The Sun.
London, England, 1833-06-10 00:00:00

has been in the hopeless expectation of neutralizing
this implacable hostility that the authors of
the Reform Act have shipwrecked a well-
earned reputation. In contradistinction to this,
what ought to have been, and what must
still be, the policy which, it behoved them to
pursue ? Was it not evidently to throw them-
selves upon the people, by whose firmness and
consistency the great measure of Lord Grey's Ad-
ministration had been accomplished ? We do not
say that they should have done this in a mean and
trubkling sense, for the people as well as their rulers
are liable to err, and must submit to have their
judgment corrected when it goes astray. But in
the main the people generally judge rightly, and it
has therefore been little short of madness in a Mi-
nistry which had hitherto been bore along trium-
phantly upon the tide of public opinion to throw
themselves on shore, and that in the heart of an
enemy's country. Unless experience is totally lost
upon them, they must now see their error and hasten
to repair it ; and this they may with the more rea-
diness and alacrity do, if they carry with them this
undeniable assurance, that whoever may be Mi-
nisters must do the same thing. The reasonable
hopes and wishes of the people must be complied
with. The results of the Reform Act must come
into operation, even were its bitterest opponents in
office to-morrow. As a political manoeuvre, these
latter may still play off their enmity to it, and pro-
fess it to be the sure forerunner of all imaginable
ills. But they know the contrary, or at any rate
they know that the consequences of reform are
become inevitable, and that a Minister might just as
wisely attempt to turn the tide of the ocean as to
resist the scarcely less powerful tide of public convic-
tion, when reasonably grounded and firmly fixed.—
Morning Herald.
We are glad to see, by the motion of Mr. Ellice,
on Friday night, for a Select Committee to probe
the bribery and corruption of Stafford, that the
House of Commons will not allow that infamous
borough to escape because the petitions against the
return have been abandoned. The seats of the sit-
ting Members are of little importance compared with
the extinction of the corrupt system of misrepre-
sentation so long and notoriously prevalent in that
place. The cunning burgesses of Stafford, as in the
case of their Liverpool brethren, set up a defence,
that they were pure and undefiled at the last elec-
tion; that is to say, that, having the fear of a
reformed Parliament before their eyes in December
last, they observed an unusual caution and decoru:n in
their iniquitous practices. But if by delays in the forms
and procedure of Parliament a constituency has the
lucky opportunity, pending their trial for political cor-
ruption, of exhibiting a temporary abstinence from
corruption, is their cunning self-denial to operate as
an indemnity to past offences ? The doctrine of
repentance would, indeed, he stretched to an exces-
sive length. The Liverpool Corporation Conserva-
tives argue—" True that the freemen under our
wings have been for successive elections abominably
corrupt—that we were detected in 1831, and by a
premature dissolution of Parliament escaped punish-
ment—that, warned by our danger, we contrived
that Lord Sandon's friends, in lieu of his commit-
tee, should discreetly manage the treating and bri-
bery—and therefore, now we are absolved from
all our former sins, and the corrupt freemen are
metamorphosed into patriots !" Yet this is the
main argument of those who are now so busily
employed in opposing further inquiry. Who can
doubt that within one or two per cent, the pre
sent freemen electors of Liverpool are the identical
individuals as notoriously bought and sold in the
municipal and election contents as Irish pigs in the
swine markets ? Why should the great majority of
all the independent and intelligent classes of the
borough vote in favour of liberal candidates, and
the bulk of the freemen oppose them? Unless we
greatly mistake, this curious problem will be solved
by the Committee which Mr. Benett to-morrow
will revive " to pursue their inquiries" into the
abominations of the borough. The redress which
an unreformed Parliament last year intended to
concede will never be refused by the present House
of Commons. Indeed it is sufficient to excite
suspicion, and to institute inquiry, when a close
Corporation is seen opposing investigation, and ac-
lively endeavouring to defeat the motion of Mr.
Benett. If the Liverpool Conservatives and the
members of the Corporation really desired to clear
themselves and their subservient freemen from the

imputation of annual bribery and systematic corrup-
tion in contested elections, they would court Parlia-
mentary inquiry. The very position of the parties be-
speaks volumes. Why should a body of public men
thus impeach their fellow-townsmen, if their charges
are utterly unfounded ? Why should the accused
oppose a public trial ? It is in vain to meet grave
and public charges by the counter-imputation of po-
litical and religious malignity against the accusers;
and recrimination is no substantive defence. We

