The Sun.
London, England, 1834-08-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF T

JOURNALS.

The Standard is ready, we suppose, to make affi-
davit to the truth of the fine story of Lord Grey's last
communication to the King. We are to take it on the
credit of the excellent character of our contemporary.
" We tell the Morning Chronicle (says the Standard)
that it is not our habit, and what is more, that the
public is aware that it is not our habit, either to fabri-
cate articles of news, or to give the character and
authority of truth to what we have received upon
doubtful or suspicious testimony. Having said thus
much, we repeat it, Lord Grey did, in his last com-
munication to the King, avow his Lordship's deli-
berate conviction that nothing but the accession of
a strong, firm, and moderate Conservative Cabinet,
could obviate a revolution of the most disastrous
kind." Our Contemporary, as if aware that the
whole amount of character for veracity he pro-
fesses would be required to obtain belief in this,
takes care to turn his character to the best ac-
count. "We allege the fact (he says), once again
pledging the character of this Journal for veracity
and cautiousness, as the voucher for its truth. We
stand certainly before the public, as witnesses sup-
ported only by our own character ; but then, we stand
as witnesses contradicted only by the Morning Chro-
nicle, resting upon its character, whatever that is.
The public will make its award between us, and we are
contented to abide by it." Our contemporary knows
where his strength lies. Without opposing our cha-
racter to the character of our contemporary, we might
observe, that the story itself is irreconcileable with the
character of Lord Grey, and with his subsequent as
well as his previous conduct. Our contemporary,
however, is better than his word, for he adduces va-
rious reasons in support- of his evidence. Availing,
himself of the light which, after a fifteen years confi-
dence in Lord Brougham's virtue and patriotism, has
suddenly flashed on the Times with regard to his
Lordship, our contemporary argues, " If lie be the
person capable of such dishonest and paltry trickery as
the Times ascribes to. him (If he be ?), Lord Grey
must have found him out by this time ; and without the
testimony of the Times, the public knows, and
Lord Grey must deeply feel, that the Chancellor was
one of the conspirators by whose intrigue and treachery
he (the late Prime Minister) was removed from office.
Can Lord Grey, then, look without alarm—can he
even look without some touch of resentment—upon the
continuance in power of a set of men that would act
with Lord Brougham, or upon the Noble and Learned
Lord's accession to the head of the Government ? Yet
one or other of these calamities is inevitable, except
by the accession of a Conservative Administration."
One little circumstance, which ought to go some way
as evidence of Lord Grey's opinion with respect to
the continuance in power of the set of men alluded to,
is that on the question for the second reading of the
Irish Tithe Bill, Lord Grey entrusted his proxy to
Lord Melbourne. Being such a lover of Conserva-
tive principles, and such a hater of his late colleagues,
Lord Grey ought, according to our contemporary the
Standard, to have done one of two things, either not
vote at all on the question of the Irish Tithe Bill, or
give his proxy to the Duke of Cumberland or Duke of
Wellington. But while so intensely conservative,
Lord Grey was guilty of the hypocrisy of giving his
proxy to the Premier who succeeded him, in favour of
what our contemporary terms a revolutionary measure.
But we will allow our contemporary to proceed with
his argument :
" The extinction of the power of the peerage would surely
be a revolution, whether that extinction should be virtually ef-
fected by compelling the House to conform to the conge of the
House of Commons under penalty of premunire, or any other
penalty, or formally executed by sending the House (to
borrow a phrase employed by one of our contemporaries) to
share the fate of the Houses of Convocation. In either case,
She power cf the House of Lords, in the Constitution, would be
extinguished. All must admit such extinction to amount to a
revolution ; and Lord Grey's known feeling towards his order
would naturally cause him to regard it (and most justly he
would so regard it) as a revolution the most disastrous in cha-
racter—a revolution which would not leave the monarchy three
months' tenure, or any property in the country worth one
year's purchase. The truth is, that every man in the country
now sees that there is no middle course between such revolu-
tion and a return to conservative principles of government."
After this will any one presume to question the story
of Earl Grey's conversion to Conservatism ? But
some people might be inclined to think Earl Grey's
conversion comes a little too late. It is what is called
shutting the stable-door after the steed is stolen. But
our contemporary is ready to point out the way to en-
sure victory to the Conservatives. "We do not deny
(he adds) that the work of such a return will demand
great energy and decision. The revolutionists, though
greatly contemptible in numbers, character, rank, pro-
perty, and talent, are strong in activity, forwardness,
and pretension ; stronger still in the divisions and dis-
trusts of those who are interested in opposing them—
strongest of all in the dishonesty, selfishness, dullness
of apprehension, and ill-reputation of most who hold
the second and third ranks among the self-elected Con-
servative leaders." So that if the Conservatives could
only obtain 'more talent and reputation and honesty,
there might be some chance for them. But as Lord
Grey could never doubt that they would ob-
tain all that they at present are in want
of, he advised the King to trust alone to the Conser-
vatives, and to beware of the treason under the Irish
Tithe Bill. But how to account for his Lordship's
giving his proxy to Lord Melbourne, having these
principles, is about as difficult a problem to solve as
how our contemporary of the Times for fifteen years
believed Lord Brougham to be in the possession of the
highest character, and the utmost virtue—for fifteen
years laboured assiduously to extend his reputation,
and promote his success, and all at once discovered
that Lord Brougham is stained by every vice under
Heaven—intriguing, lying, fawning, slandering, be-
traying, undermining, sacrificing colleagues, &c. &c.,
are merely a few, flowers of rhetoric culled from one
sentence. 'Well, this does certainly appear a strange
world, when it is looked at through the spectacles of
the Standard and the Times. Lord Grey in the
hands of the one, and Lord Brougham in the hands
of the other, appear to wonderful advantage.—Morn
ing Chronicle.

