The Sun.
London, England, 1833-07-04 00:00:00

LONDON,
THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 4, 1833.

On presenting a petition yesterday from some

inhabitants of the Strand, against the assessed
taxes, Colonel EVANS made some forcible and
pertinent remarks on the subject of their glaring
inequality. Mr. SPRING RICE replied, after

the usual Ministerial fashion, in a tame, pro-
sing, evasive spirit, such as men are but too apt
to adopt, when compelled from circumstances
to prop up a rotten cause, to argue against con-

viction, and wage war with common sense,
Instead of speaking to the point, he de.

livered a homily. Just as if injustice was
to he preached down by a sermon ! He ob-
served that " the Honourable and Gallant
Member had thrown out an opinion, that unless
the evils complained of were relieved, the people
would be justified in refusing to pay taxes. He
thought the Gallant Colonel would have done
better to have exhorted his constituents to use
their best energies to have the taxes repealed, at
the same time telling them that it was the inte-
rest of the humHest among them, more to sup-
port the law than to violate it." These are
truisms which will administer but sorry consols-
tion to the people. They are " crumbs of com-
fort," such as DIVES was in the habit of throw-
ing to LAZARUS—such as a plump, stall-fed
pluralist administers to a starving curate. In a
word, they are the orthodox dialect of the
Treasury Bench. One may know them by
their style.
Ii is edifying to observe with what marvel-
lous zeal the -Whigs have adopted the Tory
method of speechifying. Together with their
benches, they have also taken possession of their
phraseology, as a new footman invests him'elf
with the livery of his predecessor. Yet, when
the Whigs first came into power, every thing,
they assured us, was to be changed ! Taxes
were to be reduced. The House was de-

lighted ! The reign of patronage was to he
at an end. The House was electrified !
Nay, more, the Whig banner was to he
every where the rallying point of freedom—
the cross hung out in the heavens to cheer the
drooping spirits of the oppressed. And how
have these fine promises been fulfilled ? Let ns
see. First, the taxes were to be reduced. The
most iniquitous of them all (the assessed taxes)
still flourish in as rank luxuriance as ever ! Se-
condly, the reign of patronage was to cease. It
is nearly, if not quite, as powerful as in the days
of the Ultras, though exerted in a more adroit
fashion ! Thirdly, a liberal, anti-Tory spirit of
domestic and foreign policy was to be pursued.
Ireland is coerced ; Belgium protocolled into
epilepsy ; Turkey bound hand and foot and
chained to the chariot wheel of Russia! So
much for Whig Sayings versus Whig Doings.
W hat a pity that " fine words butter no par-
snips," for the Whigs have thrown away " words"
enough to have buttered all the " parsnips" in
Covent-garden Market !
The secret of these fine speeches is, that the
Whigs were new to office when they perpetrated
them. They had been so long Outs, that when
they came to be Ins they found a difficulty in
familiarizing themselves, all at once, with the
fitting dialect, so were compelled for a season to
make use of such phraseology as they had been
most accustomed to. But they have grown
wiser since. By a close, persevering atten-
tion to die Treasury Grammar, they have
now mastered all the difficulties of that most
ingeniously perplexing language. They can now
evade—tin eaten—palter— equivocate " keep
the word of promise to the ear, but break
it to the hope," as readily, as, happily, and
with as accomplished an air of plausibility, as
the most practised Tory that ever " gave tongue"
from the Ministerial benches. Sir R. PEEL
must be sadly annoyed at finding himself thus
rivalled in his own special line of celebrity.
The country, we fear, is fast coming to the
conclusion that the only difference between a
Whig and a Tory, consists in the fact that one is
in—the other out. We regret this. But it is
inevitable. The Whigs themselves will have it
so. To the warnings of their more moderate
friends they are deaf; the remonstrances of
their more energetic ones they distrust. They
look every where but in the right direction ;
mistake friendsfor foes; suspect where they should
confide; conQc where suspicion is the only wis-
dom. They look for the sun in the east when it has
long since been travelling westward, and profess
themselves astonished that twilight has so soon
overtaken them. And even in this predicament
they will not stir. Not they ! They stand stu-
pidly looking about them, like a bewildered

traveller in some vast, unknown desert, with a
,hunder-cloud blackening right above his head.
Will these Whigs never learn wisdom from
experience ? Will they never bear in mind that
in periods of transition, not to advance is to re-
trograde; and that when a whole nation is on the
move, its Government is the very last body that
should think of standing still ? But Ministers
have yet one chance left. They have thrown away
a thousand, but capricious fortune still affords
them one more. Let them boldly, unhesitatingly
do justice to themselves and the country. Let
them show a stern front to their enemies ; a
conciliating one to their friends ; and, above all,
a resolution to grapple, face to face, with danger.
To shrink from difficulties is but to augment
them ; to evince an apprehension of the ass, is but
to invite a kirk of his hoof; to put off till to-mor-
row what can be done to-day, is but to volunteer the
part of the driveller and the coward. Let Mi-
nisters, then, act like men, and they may yet be
saved. But time presses. There is not a mo-
ment to be lost. Men's eyes are about them ;
their attention is everywhere on the stretch ;
already they are canvassing the readiest means
of doing that justice to themselves, which a
Reform Ministry has so long denied them.
The assessed taxes is the little speck in the ho-
rizon, which foretells the coming hurricane.

