The Sun.
London, England, 1832-05-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Tories were persuaded, within this fortnight, that
they could play their old game with the people of Eng-
land, throwing dust in the eyes of the upper classes, anti
dragooning the rest. It was a fact, as much taken for
granted as if it had already been realized, that the " Dear
Duke" was to quiet the courstry at twenty-four hours' no.
taco. Such soft dreams are at an end. We suspect th
there is not a man in the empire more convinced at this
moment of his own insignific tnce than the Duke of Wel-
lington. His party in tie House of Lords have proved
their sense of it. Last night, instead of a majority of 35
against the question for enfranchistnent of the TOW. r
Hamlets, as there had been against Ministers on the di-
vision for postperement of Schedule A, the clause was
carried against Lord Edenborough by about 91 to 36, or
not much short of three to one. Whatever may have been
said about " reaction" in the count! y, this at least
shows a reaction elsewhere of no unambiguous charac-
raeter. T 1 e anti-Reformer!, in the manner of the
illustrious Pistol, have eaten the leek. What-
ever mischief may he designed by it, they will
pass the Bill—the Reform Bill will pass unaltered.
But it mty not be premature to state, that the duties
of Lord Grey's Administration do not end with the Re-
form Rll, which at best is but a means to an end : the
means, free agency ;—the end, good government. There
are a il z•ea other questions, after Reform shall have passed
requiring extraordinary influence over the Commons, no
less than direct power in the other House of Parliament.
According to the present constitution of the House of
Peers, it will he impossible to carry on the Administration
for any man who has not the confidence of the Tory party:
in other words, it will be impossible, without an extensive
creation of Whig Peers, to counteract the old, established,
and indefatigable effort. of the Tory Peerage, which itself
has been the growth of the last 60 or 70 years, for the
downfall of a liberal statesman. Have our remarks, then,
of yesterday appeared unfriendly to the continuance of the
Whigs in office? Decidedly they ought not : having for
their object nothing else than to remind Lord Grey of
those indulgences to Tory interest which he had for-
merly manifested, and of those real dangers to which
he must be exposed by a repetition of the same over-
delicate policy. If Lord Grey does not wish to be
maticeavr.d out of office immediately after the passing of
the Reform Bill, he will recommend to his Majesty to
create or coil up Peers more than equal to the majority
by which he has recently been overpowered. But on
this point we have no doubt that the Noble Lord feels
with us ; and we confide in his zeal for the cause of gene-
ral liberty, and in his resolution that Reform, once esta-
blished, shall enjoy fair play. For the Reform Bill itself,
if we may judge by what has taken Elace in the Commit-
te', no alarms need now be entertained. Last night, after
a N.etch from Lord Durham, consisting of the most con-
vincing facts, of the most unanswerable force of reason-
ing, an-I a very feeble attempt at contradiction by Lord
Wynf rd, anti some skimble-sk amble stuff from some
other Peers, which we should he ashamed to waste a word
in refuting, the question of the metropolitan Members was
carried triumphantly. The Committee afterwards dis-
posed of all the towns in schedule C, and of four in sche•
dole D. The Duke of Newcastle, in the course of the
discussion, indignantly exposed the inconsistency of the
opposition projectors of Reform, anti took his leave of
the House and the Bill in a way exceedingly becoming.
Lords Kenyon and Winchilsea manifested that sound
judgment anti fine temper which characterize most of their
public efforts, and were complimented by Lord Grey in a
strain of eulogy which only such men can merit. What
may happen upon the third reading of the Bill, we know
not ; but Ministers of course are aware of the ground they
stand upon, and will risk no fatal issue. Lord Salisbury,
and other Lords, intimated their intention of voting against
ti e Bill in its future stages, should it not he altered so as
to suit their views of propriety ; and though the Opposi-
tieto benches last night were nearly empty, we have no se-
curity that the Tory phalanx may not rally at the last
hour, :,nrl make a combined attack, on the third reading,
to ole-trey the-all-but completed charter. But we re-
peat, that Ministers are of course prepared for all that
disappointed rage may venture, and will crush, should it
he artetuFted, the desperate stratagem. We dismiss,
therefore, our fears, though we shall not relax our vigi-
lance. The Ministers, among other foolish charges, have
been taunted for their nun-prosecution of " seditious
Jibe's." It the Tories judge right, they will complain of
no more libels : it is worse than vain, when the nation,
like one Man, upholds the libeller's impunity. In the
mean while, small mischief-makers ought to be rebuked
when they obtrude their " faint praise" or damning
etitius" upon the Government. Mr. Tennyson, for
might, with much advantage to himself and some
to 'Ministers, abstain from striving to discountenance the
only measure whereby the interests of the cause of Reform
can now he promoted. Upon the whole, we ere nut dis-
armed of our suspicions by the ea.se and smoothness with
which the Tory Lords assent to the clauses of the Bill;
or, negatively, withdraw their resistance. Give them but
courage, and they will reject the whole to-morrow. If
they do pass it, nothing will remain for them but to trip
up Ministers on some secondary plea—a species of warfare
aga nst which Lord Grey anti his colleagues ought not to
be nnprovided, though, for what ultimate benefit to the
faction, it is somewhat difficult to discern ; since a Tory
Adtninistration_, acting for one month upon Tory principles,
would be a phenomenon, which, however much to be ad-
mired, it is impossible that, after this day, England
should ever witness.—Times.

