The Sun.
London, England, 1834-10-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Ministerial press, not content with outraging
public opinion by its eulogies on the New Poor Law
Act, is daily laying fresh claims to public respect and
-confidence, by turning into ridicule the heart-rending
tales of wretchedness which the first workings of this
their patrons' favourite measure is everywhere produc-
ing, And this, forsooth, is justified on the score of
one or two instances of deception which have been prac-
tised under colour of distress. We do not envy the
taste or feeling of those who can resort to such a miser-
able subterfuge as this, and, by substituting the excep-
tion for the rule, thus attempt to blend the miseries of
poverty with the arts of one or two solitary impostors.
How much more usefully and honourably would the
press be employed in endeavouring to separate the
chaff from the corn, in averting, by timely warning,
the fearful scenes which may be looked forward to,
should destitution be driven to despair, than in thus
upholding error, insulting want, and enhancing an
infliction, which, even in the present mild state
of the season, has become already most appal-
ling. Besides, what period has there ever been, or
is likely to be, when imposture did not exist ? And
who ever contended that it was deserving of relief or
consideration ? The Magistrate is armed, and so is
the parish officer, with ample powers to discover and
punish such delinquency ; but that the latter should
contend, or the former assent to any thing so prepos-
terous as that of assuming imposition in all because it
is detected among the few, and thus confound inno-
cence with guilt, is a novel doctrine, which would go
to place poverty entirely out of the pale of the law.
Instead of joining in the unseemly ridicule which is
attempted to be thus palmed upon the public, people
in general are beginning to inquire what the new well-
paid Commissioners are about that they do not promul-
gate their rules and regulations, and among them some
method by which the scenes of misery which are now
every day occurring, may be mitigated, if not entirely.
obviated. One correspondent asks where these gentle-
men are ? and whether they are gone on a tour of in-
spection, as he sees the name of one of them as attend-
ing a public dinner in a town many miles from the metro-
polis? We trust they are at any rate aware of the heavy
responsibility which rests upon them ; and that as the
winterapproaches it becomes every day the more urgently
necessary that the operation of the new law should, at
least assume a milder character than its first effects as-
sure us of. But above all things let us hear no more
of misery being turned into ridicule by those who pro-
fess to be the organs of Government ; of the members
of which, as individuals, we should be sorry to think
so ill as to imagine that such outrages on common hu-
manity and right feeling can have their concurrence,
and who, on the contrary, will we trust, be found ready
to call Parliament together, if necessary, to remedy the
results of this new law, should they, unfortunately, con-
tinue to be such as its first operation exhibits.—Morn-
ing Herald.