The most flagrant example of injustice in the his-
tory of the British Legislature is the change in the
Poor Laws, after the refusal of Parliament even to
look into the iniquities of the Pension List. There is,
indeed, one law for the rich and another for the poor—
one law for those whose luxuries are supplied at the
public expense, another law, for those whose necessaries
of life are supplied at the public expense. The case
of the state pauper and of the parish pauper differed
only in this—that the state pauper held his pension at
the pleasure of the Crown, and the parish pauper
claimed his relief as of right, under an express law :
but the weaker title has been upheld in all its infamy
and all its fraud ; the state pauper receives his pension,
though the parish pauper is to be deprived of his allow-
ance. Now, whatever may be thought of the
.new law,
whether it be approved or abhorred, the injustice must be
admitted of breaking in on the stronger title while the
weaker is upheld as sacred and inviolable, and of dete-
riorating and embittering the condition of the wretched
parish pauper while all protection is thrown around
the profligate grants to the sponger on the public.
Revert to every argument employed in opposition to
interference with the Pension List, and see with
how much more truth and force it applies to the case
of the paupers. Lord Althorp asserted that the Go-
vernment should have the power of relieving persons
of station in distress, and contended that it was unjust
to take away from any man what was given to
according to law. He protested against invading the
state paupers' legal right, even though they should
happen to possess large properties besides their pen-
sions. Further, it was argued that the custom of re-
ceiving, and the expectation of receiving according to
custom, created a claim which it would be a breach of

faith to disallow. All this reasoning was false in the
case of the pensioner, who held his grant during the
Royal pleasure ; but if truth would have rendered
it a good argument fer the pensioner, how irre-
sistible should be its force for the parish pauper.
The pauper has had a legal light to his allowance,
he has been accustomed to receive it, and has ex-
pected to continue to receive it according to custom,
and law to boot. But what have availed these consi-
derations in the case of the parish pauper, which have
been allowed such weight in that of the state pauper
as to make justice kick the beam ? The Central Board
his power to stop the allowance granted according to

