The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC .JOURNALS.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS 'DAY. •
CHRONICLE.—Whatever else the elections may do, there
is one thing which they have already eldne most completely. The
fable of the, Conservative reaction is it an end. • In, thelborough
elections the Tories are in a minority ; and just in proportion
as we take population into account do we find them distanced
by their opponents.- The long and loudly boasted revulsion of
public opinion has encountered a distinct contradiction. If
we are doomed to come under a Tort Governmeht, it evi-
dently cannot be a Government of opinion, and must there-
fore be one of fraud or force. Whatever advantages the Tories
have gained are obviously resolvable into other causes than a
reaction of opinion in. favour 'of Tory principles. The ten-
dency of all kinds of disappointment and discontent to gather
round an opposition, the force of party organization; a diligent
working of the machinery of Yegisration and corruption, and the
combination of all 'the monopolist classes who felt their un-
just advantages in peril, are a full soh:Alen of the petty
gain of nine seats (on the balance) in the boroughs,
without calling in the supposition of a re-action of opinion,
which is attended with no evidence whatever. Had it existel,
to a tithe of the extent so recently and loudly proclaimed, very
different indeed must have' been 'the results in -all localities
inhabited by a numerous population. ' No triumph is gained of
opinion, by the Tories ; none of principle. Tbey are where
they were ; 'at variance with the intelligence of the commu-
nity, and dreaming of the experiment of governing in defiance
of that intelligence. Let the • agricultural electors mark this,
before they embark in the same - boat with Toryism. If
Toryism have a majority at all, they must give it... Scotland
will not do it; Irelant will not do it; in fact; the questidn is
whether Ireland will submit to such a' Government, should
it be established. The peace and prosperity 'of :the
country are still in the keeping of the county electors.
They . can still. turn • the scale between a GOvernnient
which. .would -consolidate their interests by hermonis-
'ing them with the great •commercial interests of the
community, 'and •a Government which can only, we
repeat, be one of force or fraud; and what can force and fraud,
or the short-lived ascendancy 'which rests upon them, do fur
the benefit of agriculture ? • To-the real cultivators, Ministers
offer amore efficieet - protection•than -they have ever erjoje d
under the present Corn-law. The Bs. duty is such a protec-
tion to the amount of 30 per cent. more than has been de-
rived from the shifting trickery of the sliding scale. And
yet they confer, by ..the same offer, the invaluable benefits of
cheaper .bread to .the. labourer, • and a market forthe manufac-
turer. Above all, they offer that steadiness of price which
will enable the farmer. to know- what he is about, and lay his
plans accordingly. . Their proposition is a treaty of peace be-
tween alienated classes, whose hostility threatens to swell into
incurable and destructive • animosity. It is surely unwise ;
it seems a species .of madness in- the farmers to reject this
olive branch, and commit themselves to all the uncertain ad-
vantage, ,coupled with . all the certain mischief, of a Tory res-
toration,
TIMES.—A paper has teen printed and circulated in Ire-
land, purporting to come from the Chairman of the Repeal As-
sociation Committee. and calling for increased exertion in the
organization of repeal.. That it should contain much of absur-
dity, and much of treason, could be matter of no surprise, and
would call for no notice to distinguish it from the ordinary race
of such criminal rhapsodies. The circumstance about it that
makes it worth especial observation is the point of time selected
for the dissemination of it—the same point of time at which the
Whigs have appealed to the country to assist them and theirs in
their great struggle for general revolution. There are three fac-
tions united in that struggle; the little remnant of what was
once called Whig party, now reduced and run down like the early
races of the Transatlantic world, by coarser and stronger in-
truders; and the two stocks of those intruders themselves, con-
sisting respectively of. the English Radicals and thelrish Re-
peelers. The English Radicals push fiercely on, with the cry
of ballot and extended suffrage, and to these opinions the Whigs
have been for some time past acceding or succumbing, con-
vinced that their substantive strength had departed from them,
and that they could subsist no longer but in -conjunction with,
and dependence on, more dogged revolutionists. Even.this re-
source, however, is, failing them. The boroughs themselves, in-
cluding..the populous communities which the Reform Bill called
into existence, northern and southern, metropolitan and pro-
vincial, have disappointed the expectations of their founders ; the
counties are known to be almost universally Conservative ;
and on the aggregate of the oppidan with the rural returns, the
constituencies of Great Pritain, taken apart. from those of Ire-
land, will have placed the Conservatives in a majority of at
least a hundred. The, only means of at all reducing that ma-
jority will be through the Irish. elections ; and an these the
Ministerialists will probably retain between 60 and 70 of the
105 Members. The real force, therefore, upon which the
Whigs will have to depend for making any 'approach to even a
strong Ojiposition,, will be the O'Connellite party—a party
which gave them place, which kept them in place, and to
which, after the fate now threatening them, they must look for
their only chance of ever returning to place.
POST.—Though the Whig-Radical Administration has to-
tally failed to obtain at the elections that approbation which it
anticipated—thOugh these elections have confirmed, instead of
removing, the ceesure pronounced upon the Administration by
the late House of .o:mm9ns—though the English cities and
towns haee returned'RePresentatives more opposed to the M, hig-
