The Sun.
London, England, 1835-06-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

Corporation Reform would have slept during the
present year if the Tories had retained office ; or if
forced on the consideration of the Cabinet of Sir Ro-
bert Peel, we should have been accommodated with
"as little as needs be." Any measure from the Tories
would have been concocted, first, to sustain the power
of their own party ; secondly, to limit as much as pos-
sible its utility to the People. We are indebted,
therefore, for this boon to the patriotic resolution of the
majority of the House of Commons, which wisely
withheld its confidence from a class of public men,
who, whatever their hypocritical and time-serving pro-
fessions, had ever been the advocates of municipal cor-
ruption, and the opponents of Reform. The conduct
of the Tories on this question is very remarkable.
They denied the legality of the Corporation Commis-
sion ; they advised the municipal authorities not to
submit to its authority ; they libelled the Commission-
ers ; and lastly, they denounced the Reports. On the
return of the Tories to office, no member of the Cabi-
net of Sir Robert Peel admitted the existence of abuses,
or the necessity of any real change in the municipal
institutions of the corporate towns. We required
lot the results of the Corporation Commission—
important and essential as they were previous to
any legislative measure—to understand the notorious
defects of the system, and the practicability of its re--
formation by the simple means of popular local go-
vernments, founded on the principle of representation,
and subject to periodical elections of municipal officers.
So far Robert Peel and his veteran corps of Tory
Placemen might have admitted the principles of muni-
cipal reform, if they had been really the honest and
intelligent Reformers which they would now wish us
to believe they are. But though the Scotch Burghs
Bill had become law, and a popular municipal govern-
ment had been given to the northern part of the island,
not a syllable escaped the lips of the " Conservatives,"
that England, Wales, or Ireland, should participate
in the rights of municipal self-government. Indeed,
it would have ill-suited Sir Robert Peel, on the
threshold of a dissolution of Parliament, in November
last, to have issued any such proclamation against
the self-elect and Tory Corporators of the municipal
towns. It was far more expedient to call upon them
for a last and dying political struggle on behalf
of Toryism, and to delude them into the hope that
the " Conservatives " were striving to save Corpora-
tions from the claws of the " Destructives." 'What,
however, must be the astonishment and indignation of
the Self-elect, to discover that they are abandoned to
the scourge of reformation—that they are one and all
to vacate office in the autumn, and to submit them-
selves to the- choice or rejection of their fellow-towns-
men—that their former partisans, who hitherto always
shielded them from the effects of popular indignation,
have now failed them in the hour of need ? The
history of parties affords no parallel to such an
instantaneous change of tactics. But Sir Robert
Peel is an expert fugleman, and his followers ad-
mirable observers of his rapid signals for changes
of position. To the astonishment and chagrin of
numbers of the Tory Members in the House of Com-
mons, the complying Baronet, after learning the nature
and extent of the Ministerial measure, admitted that
" the time has arrived when it is of the utmost
importance to the well-being of society to establish a
good system of municipal government ; ' and this emi-
nent political Conformer subsequently proceeded to admit
that such a system ought to be based on the principles
of a popular constituency and periodical elections. This
curious diplomatic manoeuvre is equivalent to what, in
sea-faring language, is known by the term of " box-
haul," a particular method of turning a ship about
when the swell of the sea renders the gentler process
of tacking impracticable. However disagreeable the
motion, circumstances render it necessary that the Ex-
Premier should " boxhaul" his party ; and the crew
must act in obedience to the steersman. We are con-
fident, however, that the country will not be thrown
off their guard by these practised hands at political
conformity, but will bear in mind the past acts of the
party. It was they who corrupted close Corporations;
it was they who justified municipal abuses, and who,
till last week, never betrayed a symptom of desire to
reform those municipal institutions which they thus
monopolized for purposes hostile to the liberties of the
people. We are by no means desirous of refusin4
the concurrence of Sir Robert Peel in the great labour
of Corporation Reform, and we well know the
advantages of his singular submission to public
opinion. But we will never allow the mask to be worn
in politics without endeavouiinL, to give an exhibition
of the naked face. Sir Robert Peel never was till this
month an advocate of anq reformation in our munici-
pal system. If secretly he has entertained the opi-
nions he now professes, he has always acted in direct
opposition to his principles. The Tories, if they be-
come converts to the new faith of their leader, which is
doubted, will adopt the convenient creed of liberality,
because they cannot afford to discard their leader, and
know that without one they would powerless. We
repeat, that we fear more from the treacherous aid of
the Tories than we should apprehend from their oppo-
sition to the measure of Corporation Reform. Sir
Robert Peel did not capitulate without conditions. On
all the essentials of the Bill—on the franchise, on the
periodical elections, on the popular control of the po-
lice, and on the transfer of die licensing system to the
Town Councils, he cautiously abstained from all opi-
nion. An ingenious advocate in an opening speech
seldom developes his case, and thus Sir Robert
Peel plans a retreat if he should find his position
untenable. The Tory journals, restrained by the pru-
dent course of the Right Hon. Baronet, modestly
state that the measure may be rendered decent by the
aid of the Conservatives. The Reformers know well
the meaning of this indication of the Tory press. We
have too lively a recollection of the mutilation of the
Reform Bills, by the Tories not to be awake to their
designs against Corporation Reform. We can clearly
foresee 'what will be their aim, and we must warn the
Liberal Members of the House of Commons to be
prepared to counteract the machinations of the old
partisans of municipal abuses. False frieads are most
dangerous enemies, and the nation will not endure that
the Tories shall be the self-appointed arbitrators of a
liberal measure of legislation to which they are known
to be in their hearts the most bitter foes. In the mean-
while we may congratulate the friends of liberal insti-
tutions on the general approval of the Ministerial plan.
Lord Melbourne has fully justified, on this subject,
the confidence placed in him by the country. We
shall soon be delivered from the curse of local oligar-
chies, and the nuisance of close Corporations.—
Morning Chronicle.

