The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

The Stafford Election Indemnity Bill was
read a second time last night, and ordered to be
committed on Monday next. The manlier in
which some of their Lordships approach this
subject is not a little amusing. Few of our
readers are such green-horns as not to be aware
that a Bill having for object to put an end to the
bribery of a particular borough, will be unpo-
pular with certain parties—exactly in proportion
as it is likely to be effective for that object. Du-
ring the discussions on the Reform Bill, it be-
came necessary to throw off all disguise, and to
declare in so many words that the Government
eould not be carried on without venal boroughs.
But a little more management. is now necessary.
The great point now is, to affect an extraordi-
nary hatred of bribery, and to allow no one who
has had recourse to it to escape the consequences
of his guilt. It is a master-stroke of policy to
be able to shelter a corrupt borough, by the very
intensity of the hatred of corruption. If the ex-
clusion from indemnity of the very persons who
can give the evidence, can be made to assume the
guise of a love of impartial justice, so that the
corrupter as well as the corrupted may suffer, who
would think of attributing such impartiality to a
love of bribery ? What a step would be gained
by criminals, if, in the penury of evidence, all
participators in crime should be rigidly excluded
from indemnity ? Lord Lyndhurst and Lord
Wynford were the actors last night. Lord
Lyndhurst, cool and crafty, seems quite aware of
the necessity of moving with great circum-
spection—
" Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike ;
Just hint a fault, and hesitate
4‘ He must," he said, " make an observation or
two', arising out of the Bill. It was not like
other Bills directed to a similar object. All
other Bills of the kind were only to indemnify
the persons examined, but this Bill proposed
something altogether different. It was a Bill to
indemnify all persons examined as witnesses—
candidates, and all others who had violated the
law and been guilty of bribery in the election of
burgesses for the borough of Stafford. This was
not an accident, for the first clause corresponded
to the title. It was to the effect that every
person whatever, guilty of bribery at the election
of Stafford, whether examined as witnesses or
not, should be entirely and completely indem-
nified.' " The question whether A or B has
been guilty of bribery is, as every person of any
judgment must see, of very inferior moment,
compared with the question whether a place
which has always been notoriously corrupt, and
always will be corrupt, shall be deprived of that
which allows the possibility of the guilt. The
great point for which penal law is instituted is
the prevention of crime. By disfranchising
Stafford, we do what is of ten thousand times
more importance than punishing the individuals
who may have offended, which is only of conse-
quence in so far as it might deter others from bribing
(and experience proves that bribery cannot be
put down by penalties), we reach at once the
source of the evil. We amputate the diseased
lima of the constitution. Lord Wynford is not
so good a tactician as his brother peer. He goes
more directly to work. "He would (he said)
allow indemnification only to those who really
were examined ; and he would except the can-
didates at past elections and their agents. He
had been much misrepresented on this point,
for there could not be a greater enemy to bribery
than himself; but he wished to do away with it
in the most effectual way, by punishing the
principals who corrupted ; and if any were to
escape, let it be the unfortunate misled wretches
who were seduced into the offence. If there
were not some alterations made, the prime
movers of guilt would escape." This is admi-
rable. The unfortunate misled wretches, like
certain other unfortunates, will have no dealings
but with those who are willing to mislead them.
Innocence and purity must not approach Stafford.
When certain other impure places draw down on
them the indignation of the vicinage, the ques-
tion is not what is to be done with those who
seduced the unfortunate misled wretches, but to
prevent wickedness from being any longer perpe-
trated in that place. As there must he two parties
in bribery—the briber, and the bribed—it is of
little consequence to the public whether the
briber or the bribed be the most guilty ; but it is
of great consequence that there shall be no more
bribery; and Lord Wynford is not so simple as
to suppose that candidates and agents will be
such fools as to produce evidence which may
subject themselves to personal consequences.
The condition, therefore, that the candidates
and agents, as well as the bribed, shall suffer, is
declaring, in so many words, that there shall be
bribery in all times to come. All this affected
hatred of bribery—all this anxiety to punish the
whole of the guilty parties—will deceive no one.
It means this, and only this—we will take care
that no one shall be punished—we will take care
that bribery shall flourish, by excepting from
indemnity the only persons by whom the dis-
closures can be made. The whole is a farce,
and the plot is thread-bare. No one can be
deceived. John Bull is not such an ass as to
be the dupe of such obvious trickery, He who
wishes the end must wish the means. Don'

tell us of your hatred of bribery if you exclude
the only means by which it can be struck at,
without supposing candidates and agents the
greatest idiots that ever existed—noodles anxious
to effect an object which can be attained at the
expense of the most ruinous consequences to
themselves.—Morning Chronicle.