Nothing can well be more amusing than to watch
the proceedings of two of the most important of the
new-fangled Commissions, we mean the Corporation
Commission and the Poor Law Amendment Commis-
sion. It is not only amusing in itself, but particularly
diverting, as it enables the inhabitants of London and
Westminster, where these two Commissions are at pre-
sent established, to judge of the value and extent of
the labours of the innumerable little snug parties
which are scattered over the face of the empire, all
toiling with equal activity for the good of the country.
Sir F. Palgrave and Mr. Ellis, the Corporation Com-
missioners, go into the city very frequently to transact
business, and almost as regularly come out of it again
in about half an hour. We yesterday gave a detail of
their labours and their results on Tuesday, and we in-
sert to-day a not dissimilar description of their labours
of yesterday. The busiyiess of the Commissioners on
Monday consisted of receiving a letter to inform them
that there would be nothing to do on Tuesday ; and
the business of Tuesday consisted of their going into
the city to make sure that there was nothing to be
done. One would hardly believe it, but this farce is
repeated three or four times in the course of a week ;
and if laughing at the actors be a proof of suc-
cess we have no doubt it will have a long run.
The Poor Law Commissioners act differently ; they
do nothing ; but they stay at home to do it ; and after
deliberating two or three hours about the business
they are engaged in, they vary the sameness of inaction
by directing their Secretary to write a circular to the
parish officers all over the kingdom, directing them also
"to do nothing whatever," but just go on as they are.
And these two valuable Commissions cost somewhere
about twenty or thirty thousand pounds a year. What
makes the, ease and comfort of their labours the morel
conspicuous just at this moment is the contrast it af-
fords to the active efficiency of the new Exche-1
quer, where the recently appointed Comptroller,
Sir J. Newport (ietat 78), will be required to be in
constant attendance twice a week from half-past one
until two. We have heard of Commissions and sys-
tems " working well ;" for " doing nothing," as well as
it possibly can be done, give us Messrs. Palgrave,
Ellis, Frankland Lewis, Lefcvre, Nichols, Newport,
and Co.—Morning Post.
We insert elsewhere one of the most gratifying
statements
.in illustration of the beneficial operation of
the Poor Laws Amendment Act, which we have ever
had the satisfaction to publish. We allude, of course,
to the statement of the expenditure in the parish of St.
George, Hanover-square, from Lady-day, 1832, to
Lady-day, 1833, compared with the first half of the
second year of the new system. The result is beyond
all anticipation, and exceeds the most sanguine hopes
of the most sanguine advocates of the new system.
The whole time now occupied in the payment of casual
poor is only one hour in every week ! —the saving in
money-relief only, nearly 10,0001. per annum !—and
the decrease in the assessment about 40,0001. These
results speak for themselves, and must put to silence
the foolish cackle of the geese that have made such in-
decent noise of late, respecting the objects and operation
of the new law. It is also but an act of simple justice
to mention, that they have been mainly realized by the
indefatigable efforts of Mr. Leslie, the governor of the
poor of the parish of St. George, to whose pamphlet
on the subject we shall endeavour to advert in a day
or two.—Morning Advertiser.

We call the attention of our readers to an account
from the populous parish of St. George, Hanover-
square, exhibiting the expenditure for the poor, from
Lady-day, 1832, to Lady-day, 1833, compared with
the first half of the second year of the new system, viz.
from Lady-day, 1834, to Michaelmas, 1834. This
parish, as many of our readers must know, anticipated
the new Poor Law Amendment Act, and may be said
to have paved the way for its success by the
demonstration it afforded to a number of the most in-
fluential members of the Legislature, of the practica-
bility of the changes contemplated by the new Bill.
One result of the new system must strike every
one, at the very first inspection of the account,
namely, the decrease on the sum assessed on the
Late payers. The sum assessed on the rate-
payers, for the year from Lady-day, 1832, to
Lady-day, 1833, was 67,336/. ; while the sum
assessed for the year from Lady-day, 1834, to
Lady-day, 1835, is 27,3911., being little more
than one-third of the amount of the former year.
An individual who paid 67/. of rates in the one
year, pays now only 27/. Verily, this is a re-
form which comes home to men's business and
bosoms ! It used to be said, when a case of reform
like this was adduced formerly, this would be all very
well if what one parish gained by strict management,
another did not lose bythe influx of poor from the parish
under the improved system. The improvement in St.
George's, Hanover-square, has taken place, while all
the other parishes have been improving their system.
In the account there is a recapitulation of some of the
effects of the altered system of parochial relief in St.
George's, Hanover-square ; from which it will be seen
at a glance that the expenditure has diminished two-
thirds, that the number of in-door and out-door poor
have both decreased, and that such has been the relief
to the Governors and Directors of the poor, from the
simplicity of the improved system, that one hour every
week is now sufficient for the „payment of the casual

poor : while, under the old system, for many years,
every Tuesday and Wednesday were devoted to the
same object.—Morning Chronzde.
The Edinburgh Review for October, 1834, which
we have just received, contains an article on " the
last Session of Parliament," of which no one 'can mis-
take the author; and another article on " the House
of Lords,"—subjects of much political interest at this
time. The Reviewer observes that " the great mea-
sure of the session was the Poor-law Bill," and. adds,
" If any plan of legislation ever demanded the deepest
regard from all rational men, this is that plan." He
very properly says of the Bill, " that among reflecting
men, who have made themselves masters of it both in
principle and detail, there is but one opinion upon its
nature and tendency ;" and he compliments the Duke
of Wellington on the part he took on the occasion.
With .a manly candour (says the Reviewer), which
did him infinite honour, and acting upon the dictation of
that excellent understanding, which on great questions of
public interest always is his guide, when the urgent neces-
sity of providing against imminent dangers of the State,
overpowering all other considerations, quells within him the
spirit of a partisan —he declared that the subject which
had baffled all the efforts of all former Ministers, had been
boldly encountered and successfully handled by the present
Government."

