The Sun.
London, England, 1832-07-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

There has been more than the usual stir
amongst the Conservatives in the end of the last,
and beginning of the present week, and high
change was especially observable at the Carlton-
terrace " Caucus " yesterday. The cause of all
this bustle has been a plan, for some time
hatching, to get up a majority against Govern-
ment, on a •Motion relative to the Russian
Dutch Loan on Thursday. Those two loyal
and excellent Reformers, the Members for the
City of Worcester, who have generally contrived
to join in any scheme which could give embar-
rassment to a Government, to whom their con-
stituents, with the rest of the country, are in-
debted for the great measure of Reform, are said
to have been taken into council on this, as on
former occasions, and are equally disconcerted
with their allies, at the signal failure with which
they are happily threatened. The first proposal
was to oppose directly the Bill of which Lord
Althorp has given notice, for enabling the
Crown to carry into effect the new Convention
with Russia. In this opposition it was expected
the economists would join, from a hope of
saving the amount of the engagement, and the
Irish from dissatisfaction with the tithe measures
of Mr. Stanley. An active canvass was begun
for other recruits not over-well affected to the
Government on other subjects than Reform, and
much was expected from the candid hint thrown
out by Mr. Baring in the last debate, that
Gentlemen will have to account to their
constituents on the hustings for throwing
away five. millions of the public money.
Every thing being arranged and in order, Mr.
Robinson gave notice of a call of the House,
when it. was unfortunately discovered, that al-
though Sir Joseph Surface had no objection
to any scheme for the annoyance of Government
or to any motion of censure for their conduct in
the negotiation, neither he nor the Duke of
Wellington could oppose a Bill to ra-
tify an engagement, to which, under any,
circumstances, they conceived the country
was in honour bound, and without the ful-
filment of which they saw no prospect of
being able to appease the Court of Russia, if
they should be called upon to resume the admi-
nistration of our
_affairs—an expectation which
has not _ceased to live in the hopes of these sa
pient personages ! The Irish Members, also,
were ascertained to be obstinately honest---to be
determined to side cvith a liberal Government,
notwithstanding all their grievances, and to pre-
fer Lord Grey to the Duke of Wellington, not-
withstanding their complaints against the Irish
Secretary. What was to be done in this
dilemma? Was the scheme to be abandoned,
after the Tory forces had been mustered from
every quarter of the country for this last and
desperate effort ? Were Mr. Robinson
and Colonel Davies to be disappointed of the
honours to be reaped from their share of the
anticipated victory ? This would have been " too
had." Some motion of censure has, therefore,
been contrived by the " Caucus," and is to be
produced on Thursday—with certainly but slen-
der prospects of success, seeing that the econo-
mists would gain nothing by discrediting the
Government for no object, that the Irish Mem-
bers will be all at their posts to support Minis-
ters, and that there are few Members so ca-
pricious, or so regardless of the general desire of
the country for the maintenance of the present
Administration, as to be ambitious of distinction
in the same ranks with the Members for Wor-
cester. We shall wait till we hear the debate,
before entering upon the merits of the question;
hut we trust that Members will be at their posts,
although not in the spirit in which they have
been summoned by the call of the House. It
must always be recollected, that this engagement
is one of the wretched legacies bequeathed to
the present Government by its predecessors; and
that although, in the first instance, it may have
been a profligate waste of public money, a
question of peace or war may depend, in some
measure, on the honourable fulfilment of an in-
discreet and inexpedient contract. The whole
amount of the engagement is 21 millions of
florins, or about 1,800,000/.,—a sum which has
often been wasted in one fortnight of a war ex-
penditure.—Morning Chronicle.