do nor doubt that Mr. Benett will carry his motion,
and that the freemen of Stafford and Liverpool will
be buried in a common grave. We will also ven-
ture another prediction—that ere long municipal
reform will sweep out and purify the chambers of
the Corporation of Liverpool. We do not doubt
that there are many respectable, and some few
liberal-minded individuals in that select body; but
We are sure that open doors, open books, and elec-
tions " ffesh and fresh," without bribery and treat-
ing, would render the local government more pa-
latable, and unquestionably more useful, to their
fellow townsmen. It is disgusting when tempters
endeavour to disguise the sins of their guilty dupes;
and we are confident Mr. Benett will command the
votes of every independent and honest Member of
the House of Commons.—Morning Chronicle.
We have hitherto abstained from noticing, except
by a few cursory remarks, the language in wh ch
the King's Ministers, and the demagogues whom
the King's Ministers hate and fear, have spoken
during the past week of the privileges of the House
of Lords. We time thus abstained, because we
have heard in that language, not the intemperate
effusion of capricious spleen, but the deliberate
expression of mature hostility ; because we regard
the noble orators of the Parliament, and the noble
logicians of the press, not as angry children who
meet an unexpected disappointment with an unpre-
meditated complaint, but as ambitious men oppos-
ing to an ob-tacle which they have long foreseen
the announcement of a purpose which they have
fully considered. The question which has been
mooted is one which most constantly recur, and
one upon which it is desirable that men should form
their opinions upon a far more enlarged view than
that which is suggested by the particular accident
which in this instance introduced the discussion.
Whether our conduct towards the Portuguese rivals
has been worthy of our old renown for sincerity and
good faith is a question of which we are unwilling
to underrate the interest; but we altogether lose
sight of its comparative insignificance when we
recollect that from this time battle is fairly waged
between the Conservative and the Leveller for the
preservation or the abolition of our hereditary
Peerage. Let us, therefore, say a few words on
this argument, selecting for its examination a morn-

ing Ofl which the marvels which reform has wrought
do not dazzle us in a reported debate; a morning
on which we are not hurried into violence by the
fervid eloquence of Lord Ebrington, nor deluded
into mistake by the playful wit of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer. Is there, in the first place, any
man who doubts that the Kit,g's Ministers have de-
termined, for the completion of their improve-
ments, or for the retention of their places, to de-
stroy the existence or to crush the authority of the
Assembly by which the improvements are con-
demned and the places endangered ? If there be
such a sceptic let him coolly review the transac-
tions upon which we base our conviction. The
House of Lords sees in the license given to certain
proceedings of British subjects an interference in
the quarrel between the pretenders to the Clown of
Portugal amounting to a breach of the netyrality
which the Government is pledged maintain. Let us assume the position fur %';lticli Our adver-
saries contend, that there has been no such inter-

ference. It follows that the House of Lords
has been wrong upon a point of international
law, has misunderstood the argument of Vattel
or forgotten the authority of Bynkershoeck.
For this, by Lord Grey and Lord Brougham, the
House of Lords is held up to public scorn and ha-
tred as hostile to any amendment of any institution;
for this, by the Journal which is the recognised in-
terpreter of the mind of the Cabinet, the extinction
of the House of Lords as an independent legislative
body is openly demanded; for this, by the Sovereign
himself, a waspish and unkingly rebuke is given to
the House of Lords, which no Sovereign would
utter who did not utterly forget that the privileges
of the hereditary coronet and the privileges of the
hereditary crown are liable to the same objections,
are recommended by the same advantages, and must
hereafter be assailed by the same enemies, and de-
fended by the same friends. It is true that the se-
ditious clamour is not now heard for the first time.
The independence of the
_House of Lords was for a
time taken away, that the Reform Bill might be-
come the law of the land. But for that most
treasonable suspension of the Constitution two
plausible pretexts were urged, of which they
who relied upon them can no longer avail
themselves, by which they who were quieted
by them cannot be again betrayed. The Reform
Bill, it was said by some, involved arrangements in
the frame of the Lower House with which the
Upper House had no right to busy itself. The
Reform Bill, it was asserted by others, introduced
a vast organic change into the whole system of our
Government, whose importance was such that for
the insuring of its success, every irregularity might
be excused and every violence justified. The sub-
ject on which the House of Lords expressed its
opinion last week was surely not prohibited to it by
either of these considerations. It was a subject
on which if that House is still to be a deliberative
body, it was in every way qualified to deliberate.
We rejoice, we confess, that it is upon an affair of
this sort that the House of Lords finds itself op-
posed to the Government. If the collision had
taken place on a Bill for the confiscation of a little
property, or the abolition of a little Christianity,
the meditated annihilation of the House of Lords
might have seemed only the necessary step
to the desired benefit. But when the Peers
are threatened in the Parliament, and li-
belled in the newspaper, and reproved from
the throne for desiring the maintenance of a neu-
trality which Parliament and newspaper and Throne
all profess to maintain, it is clear that the destruc-
tion of their powers and privileges is contemplated,
not as a means to some good otherwise unattainable,
but as a consummation for its own sake to be de-
voutly wished. War then has been declared by the
Ministers and their masters against the hereditary
Peerage of Great Britain. Before many months
shall have passed away the British people will have
to pronounce whether they will have such a House
of Lords as their fathers had, controlling in one
crisis the excesses of the multitude, in another the
encroachments of the Sovereign; or whether they
will have a House of Lords which shall be nomi-
nated by the Minister of the day, to applaud his
speeches and to register his edicts; or whether,
finally, they will strip " the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal" of their lawn and ermine, trusting hence-
forth the honour and interests of the empire to the
sole guidance of a House of Commons which is at
once officious and insolent, boisterous and ser-
vile, ignorant and precipitate—a House of Com-
mons, which, being, as it were, by the delusion
which attended its election, condemned to involuni

