The Sun.
London, England, 1834-06-04 00:00:00

" TO EARL GREY.

" Mr Loan—We have heard with deep concern that the
changes which have taken place in the Administration
might possibly lead your Lordship to contemplate retire-
ment from office.
" Impressed with the firmest conviction that the country
is indebted to you' for the success of measures the most
essential to the public welfare, and assured that your re-
signation at this crisis would produce consequences most
injurious to the peace and prosperity of the community, we
venture to express to your lordship our undiminished con-
fidence in the wisdom with which you have held the reins
of Government, and our unshaken attachment to those
principles which you have so efficiently and consistently
maintained. We desire, therefore, to convey to you our
anxious hope that you will not be induced to retire from
his Majesty's councils whilst you can continue to preside
over them as you have hitherto done, with so much honour
to yourself, and so much benefit to the country."
We forbear to comment on the obvious political
spirit of Lord Grey's answer. The document was
doubtless designed to suit a combination of various
parties. Enough has been said on the composition
of his administration ; we shall wait its acts, and if
its policy is liberal, the Cabinet will have our con-
sistent but independent support.---Morn. Chronicle.
Last night was devoted to plans for moral im-
provement and instruction. Mr. Buckingham moved
for a committee to inquire into the extent, causes,
and consequences of intoxication, with a view to
prevent the spread of it. No one can doubt that
drunkenness is a great evil, but the remedy is not
so obvious. We suspect that both in the United
States and Thitain (the two most drunken countries
in the world), the absurd war, waged by the
Puritans against all innocent sports, is the main
cause of the drunkenness. We have always ob-
served that light-minded people are less disposed to
be drunkards than grave, owlish-like persons. The
best way, perhaps, of attacking so resolute a force
as the love of intoxication, is to create a rival.
Mr. Buckingham carried his motion ; and if the
inquiry be carried on in a proper spirit, that is, if
we inquire what the practices are of the sober
nations, we may do some good. We have such an
abhorrence of drunkenness, that if we knew man or
woman to be addicted to it, we should never think
of employing either—having never known a drunkard
to be good for anything, and believing the sooner

he is Out of the world the better it will be for him-
self and for those connected with him. For all
vices and crimes there is some hope—for drunken-
ness none. We have never known a drunkard re-
formed.—Morning Chronicle.
Even when the administration was in what might
be called a fixed and consolidated position, it was
not very easy to discover what portion of the press
might be looked upon as its recognised organs. In
this respect, indeed, symptoms of disunion have
been all along apparent. Two parties in the cabi-
net, if not more, have all along had distinct and
very opposite channels of conveying their self-
eulogies or dislikes to the public, while an exterior
or undermining party has been equally sedulous in
putting forth feelers and vituperatives, .not the
less annoying and galling because issued under the
mask of hollow attachment. Of-this last class

Lord Durham has been at once both the organ and
the object ; indeed there are those among our con
temporaries keen-sighted enough to declare that
they perceive in many of the articles to which we
allude the actual style and composition of the noble
earl himself. On this latter point we do not pro-
fess ourselves competent to form an opinion ; but
this we know that, if such be the case, many of
thos‘ articles betray a tone of virulence, not to say
of libel, far exceeding anything in any of the many
publications of which the noble earl in question has
been the prosecutor in various courts of justice. The
secret as to the noble earl's rejection among the late
changes of office is at length fairly avowed. After
certain hints on the part of one evening paper,
and flat denials from two morning journals,
the Globe distinctly and authoritatively avows
that it is to the noble earl's want of temper that his
recent exclusion from office is entirely owing, and
that not only one, but all his former colleagues po-
sitively decline to be again associated with him in
the Cabinet. If any thing could teach a man wis-
dom, by showing him his own peculiar failing, one
might imagine this would do it. It is, perhaps,
the most degrading position in which a public man
could ever have been placed. "We acknowledge
your talents," say the noble earl's colleagues ;
" your principles, too, are exactly to our taste ;
but you are naturally and habitually so captious, so
irritable, ant so quarrelsome, that there is no such
thing as carrying on public affairs in concert with
you." What would a wise man do under such cir-
cumstances but set about sedulously and resolutely
to cure a defect, which generally grows into conse-
quence by the encouragement which is given to it ?
Mr. Pitt, in the early part of his career, was called
the " angry boy"—a fault which he took care to
correct, and which was, therefore, never imputed to
him in after life. It is true that Lord Durham is
no " boy," and that there is an adage which
says—

