The Sun.
London, England, 1834-12-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

" Between office and me a wide guff exists," was
tivi: voluntary but advised declaration of Sir Robert
Teel on the 7th of February, 1833, in the discussion
on the Addre,s:s, The Right Honourable Baronet, it
now appears, is precipitated into this wide gulf by his
most ultra Tory associates ; and all his exertions to
save himself from the frightful and yawning abyss,
have proved unavailing—
" Sepulchres themselves most crumbling fall
In Time's abyss, the common grave of all."
The declaration by Sir Robert Peel, that office and
himself were " wide as the poles asunder," was in fact
a mature and sensible conclusion after the reform of the
representation. Throughout all the debates on the
Reform Bills, in 1831 and 1832, no Member of Par-
liament more clearly discerned or more boldly stated the
consequences of the passing of those great legislative
measures of constitutional regeneration. Lord John
Russell and his colleagues prudently abstained from
drawing the whole curtain aside ; and the Re-
formers, not in office, kept their opinions very
much to themselves. But Sir Robert Peel on
every opportunity, and by the most marked em-
phasis of speech, acknowledged the downfal of
Toryism consequent on Parliamentary Reform ; and
further predicted the impossibility of any Administra-
tion conducting the affairs of Government ; meaning
thereby, that neither Tories nor Tory principles could
again maintain an ascendancy in the Councils of the
King, and that the Royal prerogative of the choice of
Ministers would be henceforth controlled in its exer-
cise by a Reformed House of Conammons. In his
first oration against the English Reform Bill, on the
3d of March, 1831, the Right Hon. Baronet broadly
argued that the Ministerial scheme substituted a new
con'Aitution in lieu of the old one ; or, according to our
version, restored to the people their ancient rights of
representation in the Commons House of Parliament,
by the abolition of the rotten and nomination boroughs,
and the enfranchisement of the populous unrepre-
sented towns. We will not dispute about words.
A revolution was effected in 1832 ; and the
Royal Prerogative was redeemed from the thrald;,,n
of the Boroughmongers and the Tory party, - -"Who
for a century and a half had made the Crown and
the Representative Council of the ration a base in-
strument of the Tory Aristocracy. Sir Robert Peel,
wily in his appeals to the izatousies of the Sovereign,
and to the terrors of the Aristocracy, in the discussion
of the second EngiiSh Reform Bill, 22d of March,
1832, ingenuously stated, " that by the very act of
making all- places necessarily places of popular elec-
tion, you have effectually put an end to the exercise of
this prerogative of the Crown, and, so far, worked a
revolution in the state." Indeed the Right Honourable
Baronet foresaw and predicted his present extraordinary
perplexity. He discerned the future labyrinth of
Toryism, the inextricable windings of which he well
knew that he could not thread. Theseus killed the Mino-
taur, and escaped by the clue of Ariadne from the laby-
rinth of Crete ;• but the Tamworth Baronet will find it
impossible by the finest .spun cotton, to grope his
way through the mazes of his present position,
and to destroy the power of the Reform Bills. In the
same speech he described his present political puzzle :
" Should the King ever feel it necessary to exercise an
unpopular prerogative, I own that when this mea
sure (Reform) comes into operation, I see almost in-
surmountable difculties in the way of that prerogative
beiajexercised. Should the Kin g;lesire to remove a
popular Administration ,how will it be possible for him
to do so? No doubt he is able to effect it now : but
what a fatal delusion would it be to take that as
the paramount rule in this country The con-
sistent Baronet, viewing himself in the mirror
of this day's looking-glass, then continued to expose
the possible degradation of the Tories, if the
Crown should displsce a popular Government who
he admitted would have no alternative of re-
taining office, but by the scandalous sacrifice of their
political principles in the adoption of the policy of
the ex-Ministers. With prophetic spirit Sir Robert
Peel predicted that the Tories, if they took office,
would be " compelled to court popular favour by
making sounding speeches about the liberty of the
press, and gaining the favour
qf the populace by the
most despicable prostitution qf their minds and ac-
quirements r • Sir Robert Peel, and the members of
his embryo Cabinet, must be either real Reformers or
anti-Reformers. Mock reform will not serve even a
temporary purpose. Tory principles will not live a
week.with the present, or the meditated new Parlia-
ment. Swift acutely describes the distressing situation
of the subtle Baronet—
" A strong dilemma in a desp'rate case !
To act with infamy, or quit the place."
Now what is our unparalleled political position, and
who is Sir Robert Peel, the chosen leader of the
Court, the nominee of the Great Captain of the Tory
Peers? The King has dismissed a popular, an un-
tried Ministry—one from which the country hoped
and expected much. The journals of the Tory suc-
cessors of this Ministry have raised the cuckoo note of
" Measures, not Men." Our contemporary the
Spectator, acutely observas, that the meaning of this
-convenient phrase is " Men, not measures." If the
Court and the Tories upset the Cabinet of Lord Mel-
bourne, not because they objected to its pledged po-
licy of Reform, but from personal hatred of the men,
they are factious, and prefer public discord to prin-
ciple; if they accomplished its downfall to defeat the
ends of Parliamentary Reform, where is their wisdom
or possibility of party success ? 'What re-action
has taken place in any part of the United
Kingdom.? Is Irish Church Reform less boldly
required by Ireland ? Are the English people
more enamoured of Church sinecures, non-resi-
dences, the exorbitant wealth of the dignitaries—
or the poverty of the working Clergy ? Are
the middle classes greater idolators of self-elected and
Tory Corporations ? Are the Protestant Dissenters
better satisfied with Church-rates, with forcible con-
formity
to the Establishment in respect to civil rights,
with exclusion from the advantages of English Uni-
versities, chiefly founded by their Catholic ancestors
for common benefit ? After a general election, will
the Reformers be less clamorous against the existing
defects of the Representative System? Even idiots
must see that, .as Tories, the embryo Ministers will
rush to immediate suicide ; that, as Reformers, they
will be eternally disgraced—broken up as a party, and
gibbeted for the gaze of future historians. But they
cannot be Reformers ; they know not how to perpe-
trate their iniquity, if so minded. Sir Robert Peel is

