The Sun.
London, England, 1833-12-30 00:00:00

THI .ARANGUES OF THE MINISTERS

" 3. The Lords cannot begin Bills, or make amend-
ments which indirectly, or in their consequences, may be a
charge upon the people.
" 4. The Lords cannot insert in a Bill any pecuniary
penalty or forfeiture, nor alter the application or distribu-
tion thereof, or any enactment connected with it, however
remotely : and therefore the effect of the Lords' amend-
ments requires to be considered with much circumspection.
"It appears, however, by a recent resolution of the
House of Commons, which has since been made a standing
order, that some relaxation is contemplated with respect
to pecuniary penalties for offences."

(From the Examiner.)
NV ver reproach may attach to Ministers on
the of want of resolution and incomplete per-
form of objects undertaken, it cannot be denied
that ' .pon one subject they have shown matchless
courage, and a determination to go all lengths, and
unsparingly compass a full measure—that subject,
we scarcely need add, is their own praise. Here
there is no faltering, no hesitation, no backwardness,
but all opposite qualities. On this question they
are in advance of public opinion, and, to confess the
truth, we know of no man, or set of men, who could
bring the same zeal and courage to the same task.
Rome had its Cicero, who congratulated the good
fortune of the State in having him Consul : we have
a dozen such, or they are mistaken in their estimate
of themselves and their achievements. The cus-
' tomary Ministerial dinner circuit has just concluded,
and we ask whether there is any thing in panegyric
ro match the speeches of the different members of
the Government in commendation of themselves and
their Administration. There runs an old maxim,
audacter to vendita temper aliquid haret, rendered
in homely English, "Lay it on thick, and some will
stick."