This leads the Reviewer to notice the doing of the
Press :

" The natural misconceptions to which the Bill gave rise
—the natural leaning of ignorance against it—were power-
fully seconded by the almost united efforts of the London
press to excite the people, and raise an uncompromising
opposition to it. There is not upon record any instance of
a measure which the public press has made more inde-
fatigable efforts to blacken, from its first proposal, down
to the day when the Bill received the Royal Assent.
*•***•* * * * * * * *

It is a remarkable fact, that after the united and daily
efforts of the newspapers, arrogating to themselves the
right to speak in the name of the public—efforts made with
unscrupulous zeal and bitterness, with no inconsiderable
talent, and with a presumption exceeding all bounds—only
nineteen members of a popular House of Commons could
be found to vote against the Bill, in a division of between
four and five hundred ! The violence of those papers,
their arrogance, their unseemly dictation, accompanied by
the notorious character of some of them for being devoid
of all principle, and only bent upon pandering to the feel-
ings and appetites of the community which they affected to
lead—no doubt contributed largely to their signal failure
upon the present occasion. For it is unquestionable that
the indignation and disgust felt towards them by the House
of Commons materially diminished the minority against the
Bill ; many Members who felt disposed to vote against the
new measure, being determined at any rate not to give any
countenance to those journalists. Their efforts may thus
have reduced a minority of fifty or thereabouts to one of
nineteen ; and this is proved to have been the extent of the
power possessed by the important personages who had for
years been puffing themselves as ruling the destinies of the
nation ! We believe that every true friend to the country,
and its good Government, and, above all, every well-wisher
to the reformed Parliament, will deem the victory gained
•ver these men almost as important as the passing of the
Bill itself."