Radical policy than their Representatives in the last Parliament
were, and a much further change in the same direction is cer-
tain' in the tounties;'we still think there is cause fir surprise
and, regret that the present Ministers should have with them so
considerable a minority. No doubt it is but a minority, and the
victory over these boastful Ministers, who held office after
being censured by the House of Commons, is complete.
It has been shown that they were imposed upon by great
ignorance, or actuated by , gross cupidity, when they
retained dice under the pretence that the country was 'about
to give them that support which the House of Commons had
refused. This the decision of the English people has made
manifest. But, notwithstanding this, we think the decision
against the Ministers ought to have been more general ; and
to sincerely patriotic' English Men it cannot but be matter of
regret that political faithlessness and imposture (to say nothing
of weakness; and inability), such as the Whig-Radical Ministry
has exhibited, should not have excited more marked and uni-
versal condemnation than they
.have done. We really know
not what claim the present Ministers can set up to the support
of any intelligent and honest Englishman. As to the common
cry which their journalists have put forth, of "cheap bread,"
-cheap sugar," " cheap timber," it has been showti repeatedly
to be mere' imposture. The Ministers, themselves, do not pro-
fess to offer any such thing; they argue, on the contrary, that
these commodities will not he cheaper in consequence
of the measures they propose, and, therefore, that no
such revulsions in the ordinary current of affairs—no such
confiscations of vested interests—no such violent changes in
the 'markets 'and occupations of the people would take place, as
those which have been anticipated. And whether this be true
or not, it is most certainly true that the new policy of Minis-
ters could not be Carried, even though they were to remain
Ministers ; for many of ' the Members of the House of Com-
mons, who are favourable to them upop the ground of hostility
to the Conservative party, 'would not be favourable to them
upon the ground of admitting foreigrecern and foreign Sugar,
and putting fresh taxes upon the import of timber from Bri-
tish America. No intelligent elector can, therefore, be in-
fluenced by the proposed new policy. That is evidently a de-
lusion, and can only affect those whose minds are clouded by
ignorance, or perverted by prejudice.
HERALD.—The progress of the elections for the counties
of England is more steady and triumphant than, but a few
short weeks ago, the most sanguine opponents of the adhesive
Ministry could have anticipated. With one voice, the county
constituencies seem determined to record their honest disgust
at the tricky; crafty, selfish policy of the Whig-Radical Govern-
ment. For our own parts, we never doubted what would' be
the response of our yeomanry, our farmers, our rural freehold-
ers, our landed gentry, to the " appeal " which Lord John Rus-
sell, in a spirit of presumptuous reliance on his own fortune and the
ability of his leader, Viscount Melbourne, at backing out of
the most complicated difficulties, has so madly challenged. We
may say, without any disrespect to, or disparagement of the
intelligence of the' town constituencies, that it is to the
rural districts we must ever look with the most. assured
confidence of finding a 'ready and enthusiastic sympathy with
any cause which is based on those principles of political equity
or of moral right,. that seem native, almost, to our hold coun-
trymen.. If these happen to be bound up in the matter on
which such an appeal may be made to them, for the exercise'of
their deliberate judgment and' of the franchises they derive
from the Constitution—their decision, it is tolerably certain,
will ever be on that tide which' has the most powerful pi eten-,
sions to identify itself kith such principles. For that side is
in natural alliance with their plsiri but strong good sense
—their inherent franknesse—their reverence for institutions
which have been dear to their fathers—and their "preju-
dices of education"-a-ae the Utilitarian philosophy of our
times denominates the generous affections of a free and
loyal people • for the altar, the' 'throne, and the . estab-
lishment under the protection of which they have seen the
country march on from greatness to grandeur, from glory to
power, from victory to dominion, from extensive influence to
paramount authority. Among these country constituencies
there subsist affections, of a civil as well as social character, in
an intensity and on a scale of which the constituencies of towns
are far less susceptible. Among the latter, infinite varieties of
circumstances break in upon and disturb, 'with uncontrollable
frequency, the relations of electors and elected. '1 he connec-
tion of landlord and tenant far less immediate and palpable (from
the very nature of things) than it is among landholders and
landowners, is liable to be dissevered at the very moment when
it seems most • cordial and 'permanent, by any local ac.
cident, •however intrinsically unimportant. In some
worthless squabble about the erection of a marketeplace, or
the pulling down of an old townehall, the closest political alli-
ances will now and then dissolve; or the opening of a new
mill or the introduction of a new manufacture will suffice to
drive out of all their recollections and regards a family which
has supplied benefactors to the town generation after genera.:
tion, even if their stock be as ancient as the Huddlestones,
and their baronial castle have in times gone by defied the'
arms of Stephen or De Montfort. Not so wiih the county
constituencies. The yeomanry are always disposed to uphold,
with an affectionate :eeling of hereditary regard, that consi
ration for the gentry of their neighbourhood which—(unless
upon the intervention of some very special and decided cause
of offence or misunderstanding)—offers, without effort or he-
sitation, to a principal member of one of the most distinguished
families in the district,—the high honour of representing his
brother electors in Parliament.