At the Plymouth dinner Lord John Russell
thought it necessary to instruct the company that he
and his colleagues were not superhuman : " Gentle..
men," said he, " it should always be remembered
that in conducting human affairs we have only
human abilities to bring to the task." One might
have forgotten it ! This naive stroke, the beginning
of the modesties in renouncement of Divine honours,
reminds us of a scene played by Elliston in a for-
gotten comedy. A citizen, just raised to the dig.
nity of an Alderman, the pinnacle of all werldly am-
bition according to his notion, receives an old friend,
and tempering the pride that swells within him, and
humanising his greatness, addresses him thus, " Sit
down, Sir, sit down; don't refuse to take a
chair in
my presence, for though I am an Alderman, I must
remember that lam a man." Elliston's mannbing
made this touch of humility exquisitely rich, but
Lord John Russell's is the finer flight, for it sup.
poses that others had forgot that he and his col-
leagues were men : "It must be remembered that
in conducting human affairs we have only human
abilities to bring to the task."
Certainly, if we are to believe what we hear
from the persons themselves, we have a dozen
Catos in office, having this advantage over the ori-
ginal, that to the most incorruptible virtue they add
the happiest success in all their undertakings. By
their own several and separate showing we have
Mr. Cato Thomson, and Cato Lord John Russell,
and Mr. Cato Stanley; and so abundant, indeed,
are they, that Mr. Cato Macaulay can be spared for
India. We are reproached for not praising these
personages, but they take the office out of our
hands, and performs it so as to defy rivalry, and to
discourage any essays in the same arduous business.
One of the Fathers asked how many angels could
&rice on the point of a needle; we know not what
can be done on such a stage by such agents, but
upon points yet finer, points according to the ma-
thematical definition of points, we see how bound-
lessly self-complacency can expatiate, prancing and
figuring about. Upon some of these points, which
we have certainly passed by, thinking that no
ground of praise was to be found in them, Ministers
rest their trophies. Thus, in Mr. Thomson's speech
at Manchester, the Irish Church Bill, which conti-
nues the enormous abuse of fixing a Church of one
faith upon a people of another, is made a topic of
glorification :
"In the eye 3 of alt who are well wishers to their coun-
try—in the eyes of all who are desirous that the spirit of
true religion and of genuine Christian charity should reign
amongst our countrymen, how long was the state of the
Irish Church considered as the great barrier against peace,
and as the great obstacle to tranquillity ? Did the Go-
vernment show any opposition in grappling with that
question ? Did they show a desire to avoid entering into
the difficulties of it, or of surrounding the consideration of
it with perplexing and technical objections? The Govern.
went prepared a measure, which I will venture to say
there is no man here present, who five years ago could
have predicted, or if he had, who would not almost have
been laughed at. To have reduced the Irish hierar.
chy by nearly one-half—to have cut off one stem from the
twenty-two prelates in that establishment—nay, to be pre-
pared to carry into immediate execution further reforms
connected with that measure—proves that there must have
been no backwardness in the attempt to repress a practical
and a crying grievance."
True, the Irish hierarchy was reduced one-half
(prospectively) after Lord Grey had clearly demon-
strated that it should be reduced to one-sixth, but
were the revenues of the needless sees withdrawn
from ecclesiastical appropriation ? Not a stiver.
Mr. Thomson knows full well that the Catholics of
Ireland do not care a rush what is done in the Pro-
testant Church, their grievance is its 'imposition on
their shoulders. Whether one man called a bishop,
or a score called rectors and vicars, enjoy the reve-
nues, is a matter of indifference to them; their com-
plaint and their wrong is that the revenues are
drawn from a Catholic people, and that injustice re-
mains unredressed, and was indeed protected in the
passing of the laudable Act. Mr. Thomson says—
"ls there any man who will sly, that after having ad-
ministered reform to the Church of Ireland, reform is not
needed in the Church of England ?__(Enthusiastic cheer-
ing.) The Dissenters call loudly for relief from,
ng to
Inanx
practical grievances—from or contributi
they do not he-
the supealiblishment to which
ioug ; and theirs appears to be a just and far demand."
If from what we have seen done in the instance
of the greater abuse of the S'necure Irish Church,
we are to infer what will be done in the less flagrant
case of the Established Church of England, the
Reform will be a mockery truly. Lord John Rus-
sell, indeed, plainly asserts, that the revenues of the
Apostolic Church are not too large, a proposition
which encountered the instant contradiction of his
friends assembled to do him honour. We respect
their manliness. For admitting the claims of the
Dissenters to exemption from contributions to the
support of the Church, Mr. Thomson is entitled to
praise, and be and Lord John Russell are here at
issue, for the exemption of Dissenters will subtract
considerably from the revenues which his Lordship
deems not larger than necessary for the purposes of
morality and religion.
Upon the subject of the Corn Laws, Mr. Thom-
son gives us to uuderstand, that nothing is to be
hoped from the Ministry. He says that they deem
the system mischievous to all parties, but as the
country is divided on the question, Ministers shrink
from the attempt to carry a change beneficial to all
against the prejudices of one moiety. This seems
precisely the state of things in which a wise and
intrepid Government would throw its power into
the balanced scale. Why are a whole people to
suffer a mischief that one half may be spared the idle
apprehension of an injurious change ? Lord John
Russell has compared taxation to indispensable me-
dicine; let as borrow his instance wish another ap-
plication. If one of the Siamese Twins were sink-
ing under a disease for which he rejected the proper
remedies as poisonous, and the other implored the
physicking of his worse half to save their common
lives, what would be thought of the physician who
argued that as they were divided in opinion, it
would be better to let the malady take its course ?
No, the honest doctor would be cruel to he kind,
and compel the remedy. But the Lords will bite
and kick; let them, but it is for Ministers to do
their duty—to propose what is necessary to good
government, and leave the responsibility of neglect.
ing or defeating it to those who may be guilty of
the folly. To forbear from attempting what ought
to be done, because others may do what they ought
not to do, would be a rule paralyzing all virtuous
endeavour. The course of all improvement in our
state of things lies through a series of defeats which
must be exhausted before success can be attained.
To shrink from the prospect of defeat is to turn
from the road to victory.
If the Tories were in office, would not the
Whigs in opposition press them to a reties! .n..

