The Sun.
London, England, 1833-06-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE_ PUBLIC JOURNALS,

Every one fores•weefrom the fist announcement of
the measure of re(Ortn, which has since been passed into
Ow, that the old faction --which-had for en many a ears
held possession of the Government,. by the single tervi.re
of an abuse of all the national institution,
institutio, would resist
to the utmost, and, if necessary', die in the last ditch
of
the last of the rotten boroughs. The Toty portion
of
the House of Lords—the great- dept of corruption anal
public robbery—did, indeed, fight a hard battle for their
boroughs, and were only' deterred from carrying the op
position further by the dread of seeing a creation of liberal
Peers, which would have wrested the fixed majority of
the House out of the Tory hands, and thus deprived their
own junta of the power of stopping the future
progress of freedom, riding roughshod over the Whig
Ministry, as often as occasion might s,rve, and eettine
rid of them by one deadly vote at the most convenient mo-
ment. This, we doubt not, was the tactic of the Con-
servative camp, and to its evil ends it was contrived with
subtlety. How these Conservatives had :employed their
official power, is not unknown to the country. It w,ls
a regular scheme of fraud and plunder. They used
the produce of the taxes, as a landlord tines the rent of his
own freehold estate; the treasury was emptied to find un-
earned incomes for their unprovided and expensive families,
and the:public service pinched in many important branch. s
that these swarms of patrician locusts might be multiplied
and gorged. Due pains, however, were at all times
taken by the Tories to shroudh these transactions in impe-
netrable darkness. For years it was with the utmost diffi-
culty that a single official document, when moved for,
could be wrung from the Tory predecessors of the Reform
Government, of a nature to throw light upon the pensions
and sinecures held by their connexions). It was " harsh,"
it was " invidious and unnecessary !" As to any efficient
check to this iniquity, the thing was laughed at ; indeed
it was impracticable, and for this obvious reason—that a
- Parliament which did not represent the nation, but the
oligarchy, could he kept in order no otherwise than by a
systematic bribing of the lordly proprietors of the House
of Commons, and that no administration could stand fur a
month which did not satisfy their cravings. But since
the accession of Lord Grey to office, full information on
the details of this abominable corruption has been laid before
the country. In another part of this journal will be found an
extract from the list of sinecures lately printed by he House
of Commons, where the working of the Tory principle of
government is illustrated by a few instances, taken almost
at random from a catalogue of several hundreds, and which
affords explanations of the virtuous impulses which acet-
ate the conservatives as a body. The efforts now making
by the faction of which a certain military Duke is the
leader to 'rush or clock the reform spirit (such is their
madness !) before its fruits can be made available toathe
people of England by specific measures for carrying the
principle into effect, are just the agonies of a dying robber,
clutching convulsively the purse of gold about to escape
from him for ever. Lord Melville's influence with the
Tory Cabinets for the last 25 or 30 years arose from his
power over a large Scottish faction, which he anal his
ancestor, the celebrated Harry Dundas, had hired
into their service by a dexterous application of the
public money ; nor were the personal interests of the
house of Dundas forgotten. We find by this list that
Viscount Melville (a prime favourite, be it knoll n,
with the Duke of Wellington, and with the unfriended
officers of the British navy—God save the mark !) had
long ago bestowed upon himself a pretty sinecure, en-
titled " Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland," producing
to this patriotic Tory a good 3,0001. per annum. His
Lordship's son, the Hon. William Dundas, has another
sinecure, that of the Keeper of the Signet, 2,300/., and a
third sinecure (Good Heaven !) viz., Register of Seising,
of 5,500/. per annum-11,0001. between father and son !
Lord Ellenborough (a Conservative, not without cause
shown) has an office—a flagrant sinecure, cut down in
defiance of all good government from 9,5001. to upwards
of 6 000/. a year, besides half of another sinecure of
2,000/. ! The Irish Tory (Knox) Lord Ranfurly has
wriggled himself, by a discreet management of his bo-
rough of Dungannon, into a sinecure legal office, for
which he has been awarded the villanoul " compensa-
tion" of 7,1501. per annum. So, Lord Hardwicke,
compensation to the amount of 7,150/. per annum;
two Beresfords (" Beresfords," a name to turn a whole
nation's stomach !) have sinecure compensation of
4,300/. per annum ; Earl Bathurst (old Bathurst),
3,700/. per annum ; the Duke of Montrose, an old Tory
Duke, 2.000/. per annum ; so Seymours (Hertford Sey-
mours), Jenkingons, Percevale, Kenyons, Malme,burys,
Manchesters (Duke of Manchester), figure in this precious
list, all atrocious Tories. There are others, almost end-
less, male and female; they shall be notified and enlarged
upon at the fitting season. They are alt of the same kid.
ney—the Wellington faction. With them any guaiditte-
ship, by representatives of the people, over their oat n
money, any obstacle to the Tory monopoly and perpetuity
of plunder, is no less than "revolution." Equality of
rights, and of legal protection, that, in the eyes of the
Tory interest of the Wellington clique—that is republican-
ism, and must he put down by the sword. Yea, that is
the final decision and doctrine of the Tories. " Make the
Duke Minister," they cry, "and he will put the rascals
down in a month." He will take off the as-
sessed taxes to gain a little passing popularity, He
will give 1/. notes to augment the amount of gambling
speculation and (utterly worthless) money. He
will take reaction (ay, "reaction," the idiots expect
that) at the flood, and then dissolve the Parliament. And
what Parliament will he get by such a dissolution ? " Re-
tern a Tory Parliament through dint of enormous bribery,
goverri by its votes, and marshal the army to support
them." Why, the whole corporation has gone stark mad.
What ! bribe the English nation, once awake to the plots.
of its enemies, into a co-operation with them? All the
treasures that have been dug out of the earth since the

