The Sun.
London, England, 1835-12-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Notwithstanding all the railing and raving against
the present Ministry, it is a remarkable and most sig-
nificant fact that there has not been a Government in
the history of the country, the measures and policy of
which have been so little the subject of objection and
attack as those of the present Ministry. This assertion
may startle persons who have heard the daily outcry
of faction, without taking the trouble to inquire upon
what it all turns ; but if all the tirades, written and
spoken, of the Opposition during the last six months
are examined, it will be found that the matter of ob-
jection to any specific measure, or actual course of
policy, foreign or domestic, is infinitely small. The
Ministry is not attacked for what it has done, or
for what it does, or for what it proposes to do ;
but simply and solely because it has the support of
Mr. O'Connell. The readers of the Times, the
Standard, and other Tory prints, are daily dosed with
columns of invective and imputation, all resolvable
into the single fact, that O'Connell supports the Mi-
nistry. All the motives and intentions which the ma-
lice, and the almost insane fancy of faction attribute to
the Ministry, have no other ground than this. Every
attack is to be compressed into the same terms—that
the Ministry has the support of O'Connell. The
daily woolpacks of abuse in the pages of the Times
and the Standard are only amplifications of the same
theme. The cuckoo-note has no variations. Nothing
more is necessary to an article in a Tory paper, than
the incessant iteration of the name of O'Connell.
The sum and substance of all attacks on the Govern-
ment is, that O'Connell is satisfied with it. Its con-
duct, its policy pass unquestioned, and it is arraigned
and convicted of the support of the Member for
Dublin. What the Tories call for is a government
formed and conducted on the grand and high prin-
ciple of not pleasing O'Connell. In the history of
the country never was .there such a puerility as this,
and though the object to which the Tories confine
their attacks implies a compliment to the Ministry,
inasmuch as its measures arc left unassailed, yet, on
the other hand, the attempt to try and condemn a Go-
vernment upon a‘personal issue—that is to say, not
for what it has done or proposed to do, but because a
powerful individual, unconnected with it, is friendly to
it—is the grossest insult that was ever yet offered to
the public understanding. The whole is a base expe-
riment on English jealousies, and the Times very
clumsily discovered such to be its game, by making
the numbers of Scotch and Irish Members in the Go-
vernment a subject of invidious observation a day or
two ago. An address to prejudices is an affront to
a fair and enlightened people, and it is an affront best
answered and best rebuked by the most unequivocal
demonstrations, whenever opportunity offers, that no
such prejudices exist.—Morning Chronicle.
The Grand Jury at the late session of the Criminal
Court, of which Mr. Hume was the 'foreman, made a
complaint, at the end of their labours, as their prede-
cessors have frequently done, of the great number of
juvenile offenders whose depredations had come before
them. This is, in every point of view, a most im-
portant subject ; and, as such, one which we are glad
to see noticed, and shall be happy to see seriously
and effectually taken up. Mr. Hume and his brother
Jurymen seem, as others have done, to have looked at
it principally as a source of trouble to themselves,
and therefore the only remedy they suggest is one
which may have the effect of diminishing for
the future their own labours—viz., that Magis-
trates, instead of sending young persons for trial,
should punish them summarily. And in this recom-
mendation one of the Judges on the rota is
.represented
as having cordially joined. That neither Judges nor
Juries should wish to have more to do than can well be
avoided is perhaps natural enough ; but at the same
time we could wish the latter at least to bear in mind,
that they are the depositories of one of the most an-
cient and valuable of those privileges which have for
ages distinguished this country above the other nations
of the world ; and that it has generally been by small,
by plausible and imperceptible beginnings, that any of
these privileges have been attempted to be under-
mined. One of the City Solons, we believe, has re-
commended that Grand Juries themselves he altoge-
ther dispensed with as useless, and certainly, if Magis-
trates arc to be the sole judges of crimes committed by
children, Ti will very soon follow that the age of the
criminal has very little to do with the matter, and that
Juries in all cases of larceny arc an incumbrance and a
trouble which ought to be got rid of. But, without
going further into this part of the question at present,
we must be allowed to regret that either Juries or
Judges should take so narrow and contracted a view
of the subject ; and, while thus hitting upon a me
thacl of leSsening their own labours, should pass by
the much more important one of diminishing the evil.
Can the Grand Jury, for instance, be ignorant that
one of the main causes which tends to the alarming in-
crease of juvenile offenders is the facility with which
stolen property is disposed of ? 'Yet how many re-
ceivers of stolen goods had they brOnght before them ?
What has been the vigilance of the police, which
they, in the samebreath, so highly compliment, in pre-
venting this fearful head of crime ? Again, did it never
occur to Mr. Hume and his fellow-jurors, that if better
care were taken of those children in the first instance,
they would themselves be saved from destruction, and
society from the consequences of their evil habits
Will the great economist of the age take pen in hand,
and tell us, after lie has made the calculation, whe-
ther, to say nothing of its moral influence, there would
not be an actual saving to the State, if an asylum
were provided for destitute children, and those of de.
prayed and indigent parents ? As far as such a matter
is susceptible of calculation, we believe it could be
proved that those who become amenable to the law,
besides the hundreds that escape it, might be trained up
to habits of virtuous industry, at much less expense
to the State than the loss and charge with their pre-
sent mode of life, in all its bearings, entails upon so-
ciety. But laying the consideration of expense ont
the question, is it not the bounden duty of every good
Government to protect its subjects, and, above all, to
throw its shield over those who, from their tender
years and no original fault of their own, are unable to
protect themselves ? An institution such as we speak
of might be formed with much ease. Indeed its seeds
already exist in those admirable institutions the Ma-
rine Society, the Refuge for the Destitute, and Cap-
tain Brenton's Asyluin at Hackney Wick. But it is
clear that rio great public object like this can be carried
on by private means ; and here is one which, both by
interest and ' duty, the State ought not any longer to
delay to undertake.—Morning Herald.
His Majesty has sent Commissioners to Canada,
for the express purpose of endeavouring to compose
the differences by which that important colony has been
so long agitated. It is, by the confession of all men,
of every party, essential to the welfare both of Great
Britain and of Canada that the dissensions which have
prevailed there should be brought to a conclusion. But
the party which has the ascendancy in the Assembly,
and with which successive Governors, as well as all
the British residents of wealth and respectability, have
found it impossible to agree, have appointed Mr.
Roebuck, the Member of Parliament for the city of
Bath, their delegate in this country, with a consider-
able salary. It would not suit Mr. Roebuck, there-
fore, by any means, that peace and harmony should
be restored between the French party, which
he represents, and the British ; since, in this case, the
Frenct party would no longer require a delegate in
England, the delegate's occupation would be gone,
and, what is still worse, his large salary along with it.
In these circumstances it was not to be expected
withedthat
Mr. Roebuck would very cordially co-operate
the King's Commissioners. But the people of Eng-
land are scarcely, we suppose, prepared for the virulent
and all but treasonable opposition to the wishes of the
King's Government, and to the clear interests both of
Great Britain and Canada, to which the anxious desire of
this person to perpetuate his Canadian income has
excited him. We, refer our readers, for an astound-
ing example of selfishness and disloyalty on the part
of Mr. Roebuck, to an extract from the Quebec
papers, whioh will be found in the letter of our Li-
verpool correspondent.—Morning Post.
Liverpool, Monday Evening.
aft,. " A letter from Mr. ROebuck is published in the Quebec
~,7K..r, papered May 30, which, among other statements, con-
'‘, • ' twos • the following :
to iy ~.::::-,..;.,,1 " lietttie Assembly continue steadfast to their purposes,
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