The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-02 00:00:00

bitants. of the metropolis for relief. But op-
pressive as the tax is, a good man ought to
pause before he embraces the desperate resolu-
tion of resisting the laws in ordinary times.—
Morning Chronicle.
Sir John Hobhouse's resignation of his seat
fur Westminster is one of the most extraordinary
things of the kind which ever took place. We
can understand the Hon. Baronet, or any other
honourable man, declining to hold office in a
Government, any of whose measures he could
not support ; but why, in ceasing to be Secretary
at War, he should cease to be Member for
Westminster, we do not at all comprehend.
And we put it seriously to the Baronet, or any
of his friends, to explain how he can justify to
himself and to the world such an act as volun-
tarily leaving the citizens of Westminster unre-
presented, on an occasion when, above all others,
their local interests were at stake ? It is quite
clear that those religious enthusiasts who look
forward to the golden age of the Millennium on
earth, are rational in their faith compared with
those persons who expect cheap government
from a Whig Administration, and such a re-
formed House of Commons as it can corn.
nand. It was in confident expectation of a
substantial relief from their intolerable bur-
dens which the Whigs repeatedly promised,
that the people made the demonstration which
insured the success of the Reform Bill, and
preserved the present Ministers in power, al-
though their previous blunders in finance and
other important matters had greatly lowered the
public estimation of their capacity for office.
Since then, neither the conduct of our foreign
policy, nor the management of our internal af
fairs, has been such as to raise the character or
improve the resources of the country. We were
told, when the Reform Bill was in progress,
that one important consequence of Parliamentary
reform would be, that it would signify nothing
to what party the Ministers of the day might
belong, for the House of Commons, instead of
being a mere state machine, worked by the hand
of the Minister for his own ends, would be a
real representative body, endued with intelli-
gence and freedom of action—the faithful trus-
tee of the people's feelings and interests—too
honest to barter the rights of the people for any
corrupt consideration—too high-minded to be
the servile instrument for registering the decrees
of the servants of the Crown. Have we got such
a House of Commons ? If we have, then the
Reform Bill has given the country an inesti-
mable blessing, and great should be the happi-
ness of the people. If we still possessed an un-
reformed House of Commons, and such a House,
having, in a moment of unusually generous im-
pulse, been betrayed into an act of indiscreet
virtue, were called to account by the Minister
of the Crown, and compelled to stultVy itself
by rescinding its vote for alleviating one of the
public burdens, within four days after it had
passed, what would be said ? Would not the
degradation thereby inflicted on the House of
Commons be charged to the vice of its consti-
tution ? Would it not be said that whatever
there was of independence and honesty in the
House was overlayed and crushed by the mock
representation of the rotten boroughs ? Would
it not be universally asserted that no Minister
would have the effrontery to ask a reformed
House of Commons to inflict such degradation
on itself? Or, if there was a Minister capable
of making such a demand, his calculation upon
the servility of the real representatives of the
people would be met with the indignation which
it deserved ? That unreformed Houses of
Commons have sometimes rescinded their own
solemn decisions at the fiat of the Minister, is
not to be denied. But such things were said to
have happened because they were unreformed.
Yet it would be difficult, if not impossible, to
find an instance of a solemn decision recanted in
such indecent haste during the sway of the
boroughmongers, as that respecting the malt tax,
by which the first House of Commons,
elected under the Reform Bill, has astonished
the nation. Nor is there, we believe, on record
an example of the House being called upon to
stultify its vote by the very Minister who, as
every body understood him, explicitly declared
that he " would be ashamed not to carry that
vote into effect." The argument used by Go-
vernment and its sycophants of a surprise on
the first division, is a mere untruth, which is
sufficiently exposed by a reference to the length
of notice of Sir William Ingilby's motion on
the Parliamentary papers. The argument of a
" thin House" was equally valid, for, judging
by comparison, there are not many questions
discussed during a session affecting
.property,
and even life, in which the attendance is so full.
Take another memorable occasion. upon which
the " candid" Lord Althorp falsified, by his vote
in office, his principles and his vote when out of
office; we mean the discussion on Mr. Hume's
motion relative to military flogging. What
were the numbers on that important question?
They were—for Mr. Hume's motion, 140;
against it, 151 ; leaving Ministers a bare majority
of 11, which was made up of men actually in
office. The whole number present, then, was
hut 291. Yet Ministers did not complain of
the thinness of the House, nor the smallness of
the majority, although the division on the bar-
barous practice of flogging ran so fine, in spite
of the exertions of the " whipper-in." On Mr.
Patten's motion for a Commission to inquire
into the execrable system of infant slavery in our
factories, on which there has been, at least, four
previous legislative inquiries, what was the di-
vision ? For the motion which is to have the
effect of delaying the protection claimed for the
suffering victims to an indefinite period, and is
to cost the over-taxed country thousands of
pounds, there were 75, and against it 73
majority 2. On this important occasion the
numbers present were but 148. Ministers
having thrown their influence into the scale of
the masters of slaves did not complain of the
thinness of the House, nor the smallness of the
majority. Nor do they ever complain when mil-
lions of the public money are voted away after
midnight, with not 40 Members in the House !
More honest and more dignified would it
have been on the part of Lord Althorp to have
put forward no such shuffling excuses; to have
eaten none of his words; but to have given, as
his only reason, the Sat of the Cabinet, and to
have said to the reformed House of Commons,
Sic vo/o, sic jubeo, stat pro ratione voluntas.
With the rescinding of the solemn vote of the
House on the malt tax, the hopes of the people
as to the repeal of the assessed taxes by the
Whig Ministers are extinguished. If it had
.
not been for those hopes, which the agents of
the Government very generally excited previously
to the elections, the Ministers would not have
had quite so subservient a House of Commons
as the present one has hitherto shown itself to
be ; but the early decision of the House in de-
fence of those sinecures which the Whigs used
to describe as part and parcel of a corrupt and
profligate system of government, was a tolerably