If the letter from the Hague to Paris, on
which we commented in yesterday's Times,
afford but an indifferent basis for any favouaable
result to the protocol negotiations respecting
Belgium, we do not think the case much mended
by the project of a treaty which accompanied
the last answer of the Court of Holland to the
Powers in Conference, and which bears date the
30th ult., the aforesaid letter fiom the Hague
being dated on the 22d. The official commu-
nication differs from the unavowed one in sub-
stituting the name of Belgium for that of France
as future possessor of those portions of the Low
Countries which the House of Nassau expresser
a willingness to surrender. But it annuls, as
completely as does the letter, the previous con-
ditions of the protocols, by flatly rejecting all
that had been decided in Conference with regard
to the navigation of the Dutch waters, to the
destination of Luxemburg, and to the appor-
tionment of the debt. The King of Holland
cannot be acquitted of something worse than
dexterity in thus throwing out at the same time,
provocations to the Conference as a body, and
lures to one of its most powerful and am-
bitious members. What does he mean by this
overture in the nature of a bribe to France,
which has been already noticed, if not to embroil
that country with England, and thus to strike
with palsy the whole popular and liberal interest
throughout Europe ? What, again, does he
propose by the audacious tone and character of
the counter project annexed to the note of June
30, but to cast another firebrand into the circle
of the Conference, to furnish the secret friends
of his stubborn pretensions, and the enemies of
Belgic freedom and stability, with fresh materials
of controversy, and arguments for delay ? We
must, therefore, make bold to inform the Con-
<T bres. and more distinctly the Foreign Minister
of England, that 18 months of protocols, and
two or three dozen of ultimatums, are not to
be thus mischievously flung into the fire ; that
if an English Government can afford to be ridi-
culous, the British nation can not ; that, more-
over, when England pledges herself to the
world, and procures the obligation of other
Powers, to insist conjointly on the execution of
certain political arrangements, which they. for-
mally explain and ratify, as being essential to
the peace of Europe, it is an outrage
upon the dignity of this great people, and
a disgraceful overthrow of all public ho-
nour, to tolerate such a system of shuffling
aid chicanery as has been practised in more
than one quarter against the avowed policy of
the whole of Euroke, will the British Govern-
ment a imairiallt.--,Every man who speaks
upon e t 311 ois silent ?)—pro-
--
nou has been carried to
an usit,--brta „ievb
7- at these mystifica-
pst_
c...;.-- •
xr•
4,02'

tions ought to be put an end to without losing
another hour, and that each actor on the scene
ought to be fairly unmasked, as a step towards
awarding him the fitting remuneration for his
services. Let the thing, then, be finished, we
pray Lord Palmerston, and those diplomatic
personages who have so long kept his Lordship
in play. Distrust and gloom have been every
where fostered by the apparent hollowness of
their official proceedings. A long state of sus-
pense between peace and war is utter ruin to
commerce and useful industry. All minds be-
come unsettled when the policy of nations is un-
fixed ; and when the danger of collisions is mani-
fest, while the precise direction of them is un-
certain. Therefore, again we say, close your
conferences, and either say that you have been
playing at " protocolling," or that you have at
last resolved to execute those compacts which
have been formally and deliberately discussed and
settled.— Times.

The number of legal candidates who are pre-
senting themselves to the electors of the new arid
popular districts in the approaching new Parlia-
ment is a subject not unworthy of consideration.
There is one principle which must, we should
imagine, press itself upon the mind of every man
—which is, that, if a reformed Parliament is to
set about a reform of our institutions, none
stands more in need of a thorough renovation
than that of the law, in all its branches, while
none has received at the hands of lawyers more
of mock reform. We have Commissions and
promi,es without number, every one of the
former of which has skimmed lightly over the
surface, leaving those two most striking evils—
delay and expense—untouched. Even Sir Robert
Peel, who has been only the mouth-piece of his
professional employees, has promised more,
and accomplished less; than any man who
ever undertook the repair and improvement of
dilapidated objects. Now we doubt exceed-
ingly whether sending too many lawyers to
Parliament is the way to bring about this object.
To say nothing of ,their proverbial tendency to
look after themselves, and to frame their Parlia-
mentary votes to meet their own views and in-
terests, it may at any rate be fairly questioned,
judging from past experience, whether they are
not much more likely to obstruct than facilitate
any measure which may be proposed to render
less profitable, and therefore less oppressive,
their own gainful traffic. The two last Sessions
of Parliament have, with very little exception,
shown us what sort of reformers lawyers are ; and
those who have so nobly fought for and achieved
the triumph of reform will stultify themselves most
egregiously if they should now throw themselves
and their interests into the keeping of a class of
men, who, with a few illustrious exceptions, like
'the image-makers of old, stick most zealously to
abuses which bring no small gain to the craft. The
candidates whom the people should look out for
and encourage are men of business, men of the
world, persons who have astake in the country suf-
ficient to insure their own fidelity, and who value
existing institutions not by the standard of self-
interest, but according to the quantum of good
which they produce to the whole community.
Had this standard been applied to the contents
of schedule A, how many ages ago must their
rottenness have doomed them to the extinction
which has at length happily overtaken them !
Morning Herald.
Having frequently, during several years past,
taken occasion to argue in favour of the abolition
of the law of imprisonment for debt—having
rated our objections to the existing law, as be-
ing cruel, absurd, and impolitic—it gave us
great satisfaction to find that the report of the
Law Commissioners embraced a view of the sub-
ject, which, for the most part, coincided with
our own, and was sustained by similar argu-
ments, recommending as we had done, the abo-
lition of arrest for debt upon mesne process,
and, if practicable, upon execution also. In
the sentiments and recommendation of the report
the Lord Chancellor stated his perfect concur-
rence, and that a Bill would be brought in for
the purpose of carrying the suggestions of the
Law Commissioners into effect ; but as yet no-
thing has been done in furtherance of that inten-
tion. Mr. Hume deserved great credit for the
zealous and able exertions which he made on
former occasions to procure the extinction of the
cruel and mischievous law, which props a
ruinous system of fictitious credit—punishes upon
exparte evidence—treats the innocent debtor as
a criminal—and fills the prisons, which should
should be used only for the coercion of crime,
with the children of misfortune and the victims
of revenge. Our attention has been called to
this subject at the present moment by receiving a
copy of a petition to Parliament, signed by up.