The success of the Refoi m Bill is now placed beyond all
doubt. The impot taut question of the enfranchisement of
the metropolitan districts has been decided in favour of
Ministers upon a divism witch gave them a majority of
fib. The other districts were then enfranchised, so that
schedule C has been disposed of without having undergone
the slightest change in its contents. Afttr having lost so
favourite a point as that of expunging the metropolitan
districts born the Bill by so large a majority, it is scarcely
to be expected that the Conservatives will be able to mus-
ter up courage for another attack. The disfranchising
clauses, it is true, will offer them a strong temptation, hut
unless they possess the art of extracting hope from defeat
itself, the remembrance of last night will operate strongly
against any renewal of hostilities. We may, therefore,
congratulate the country even now upon the success of a
m•asure wh;cla so far from being defeated, cannot be touch
longer de!a) ed in its pregress to completion. Threadbare
as ti.e subject bits been worn, the debates of last night will
rill be read with interest; but the division is the test
which rives the strongest and most satisfactory assurance
that the victory is indeed complete.—Morning Herald.
This public will read with disgust. part of the proceedings
iq the douse of Lords last night. Lord Kenyon and ,
Lorl Winehilsea, having enacted the parts of Cantwell and
Mau:worm, at a dinner at the Freemasons' T,.vern, for
some object of religion or chat ity----and where. apparently,
they had indulged in ample libations under religious excite-
ment—came down to finish the night, by playing the
parts of Bully and Bottom, with more than their usual
virulence and malignity, against the authors and the pro-
visions of the 8.11. We beg our readers will look at the
tkort of the speeches of these infuriated bigots. If Lord
'sienyia were not a professing Christian, we- should ima-
gine his object must have been to provoke Lord Grey to
r Itort in language which might afford some opportunity for
an attempt to get rid of a grievance by a personal quarrel,
which the Tories bad failed of relieving themselves from
ty 1 se v'o:ent, but scarcely less reputable means. We should
not, however, argue seriously upon terms and phrases, the
import of which the Noble Lords may have been
scarcely able to comprehend in the condition in which they
apparently arrived from the Freemasons' Tavern. A Spi-
ritual Lord rather wittily observed, that the Nestle Lords
having come from Cuff's, seemed anxious still to go to
cuffs. Can anything tend more than scenes like these to
lower irretrievably that dignity of the Peerage, which
those Noble Tories are eterially professing to uphold? We
would ask in what assemblage of our f, flow- eitizms— in
what meeting, -of what Political Union—hot there ever
been exhi,.ited such virulence, such frantic intemperance,
or such an utter violation of all the decencies and conrte-
sies of public and private life? Sure we are, that it
would be an inestimable btnetit to the House of Lords, if,
instead of such fur ions and ignorant personages as Lords
With-Itasca, Kenyon, and Londonderry, that venerable
Assembly was graced with the presence of an Attwood or
a Schnlefield ! Men as infinitely superior to these Lords
in good manners and intellect, as they are in respectability
and wealth.—Morning Chronicle.

Amidst all the political profligacy of which our annals
since the revolution furnish instance, there is nothing
so abhorrent to honour and correct feeling as the recent
conduct of the Duke of Wellington. Even Sir Robert
Peel was forced to admit by his refusal to take office,
that to compel a Ministry to reign by oppositi.m to a
measure afterwards adopted, under the pretext of not
abandoning the Sovereign, offered a shuck to all our re-
ceived notions of honesty and principle. We have already
commented at some length on the evident insincerity of
Sir RAte:t's praise of the Duke's sacrifice of principle,
under the pretext of not abandoning the King. If it was
honourable in the Duke to stcritice his reputation on the
attar of loyalty, it would have keen equally honourable in
Sir Robert to sacrifice his own modicum of reputation.
In fact, even on Sir R. Vyvyan's showing, there was more
merit in Sir Robert, who had only a cracked reputation,
afering it up as a sacrifice, than in the Duke of Welling-
ton, w ho had already secured a ini!it ry reputation, which