deluge would not buy the present, however imperfect,

constituency of England to the return of a Tory 'Parlia.:

mend Let that game, then, be abandoned at once as

desperate—let the military faction, and that other spurious
faction which torments and disgraces the Royal chambers
—let them stick to more feasible devices—let them appeal
directly to the bayonet. Fail of course it will, but fail

it cannot more assuredly than the blockhead scheme of
rating this roused people by a conservative Hou•e of
Commons. Toryism and terrorism are equally bastard
vvetpons ofsovereign power, and bastards enough may he
found to wield them both ; but there is no Falconbridge
about the Court of William.— Times.

The same persons who were at the pains to designate
the late vote of the House of Lords as the certain fore-

runner of a serious eollision between the two Houses, are
now not less sedulously employed in anticipating a similar

result from the negative which they choose to assume that
. _ . .

the Upper House will put upon the Irish Church Bill.
Whether such is likely to be the case or not, we cannot
but condemn the tone in which the House of Lords is

treated upon the occasion. We shall not be suspected of
any want of zeal in the cause of reform when we say that
we never yet saw the cause the justice of which Mild be

promoted by clamour or intimidation, and that to take
a%-ay from the Upper House the first characteristic of a

- -
delibe,-ative assemb'y, is neither more nor less than to de.

prive it pf the main feature which can give value to its
decisions. Nor are we prepared to pay such botuav,e to

the present Ministers, or the present House of Com-
mons, as to say that, whatever the one suggests, or the
other pdsses, is of nececaity so imbued with wisdom or
justice as to put any discussion upon its provisions else-
where entirely out of the question, This would be at any

time to reader the House of Lords a mere cipher in the
Constitution, and would go very far inflect' to et,tdblish

its utter imbecility, which some few public writtrs are
at this time so unwisely and intemperately contending for.
We are among the number of those who have never ceased

to regret the course which the majority of the House of

Lords took upon the Reform Bill—t; cour6e. which evinced

a more narrow-minded attachment to existing and I eredi-
tary abuses, and a retreat in the rear of the spirit a the
age, which could not fail to be injurious both to the cha-

racter of the Horse itself, and, with it, to the inte,,,ts of

the country.

We lived, however, to see that ditli,•ulty

overcome without recourse to any violent and une(ooititu-
Coital measures, and we feel, therefore, the more confident

that the House of Lords, however reluctantly, must be
brought at last to yield to the force of public opinion, un-
equivocally and constitutionally expressed. But then
comes the question whether the Irish Church Reform Bill
is a measure which, in its present state, carries with it all
that overwhelming feeling of assent which for,cd the
House of Lords to give way upon the other measure ?
Upon this point we apprehend there is great differeuea of
opinion. At any rate we do not believe that the details
and consequences of the proposed measure are yet suffi-
ciently understood by the country, to render its immediate
rejection or approval a Matter on which any very strong
feeling either has been or is likely to be evinced. We
look, on the contrary to its approaching discussion in the
Lords as more likely to enlighten the public mind upon the
subject than any which it has yet undergone ; and even
should such discussion end in the present rejection of the
Bill, it does not at all follow that on that account any volli•
lion between the Houses need take place, or that this, who
feel the necessity of a reform in the Irish church need
despair of seeing that reform ere long take place. Were
the House of Lords capriciously to reject Bills either for
the removal or laying on of taxre, or in any nth. r w•inner
embarrass the machine, y of Ciovi:rnment, the rircuu,s! Jur&