MONEY MARTS .ET and Cl'l'Y NEWS.

l':10M THE MORNING PAPERS OF Tills DAY.

TIMES.—The only alteration that took place in the Foreign
Exchanges to-day was a slight advance in the rates upon Am-
sterdam.

The premium •on gold at Paris is 6 per mine, which, at the
English Mint price of 31. 175.• lop. per ounct for standard
gold, gives an exchange of 25. 30, and the exchange at
Paris on London at short being 25. 37k, it follows that gold
is 0.30 per cent. dearer in London than in Paris.

By advices from Hamburgh the price of gold is 429 per
mark, which, at the English Mint price of 3/. 17s. 10%d. per
ounce for standard gold, gives an exchange of 13. 7, and the
exchange at Hamburgh on. London at short being 13. 71, it
follows that gold is 0.23 per cent.• dearer in London than in
Hamburgh.
The c,,urse of exchange at New York cri didon is 109
per cent., and the par of exchange between England and
America being 109 23-40 per cent., it follows that the ex-
change is 4.57 per cent. against England. But the quoted
exchange at New York being for hills at 60 days' sight, the
interest must be deducted from the above difference.
HERALD —Failures already made pubic and others talked
about tend to keep up a certain degree of uneasiness among
the mercantile and banking community. To-day the embar-
rassments of a concern in the City have become known, which
acts as the house of agency for a bank or banks in the Chan-
nel Islands ; whist from Manchester the stoppage of a house
rather largely engaged in the general trade of the town is an-
nounced.
The sub-Committee of Spanish and Portuguese bondholders
have prepared a memorial, it is understood, to the Lord Mayor,
soliciting the accommodation of the Egyptian Hall for the
purpose of a public meeting, at which his. Lordship should be
requested to preside, for the consideration of the most effective
mode in which the claims and the sufferings of the unfortu-
nate bondholders of Spain and Portugal could be brought be-
fore the Legislature on the opening of its first Session. To-
ralrrow (Wednesday), being Committee-day, it is presumed
that some decisive action will be taken in the matter, which it
would net seem politic to delay further at a season of the year
when people are generally preparing for a brief secession
from business, and temporary removal from town. Whatever
is intended should be carried into operaticn therefore ai; OP9P
and with vigour, without care about the annoyance which pro-
ceedings may nun in Dovvning-street or elsewhere, where in-