tary popularity, has contrived, by an almost inexpli-
cable ingenuity, to be, in one brief session, ridiculed,
and doubted, and execrated, from one end of the
kingdom to the other. Let no man deceive his
neighbour, and let no man deceive himself. The
struggle may be postponed for a month, for a year;
but postponement will not render it the less inevi-
table. Sacrifices may be made, as they have been
made before; but the sacrifice of part will only make
resistance the more difficult when the rest shall be
demanded. We desire, therefore, that now, while
our passions are unexcited and our temper calm—
now, before the bludgeon has been lifted or the
brickbat thrown—now; before Mr. Attwood has
roused the ferocity of a rabble or Sir Herbert Tay-
lor committed the honour of a King, this prospec-
tive reform may be seriously taken to heart by those
who are most able to judge for themselves and to
guide the judgment of others. We appeal to
all honest and enlightened Englishmen, not to
the selfish or the unprincipled—not to Lord
Ebrington, who will go through any tilt h
that he may blot out the title he inherited, nor
to Mr. Littleton, who will go through as much that
he may have a title to bequeath—but to every edu-
cated gentleman of England who has knowledge to
understand what is right and spirit to risk some-
what in the doing of it. If the hereditary Peerage
appears worth preserving to the most intelligent
classes of the community, to our gentry, to our
clergy, to our opulent merchants and traders, they
must be prepared to aid its more responsible sup-
porters, not with silent sympathy and timid appro-
bation, but with a hearty, perhaps a hazardous, co-
operation. Fur the present we will not assume that
the hereditary Peerage is serviceable to the State.
Lord Grey may be tight ; it may be time for their
Lordships to set their House in order. Lord
Brougham may be right ; their Lordships may be
adverse to every wholesome improvement. The
Times may be right; the House of Lords may be
" absolutely nothing." The Examiner may be
right; the House of Lords may be a House of mis-
chief. But we say once more, let the matter be
fairly considered, and let it be considered betimes.
Morning Post.
Colonel Torrens is, we understand, to move, this
evening, as an amendment of the order of the day
for the further consideration of the Bank Charter,
that that Charter be continued for one year without
alteration. The objects aimed at by this motion
are evidently two-fold ; first, to get rid of the very
favourable bargain which the Bank has driven with
the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and secondly, to
give time both to the Bank and to the public, to
consider more maturely the situation in which they
are placed. On these same grounds do we approve
of this motion, and trust that it will meet with no
opposition. A little further time for consideration
can do but little harm in this case, and the proposed
delay is likely to be amply compensated by an im-
proved knowledge of the course of policy which
ought to be pursued. While on this subject we beg
to recommend to the notice of our readers a pam-
phlet which has just been published by Ridgway,
and the author of which is Mr. Joplin. The title of
it is " The Advantages of the Proposed National
Bank of England, both to the Public and its Pro-
prietary." It is an able pamphlet, and explains, in
a very business-soit of way, the limited view which
it takes of the subject.—Morning Advertiser.

Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Digby, K.C.8., is
now confidently spoken of as likely to have the command
at Sheerness, on the striking of Sir John Beresford's flag.—
Naval and Military Gazette.

ABOLITION OF IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.
—The following is an extract from the American Presi-
dent's address to Congress, dated December 6, 1631
" Actuated by similar views, Congress, at their last ses-
sion, passed an Act for the relief of insolvent debtors of the
United States ; but the provisions of that law have not
been deemed such as were adequate to that relief to this
unfortunate class of our fell.iw•citizens which may be
safely extended to them. The points in which the law
appears to be defective will be particularly communicated
by the Secretaty of the Treasury ; and I take pleasure in
recommending such an extension of its provisions as will
unfetter the enterprise of a valuable portion of our citizens,
and restore to them the means of usefulness to themselves
and to the community. While deliberating upon the sub-
ject, I would also recommend to your consideration the
propriety of so modifying the laws for enforcing payment
of debts due either to the public or to individuals suing in
the courts of the United States, as to restrict the impri-
sonment of the person to cases of fraudulent concealment
of property. The personal liberty of the citizen seems too
sacred to he held, as in many cases it now is, at the will
of a creditor to thorn he is willing to surrender all the
means be has of discharging his debt,"