The measure of Municipal Corporation Reform
proposed by the Melbourne Cabinet is, so far as Lord
John Russell is capable of expounding it, before the
country. We have already stated our opinion, that it
is a far more sober and rational measure than we ex-
pected from its authors, and until the details of the
Bill are fully and fairly before us, we do not feel that
we should be justified in predicating any more special
judgment respecting it. That a measure of Corpora-
tion Reform which shall remove all that is objection-
able under the present system may pass into a law
under the auspices of the present advisers of the
Crown we do not deny ; but we declare our firm belief
that, under their guidance alone, and without the
practical knowledge and assistance of Sir Robert Peel
and his friends, in every detail, neither that, nor any
other measure can be framed by the present Cabinet.
The very manner in which this Bill was introduced
to the House of Commons and to the country, by
the leader of the Whig Government, was such as to
demonstrate to every unprejudiced man the utter
incapacity of the speaker, not only to frame an
enactment, such as he described to be necessary,
but to enunciate his own notions on the subject ; not
only to manifest his inability to embody, in a practical
form, the principles to which he desired to give effect,
but to exhibit his powerlessness even to explain what
those principles were. In fact, had there not been an
abstract of the Bill in existence before Lord John
Russell delivered his speech his auditors would have
remained, up to this hour, in total• ignorance of even
the principle of the measure he was endeavouring to
explain to them. We never witnessed (and we have
witnessed many of Lord Althorp's) so degrading an
exhibition as that made by Lord John on Friday night.
Forgetting that he was no longer the leader of a small

section of an heterogeneous opposition, Lord Johnßus-
sell brought forward this extensive and important mea-
sure, not as a Minister of the King should bring it for-
ward, but enveloped in all the littlenesses ofparty politics,
which he had not even the sagacity to see it should seem
at least to be divested of—not as a great national mea-
sure, but as.a narrow party manoeuvre. So blinded, in-
deed, by party feelings was this most imbecile man, that
he could not even perceive that the very selection he
made of the boroughs by which he meant to illustrate
the necessity of Corporation Reform was so grossly
and glaringly partial that the veriest tyro in debate
(much less so great a debater as Sir Robert Peel)
must, in his reply, weaken, if not totally demolish the
whole of his argument, so far at least as those selec-
tions illustrated it. No ; in every sentence uttered by
Lord John Russell we could only perceive the petty,
party politician ; there was no trace of the enlightened
statesman, no vestige of the unbiassed Legislator,
enacting measures for the goo(' of his country, and not
for the advancement of his party. No—not even this
quality, so necessary for a Minister to appear at least
to possess, is to be found in the present leader of the
House of Commons. But, if we turn to the speech
of Sir Robert Peel, we may there indeed find,
though we cannot in the speech of Lord John Russell,
a statesman's and a patriot's view of that measure of Cor-
poration Reform which the country desires, but which
the present Ministers of the Crown are, unassisted
by him and his friends, unable to embody in a legis-
lative enactment—a measure which " will guard against
the transfer of the system of abuse from one party to
another party ; the sincere and real object of which
shall be, not to take political influence from one party
and give it to another, but to attempt to found a good
and sound system of Corporate Reform, taking secu-
rity, as far as security on such a subject can be taken,
that the really intelligent and respectable portion of
the community of the town be called to the administra
tion of the affairs of the Corporation." Such a mea-
sure, we do hope, that the country will eventually
have ; but sure we are, that, without the aid of Sir
Robert Peel and his friends, such a measure is not to
be expected from the honesty of the Melbourne Ad-
ministration, nor from the capacity of Lord John Rus-
sell. We have ever, in common with all reasoning
men, held the gift of oratory to be secondary to the
possession of honesty ;—we have never set the quality
of clearness in argument on a par with that of inte-
grity in purpose ; but what shall be said to the fitness
of that man to be a Minister of the Crown, to whom
nor -nature nor education have given words to express
his meaning ;—who has neither sense to conceal the
venality of his patriotism, nor sensibility _to feel the
exposure of his imbecility ;—who is an O'Connell in
the depravity of his politics, and a Hume in the po-
verty of his language ?—Morning Post.
`We have already stated that we choose to withhold
our opinion of the Corporate Reform Bill until we see
it entire. At the same time, we do not consider our-
selves precluded from making any suggestions that
may occur to us, especially as we are moved only by a
desire to render the Bill as effective as possible for the
annihilation of corporate abuses, and for the establish-
ment of a wholesome and popular system of corporate
..overnment. We wish to deal with the Bill in the
most friendly spirit, having really at heart, what the
Ministers profess to have, reform, or rather (what is
wanted in this case) reconstruction, but not revolution,
or that which must lead to revolution. In the first
place we beg our readers to understand that the
franchise Lord John Russell creates is not household
franchise. There enters into his franchise an
element which takes it altogether out of the class in which
some of the claquers of the Ministerial press have placed
it. The voter for the Town Council under Lord John
Russell's Bill must h;tve been rated to the poor for
three years, and if he be in arrear for six months he
;yin be disqualified. This is not in the legal, though
it may be in the popular sense, household sqffrage.
Upon this subject much may be said, and we think the
public will constantly recur to the question, why take
a different franchise from that which the Reform Bill
has already provided ? It was the declared purpose of
those who framed that Bill to embrace within the new
political constituency, as nearly as might be, all the
sound intelligence, independence, and trustworthiness
' of the realm. Nor is it to be denied, that in the opinion
of most reflecting men the circle was made sufficiently
comprehensive, and the influx of voters as great as
was consistent with the good order of society and the
well being of the Constitution. Then, let us ask again,
why construct a different franchise ? If more capacious
than that already existing, must it not include a por-
tion of materials, which were rejected three years ago,
as not possessing the qualities of discernment, indepen-
dence, and the love of peace ? If it be merely coinci-
dent or coequal with the present franchise, cui Bono
its enactment but to produce complexity and confu-
sion of principles in the working of our political system:
Should this plan of inventing and employing a new
test of municipal capacity in our towns have any hid.
den purpose of hereafter exciting discontent among the
corporate electors, inasmuch as that they have 'been

