The Sun.
London, England, 1834-09-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Earl of Mulgrave, at the Whitby meeting, on
Wednesday week, examined, in a very able manner,
the right of the Tories to the title of Conservatives.
He began by asking what was meant by Conservative?
In one sense of the word, every good man is a Con-
servative ; for the great object of the social union is
the preservation of property. This is not, however,
what the Tories mean by Conservatism. They mean
by it the retention of certain unfair advantages which
they possess over their fellow-citizens—the preservation
of abuses profitable to themselves and ruinous to the com-
munity. But Lord Mulgrave very happily showed that
the policy of the Tories was 'by no means calculated to
promote these objects :—" If (said his Lordship) the
word Conservative means the indiscriminating and
therefore hopeless support of all that is, against much
that ought to be, then do I know no course, under ac-
tual circumstances, more calculated to produce that
very confusion which the title of Conservative seems
to profess to avert. * * * The whole career of the
party has of late years been that of ineffectual struggle
against the people, always ending in unwilling conces-
sion. Did not the self-called Conservatives endea-
vour to oppose the first glimmerings of Reform, in the
transfer of the franchise from East Retford to Bir-
mingham ? Were they thereby the conservators of
any borough in schedule A ? Besides, would they
not, at a late period, provided nothing had been
changed but their own position—would they not,
if in power, have passed that very Reform Bill
which they had so long agitated the country by
resisting ?—(Loud cheers.) Again, let us turn to-
words Ireland, though the mere mention of that
unhappy country opens far too wide a field for me
to do more than to remind you that the Conser-
vative, otherwise Tory, cry of that day, was re-
sistance to the Catholic Question—that the very indi-
viduals who had so long made their opposition to it a
matter of principle, at last themselves carried that
question when the grace of the concession was com-
pletely forfeited." The whole policy of the Conserva-
tives, therefore, is condemned by themselves. They,
by their own confession, either oppose what is just, or
they grant what is unjust, out of a weak and wicked
compliance with what their conscience condemns.
There is no escaping from the horns of this dilemma.
In yielding ultimately whatever their opponents de-
manded, they prove that they either opposed what is
right to grant, or yielded what ought not to have been
granted. Lord Mulgrave observed that true Conser-
vatism consisted in " the firm and unflinching re-
sistance to that which is in itself wrong—the
ready, and, above all, the timely concession of that
which is in itself right." In the case of the Church
of Ireland, the pseudo-Conservatives are only en-
abling their opponents to effect their purpose with
more ease. It is quite impossible in the present day
that the people of England should determine to sup-
port a Protestant Church merely for the purpose of
bringing Protestantism into bad odour, and giving the
Catholics unfair advantages over Protestants ; for by
the confession of the great oracles at the Orange meet-
ings at Dublin, the Church of Ireland was looked to
by the resident gentry merely as a resource for their
younger children. If they who had the decision of the
question were all landholders, with sons bred to no
trades or professions, this might be a cogent argument ;
but it will never prevail on the people of England to
abet Orangemen in their murderous designs, and to tax
themselves to maintain by force an expensive Protes-
tant Establishment for a Catholic population. The
Tories standing thus self-convicted of . embracing
courses which they regularly abandon, they can only
be called Conservatives on the old principle, of locus a
non lucendo.—Morning Chronicle.
Already we begin to see the beneficial working of
the pew Poor-law Bill in the metropobtan parishes.
In our Marlborough-street police report, in. the Chro-
nicle of Wednesday, appeared .a case, of an applica-
tion by Ann Thomas, a middle-aged woman, com-
plaining that the parish of St. James, to which she
belonged, had refused to give her suitable relief. She
had been many years in the workhouse, and now she
had been turned out of it, quite destitute. Mr. Bry-
ant, the overseer, observed that the woman,L,ever since
1819, had been a claimant on the parish,, and for the
last seven years had been wholly supported in the
workhouse. She was strong, healthy, and. not past
the age of labour ; and therefore. the Board had
determined that she should support herself
by her industry. A question, put by Mr.
Conant, led at once to an explanation of the cause
why this strong, healthy woman had been so main-
tained in the workhouse, and why she was now turned
out to shift for herself. " The answer he • Felt bound
to give would not, perhaps, be very agreeable to him,
as a magistrate. It was one consequence of the defects
in the old system that the woman, who was of very in-
different character, had been able for .so many years to
gain a subsistence from the poor-rates. She had been
sent out of the workhouse to earns her own bread ; but
an overseer or a magistrate had always been found
ready, the one to order her relief on her application,
and the other to give her an admission into the work-
house. The Board, he was happy to say, had taken the
cases of the paupers into their consideration, and
had acted with humanity in legitimate cases, and
with decision in cases of habitual paupers and 'im-
postors." In so numerous a body as the magistracy of
England there are individuals to be found everywhere
who would act in the manner described by Mr. Bryant;
and these individuals are well known to the lazy and
worthless, who avail themselves of their weakness. In
this manner the industrious housekeepers are heavily
burdened to support a set of worthless beings, who are
often better able to earn their livelihood than those who
pay rates for their support ; and a general discredit is
brought on the magistracy. To an enlightened magis-
trate the Poor Laws Amendment Act must be a great
relief; while it will soon effect a great reduction of the
burdens of parishes. But they who will most benefit
by the bill will be the class to which Ann Thomas be-
longs. The temptation of a comfortable lodging in a
workhouse is sometimes too much for the virtue of per-
sons situated like her ; and they will be all the better
for not having before their eyes the demoralising ex-
ample of strong and healthy persons supported in a
substantial manner without any exertion of industry.—
Morning Chronicle.
The power, of what has been not inaptly termed
the fourth power of the State, is now universally ac-
knowledged ; and in the last number of Blackwood's
Magazine we find a long paper on the subject of the
" Influence of the Press ;" and the writer, after la-

menting, in the most lugubrious strains, the perfect
inability of wealth to compel the people of this country
to read such papers as he may think fit for them, and,
after pointing out the democratic and destructive ten-
dency of the periodical press, proposes some remedy
for the evil. But we would observe, en passant, that
though the above article does, in part, show some
power and originality of thinking, yet that the views
of the writer appear to be either most miserably dis-
torted by prejudice or blinded by his fears that not
much dependence can be placed on his opinion. And
we consequently find, throughout the article, " the
democratic character and licentious tendency of the

press, the depravity of its morals," &C., con-
stantly insisted on ; and we are asked, " Are
we to sit down and see the press constantly
depraving, misleading, and corrupting the public
mind flattering the people into a desire for
power, which they are not capable of exercising with
advantage either to themselves or others ?" &c. Every
page almost teems with similar expressions ; but we
boldly and confidently ask, whether such is in general
a true character of either the metropolitan or provin-
cial press of this country ? The charge of its pander-
ing to the sensual passions is as unjust as it
must have been known to the writer to have been false ;
though we do not mean to deny that there
may be printed one, or even two of such papers ; but
to say that they have a circulation amongst the mass
of the people of this country, or that they are admitted
into the houses of those middle ranks who seem to

have excited his antipathy, is a calumny as false as
hell. We agree with the writer that the only antidote
for the press must be the press ; that the only weapon
which can be successfully opposed to it must be one
of a similar description ; and that to attempt to shackle
the press in this country would be nothing short of an
act of insanity ; but with respect to the remedy pro-