'We shall not touch here upon the personal
dispute which has taken place between Sir John
Hobhouse and one of his opponents, Colonel
Evans, except to say that the affair ended ami-
cably and honourably for all parties. But Sir
John Hobhouse has been beaten on the poll by
a trifling majority of much less than a third part
of the general body of electors, those who ab-
stained from voting being, ,no doubt, indifferent
to the dispute. This indicates a lamentable state
of the public mind in the city of Westminster,
the vast majority not caring to trouble themselves
with such a conflict ; and of those who did vote,
the greater part, as we decidedly think, voting
erroneously. The Tories, we presume, are no
less gratified than the Radicals, or Destructives,
that the temperate Reformer has been defeated;
and Mr. Escott consequently congratulated the
mob, that though he himself had failed, Sir John
Hobhouse was not the successful candidate. LVIr
George Dawson exhibited himself on the hust-
ings ; but if we trust the report (as we are as-
sured we may), copied from The Sun, he strove
to excite the angry feelings, which, if he had pos.,'
sessei any influence, he should have endeavoured
to control. His abuse of ourselves made us smile; it
was natural for an ex-placeman to suppose we
must be paid for our services. Let that pass :
we certainly do not think it worth an answer.
But are the Tories, with Mr. G. Dawson at their.
head, wise in the. course they are now pursuing!!
Because they were not suffered to continue their
career, they endeavour to throw all things into

[confusion : they had better join with the legal
authorities in restoring good order. Ministers
' might, perhaps, have lent Sir John Hobhouse
some assistance ; but there has been a delicacy
throughout, somewhat approaching to fastidious-
! ness, which is but little calculated to triumph in
the stormy field of politics. The Conservatives,
less scrupulous, have declared that they cared
not who came in for Westminster provided
Hobhouse were thrown out ; and yet, though
malignant, they have been feeble in producing
the mischief, for, at last, how few voters
have they been able to bring forward,
either for the support of their own candidate,
Escott, or for the overthrow of him to whom
they are most hostile. They hardly broke
ground on a soil in which, if they were to
succeed in digging a pit, they must be the first
to fall into it themselves. We suspect, indeed,
that the day is not very distant when the Tories
will bitterly regret the triumph which they have
assisted in accomplishing for a party whose
hatred of them, notwithstanding the present
monstrous coalition, is deep, malignant, incur-
able. The aristocratic opponents of the con-
stitutional party in France made a sad blunder
when they lent their aid to the Marats and the
Robespierres in order to overthrow the Giron-
dists. The success of the poor dupes was some-
what greater than they expected : they did indeed
destroy the real friends of liberty, but " ere their
shoes were old" they were led to the same seal-
fold by their Radical allies, who wanted no
longer to be encumbered by their patronage,—
far less valuable than their magnificent estates.
We do not say that any consequences so frightL.ul
are to be looked to as the immediate result of
the sudden friendship sworn between the Con-
servatives and Destructives, but we are sure that
such is the natural tendency of that alliance.
And who does not see in Mr. G. Dawson all
those qualities which make a man the easy in-
strument of his own ruin in the hands of cool
and daring men ? His good-natured credulity,
his impetuous temper, his want of discriminate
reflection, and consequent want of judgment,are
like so many leading-strings already prepared for
the grasp of his worst enemies ; and who but
must pity the simple vet kind-hearted victim,
eagerly and unconsciously assisting at the pre-
parations for his own immolation. For his sake,
even for the sake of his party, we trust that the
victory will soon be converted into a defeat.
The people of Westminster will soon shake off;
some their sloth, others their delusion, and im-
mediately address themselves to the task of reco-
vering that station in public estimation which
for a time they have lost. We learn that a
petition is in preparation to set aside the elec-
tion, for some informalities : should this be the
case, we have no doubt that in the interval be-
tween this and the next election the most deter-
mined spirit will be alive to secure a triumph for
the cause of rational liberty.—Times.
The present Ministers have had more than
" three warnings " of the fate that, sooner or
later, attends those who have climbed upon the
shoulders of the people into power, and then
have attempted to kick down the ladder by
which they rose. The last and greatest warning
is the result of the Westminster election. If