manufactured into a species of political half-caste, and
deemed unworthy of any higher vocation than the
choice of petty local authorities, while their immediate
friends and neighbours can generate Members of Par-
liament, the question assumes a different and, more
angry shape. It is clear that the fresh difficulty thi,
about to be raised would lead to a solution which is
carefully kept in the background, viz., to the simplifi-
cation of the abstruse state of our internal system, by
finally flinging down the barrier between the two
classes of suffrage, and establishing for Members of
Parliament that which is now proposed as a substra-
tum of the mere municipal representation. Now, if
such a project as this be „contemplated, let it at least
be avowed that the people of England, and in par-
ticular the existing constituency of the kingdom,
may have time to make up their minds, and con-
sider how they ought to entertain a proposal so"
seriously affecting the theory and principles, or it
may be the wholesome operation, of the Reform Bill,
which, at least in all that concerned the elective fran-
chise, was avowed by its authors, and understood
by all, to be a fundamental and final measure of con-
stitutional policy. If from the description of the new
electors, we turn to the powers vested in them, and to
their absolute control over the finances and police of
the borough,,as well as of the charitable institutions
connected with it, there seems ample work for earnest
discussion when the House shall get into Committee
on the Bill, if not for extensive alterations in some of

its most important clauses. These points we are now
precluded, by want of space and time, from dealing
with. Upon the whole, this Bill, regarded as a grand
flash manoeuvre of the Whigs, as a deadly missile
launched against all moderate statesmen, or a lever,
whereby the whole weight of Conservative and inde-
pendent politics throughout Great Britain was to be
prized up, hurled aloft, and dashed to pieces irrecover-
ably—as such, we repeat, as a death-blow to the Con-
servatives, this attempt has already proved abortive.
The Conservatives have substantially more to gain
than the Whig-Radicals by municipal reform. There
are more Derbys, Nottinghams, and Portsmouths, in
the field than Aldburghs and Orfords. The proposi-
tion has been received by Sir R. Peel in the right
spirit—that of a high-minded statesman, and an ho-
nest citizen of a free country. If the Whigs, after the
vapid and petty-spirited speech of Lord John Russell,
fancy that a dissolution on grounds 4ce this will serve
them, they may try, though we are not so unfriendly
as to offer them such hazardous counsel.—Tinter.

The plan of Municipal Reform, as introduced by
Lord John Russell, has not yet come before us in that
authentic shape that would enable us to speak de-
cidedly as to its merits in detail. We must wait for
the printed Bill, but in the Mean time we may say a
word or two as to the great principles involved in the
measure, leaving its particular provisions open to future
observation. To the principle of self-election we have
always been opposed, and to all exercise of irresponsi-
ble power, whether it concerns the government of a
town or an empire, or the administration of the affairs
of the poor. The self-election principle, and the
close borough system of Government, are the result of
a long practised system of usurpation upon our an-
cient municipal Constitution--a Constitution which
was framed on exactly the opposite principle to that
of the new-fangled principle of centralisation which
our pseudo-patriots have learned from the Bourbon
despots, for it was founded on the principle of local