The Sun.
London, England, 1833-02-11 00:00:00

English since the abolition of the profligate old
native " Parliament of College-green." The
absentees are eternally railed against by the
O'Connell party, as sinners are apt to lay all their
own offences on the Devil. Will any one be
pleased to answer Mr. Shaw's pithy and epi-
grammatic remark, " that absentees are abused
in words for not residing, while residents are by
acts compelled to become absentees ?" Who,
indeed, that has the means of flight at his dis-
posal will keep his family where, by day and
night, they are perpetually in danger of being
massacred ? However, we must add a warning
to Ministers, that they are not to calculate their
future majorities upon all other questions by a
reference to those which supported them on
the address. No criterion could be more falla-
cious. They were supported by many not other-
wise placing much confidence in them-1, be-
cause the question was an address to His Ma-
jesty on the speech ; 2, because it was whether
there should be law or anarchy in Ireland ; 3,
because it was whether the British empire should
or should not be dismembered ? Gentlemen
who reinforced the Ministers on such questions
may consistently, and will most certainly, aban-
don them on others, where the merits of the
case shall be less unequivocal and obvious,—
where Ministers may seem to display any vacil-
lation in giving the English people, or the Irish,
an ample measure of remedial justice. If Mi-
nisters stop short of the fulness of Church Re-
form, they are lost ; if they attempt to raise
disputes between class and nation,—between
Crown and nation,—or between Church and
nation,—they are lost. They must raise them-
selves to the level of circumstances, or every
hour will sink them in more mortifying and
hopeless desertion by those who would else be
inclined to serve and aid them. The people do
not want the sacrifice of the Church, but they
will not be sacrificed for its aggrandizement.
Corning to particulars, give the Irish poor laws,
and you at once strike off three-fourths from
the evil of absentees. A poor-rate will in-

statitly assess the absentee like all other property,
making great men feel, if for the first time, that
the poor have rights and that themselves have
duties.— Times.
We said that we should to-day make some
remarks upon the debate with which the House
of Commons during the past week has been oc-
cupied. Our readers need not fear that we shall
invite them to a tedious recapitulation of the
arguments used on the one side and the other,
or to a profitless criticism upon the tones and
attitudes of the many new aspirants for political
renown. According to the fashion we have of
late constantly followed, we consider this debate
with reference to the insight it affords us into
the strength and the purpose of political parties,
with reference to the signs it affords us whereby
to anticipate good or to apprehend evil. We
remark in the first place, that the first House of
Commons assembled under the Reform Act ap-
pears to us to comprise less of talent and less of
information than any of its predecessors. There
never was a debate of such length, and upon
matters of such moment, in which there was so

frequent an introduction of the lowest per-
sonality, the vulgarest rant, the merest com-
mon-place ; in which there was so constant a
neglect of all that is reasonable, and practical,
and just. From one of our debutants we heard
the ferocious diatribes of the Dublin press ; from
another the solemn platitudes of the Westminster
Review. If in the noisy friend of O'Connell,
or in the garrulous disciple of Bentham, we shall
ever recognise either a wise or an honest Mem-
ber of a British Parliament, we will confess that
we are very far wrong in the estimate we form of
the judgment and integrity of both this day.
We observe next that the Ministers of the
Crown have no influence at all in this their own
House of Commons. Their own friends do not
venture to interpret the vote of their supporters
upon the address as a vote of confidence in the
Cabinet, or as a promise of continued adherence.
All who have opportunities of learning the pri-
vate sentiments of individual Members are well
aware of the perilous tenure upon which Lord
Grey at this hour holds office. They know that
the Treasury official was an accurate painter
when he spoke of the temper of the House as
wild and wicked." To many speculators it
appears a desirable thing that the Administra-
tion should possess none of that influence over

the divisions of Parliament which formerly be-
longed to their official station—that every parti-
cular measure, though stamped with the sanction
of Downing-street, should be judged upon its
intrinsic merits. We have always questioned,
for our own part, the possibility of carrying on
the business of the country unless there shall be
found in Parliament a certain number of indi-
viduals reposing a general confidence in the
system adopted by the Cabinet of the day, and
inclined, from that general confidence, to give
them an habitual support. The experiment is
now to be tried. By a large majority of the
present house of Commons the talents of the
Ministers are contemned, and their honesty is
'disputed. The Ministers of the Crown have no
influence in this their own House of Commons.

We express no exultation, we feel no pleasure,
at this apparent impotence of the Executive
Government. We lament it, because we con-
tinue in the belief, differing, we are sorry to see,
from some of our contemporaries, and from one
in particular whose views upon public affairs are
ever entitled to the greatest attention—we
continue, we say, in the belief that the
King's advisers are disposed to pause in their
career, and for the present we do not say to
coalesce with the Conservatives, but at all events
to frustrate and destroy the Levellers. The
tone they have used upon the disturbances in
Ireland and the proceedings to be adopted for
their repression has been strong, almost to in-
temperance ; and they have as yet said no-
thing, done nothing, which leads us to sup-
pose that they cease to consider the Re-
form Act a final measure. Let us, how-
ever, give Mr. Stanley a hint upon this point.
He gave the other night an explanation of
his meaning, which was very superfluous ;
and his superfluous explanation was of course
immediately misunderstood. His intention has
never been at all obscure. He thinks the
people now fully and fairly represented in Par-
liament. In this sense he calls the Reform
Act " a final measure." But he thinks that,
by a Parliatnent thus fully and fairly representing
the people, many useful improvements in Church
and State may be introduced. lln this sense
he does not call the Reform Act " a final
measure." Was ever any man so subtle a
reasoner as to suppose that Mr. Stanley, when
he called the Reform Act " a final measure,"
himself to oppose a revision of the
)Criminal
iiedged Code or the abolition of Select Ves-
tries ? We turn to the Levellers. As we do
not esteem the Ministers strong because their
majority was large, we do not fancy the Level-
lers weak because their minority was small.
We make our carculation from such acquain-