The Sun.
London, England, 1834-12-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Our readers, and by this time the English public
within two hundred miles of the metropolis, are lost in
astonishment at the bravado of the Court. The
Tories have thrown their last die. Tne Standard
assumes that all the members of the new Cabinet
" are men of proved talent and integrity." 'With the
excepton of Lord L3ndhurst, Lord Rosslyn, and, as
the Times called Mr. Baring, " the Golden Weather-
eock"—three chameleon politicians, deserters of re-
form principles—the Cabinet and its subaltern officers
are unquestionably rank Tories. Their " talent" has
been found wanting to govern this country under the
base system of nomination and rotten boroughs. Can
such men, therefore, successfully administer our public
affairs, with reduced power, and in a House of Com-
mons purged of its corruption, and popularized by the
new constituencies ? If they have " integrity, can
they be Reformers? So lately as the close of last
Session, these eminent anti-Reformers opposed them-
selves to every act of a Liberal Administra-
tion. They denounced the Ministerial intention
of reforming the corporations—they opposed
themselves to all the claims of the Protestant
Dissenters—they justified the abuses of the Irish
Church—they fought for the rotten boroughs detected
in corruption, and in the House of Lords shielded
them from punishment and reformation—they boldly
defended the utility of sinecures in Church and State,
and the benefit of unmerited pensions and jobbing
places ; and can such men now expect to pass unde-
tected in the mask of Reformers ? We believe Sir
Edward Knatchbull is an honest bigot ; at all events,
we have his recent opinion, that the Duke of Wel-
lington is a back-bone, uncompromising Tory. Not a
calendar month since, on the 20th of November, Sir
Edward Knatchbull, after the dismissal of Lord Mel-
bourne's Ministry, in a public speech at Ashford, thus
characterised himself and the Duke of Welling-
ton :—" A great question had been lately agi-
tated, viz., the payment of Church-rates. Though
ceasing to pay them would be a benefit in a
pecuniary point of view, he hoped so base a
principle would never be allowed. to enter into
the Constitution, as it would be the cause of an
injury that could never be repaired. If they kept the
Church and State just as it had been delivered to them
by their ancestors, he was sure that in so doing they
would consult the best interests of their country. The
late happy change which had taken place was one that
was caused purely by Providence. It was not the
work of intrigue, nor was it expected even by those
whom the Crown now called to its councils.—(Hear.)
In . the mind and judgment of all impartial men, there
could be no doubt of the Duke of Wellington.—
(Cheers.) If he had hitherto pursued a path which
had met with their approbation, they might rest as-
sured it was his fixed determination fo continue in it.
Though the meeting had not a political character; :ire
was obliged to appear at it in that character, and fear-
lessly express his political opinions." Sir Edward
Knatchbull is the public man selected by Sir Robert
Peel and the Dnke of Wellington to be " Paymaster
of the Forces," and to sit side by side with them
in the newly constructed Cabinet. The Standard
appeals for public confidence in the new Cabinet
to the appointment of this devoted bigot I If ex-
tremes meet, verily Sir Edward Knatchbull bids fair
to become an ultra-Reformer ; and well may the
more liberal Tories stand aghast at the compOsi-
tion of the Peel Ministry. Sir R. Peel has volun-
teered' on a forlorn hope, impelled by honour to resign
himself to inevitable political destruction. Foreseeing
the impossibility of governing the country on Tory
principles—persecuted by his unfortunate party to ac-
cept office, and repeatedly -protesting against the im-
practicability of success—flattered by his Sovereign,
and cajoled by the peculiar circumstances which admi-
nistered to his vanity, he has thrown himself at least
into the " gulf," which on Monday we described. in
the extracts from his own speeches of 1.831 and 1832.