"But I tun bound frankly to avow that, independently
if my connexion with the Government, had I been in the
Commons' House of Parliament, simply as an independent
Member, and could I have arrived at the knowledge which
nothing but official communication can give, and which,
therefore, it is out of the power of any man to obtain in
any other capacity—l should, I say, having that know-
ledge, although unfettered by the ties of connexion with
Government, have acted precisely as I have done."
Here we have the Cato. Office has not been
even as the dust in the balance of Mr. Thomson's
judgment. In another place he asks, what are the
charms of place, and dwells on its toils ; salary, as
they say in advertisements for comfortable situa-
tions, " is no object," we know; but how, accord-
ing to the showing of Mr. Thomson, are we to
account for the sacrifices of ease and peace of mind
which statesmen make to their country ? Is it the
0 theth in
g knowledge
but
official u rcsourned
under Thomson love of that mysterious knowledge of which Mr.
difficulties) makes me
whichnti o n
n,
munication can give, and which, therefore, it is out
of the power of mortal man to obtain in any other
capacity ? What appears to the ignorant world a
desire for place is doubtless a thirst for this know-
ledge. That knowledge is power we have long
been told, but now we learn from Mr. Thomson
that power is knowledge. There certainly is some-
thing in the knowledge which lies in public offices
more than we read of in our philosophy. It opens
quite a new view of things, and yet it cannot be
communiceted in the way of reason for altered opi-
nions. A wonderful part of the matter is that if a
man be thrown out of office, away goes all its
knowledge, and he returns to his former opinions
and attacks his successor upon the very points
on which his official knowledge had before causal
him to hold the same language, and pursue the same
course. Mr. Thomson, for example, would, as an
independent Member, have acted in the House of
Commons precisely as he has acted as a Member
of Government, supposing he had had the know-
ledge which nothing but office can give; and, as a
Member of Government, he has held silence on his
once favourite subject, the Newspaper Stamp Du.
ties ; but were he in opposition to-morrow, the
official knowledge which now seals his lips on that
topic, would melt away, and he would show that it
is above all things important to give information to
the people. Having the knowledge which nothing
1 but office can give, Mr. Thomson voted against
the
abolition of impressment or man stealing. Detach
him from office and its, knowledge, and he would
, id-Veit-k' too, and speak well against the
villainous practice. When the Tories were in power,
they, too, had its knowledge, but we don't remember
that the Whigs ever accepted its asserted fruits in pro-
fligate votes and tyrannical measures, in lieu of argu.
ments. Had Goulburn said, "This course of policy
is dictated by a knowledge which nothing but official
communication can give," how the Whigs would
have covered the pretension with derision and scorn.
The knowledge which office can give none but an of-
ficial can know, and he cannot tell it ; but this is to be
remarked, and it is fully as curious as the accession
of official knowledge, that when a man enters office'
he appears to lose all conversance with the feelings
and opinions of the public.
In justice to Mr. Thomson we must remark, that
one set of most valuable opinions, those relating to
the freedom of commerce, have not been disturbed
by the knowledge that comes of office, and that he
has manifested, on more than one occasion, an
honesty of resolution which we respect.

At Evreux, lately, a surgeon, in bleeding a
patient, hiving pricked the artery, by which amputation
teas rendered necessary, the tribunal of that town has
condemned the unskilful practitioner to pay him 600
francs as damages, and to settle on him an annual pension
of 150 francs.— Galignani's Messenger.
Lord Napier took leave of the Directors at
the East India.house on Saturday, preparatory to hie
leaving England for Canton, to enter upon the duties of
his new appointment as chief commissioner for regulating
the tride with China under the provisions of the Act
recently passed.
The Queen of Portugal has been graciously
pleased to present the Countess of Sr. Vincent (t! e
Lady of the gallant Napier) with the Cross and Ribbon of
sixty
the Order of St. Isabelh...—Hampshire Telegraph.
A P PROFESSIONAL WOMAN. Bail lie
' Lumsden, of Glasgow,adfatyeer, sentencingimprisonm eantCinypßriraidn,ewwelir
had just completed ,
to a further term of sixty days for disorderly conduct,
grave
!ly told her that she was "a disgrace to her profes-
sion"

A DENSE POPULATION.-_A man com-
plained at the police•offce of having been robbed at a
house in the rear of 130, Duaue-street; and Mr. Hunting.. lion, a police-officer, was sent down to the house to inquire
into the matter. The woman who opened the door denied
all know!edge of the affair on the part of herself and
family, but said that there was another family in the house,
who were perhaps the delinquents be was in search of.
The representative of the second family then presented
himself, and made a like asseveration of innocence, but
referred the officer to a third family :ill° resided in the
!louse. A person on the part of the third threw the onus
on a fourth ; the fourth on a fifth; the fifth on a sixth ;
and ao on, until it turned out that there ;.._ —4—
families.