
any portion of its space to an argument, which
has no bearing upon any of the questions that
the occasion requires to be urged. Our excel-
lent contemporary, "Tait," has an article in this
month's Magazine, which has more especially been
the cause ofthese remarks. Like some of the other
monthlies of less political weight, he has thrown
a fire away. This is bad policy, for it is a month
before he will have another, and in the mean
while the better timed discharges of our Tory
adversaries have opportunity to make sad
havoc among the doubtful brethren. The article
in " Tait" to which we allude is entitled
" Euthanasy of the British Constitution." The
topics which now require to be urged upon public
attention with all the force of the Liberal press are
the abolition of the Corn Laws, the adoption of
the ballot, of quinquennial or triennial Parlia-
ments, of a system of national education, of a
commutation of tithes, of a more fair distribti-

lion of the burden of taxation, and other prac-
tical measures—some of the benefits from which
would, for the most part, be almost immediate.
Instead, however, of any of these topics, so in-
teresting to the public at present, being discussed
in " Tait's" October Number,we find its principal
political article devoted to a matter of no more
consequence than whether King JOHN signed
Magna Charts with his right hand or his left. The
writer, after five or six pages of not the most
original matter in the world, says, " Bear.
ing, then, solemnly and strongly in mind
the suggestion of BURKE, that it ought to be
the constant aim of every wise public counsel
to find out,;by cautious experiments, and rational,
cool endeavours, with how little, not with how
much, restraint the community can subsist, since
liberty is a good to be improved, not an evil
to be lessened,' we offer the following proposi-
tion to the enfranchised electors of Britain, as
one which is worthy of their proudest attention.
It is in the concise and memorable words of the
brilliant opponent of BURKE—the Burke of
less auspicious days, that an organ to collect
the public will, and a hand to execute it, are
the only necessary constituents of the social
union,'* and that therefore the theory which
invests the Crown with a right of absolute
negative upon the deliberative sense of the
people, is as monstrous in speculation as
experience has proved it to be impossible
in practice, and mischievous in its eva-
sion." No doubt experience has proved
the Royal negative impossible in practice,
and that is the very reason why we need
no longer trouble our heads about it. As to
the mischiefs of its evasion, we must confess
that we are ignorant of them. The Royal
power over Parli tment gradually dwindled from
the reign of HENRY VIII., or rather his
daughter ELIZABETH, till it was finally extin-
guished by the aristocratic revolution of 1688,
All attempts to revive it were afterwards vain ;
and when we say that experience prayed
the " absolute negative" to be impossible in
practice, we say that the Royal authority
over Parliament was positively and effectually
extinguished. It is also a fallacy, though sup-
ported by high names, to suppose that the KING
gained in influence what he lost in prerogative.
The influence exerted in the KING'S name, never
was the KING'S influence, but the influence of the
oligarchy which had succeeded to his power
over Parliament. To talk of the KING'S influ-
ence when ha has not been able for a hundred
years even to have the free choice of his own
household servants is an absurdity. What has
been called the influence of the Crown, was, in fact,
the influence of the boroughmongering oligarchy
which wielded all the power of the State. The
question now is, whether the oligarchical veto
must not follow the fate of the KING'S, and
become merged in the supreme expression of
the people's will, as delivered by their repre-
sentatives. To a country, surrounded by powerful
enemies and rivals, the hereditary descent of the
nominally highest station in it is useful, and as
Royalty in England consented, at last, to be
quietly stripped of its power, it was for that
usefulness retained. So a titled nobility has its
uses, and will in like manner be retained,
if in like manner it yield to the power now
dominant. The great questions above enume-
rated are those on which it must yield when they
are brought before them, for it is those great
questions in which the welfare of the people is
bound up. Those are the questions, therefore,
which it is the duty of the friends of the people
now to bring forward for discussion. Gravely
to argue about " a limited Crown," and the
nation being insulted by a Royal prerogative
which exists only in imagination, is pure waste