The Sun.
London, England, 1833-01-07 00:00:00

minded and dismayed by continued reports that Mr
Mowers Sutton will be slain proposed for the Chair;
and the Twits are busily 'circulating the scandalous
addition, that he will be nominated with the consent
of the Government, who fear them ! The Tories no-
miciate the Speeker of the Reformed Parliament—the
Tories, whose utmost mneter cannot number one hun-
dred and fifty Members! Certain it is, h wever, that
this announcement has been authoritively made bv
the Conservatives throughout the metropolis; and
in one quarter, we are credibly informed, they ae-
eerted that the Ex- Speaker had been sounded on his
wishes, but had not quite made up his mind. Mr.
Manners Sutton, who had taken the.most formal
and absolute leave of the Speakership which it was
possible for man to take, sought by the Whigs f.
Every Member of the late Parliament was ready to
acknowledge the dignity with which he had presi-
ded, the technical knowledge he had displayed, the
suavity of manners he had evinced—but at the same
time every one felt that he was identified with the
system now passed away ; that he was following
as chief mourner the shadows of the defunct bo-
roughs, and that his only remaining task was that of
consoling their la►e proprietors, and quietly enioying,
his retiring pension with such titular marks of the
Royal favour as custom might obtain for him. Such
must have been the unavoidable conviction of Lord
Grey and his colleagues, and also:of all the personal
friends of the late Speaker. That the Premier will
be guilty of leading Lis enemies against his friends,
and refresh his stanchest supporters with gall and
vinegar, by placing at the head of a Reforming Par-
liament a sworn enemy "to all reform, is
what no sane man can for one moment
credit. These extraordinary rumours are, pro-
bab:y, the last inventions of the ex-Tory place-
men, who have been unceasingly attempting to
hunt down Lord Grey, and to dig pit-falls for his
simplicity and good nature. Mr. Manners Sutton's
personal character is not impeached by his political
principles ; he was born and educated in the lap of
Toryism; his relations, friends, and connections have
all been rank Tories; his family have existed for the
last century on place and Court favour, and Mr.
Manners Sutton himself will feel with how ill ir
grace he must preside in a reformed and reforming
l'ailiarnent. The timid and timeserving Francis
North, Lord Guilford, the last Chancellor of Chas.
11., would not have been guilty of so gross an in-
consistency. Can any one imagine that Jeffries,
wretch as he was, would have earned the additional
disgrace of presiding in an assembly that heabhorred?
or would William 111. have sanctioned such a no-
mit-I.6°n, even if his Mitiisiers had been so besotted
as to recommend it ? What would the inflexible
Maynard or the virtuous Somers have said to such
conduct as this ? They would have spurned and
trampled upon the recommenders, unless they had
sued out a commission of lunacy. Would a Common-
wealth Parliament ever have been induced to elect
ne Speaker a creature of the Stuarts ? Did the
Convention Parliament, in 1689, select a Jacobite
for their President ? Did the French Deputies, in
1830, send to Holyrood House to ask Charles the
Tenth who should be President of the Chambers ?
If Mr. Manners Sutton should himself covet or con-
sent to the appointment—which no man can credit
—will the Reformed Parliament become parties to
such a solemn mockery ? Is it possible that the
Ex• Speaker can represent the opinions, the inten-
tion•, or the associations of a House of Commons
elected under the provisions of the Reform Acts ?
If the representatives of the new elective franchise
will submit to so gross and flagrant an inconsistency,
the hopes of the nation will be prostrate in the dust,
and the Administration perpetrating so grievous an
outrage on the public opinion of the country will
speedily follow. The searing, scorching blaze of
public indignation will speedily consume a Ministry
that so far lot get its own dignity and the national
honour. An act of such inconsistency would now be
ruinous to an Administration whose existence de•
pends on public opinion. Public opinion, unequivo-
cally manifested, kept them in office, when Toryism
would have driven ►hem from it. To the nation they
are indebted for their present possession of the
wands of office, and let them remember that they
who confer " the Majesty on King.," can and will,
if needs be, reduce them to the powerless situation
in which they have been placed during the greater
part of their political lives. But we cannot credit
the Tory rumour that any such " compromise" of
Ministerial fears has been made. Nothing would
be more palpably offensive to the more decided class
of Reformers and new Members of the House of
Commons. Even Mr. Hume would pay as little
heed to an economy cry of saving two or .three
years half-nay of 4,000/. a year (the ex-Speaker's
retiring pension), as he did to the Tory humbug
about the Dutch loan. The sincere RefOrmers and
the independent Coin ty Members of Parliament,
will he naturally desirous of electing a Speaker re-
presenting the liberal opinions of the House of Com-
mons; nor can Lord Grey believe that he will be
suspected of repudiating Mr. Manners Sutton for
the despicable purpose of gaining preferment for
political friends. Lord Grey need not follow the
Tonle: in their jobs and corrupt modes of upholding
misgovernment, but he cannot adopt a better rule
than the invariable practice of the Tories—to hold
political enemies at arms' length, and to surround an
Administration with sincere and able friends. The
legitimate patronage of Government must be applied
to the support of the Administration. Mr. Man-
ners Sutton was palpably returned—the representa-
tive of the hot-bed of Toryi-m and High Church
principles—for the notorious purpose of being
planted as a thorn in the side of the Premier. Will
be, like Cleopatra, hug an asp to his bosom ? What
must be the sovereign contempt of Mr. Mariners
Sutton himself for these base reports —that he could
So demean himself as to accept the office of Speaker,
pm; that Lord Grey's Whig Administration would
propose. as the first act of a reformed Parliament,
th,t election of the ex-Tory Speaker! Let Mr.
Manners Sutton ascend quietly to the Upper House,
ecliere he would be a far less political nuisance to
Lord Grey, than if invested wish authority and
office as head of the Commonalty of the kingdom.
Besides, the new House of Commons will take
measures to prevent the Speakership being any
longer a national burden upon posterity. We
would not have this most responsible and impor-
tant office so ill recompensed, that no poor mate
should venture to undertake it ; but if it is to be
treated as so aristocratical a station, select a gentle-
man of independent property, whom a Peerage will
amply compensate, without a lumping pension. It
is curious to trace how corruption has penetrated
every crevice of the British Governmen'. The
Speakership formerly never was connected weh
pensions " for lives," or necessarily required thou-
sands per annum for six months' official dirty.
Durit g the last three centuries there have been sixty
Speakers ; arid if all of them—their wives and
el:ildren unto the third and fourth generations—had
NiRP quartered on the public purse, the " National"
D bt might have been prodigiously increased. This
monstrous political abuse originated in the selection
of legal men for the office. Of later years in the
Tory revels of corruption, the Speakers have been
only nominally members of the- profession of the
law, which afforded a pretext for pensioning them
and their progeny, as compensation for supposed
professional sacrifices. Country gentlemen of for-
tune, of sound English sense and enlightened poli-
tical opinions, with habits and knowledge: of the
forms of public business—and of whom there are
rnany-e-will sufficiently fulfil the duties of the
Speakership; the new House of Commons will not
desire or need 10 be kept in " order" by the Ex-
Speaker, Mr. Manners Sutton, Tory representative
of the University of Cambridge The very suspicion
is disgusting.—Morning Chronicle.
The report of the Select Committee for inquiring
into the state of the disturbed counties in Ireland has
been priuted, and will be found in this day's Times.
Although this report he, upon the whole, an nee-
resting document, it labours under the misfortune
attlibutabie to so many of its predecessors, viz', want
of depth in the investigations of which is: the re-
cord and result. Nothing can be more ebvidus than