wards of four hundred prisoners for debt in the
Debtors' Prison for London and Middlesex—
Whitecross-street, in the city of London. The
petition has been forwarded to us for publication,
but we think it sufficient to notice it in the
present way, as it only repeats the arguments
which we have so often urged against the absurd,
oppressive, and demoralising law of imprison-
ment for debt. The present Session of Parlia-
ment has drawn to near a close to afford the least
hope that any thing can now be done to carry
into effect the recommendation of the Law Com-
missioners before the assembling of the Reform
, Pailiament ; but most cordially do we support
the prayer of the petitioners that the law which
condemns so many thousands to languish in the
abodes of misery, idleness, and crime, to the
injury of health and morals, and blasting of their
prospects, and the ruin of their families, may
be brought under the consideration of the Le-
gislature, with a view to its abolition, at the
earliest possible opportunity.— Morning Herald.
The clamour raised against Mr. Stanley's
Bill is senseless if its alleged grounds are con-
sidered with reference to the provisions of that
measure, and the circumstances in which it is
proposed. But if it be intended merely to let
Ministers know what is really thought of them
by the parties of whose support they have
hitherto been chiefly ambitious, the pretences
for this clamour convey an insult, a well-
merited insult, which, if Ministers had the ordi-
nary feelings of human nature, would make them
wish that they could hide themselves in the
centre of the earth or at the bottom of the sea.
The subject-matter upon which Ministers pro-
posed to legislate is, according to the liberal
and Popish friends of these same Ministers,
already extinct. The lawless conspiracy which
Ministers connived at and patronized has fully
accomplished its purpose. The property of
the Church in Ireland exists no longer. The
robbery is complete and unredeemable. What
Ministers have now to do is, not to protect
existingrights, but to re-create rights of which
the
y have permitted the destruction. This is
the position of affairs which Ministers are insult-
ingly told by their friends that they have assisted
to produce with respect to tithes. And if, with
respect to tithe, lawless conspiracy and Minis-
, terial connivance have done this, why do not the

friends of Nlinisters also tell them what is the I
situation to which they have reduced every
other description of property ? Is this example
iof successful conspiracy to be barren ? Cannot
the power which has been permitted to annihi-
late tithe be brought to operate upon rent, and
funds, and taxes ? What is it in effect that these
friends of Ministers tell them but that they have
made property of every kind deFendent upon
the forbearance of conspirators, and the firmness
a►►d integrity of the Ministers of the day ?
The various classes of persons who oppose Mr.
Stanley's Bill may be thus enumerated :—The
Papists, who are actuated by hatred to the Pro-
testant Church and clergy ; the Jacobin party,
who rejoice in every triumph of every conspiracy
against government and law ; the levellers, who
desire nothing so much as a general subversion
of property, and who view in the success of the
Irish tithe conspiracy the first fruits of a much
more comprehensive harvest ; and lastly, a por-
tion of the more needy and unprincipled owners
of the soil of Ireland, who are so shortsighted as
to derive a dishonest gratification at the prospect
of the increased rents which, so long as rents are
permitted to survive, they know the cessation of
t►thes will enable them to extort. These are the
respectable classes whom Government must over-
power if it sincerely intend to accomplish the
tardy and imperfect act of justice and policy.
which Mr. Stanley's Bill professes to have in
view. The general alliance of all these classes
with the existing Administration, and its manifest
inability to maintain itself in power without their
continued support, would be sufficient, without
any more direct evidence, to justify the apprehen-
sion that this salutary measure will be abandoned,
white we confess we expect such direct evidence
on the subject to transpire within the present
week as will convince the most incredulous that
the measure was not introduced for the purpose
of being carried, but for another and far differ.
ent purpose ; that the object of his Majesty's
Ministers wap not, by means of this Bill, to dis-
solve but to renovate and strengthen their alli-
ance with the various parties whose resistance to
any measure of conservative policy they migh
hate confidently anticipated. Ministers find
that with such allies it is judicious on their part
to provide from time to time something to give
up in order to guard against the mischance of
being deserted in their utmost need. They will
be at their utmost need on Thursday next, when
the House of Commons is to be called on to
decide whether they will tax the people of Eng-
land to the extent of five million of money in
order to enable his Majesty's Ministers to
carry into effect a Treaty by which they
have agreed to bribe the Emperor of
Russia not to obstruct the objects of the Citizen
King of the French in Belgium, a Treaty which
has no imaginable tendency to promote any Bri-
tish interest, unless the annexation of Belgium
to France, or the confirmation of the absolute
power of Russia in Poland, or the humiliation
and enfeeblement of the House of Orange, be
deemed in our new system of foreign policy a
British interest. It is already foreseen that many
of the Popish Allies of his Majesty's Ministers,
will be deterred from executing their threat of
deserting them upon this perilous occasion in
consideration of having the property of the Church
in Ireland abandoned to their mercy. The ne-
gotiation, we understand, is at this moment in a
very advanced state, and will no doubt be com-
pleted, unless one of the two parties should be-
come apprehensive that public inspection is
somewhat too vigilantly directed towards their
proceedings.—Morning Post.