law, and expected to be continued according to cus-
tom. How much has been said of the cruelty and
wrong of disappointment where it would work the pri-
vation of comforts or luxuries—how little has been
thought of the cruelty and wrong of disappointment
where it will work the privation of the absolute neces•
series of life, and leave only the choice of want or
the rigours of a workhouse. Who does not remember
the heroics of that personification of Don Quixote,
Mr. Hawkins, followed by as apt a representative of
Sancho Panza in Mr. Strutt, at the thought of dis-
turbing the vested rights of the pensioners, and the
former gentleman's scornful renouncement of the
" odious dirty job " of investigating the fitness of
grants, and recalling such as should be found un-
merited ? And compare this with the voluminous
inquisition into the workhouse fare, and the enormous
new power created to sit in judgment on the paupers'
claims, and to measure out and weigh with niggard
and reluctant hands the absolute necessaries of exis-
tence, so that the unfortunate shall live indeed, but no
more. To pry into the claims of Lady A. or Miss B.
would have shocked the delicate sentiment of Mem-
bers, but they have no such refined objections to over-
hauling a beggar's wallet, and holding a scrutiny on
his crusts, and judging whether there is an ounce
more than life requires, or a fragment which may give
a relish to the meal exceeding the laws of political
economy. Who that has waded through the poor law
report and evidence has not been struck by that pas-
sage where Mr. Chadwick receives a shock from
tasting the workhouse beer ? All the political eco-
nomy of the man staggered under its strength. He
was like the queen in the Arabian Nights, who
swooned upon tasting a cream tart made after a parti-
cular receipt—the potency of the beer discovered
to him all the enormities of the poor law admini-
stration. But what a mission was this ? What
a business for a well-fed gentleman to go about, sip-
ping the beer of paupers, and doubtless finding it too
strong and too good if it did not screw up his
features with the agony of verj nice. Now let us
suppose that the order of justice had been pur-
sued, that reform had commenced with the
state paupers. A commission should, according to
the course of proceeding adopted towards the little
paupers, have investigated the circumstances of the
pensioners and their grants ; and Mr. Chadwick, in-
stead of going into fits upon tasting beer ab6ve the
strength he thought proper for paupers, should have
had the more agreeable task of visiting the houses of
Honourable and Right Honourable Personages, and
should have begged leave to examine their cellars and
larders, and swooned upon tasting claret of a fine
bouquet, or hock that smacked of age. Then he
should have proceeded to the kitchen, and turned pale
at the sight of the stewpans, and groaned in the spirit
of Hume at the venison on the spit. We should
properly in this case have had a comparison instituted
between the style of living and the grants to these
people on the score of indigence, and no one would
have objected to a rigorous application of the rule,
withdrawing allowances from all but the aged and im-
potent—we mean from all to whom pensions have been
granted without just claims. The pauper, says the
Chancellor, glories in his dependence. So does the
pensioner, the pension being treated as a badge of Royal
favour. " The law of nature," proceeds the Chancellor,
" says that a man shall support his child, that the child
shall support his aged and infirm parent, and that near
relations shall succour one another in distress." These
propositions are put forth in advocacy of the new poor
law, but are they not as sound with reference to the
pension list ? When we look over the names of state
paupers connected with the noblest and most affluent
houses, do we not feel that near relations should suc-
cour one another ? and more, that a lord should sup-
port his wife ? But when the pension list was dis-
cussed, where slumbered these truths, these maxims of
morality and private obligation ? Where they are
most applicable, they are unapplied. But so it is,
that this Ministry has set forth the rigour of its eco-
nomy, by exercising it on paupers, just as beggars
pinch their poor children's flesh instead of their own,
when they wish to raise a cry and a look of pain which
may bring pence to their pockets. We shall have more
to say of the curious speech of Lord Chancellor
Brougham published as corrected, which means, we
suppose, as the speaker wishes he had spoken it. The
speech is dedicated to Lord Grey by the editors. Lord
Brougham must do every thing on a great scale. One
editor might have seemed equal to the business of
passing this speech through the press ; but so great a
speech must be supposed to require a multitude of edi-
tors.—Times.