would survive the wreck of his political reputation, making
sacrifice of the latter. But Sir II( bert's declara-
►i{on was a tissue of inconsistency. If, as lie says, he
coold be of no service in the present emervncy, without
entering. the servicv of the State in such a way as should
leave no stain on his honour, he pronounces the severest
censure upon his old friend and ally. Sir R. Peel in.
fained the House of Commons, that, after the opposition
which he has offered to the Reform Bill, he could not ac.
rept office for the purpose of carrying that Bill into a law
without "suffering in his own esteem ;" while the Duke
of Wellington, whose opposition to it has not been less
derided, whose opinion against it has been still more re-
rently, an well as more strongly and solemly exprea,ed,
declared that " he ahou'd have been ashamed to show his
face in the streets," if, from any regard to consistency,
from any scruples as to the pledges he has given, he had
hesitated to come forward to resue his Sovereign from the
embarrassment in which he was placed. It is thus quite
cle ir, from their own allowing, that one or other of these
pillars of Toryism has been guilty of treachery to his Sove-
reign or to his party; for our own part, weconfess, that while
we cannot very well understand the doctine of the Duke of
Wellington, or perceive the force of the considerations
which he thought required the sacrifice of his avowed opi-
nions; we are equally unable to concur with Sir R.
Peel in his estimate of his own conduct, and to regard it,
as he would have us, as a model of political rectitude and
self-denial. We concede to him, irdeed, the merit (such
as it is) of having refused to he a party to a mean attempt
to filch from the authors of the Reform Bill the credit of
carrying the great measure; but beyond this, and looking
to his whole conduct, we really do not see to what praise
lie can fairly advance a claim. He did rightly, no doubt,
in refusing, after his determined opposition to the Reform
Bill, to undertake as a Minister to carry it into a law ; but
upan what principle can he justify the opposition, if, in
the event of its success, he was not prepared to oppose
some other mode of carrying on the Government? How-
ever sincere might he his conviction that the Bill was in it-
self dangerous, still, if he were aware (as by his recent rejec-
tion of office it appears he was) that it could not be rejected,
or modified without still greater danger, it was his duty as an
upright Statesman, to have withdrawn his opposition to
it; he might, if he p'eased, have denounced the authors
of the measure, and have disclaimed all responsibility for
its consequences ; but if he knew that it must inevitably
pass, he should have used his influence in order that it
might do so as speedily and as quietly as possible. The
truth is, that he has played the same game upon this as
upon the Catholic Question ; hut, taught by his former
experience, be has played it better, and avoided the mistake
by which on that occasion he lost so largely in reputation ;
he has acted in both cases upon the same selfish principles,
with tl e same disregard of public as compared with
private interests; but he has now had the dexterity to
avoid the open exposure of his motives to the public eye.
It is not fir having been the proposer of Catholic Emanci-
pation in I t3'29, that Sir R. Peel is blamed by men of
discernment; on the contrary, Lis conduct in that year
was in itself praiseworthy, though fatal to his reputation as
an honest arid upright politician, by discovering the heart-
!essness and insincerity of his former life. Up to the year
11129 it was a secret inspected by near observers, but hidden

from the pubic at large, that Sir R. Peel was the oppo-
nent of Catholic emancipation—not because he was igno-
rant of the danger of refusing justice to the people of
Ireland—not because he was himself the dupe of the so-
phistries he annually paraded in Parliament, but because
the support of the numerous and powerful party whose
prejudices he thus fl ittered was necessary to him in the
struggle for power ; because in the career of ambition he
gained an advantage over his coM petitor,, by putting him-
self forward as the champion of prejudice and intolerance.
In 1829 this secret was revealed to all mankind ; he came
forward to expose almost in the very terms employed by
Mr. Canning, the fallacy of the arguments which, but
two years before, he l.ad himself urged with all the out-
ward appearance of sincere and intimate conviction, and it
was found that a most perilous struggle had been prolong-
ed, a great act of justice to an oppressed people delayed;
and much of the benefit to be derived from it irretrievaby
lot, in order to serve the private end., and to gratify the
selfish ambition of an hut unprincipled politician.
The real cr:minality of this conduct would, in no degree,
have been diminished ; it would merely have escaped
detection, if Mr. Canning had lived, and had carried
Emancipation, notwithstanding the opposition he would
certaidy have met with from his former colleagues ; this,
indeed, seems to be what Sir R. Peel desired and expected
to happen ; lie would thus have avoided the exposure of
1829 ; he would have retained the confidence of his ad-
herents, aml, with their support, would have forced him-
self back into office, to take advantage of the removal by
another of the great obstacles to the peaceful Government
of Ireland. It is the game thus skilfully planned, but ac-
_ _

ciheutally foiled in the case of the Catholic question, that
Sir R. Peel has now successfully played ; he has got all
the credit of having maintained his consistency. lie has,
by his strenuous opposition to Reform, once more placed
himself at the head of the Tory party, and he will trust to
their support and to his acknowledged shill as a Parli t-
mentary tactician, again to obtain, through the Reformed
House of Commons,his former station in the councils of the
country. Indignantly as on Friday he denied all selfish views,
we believe that we have Oyu) the true explanation of Sir
R. Peel's recent conduct; his professions might have had a
greater effect in altering our opinion, could we have for-
gotten his equally strong professions upon the Catholic
Question ; but remembering, as we do, that his old wo-
man's feats or our Protestant Constitution turned out to
have been a mere mask assumed for a particular purpose,
we cannot divest ourselves of the impreAsion that his dread
of the ‘• Revolutionary Bill" is an equally well got up
piece of acting; and that as he trifled with the justly ex-
cied passion's of the Irish people by delaying the restora-
tion of their rights in order to promote his own ambitious
views, he has ak:in put to hazard the peace of the empire,
by impeding for the same pitiful object the accomplishment
if the wi,hcs of the tt hole nation fir a Reform in the
House of Commons.—Morning Chronicle.