eat does not open their eyes to the folly of
ieir conduct they must be blind indeed, and
nothing can prevent their rushing on political
perdition. If the present House of Commons
—which is so complaisant to power, that it
hastens to rescind its own votes at the command
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—were im-
mortal, Ministers might console themselves for
the indignation of public opinion out of doors
by the votes of servile majorities in Parliament ;
but as the " collective omnipotence " of the
House must one day expire, and each individual
Member be called upon to give an account of
his stewardship to the people, Ministers had
better look to some more substantial and per-
manent support than the fleeting triumphs of
Treasury influence in Parliament, or " set their
houses in order," and resign themselves to the
fate which they have provoked. The time is past
when the people of England could be made the
blind instruments of keeping this party or that
in power, for the benefit of any set of men who
seek their own aggrandizement by the sacrifice of
the public interests. Things have been brought
to a crisis when the nation must either have
cheap and good government, or be prepared for
the worst calamities. We know there are vir-
tues, industry, mind, and energy in the people of
England sufficient to restore this country to a
high pre-eminence among the nations of Europe,
and to bring back much of the internal prosperity
which it has lost ; but to give free scope to those
means of national regeneration, there must be
men at the head of affairs who rely more upon
talent than trick, and more upon honesty than
either. It is curious enough to observe that the
same servile journals which flattered the Duke
of 'Wellington to his destruction are doing the
same " friendly" office for the Ministry of Lord
Grey. Those journals dare to bully, to abuse,
or sneer at the people for any act of indepen-
dence which they may exercise for the protec-
tion of their own interests. They would have the
Reform Bill, which the nation was thrown al-
most into a convulsion to carry—they would have
that Reform Bill which was to bring all the
blessings of good and cheap government in its
train, to be nothing more than an elaborately-en-
grossed piece of parchment laid by among the cu-
riosities ofthe Cabinet, or rolled up in the hand of
Lord Grey when he sits for his portrait, and as
barren of any practical results as a scroll of
Egyptian papyrus in the grasp of a mummy.
But the Reform Bill was not worth a straw,
unless as the instrument to bring about what
the public are now demanding-7—retrenchment,
economy, relief from overwhelming taxation,
and a wise and honest administration of the
affairs of the State. We are glad to see that
the reformed House of Commons is again to
be put to the test on the subject of the assessed
taxes. As to the impossibility of IVlinisters
being able to dispense with them without sub-
stituting a property tax or some other, it is a
mere political fiction. If the House of Com-
mons were to assert it a thousand times, it
would be just as true as the famous resolution
of Vansittart, which an unreformed House of
Commons placed upon its journals—that a one
pound note and a shilling were equal in value to
a golden guinea, at a time when the guinea, as
compared with the note, was at seven shillings
premium. If the House of Commons, at the
command of a Minister, were to deny that a
guinea and a feather would gravitate an equal
distance in the same time, in an exhausted re-

ceiver, or that the three angles of a triangle are
equal to two right angles, would the denial of a
law of nature, or a mathematical truth, be the
less absurd and ridiculous because it was
made by the House of Commons ?
Ministers, when out of office, held it as
certain as any mathematical truth, that the
assessed taxes and others could be taken off
without the necessity of substituting a tax on

