The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-08 00:00:00

SECOND EDITION

,I11,•-bfratT nit

LONDON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 1846.

It will be seen from the address of Mr. GLADSTONE
to the electors (he should have said the non-electors)
of Newark, that he declines to present himself again as
a candidate for the representation of that borough.
The reason he gives is rather curiously expressed.
" As I have good reason," says he, " to believe that
a candidate, recommended to your favour through
local connexion, may ask your suffrages, it becomes
my very painful duty to announce to you, on that
ground alone, my retirement from a position which
has afforded me so much of honour and of satisfaction."
A stranger to Newark and Clumber Castle on reading
the paragraph would have imagined that the Secre-
tary to the Colonies was to be opposed because he
was encumbered by official duties, and could sot at-
tend to the interests of his constituents, or that
some active citizen, well acquainted with the
population and the affairs of the borough,
from a conviction that both had been neglected by
the late Member, had generously offered to supply
his place, sacrifice his domestic comforts, and per-
haps injure his trade or profession, for the good .f his
fellow-citizens ; but great would be his wonder when
he learned that all this was most opposite to the fact
—that there was only one elector, the Duke of
NEWCASTLE—that Newark was his property—and,
adhering to a noble principle laid down by his
Grace, " that a man had a right to do what he liked
with his own," he was pleased to supplant Mr.
GLADSTONE by some new favourite. Yet this
is done, and openly done, in England ; where,
by the law of the land, all Peers are prohibited
from interfering in any way whatever with the elec-
tion of burgesses. What a mockery, then, is the law
made by Xing, Lords, and Commons, when it is thus
openly violated by one of the law-makers, and that too
for his own personal interests. Another law also is-vio-
lated—that by which a Member, on being appointed
to a Government office of a certain class, is compelled
to return to his constituents, and ask their sanction
to the measure. This is an excellent regulation, be-
cause it forms a check on the Government, and en-
ables the people, in some respects, to control their
policy ; but in this instance it is a dead letter. The
Duke says " You shall not consult the con-
stituents—your measures are not my measures—
you propose to remove a tax justly im-
posed for the good of the aristocracy, and
by the aristocracy to raise their rent-rolls. The
people, of course, wish to get rid of that tax, but we
are the lawgivers, and the people shall feel this to
their cost. The borough is mine, and I will return a
fit representative." And what is the consequence of
this policy, putting its illegality entirely out of the
question ? Mr. GLADSTONE is appointed to one
of the most important departments in the
State; that department has been greatly mis-
managed latterly—at all events, the Noble Lord
who has vacated it, gave universal dissatisfaction, and
the state of New Zealand, as well as other colo-
nies, bears witness that the dissatisfaction was not
without reasonable grounds. Yet the Minister who
succeeds is forbidden to consult his former constituents;
he cannot attend in his place in the Commons to an-
swer the grievances complained of, and the duty
of his office can only be very imperfectly and most
unsatisfactorily performed, till he is smuggled into
some other pocket- borough, or obtains a seat by less
creditable means. This is a great blot on the Re-
form Bill, but, nevertheless, let us be thankful
to the Duke ; he is carrying his illegal policy
to the utmost extent ; he is thereby pointing
out in the most effective manner the rottenness
of a system which includes some forty or fifty places,
all said to be represented, but without any consti-
tuents whatever, and thus forcing upon the people of
England another struggle for the extension of
the suffrage. We are much obliged to the
Dukes. The Duke of WELLINGTON'S famous
speech decided the Reform Bill, and another
Duke is doing his duty in an equally
effective manner to render that Bill more perfect.
Mr. GLADSTONE'S address lets out another secret.
" I am given to understand," he adds in another part
of the address, " that persons favourable to unrelaxed
protection were not prepared themselves to undertake
the conduct of public affairs, in conformity with the
views which they entertained." So that the
Duke of NEWCASTLE, and the perverse clique
who cry out for " protection," will neither
work themselves nor let others work. The Men-
MONDS, and BUCKINGHAM, and STARLETS, could
not venture to announce to a House of Commons
their extravagant principles, because they knew they
would be laughed to scorn. They stand in the way of
all improvement—they would stem the stream which
they cannot turn, and, like all obstructions of such
puny strength, will, for the good of their country,
be in due time swept away by the unconquerable force
of the current.

In another part of our paper will be found a
report of a meeting of agricultural labourers in North
Wiltshire, which we have transferred from the
Times. It is worthy of deep and earnest atten-
tion ; yet this recommendation is unnecessary—it is
impossible to peruse it unmoved. It is no varnished
tale—no plausible
romance,
adorned with rounded
periods and melodious phrases; it boasts no adventi-
tious ornaments, yet is it eloquent, eloquent with the
power of truth, which is, like beauty, " when un-
adorned, adorned the most." It is a brief statement
of the sorrows of the poor, narrated by themselves,
in language at once simple and affecting. No writer
of fiction ever adorned his pages with such touching
pathos, such heart-stirring eloquence—no painter ever
conceived a more impressive scene. In a cross-road
in the open country, without shelter of any kind, on
a dark, cold winter night, are assembled about a
thousand persons, dressed in the commonest garb, all
wasted by suffering. On a rude bench is seated a
man of venerable appearance, poor and sorrowful like
the rest ; but his language is full of humble piety and
reliance upon PROVIDENCE. A few uncouth lanterns
shed a fitful light around ; some illumine the counte-
nance of youth, of youth without smiles, like life
without sunshine, or serve to distinguish the
features of children shivering with cold, or starv-
thers, with
starv-
ing with hunger. Some show us the unhappy
pale faces and wasted frames, anhamrdo--
working, suffering men,
eagerness toiling
for inadequate reward.
With what breathless 'tzeofehssis dtootuhb.elyes,haenedd
re-
echoes their
speaker, who
with hope as
their own ; how their voices rise in concert to
Are these some
is tolerated
attest his truth, how their faces glow
he speaks of swift deliverance!
natives of a barbarous land, where slavery
and approved ; is it a scene of ancient days in the
old times of feudal tyranny ? Not so; it is a glimpse
.England in the civilised and re-
of the peasantry of
fined nineteenth century .1 These starving, suffering
men are the tillers of the soil, by the sweat of whose