There are two matters with respect to which
we may not unfairly claim credit at the present
moment. Firstly, having prophecied the im-
practicability and abandonment of the CHAN-
CELLOR Of the EXCHEQUER'S Bank Charter
plan—certainly a matter requiring no very high
vaticinatory powers—and secondly, for having,
we believe, exclusively announced its promul-

gation and piece-meal resignation to our country
readers, by the post of the identical day or
evening on which the Ministerial presumption
and ignorance, or weakness and vacillation, was
exhibited. What Lord ALTHORP'S motive
could have been in endeavouring to prevent the
possibility of our spreading the intelligence of his
intentions upon this important subject, we will not
attempt to define ; but we know that in the result,
the opposition we may take some degree of cre-
dit for having been instrumental in raising to the
Government propositions, has to a great extent

succeeded in its object. Much of evil is left in
the measure, but that from which the country
has escaped is greater. The metropolis:is still to
be delivered up to the monopoly of the Thread-

needle-street club ; its hundreds of thousands o
middling tradesmen are still to be compelled to
deposit their cash in less safe custody than is
afforded to the savings of the poorest operative
of Huddersfield, of Manchester, or of Glas-
gow ; but the country at large is to preserve a
considerable portion of its freedom, and the
maintenance and spread of joint-stock compa-
nies will facilitate future measures for the
annihilation of the monopoly of the Bank
of England, as much as their extinction
would have rendered their adoption diffi-
cult, if not impos,drle. No thanks are due
to Lord ALTHORP for so far complying with
the principles of free trade, as to drop that part
of his plan relating to country banks, for he
candidly avowed, in announcing this conces-
sion, that he only made it because he found
the country bankers too strong for him.
Lord ALTHORP cares not for the wishes of the
manufacturing, commercial, and agricultural
classes, who would have been injured by this
measure ; he heeds not the representation that
a thousand bankers would have their property
ruined ; all interests might have suffered, pro-
vided he could have carried his crotchet into
full effect ; and he candidly avows that he only
gives in because the interests he has attacked
are so powerful, as to be more than a match
even for the complaisant majorities he has
hitherto commanded. Till we see the Bill by
.which his Lordship's propositions are to be car-
ried into effect, we cannot undertake to say
what degree of mischief their fragments may
work ; but as far as we have considered
the subject, we do not see how his con-
cession, allowing gold to be demanded
fur five pound notes is to operate, without in
nine cases out of ten, practically defeating the
legal tender resolution. As all the resolutions
retained were agreed to last night, the Bill will,
we presume, be forthwith brought in, and there-
fore we shall at present say no more upon the
subject. We refer our readers to the report for
the particulars of the debate on Mr. ATT-
WOOD'S proposition to refer the fourth resolu-
tion, that confirming the Government agreement
with the Bank for the management of the national
business to a Select Committee. That the bar•
gain made by Lord ALTHORP is a miserably
improvident one there cannot be a doubt ;
but the payment of a few thousands per annum
more or less is a question insignificant, indeed,
compared with that of granting the establish-
ment in Threadneedle-street, privileges which,
once granted, could never have been taken away,
however necessary for the welfare of the country,
without the greatest danger. Let us hope that
the spark of competition now kept alive, may,
in another ten years, be blown into a flame, too
strong for the watering of all the old women in
London to extinguish.

We refer our readers with great pleasure to
the letter of a correspondent, well acquainted
with the state and condition of the manufac-
turing classes, addressed to Lord ALTHORP,
not because we entirely approve of the opinions
he advances, but because the intimate know-
ledge we know him to have cf the subject en-
titles every word he may say upon it to the
greatest attention. We have all along depre-
cated the principle of interfering with the em-
ployment of labour, and have endeavoured to'
show that the evils of the factory system are not
of such easy remedy as the hurnanitymongers
would make the people believe ; but neither do
we think that all the ill consequences our corre-
spondent apprehends will result from the amend-
ments suggested by the factory commissioners.
It is true that a child under a certain age having
only to work eight hours would run great chance
of having its morals and habits anything but im-
proved by staying at home, but the apprehended
evil may be met by the general establishment of
national schools, and the holding out of every
possible encouragement to attend them. Nei-
ther do we think with our correspondent, that
as the children grow up to adult age they will
be thrown out of employment. Under the pre-
sent poor law systeM this is far from impossible,
but the alteration which is about to be made in
the poor laws will drive many of those who now
depend upon them for support to work for their
livelihood. Mr. GASKELL, of Manchester,
whose authority our correspondent will not be
incli►:ed to dispute, ~sites, in a work of his which we
propose shortly to notice, that the main cause of the