property. Now they are living on the taxes,
they have altered their opinion ; but the result
of the Westminster election will go far to con-
vince them that the people have not changed
theirs. Will Sir Francis Burdett resign ? is now
the question. That he will be called upon by
;his constituents to do so, as well as the other
:delinquent Members of the metropolitan
!boroughs, we believe. Indeed, if Sir Francis
Burdett were sincere in what he said at
Ito
former election, it must be more gratifying
to his own feelings to go out than to stay in ;
jfor he said he "would rather be turned out with
Hobhouse than be returned with any one else."
He has now the opportunity of proving the
fidelity of this Siamese attachment. It will save
i him from the unpleasantness of listening to any
i more of those motions of what callshesr
i"
Johntwo
penny-halfpenny economy." `What
Hobhouse said the other day about " scratching
I out a pension, earned by public service, with a
dash of a pen," lets in some light upon the
!facility with which Ministers might dispense with
pensions not earned by any public or honest
service. In conclusion, let us merely ask, why
is it, if Sir J. Hobhouse had bona fide resigned
his office, that no Secretary for Ireland has yet
been appointed ? Westnzinster has, however,
accepted his resignation.-111orning Herald.
Westminster "is itself again." The fetters
of a tyrannical faction have been broken asunder
—the true principle has triumphed, despite
all opposition ; and the man of the people—the
candidate whose cause we advocated—is one of
the representatives of Westminster ! Of this
glorious result we are truly proud, and we thank,
with all our heart, the people of Westminster for
it ; not because they have chosen the man on
whom we had set the seal of our approbation,
but because they have done justice to them-
selves, have thrust from among them one who
had deceived them, and, by their decision, given
a great moral lesson, not only to all Members
of Parliament, but to the whole country. This
is the great source of our triumph ; not that we
do not consider Colonel Evans a most fit and
proper person to represent the people of West-
minster, or of any other place standing in need
of a representative, but because we deem the
punishment of one who has been deemed to have
betrayed his constituents to be infinitely more
useful as an example to the Government, and
to the community at large, than the triumph
in an election contest, of the best man
who could, by possibility, have pro-
posed himself as a candidate for West-
minster, or for any other place. The lesson is
important in two respects—first, as demonstrat-
ing the determination of the people not to be
imposed upon by political quacks; and, se-
condly, as evincing their unequivocal desire that
the taxes on houses and windows should be
repealed. As against the Government the deci-
sion of yesterday is only important as a warning ;
but it is, nevertheless, most important in that
respect; and, under feelings of the purest friend-
ship to it, we do hope and trust that it will take
warning from it—that it will, at length, discover
that the times are altered, and that men and
things are altered with it—that the Government
of the country cannot be earried on upon the
old principle of buying support from those who,
contrary to the spirit of the constitution, had
support to give, and made as regular a market
of it as there is of cabbages in Covent-garden,
and that no Government can possibly exist in
this country which is not based upon a consi-
deration of the people's welfare, and is deter-
mined to make that welfare its first, its last, its
only consideration.—Morning Advertiser.
We yesterday recalled to the recollection of
our readers the circumstances in which the
holders of %Vest India property are at this time
placed. The most distinct admissions have been
made of the expediency and necessity of an in-
quiry into the state of the colonies ; but the
West India body have been absolutely cheated
out of that demand for inquiry which, if it had
been•put forward, not even the effrontery of a
Whig could have resisted, The appointment
of a committee having been refused, and the
Government having determined to act upon its
own responsibility, there was but one way in
which the refusal could be justified and the de-
termination approved. The plan to be proposed
to the House of Commons should have been
founded on such accurate knowledge as to make
it manifest that inquiry was wholly unnecessary,
and it should have been framed on so equitable
a principle as to vindicate the temerity of those
who, instituting no investigation, relying on no
report, presented it as the production of their
own labours and the test of their own sagacity
to the country and to the Legislature. The
plan is published. We present it in another
part of our paper to our readers. We shall ex-
amine it in detail on Monday. For the present we
must confine ourselves to a brief expression of
indignation for the outrageous robbery it per-
petrates, and disgust at the abominable wicked.
ness and despicable folly in which it has been
devised. It takes from the slave the tasks which
as a slave he performs ; it leaves to the slave
the advantages which as a slave he enjoys. It
deprives the owner of the property which the
laws have secured to him ; it enforces upon
the owner the liabilities which the laws have
imposed upon him. It proposes to raise from
the English people a larger sum than the Eng-
lish people are willing to give ; it proposes to
pay to the West India planters a less sum than
the West India planters are entitled to demand.
It succeeds in the subversion of every principle ;
it fails in the gratification of any prejudice. It
is miserably weak in its policy ; it is monstrously
gigantic in its iniquity. One merit only it has;
let us be just and state it fairly. That merit is its
utter impracticability. There will be no compro-
mise upon this matter; no tampering with plain
right, no sacrificing of the manifest interests of
the empire. The West India body will
meet the proposals of the Government with
the defiance which a bold man opposes to a
footpad. Petitions to the King, the Lords, and
the Commons will be presented without delay.
One will set forth the rights of property in the
dtoby the Legislature to the
be infringed but with the
pli
leagnrtoe,r, g
auna
dr a nnt
oe et
planter's consent. Another will state, on the
part of the merchants who hold mortgages on
colonial estates, that in some cases exclusively,
in all cases principally, their mortgage is on the
negroes, not on the land ; and that their mort-
gage deeds are waste paper so soon as Mr.
Stanley's measure shall be carried. A third will
express the alarm already felt by every man inte-
rested in the trade and the commerce of London ;
the conviction entertained by merchants, bankers,
shipowners, that the failure of the West India
slaves would bring with it a crisis which would
make the distresses of individuals forgotten in
general ruin. These things are already medi-
tated ; and we speak of them as certain, because
remonstrances such as these are the necessary
comments upon a scheme of spoliation, the like
of which was never yet propounded by the must