The Sun.
London, England, 1834-11-27 00:00:00

AL ELECTION

IN?.)

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIO JOURNALS.

It would give us great satisfaction to be able to
state that the Duke of Wellington has seen the folly
of his ways—that he has become an admirer of the
Reform Bill—that he loathes the old corrupt borough-
mongering system, which hitherto he has so fervently
admired—that be detests the policy with regard to
Belgium, Portugal, Spain, and France, which he re-
commended during the whole time that the Whigs were
in office—and that he has renounced all the obnoxious
opinions entertained by him with regard to reforms in
our laws, or our municipal institutions, and in the
Churches of England and Ireland. Repentance, when
it springs from the heart, is never too late. " There is
more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth,
than over ninety and nine just persons which need no
repentance." But we have no evidence of the re-
cantation of the Duke of Wellington of his former
errors of opinion. We are bound in justice to his
Grace to believe that lie retains all his old Tory opi-
nions—that in his heart he detests the Reform Bill,
and all that has taken place under it. All those who
enjoy the confidence of his Grace continue to express
Tory and High Church opinions. In the Quarterly
Review, for November 1834, there is a postscript,
dated Nov. 19, since the dismissal of the Melbourne
Ministry, attributed to Mr. Croker,, who is known to
be the adviser of his Grace, in which we are told that
the majority of the late Cabinet " could not meet Par-
liament without announcing strong measures of what
they called Church reform, or, to peak more truly
and plainly, Church spoliation." This means, that
with the party to which the puke belongs, the Church
which the M,ibourne Ministry would have
conceded means sr,oliation. Can his Grace be of ano-
ther opinion But the Times has put the claims of
the Duke of Wellington to hold the reins of Govern-
ITYInt on another issue. It assumes that the Duke is
as hostile as ever to Reform in his heart, but that
this is the strongest of all grounds for our trust-
ing him :—" There may (says our contemporary)
be advantages in the accomplishment of extensive
Reforms by those who had heretofore opposed
them, even greater, in some respects, than if they
had been obtained through the earlier advocates
of such measures. When an habitual stickler for
things as they were' has been brought round, it is not
only like the conversion of an old sinner—a legitimate
cause of gladness to the faithful—but it tends to settle
doubting and restless disputants ; it tends to satisfy all.
objectors that the thing was right, or that it hadbecolne
inevitable, and that further opposition was chimerical
or useless. If, for instance, Catholic Emancipation
had been carried by Whigs, against the sense of the
Duke of Wellington, Sir R. Peel, and the intelligent,
as contrasted with the fanatical and unreasoning Tories,
no man surely will contend that the adverse portion of
our countrymen (for such there were) would so easily
or so speedily have set down contented with the bill, as
when they saw that it was introduced by those who had
been Anti-Catholics, but who, in yielding to what they
acknowledged to 1,-,*e a necessity, gave the most convinc-
ing proof to others that such necessity was of overpow-
ering force. So will it be with other reforms, intro-
duced and executed through the agency of old Conser-
vatives. They will not only enact the law, but they
will do more—they will settle the controversy and
silence the most inveterate objectors ; not merely
enforcing the legislative act, but restoring the peace
of society." These are startling doctrines. If a man
who had long lived by robbing, were to present him-
self to you, and exclaim—" There is no use in my
attempting to carry on this game any longer ; I find
robbing a bad trade ; pray trust your money and goods
to me ; as I am well known, my employment by you
will make other men of loose principles turn to
honest courses, as they will see that nothing is to be
gained by thieving"—would you trust such a man
with your keys ? According to the Times, dishonest
men ought always to be trusted. in preference. The
greatest benefactors to socirzty are those who, after
long opposing all that is just and right, offer without
any change of opinion to execute what they have so
opposed. The highest claim to public confidence,
is the having always stood in the way of the public
good I rnere is no danger of doctrines like these
doing larm, because the sound unsophisticated sense
of mankind instinctively repels them with abhorrence.
They tend to the utter demoralization of society ;
but their tendency is so obvious, that no man, how-
ever obtuse his understanding, can be gulled by them.
With respect to the repeal of the Test and Corpora-
tion Acts, and the concession of the Catholic claims,
there is really no analogy between the circumstances
under which these measures were passed, and the cir-
cumstances under which we are called on to trust the
Duke. His Grace was then in power, the people were
not represented ; and as he yielded not to conviction,
it is plain that he could only yield to necessity. It is
possible that the fanatical and unreasoning .Tories,
might be more disposed to give way when, they were
told by their own leader that further resistAnce was use-
less. We are, however, far from cert that it would
.
not have been better in his Grace t.O have honestly ad-
mitted that he had obtained a no.,ev light, than to have
claimed an adherence to all his former opinions while
he yielded to the power of s opponents, because by
the course he pursued inculcated the lesson, that
nothing was to be obtained from Governments by reason
—but everything 1:1 force, a lesson which, by shaking
the confidencer,f the people in the honesty of States-
men, lays the foundation for confusion and anarchy.
But be this as it may, it was not for the people to re-
fuse ju'A and proper measures from the Duke, because
they might not approve of the grounds on which he
conceded them. They might have preferred receiving
Emancipation, and the repeal of the Test Laws, from
Statesmen alive to the justice, as well as the necessity
of these measures ; but they had no choice. They
could have said to the master of a boroughmongering
Government—We will not take Emancipation from
you—we will wait till, by the success of a rebellion in
Ireland, we have laid you and the boroughmongers
prostrate at our feet, and then, and then only, will we
consent to receive it. The Duke would then have
been justified in refusing concession ; and what is more,
he would have ranged on his side all the well-disposed
advocates of Emancipation, through whom principally
the Catholics were successful. His Grace might
have played the same game with Reform ; and, in-
deed, it was expected that he would profit by the
signs of the times, and concede such a measure of
Parliamentary Reform as would have satisfied the
people for the time. But he insulted the nation by
a bold unblushing advocacy of all the corruptions
of the boroughmongering Government ; he extolled it
as the best of all possible Governments, at a time when
the people were peculiarly sensUe to its defects ; and
the consequence was, the agitation which drove him
from power, and gained. for us the Reform Bill. We
have now obtained teat which enables us to exclude
from power all men whose principles do not receive
our approbation. We have obtained in a Parliament
chosen by constituencies identified in interest with the
natin,
an instrument through which we may securely
count on all desirable and expedient reforms. We can
now determine what Ministers shall receive our confi7
dente, and what Ministers shall not. Being, then, in
the possession of this power, should we not be justly
the object of the contempt and scorn of the whole civi-
li zed world, if we were to say—" The King has made
the Duke of Wellington Minister—a man who op.
posed the charter of our liberties, who opposed
every measure introduced for effecting the reforms
in Church and State for which the charter was
demanded—who advocated In Parliament the cause
of every foreign despot—who lamented every ad-
vance made by the people of every country
towards Constitutional Government ; and we will
support the Ministry of this man, because, though
he detests all that we wish, he and his supporters—find-
ing that if they do not give effect to the Reform Bill,
their opponents will, in which case these opponents
will retain possession of valuable places and exten-
sive patronage—are determined to offer violence to
their consciences, and do as much in the way of the
reform of abuses as if they were sincere in the work,
in order to know once more the sweets of Qua-iter-day."
We defy any man to construe the conduct of the Duke,
as explained by the Times, in any other way. He op-
poses all Reforh'is—b".. throws every difficulty in the
way of the 11.1florm Ministers—he condemns their
—he exposes the State to the danger which
uisappointed hopes is calculated to produce—and he