" No man alive
Did e'er improve past forty-five."
But, in this latter respect, the noble earl has not
yet passed the rubicon, but has still a locus peni-
!entice left, which he would do well to avail hirn-
of.—Morning Herald.

though it has not diminished our respect for his
talents, nor our regard for the principles on which
he has acted, in separating himself from-his late
colleagues, has wholly estranged from us the slight-
est portion of regret that he has ceased to be a mem-
ber of the ministry and of the cabinet. We,
indeed, conscientiously congratulate our readers upon
the fact of his secession ; for a speech more selfish,
more narrow-minded, more bigotted, more opposed
to, the spirit which pervades the community—more
adverse to church reform—more confined in its
views—or more domineering in its spirit', kad never
been delivered even by the Corypheus of Irish Pro-
testantism himself within the walls of the House of
Commons. He out-heroded Herod. Lord Eldon
is a cypher to him in his gigantic imagination of the
sacredness of 'church property ; and even Peel—
anxious as he is to form a coalition with him—ho-
nourable we cannot term it—shrunk from abetting
to their full extent the startling doctrines of the ex-
Secretary for the Colonies. " His principles," to
use the language of The Sun, in which a very just
and proper article appears on the subject, " are,
that no matter how the Protestant population
fall off, no matter how Catholics increase, and
no matter how injurious to the Protestant re-
ligion may be the existing establishment, still
it must be preserved at all hazards--on in-
roads must be made on the church—a clergyman
must 15'e paid for in every parish, whether he resides
there or not—whether there are five hundred Pro-
testants or not one, and all the staff of archbishops,
bishops, deans, and prebends must be maintained in
Catholic Ireland precisely as it is now maintained in
England." We will not treat the ex-Secretary to
a. dissertation upon all the consequences which
would result, and all the conclusions which might
be drawn, from these premises, and for three rea-
sons—first, because both are so obvious as not to be
mistaken—secondly, because any school-boy could
expose their sophistry and absurdity—and thirdly,
because the maintenance of such opinions is utterly
inconsistent with the conduct of the right honour-
able gentleman, when at no distant period he voted
into perpetual oblivion no fewer than ten Irish bi-
shoprics! For all these reasons we withhold any com-
ment upon what—considering that he lately formed
no inefficient member of the reform ministry—we
must term his very extraordinary, most Conserva-
tive, and anti-liberal speech of Monday last ; but it
would be injustice to our own, as well as to the
feelings of the public, not to withhold our congra-
tulations that lie has no longer a seat in the Ca-
binet, nor any influence over its decisions. What a
drawback he must have proved—what a clog upon
every measure which had the promotion of liberal
principles for its basis ! But to be brief—The
ministry, if not strong, is now at least free from
conservatism. The chaff has been winnowed from
the corn, and if the corn be not of the first quality,
it is at all events sound and wholesome. Let it
but have good soil and good cultivation--let it but
deserve the dew of popular favour—and no one
will have to regret that the produce has not been
intermingled with a luxuriant crop of tares.—
Morning Advertiser.
It is understood that the Administration have
determined to put an end to tbe present Session of
Parliament with the utmost possible speed. They
intend, however, to pass, if they can, the Poor Laws'
Amendment Bill and the Irish Tithe Bill. The
movement party are to be induced to favour the
Ministerial object of getting rid of the two houses
for the present, by the promise that Government
will be prepared to make the most unlimited con-
cessions to them in the next session, and that mea-
sures shall be ready for introduction at its com-
mencement with which they cannot fail to be sa-
tisfied.—Morning Post.