With respect to the Press, it is no doubt true that it,
with few exceptions, disgraced itself very much on the
occasion alluded to. The result ought to be a lesson
both to Ministers and the Press itself. When Mi-
nisters bring forward good measures, they may safely
disregard the abuse of the Press ; because the opposi-
tion excited by misrepresentation and appeals to preju-
dice and ignorance, soon yields to the influence of
reason ; and the Press may see, from what has taken
place in the poor-law question, that it is only formi-
dable when it espouses a good cause, and that a mo-
mentary success will not compensate for the per-
manent discontent which must result from the
exposure of its abuse of power. It is necessary
that Ministers should be influenced by the opinions
and feelings of the nation ; but the newspapers
ought only to be attended to when they adduce such
arguments as are calculated to make an impression
on reflecting minds ; and Ministers may be cer-
tain, that if their measures are judicious, and cal-
culated to benefit the nation, popular approbation can-
not long be withheld from them. The allusion to the
conduct of the Times cannot be mistaken, and we are
willing to admit that it excited much disgust in Par-
liament ; but they must have been very weak members
who voted against their conviction merely to spite the
Times. We think the Reviewer over-estimates the
effects of that disgust in diminishing the minority.
A great part of the article on the last Session is de-
voted to showing the danger which both Ministers
and the liberal cause would sustain, from the former
allowing themselves to be hurried by the impatience
of the Reformers " into some rash measures of domes-
tic policy, all grounded upon liberal views, all well in-
tended for the people—but ill-considered, worse di-
gested, and brought forward in a haste, altogether un-
seemly and fraught with risks of miscarriage—when the
bad working of the plan should be found remediless, and
serious practical inconveniences should be sustained by
the community." " First of all, those who urged the
Government would (he says) be silent ; and above
all, the newspapers will be carefully forgetful of their
share in the urgent outcry." After illustrating this
point at some length, the Reviewer approaches the
subject to which, since the Edinburgh dinner, so
much attention has been directed. This part of the
article will produce considerable sensation, more espe-
cially the statement that Lord John Russell, and the
rest of the Sub-Committee entrusted with drawing up
the Reform Bill, reported in favour of a twenty-pound
qualification :
" The benefits of deliberately preparing the measures
brought forward, and submitting them to a calm and full
discussion—the incalculable risks of a rash and precipitate
course of legislation—are so self-evident that they have
never been stated, especially of late, without producing
the conviction desired, and obtaining an explicit admission
of the propositions founded on such considerations. But
it had been remarked, that such concessions, being, as it
were, extorted by the force of truth operating on those
who were unable to answer the argument, were always
accompanied with some statement, which either had no
meaning at all, or operated as a retraction of the admission
made—evincing the correctness of the old distich touching
those who are convinced against their will.'
" Of this an instance was afforded at the great National
Festival' lately holden in this city in honour of Earl Grey,
and the principles of liberal and reforming policy. They
who were supposed to be hasty, impatient, and unre-
fleeting in views of improvement, allowed the truth
of all that was said by the Noble Earl and the Lord
Chancellor in favour of a cautious and statesman-like, but
firm and unflinching, course of reforming legislation ; but
they added, There must be no compromise with the enemy
—no abandonment of principles—no clipping of ineasnre4 ;'
and these phrases were more especially used by Lord Dur-
ham—though he only amplified what had been said
by others ; and therefore, in what we now say on the
subject, we do .not refer particularly to that steady
and useful friend of reform, and of civil and religious
liberty. But let us very respectfully ask whether these
phrases are any thing more than words and sounds—
whether they have any definite or sensible meaning—
above all, whether they are even intelligible, when coming
from those who, in the same breath, are joining to depre-
cate hasty and crude projects of amendment ? On this
question we need not indulge in any remarks ; but let us
ask, how Lord Durham, of all men, can object to what
he calls compromise and clipping ;' he having, in 1817,
brought forward a large plan of Parliamentary Reform,
the result of much deliberation, held by him necessary to
save the State, and so carefully prepared and elaborated,
that he announced, from love of justice, the share which an
early friend had taken in composing it with him, in order
that no man might lose his portion of the praise due to so
great a design—and afterwards, without ever having made
another motion upon the question, or said another word re-
garding reform in either House of Parliament, acceded to
Lord John Russell's plan, of a perfectly different nature, a
plan not going a tenth part so far, but one more practica-
ble, and in which others, in and out of the Government,
could be brought to concur, as assuredly as they never
would have done in that of‘ the year 1817 ? Who blames
Lord Durham—who even of the select few who voted and
would have voted with him in 1817, complains of him as
compromising with the enemy, abandoning his principle, or
clipping his measure ? He acted like a wise and an honest
man—one who really cared for his opinions, and was anxious
to promete the success of the cause he espoused—and who,
prizing this far above any paltry considerations of per-
sonal vanity, only desired to see as much, and as bene-
ficial, reform carried as he could. Again, neither Lord
Durham, nor any of his colleagues ought to have at-
tended the dinnerin question—and above all, that
dinner ought never to have been given in honour of
Earl Grey, if compromise' and clipping' be a political
sin beyond forgiveness ; for was there ever a measure
more' clipped' than the Reform Act ? and when did com-
promise' ever do more to change, and changing to pass a
bill ? First, there was the twenty-pound qualification,
which the scheme, as reported by Lord John Russell and