an orator, not a Statesman. He has disqualified
himself as a Liberal Minister. The Tory party has
decked him out as the victim of their last sacrifice.
They are practising the " fatal delusion" on the
Sovereign so well described by the new Premier in
1832. The Mansion-house, we hear, is to be the
altar where the victim will be offered up, and the
temple of " sounding speeches." The Lord Mayor"
(whose character stands recorded by the Tories —in a
'Treasury Minute of February, 1814) is to provide an
occasion for the Tory Pharisees and hypocrites, in the
Egyptian-hall. There, we presume, the new Mini-
sters will seek the " favour of the populace by the
most despicable prostitution." The people will not,
however, be deluded by Sir Robert Peel. We cannot
think that he will -dare to attempt deceiving them.
The Baronet never was a Reformer ; he cannot act
the farce ; he knows not how to play his part, or wear
the mask. To plunge into the wide " gulf between
himself and office," is one feat ; to escape destruction
by the leap, is another act, considerably more difficult.
We shall see whether the new Curtius will save his
country at the cost of his own existence. The chasm
will soon close over the modern Roman.—. Morning
Chronicle.

• We rejoice to state that our anticipations have been
fully realized. The very names of Chandos, Murray,
Knatchbull, Baring, Goulburn, and Herries, afford
a triumphant reply to the cavils and affected doubts of
'our ex-Ministerial contemporaries, and hold out to
the country prospects which we began to apprehend
the folly, imbecility, and profligacy of the " Omnibus
Medley" had for ever concealed from our sight. Where
is now the lingering hope that the Administration
could not be formed ? Where the " flattering unetion"
that men would not be found prepared to rescue the
of epiricism and misrule ?
;ed and selfish triumph with ,
licalism received the announce-
!y had refused to give his

empire from the effects
NVh44,lftlat•iltictigEresse
w*TiTrjhe-otßipro r4adi
,
ts.t. 1,7,v
it•
. .
Af/
itt*GaJla