The Tories are haunted with the ghost of " Revolu-
tion." Mr. Croker has prophesied in the Quarter 4
Reriew and the John Bull, till the " Conservatives
really believe in his predictions. They are frightened
at their own shadows. The Standard last night be-
trays their forebodings and hopelessness of escape from
the monster of their crazy imaginations—" We firmly
believe that the present change is the very last cast for
the salvation of the Monarchy ; that if the Cabinet
now in progress of formation, fall, its overthrow wil
be almost Instantaneously followed by the subversion
of the Throne—the dissolution of the National Church
—and 'a complete change in the property of the
empire." The Tories will die of fright. Such
moristrous hallucinations must and will mislead
tb,!m. Like sleep-walkers, they will perish in their
'dreams. The Peel Cabinet will be haunted by poli-
tical apparitions. Sir Robert Peel declared, on the
discussion of the Reform Bills, that no government
could co-exist with those measures of " revolution."
Ile has predicted his own fate, and the dissolution of
parliament will be the dissolution of Toryism. Never-
theless, we are not compelled to believe in the spectre of
their distempered Minds. The new parliament will
restore them to their senses. The alarm=bell will not
answer. It is not heard by the Reformers. The Whig
Aristocracy and the Middle Classes have too just a
knowledge of the rights of property, and the People
at large of the rights of industry, to be terrified by
such evil prognostications. The Reformers want to
keep the hands of the Tories out of their pockets—
to storm the close and self-elected Corporations—to
remunerate the Working Clergy, and to drive out the
Drones and Sinecurists of the Establishment—to fur-
ther secure the freedom and security of election—to
rednce taxation—to extinguish exclusive privileges—
to free -trade and commerce from the shackles of olden
times—to put down Toryism. If this be " Revolu-
tion," and the policy of " Destructives," the Reformers
are the apparitions which will speedily frighten from
the Government the members of this laughing-stock
of a Cabinet.—Morning Chronicle.
The floundering of the Times, with regard to Mi-
nisters, is, we think, symptomatic of its speedy
abandonment of them. Already it has discovered
that the passing of the Reform Bill has not made the
choice of Ministers immaterial to the people. The
opposition to that Bill, and to every beneficial mea-
sure since it became law, was at one time deemed of
no moment by our versatile contemporary. We were
told that Ministers would be forced into the same
groove, and Inade to move in the same direction, as
s their predecessors. The choice of Mr. Alexander
Baring would seem to have led to a partial modifica
tion of the principle, as that gentleman is notorious
for the difference between his speeches and votes, so
that he had less to abandon, on becoming a Re-
former, than the rest of his colleagues, with the ex-
ception of Lord Wharncliffe. Yesterday, however,
it admits that it has been endeavouring to mystify
the people ; for it fairly renounces the principle tl,„t
-the Reform Bill has made it unnecessary tr them
to concern themselves with the Kin:;, choice of
Ministers, as they may themnives-
determine the
measures to be brought forward. It now turns
out that " measures not men" is an unmeaning
phrase, as certain measures cannot be hoped for from
certain menieetc-ept at the expense of convulsing the
kingdom. , The political guide of three-fourths of the
people of England lends them many a wild goose chace,
st would appear. But lest we should be charged with
misrepresenting this most impudent pretender to the
ilirectron of the political principles of the people of
'England, we will allow it to speak for itself :
'lt will be asked, however (says the Printing-house-
square oracle), since we have all along maintained
the sufficiency of the Reform Bill to enforce a liberal
system of policy upon any Government, where is
the advantage of having any one set of men in pre-
ference to another—where the harm of such men as
those on whom we have been animadverting ? To
this the reply is easy. The Reform Bill in the long
run will make all right ; but it will operate differently
upon different classes of those statesmen all of whom
had opposed it. To prudent minds it will point out
the moral necessity of acting freely in correspondence
with its spirit, and of anticipating, by their measures,
any direct coercion of the Government, or its final
overthrow by the people. Upon men without pru-
dence, upon obstinate fanatics in -things temporal or
spiritual, it can have no such effect. Such men will
never yield in time ; they are apt blindly and furiously
to set themselves against the public will, and to force