the rest of the sub-committee, contained, and which would
have destroyed a hundred rotten burghs, and created about
twice the number? This was changed by the Cabinet to
ten pounds, and Lord Durham made no objection ;—a
change, however, which he may (though most incorrectly)
represent as no compromise, because it was an extension,
and not a clipping, of the plan. But what becomes of all
the changes, in the precisely opposite direction, which the
measure afterwards underwent, both before it was brought
in the second time, and after it came into the House of
Commons ? Why, if compromise be an abandonment of
principle wholly unjustifiable, did Lord Durham accept the
bill, shorn of its fair proportions' by Lord Chandos's
amendment, assuredly made to give great landlords a pre-
ponderance in the counties ? This was, of all things, the
most pernicious, and it sinned against every principle
on which the bill was founded. Yet Lord Durham and the
impatient reformers gladly accepted the measure, thus mise-
rably injured, rather than have no bill at all. But a
vote of the House of Commons, they will say, carried this
alteration. What compulsion of the kind made the Cabi-
net, of which Lord Grey was the head, and Lord Durham
an active member, retain the right of voting in Freemen—
the worst of all the franchises, and the one which engen-
ders and perpetuates corruption of every sort ? This
change was made in the bill during the recess, after it was
first thrown out—it was made during the period given for
reflection and deliberation—it was made expressly to conci-
liate the adversaries of the bill. We venture, then, with all
respect for Lord Durham, to suggest, that it was as plain
an act of clipping'—as distinct a compromise'—as any
man can figure to himself; and that it was a clipping and
compromise made with the design of gaining over enemies !
and that advantage was taken of delay—of opportunity to
deliberate—precisely in the way against which Lord Durham
now so vehemently protests. Then why did his Lordship
submit to this ? Why did he prefer the bill thus clipped'
to no reform at all ? Because he was a man of sense, a
practical statesman, a sincere reformer. But then, has he any
right to deny the same titles to others who recommend, it
may be, a like course ? Observe, no one, on the occasion
alluded to, bad said a word about compromising to gain over
enemies ; all that was urged was the wisdom of delibe-
rate and cautious proceedings. But Lord Durham, in his
vehement love of whole and entire measures, and his
impatience of 'every month that passes' without some-
thing being done, chose to read a lecture against clip-
ping,' and, above all, against making use of the time taken
for digesting any measure, in order to make it acceptable
to such a number of persons as may suffice to carry it
through Parliament ; and this he did without reflecting
that he used the time given in 1831 for deliberation, to
change the measure in one of its most essential parts, with
the hope (a vain one it proved) of conciliating the enemies
of the reform ! Nay, he urged this topic, and fulminated
his anathemas against all compromise—that is, if he meant
anything at all, against taking as much reform a's you can
get, though you may not get all you wish, and all you have
a right to—at a festival given expressly in honour of the
Reform Bill, and its chief author, Earl Grey ; this bill
having been the result of a compromise, and being noto-
riously framed, as introduced in 1831, upon the very prin-
ciple so loudly decried by his Lordship, of taking what you
can get, when you may not have just what you like. We
might urge the same argument from other changes in the
bill—all in the like direction—that is, contrary to its funda-
nsental principles, and operating unfavourably to popular
rights—as, for example, the restriction of votes in burghs to
those whose rates are paid up, and the requiring in counties
a small fee to be paid on registration—both of which al-
terations were manifestly of a most mischiovous tendency
to the franchise, and both submitted to for the purpose of
reconciling adversaries. Why did Lord Durham, and other
sincere reformers, accept a measure so clipped'—nay, so
miserably mangled and cut to pieces ? Why, but that
they had the sense to look at the prodigious good they
gained by it, and not like silly, wayward, spoiled children,
to reject it because they had been crossed in some parti-
culars. But yet the very same men have the assurance,
and, at a dinner given in honour of those who so mangled
the Reform Bill, and so suffered it to be mangled, and
given in their honour, expressly because they agreed to it,
and gladly accepted•it as mangled—the assurance to pro-
fess that, whatever others may do, they, forsooth, arc far
too uncompromising gentlefolks ever to suffer any clip-
ping' whatever ; or to abate one single jot of their claims
for the purpose of obtaining their object, or to accept one
half-farthing in the pound less than the full amount of all
their demands. They look down from this elevation of
pure, rigorous, unbending principle, on which they are
pleased to plant themselves, with an amazing self-compla-
cency, upon the rational, practical, and consistent men, who
have disdained to commit no such vagaries ; Thanking
God that they are not as others are—clippers—compromi-
sers—men of expediency."

From the length of our extracts, we can merely at
present allude to the very interesting article on the
House of Lords. The Reviewer states, what we be-
lieve is quite true, that the body of the nation was op-
posed to the Revolution, and that we owe our liberties
to the corruption under an oligarchy composed of great
Lords and trading politicians. The Lords, however,
have now little of the property of the country, and less
influence. That influence is gone for ever. " After
the accession of the House of Hanover, the Whig
Lords acquired an ascendancy by the profuseness and
magnificence of their expenditure, and by the resources
they were enabled to draw from the public purse, in a
country steadily advancing in wealth and commerce.
The present Lords are, with some few exceptions, too
poor and too much embarrassed in their circumstances
to spend much money of their own ; and the Commons
and people are too vigilant to permit the former drafts
of the public purse to be continued." The remedy
proposed is the creation of Peers for life. But we doubt
its adequacy. However, we shall return to the sub,
j ect.—Morning Chronicle.

The subjoined statement from the Leeds Times is
curious, and stimulates curiosity the more for being so
meagre and imperfect :
" In the township of Leeds the names of 418, and in
the out-townships the names of 93, Whig voters, have been
struck off the list, forming a total of M I votes lost to this
party.

" In the township of Leeds, the names of 219, and in
the out-townships the names of 49, Tory voters, have been
struck off the list, forming a total of 258 lost to this party.
" Here, then, the Tories have gained an advantage over
the Whigs tantamount to 243 votes.

" But this is not all.
" In the whole borough 45 new Whig claims have been
allowed, and 76 Tory claims, giving the latter an advantage
of 31 votes.

" The whole advantage of the Tories, therefore, amounts
to no less than 274 votes.

" (The Leeds Times concludes its enumeration byad-
verting to this memorable fact—that the Whigs and Tories,
in their mutual squabbling, have succeeded in disfranchising
no less than 822 inhabitants of Leeds I)"
Now, the unsatisfactory meagreness whereof we
complain in the above five or six short paragraphs from
our Leeds namesake, consists in the absence of every
fact from which might be inferred the causes of rejec-
tion., as influencing the revising barristers in their
treatment of the several claimants, whether Whig or
Tory. It appears indisputably, if the account be cor-
rect, that on the new registration of voters for the
township and out-townships of Leeds, a much larger
number of Whig votes have been struck out of the list
than of Tories ; also, that as respects new votes, a
smaller number of Whigs have been admitted than of
Tories, making a total difference in favour of the
Tories of 274. One of our contemporaries alleges it
broadly as a charge against the working of the Reform
Bill, that so vast a body of constituents should under
its operation have been, deprived of their votes ; and so
far we are disposed to agree with him, but not when he
extends his grievance to the fact that the Revising Bar-
risters' Court llas in the present instance disfranchised
a greater portion of Whigs than of their adver-
saries. The law of registration being the same for
both parties, it is plain that the surplus of rejection
falling upon one of them must have been produced by
something extrinsic to the law, and arising out of the
different conduct or circumstances of the individuals ;
but nothing can be more obvious, without going into
details, than the mischievous structure of the law it-
self, in the gross amount of the disfranchisement which
it has effected, exceeding 800 inhabitants of a single
borough, in a single year; and that without the slight-
est criminality or fault on their part, as regards the
exercise of their franchise: but the truth is, that a
very disputable policy has been exhibited in the fram-
ing of that portion of the Reform Bill which specifies
the limitations to the enjoyment of the elective fran-
chise. It does not seem to us that any natural con-
nexion exists between a man's right of voting and his
punctuality in paying the King's or parochial taxes.
Are there no means of enforcing the demands of the
tax-collector but by making the deprivation of a high
political trust the consequence of any delay, however
short or unavoidable, in discharging them ? But it is
riot the interest of the elector only which is injured
by this oblique and insidious manner of working his
disqualification. A vote, as we have said, is a trust.
It is for the benefit of the communzty that all persons
possessing the due qualification of property should be