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

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

There cannot be a greater proof of that " dispen-
sation of doing wrong" which every Whig, like Cain
with his mark, seems doomed to undergo than the
forcing the public attention to the claims of Mr.
Abercromby as of a very disinterested and high-flying
character. He is, as we have always stated, an able
man, and his political opinions have always been ex-
pressed with distinctness, and adhered to with steadi-
ness, but surely none but fools would attempt to place
this gentleman. on the very lofty height of perfect free-
dom from patty bias. Is it not notorious, that he con-
sented to hold the principal office in a Court which he
and his party knew (because they were the authors of
the measure) was on the eve of abolition ; and did he
not, after a few short months' possession of this sine-
cure, condescend to receive a pension of 2,000/. a year
for doing nothing (1) except this temporary holding of
this place pronounced to be one that had been for
nearly a century useless ? Is this, 'Messrs. of the
ultra-Radical faction, your parfait homme P We
have always been ready to allow the reasonableness of
the Irishman's request, who, when Dr. Shebbear gave
him half-a-crown for holding an umbrella over him in
the pillory, solicited an additional half-crown on ac-
count of the disgrace ; but we fear the public will not
regard with our good nature the very high price paid
to Mr. Abercromby, for the disgrace of having played
the part of umbrella to the Scotch Court of Exche-
quer.— Times.
The Tories have been blowing their feeble penny
trumpets into a distant resemblance of clamour ; and
expending their precious breath and most " sweet
voices" in order to induce the country to believe that
a " re-action" has taken place in their favour. They
have so often repeated their own weak inventions re-
specting the abated estimation of Reform and Re-
formers in public opinion, that, like other dealers in
the same species of ingenious, but not over-honest
fictions, they almost believe their own idle and chime-
rical fable, Re-action, to be true. We shall be par-
ticularly obliged by some of the more sober-minded of
the party—some whom the air of Downing-street has
not made quite intoxicated—if they will descend from
- the clouds and point out in a substantial shape
the tangible proofs of that " re-action," the couleur-
de-rose visions of which so pleasantly sooth the
" day dreams" of their party. " Speak unto us
smooth things" is their cry, as it was of the
perishing triflers of Israel to the Prophets of old—
" prophecy deceits." 'Where, we ask them, is the
proof of pretended " re-action ?" Is it in the rejec-
tion of an unparalleled number of Ministerial Candi-
dates ? Is it in the rejection of Mr. Dawson, for
Devonport ?—of Sir C. Rowley,- for Portsmouth ?
of Sir George Cockburn, for Plymouth ?—of Sir Ed-
ward Owen, for Sandwich ?—of Messrs. Wortley,
Planta, and M. Fitzgerald ?—of Lord Tullamore --
and, finally, of the great gun of the Military Cabi-
net—Sir George Murray ? Let us contrast this dis-
graceful repudiation of Ministers and their under-
strappers with the triunrshant return of Mr. Tennyson
for Lambeth—of Mr. Duncombe, for Finsbury, with-
out expense ; of Mr. Hume, for Middlesex ; and of
the two popular candidates for Manchester—Messrs.
P. Thomson and Phillips, neither of whOm have had
to pay one farthing on account of their election. If
this be " re-action," we have undoubtedly no objec-
tion to the word. As much more of this sort of " re-
action," as can possibly be agreeable to the Tories, will
be agreeable to us.—Morning Advertiser.
The " russe" by which Lord John Russell has in-
stalled himself in the place of leader of the Opposi-
tion, and signified the same to the public, still continues
the subject of general conversation,—a subject of mer-
riment or of mortification, according tio the characters
and position of the different parties who discuss it.
We can well imagine, for instance, the total absence
of the former feeling in the mind of Mr. Spring Rice
when the letters of the Noble Lord, and the answer of
the Right Hon. Gentleman, Mr. Abercromby, first
met his eye. That Lord John Russell should thus
complacently assume the Leadership of the Opposition
must have been startling enough to Mr. Spring Rice ;
but that he should not only arrogate to himself this
dignity, but proceed to dispose of the Right Hon.
ex-Secretary's claim to the Chair in faveur of ano-
ther, must have exceeded even the notions which
the late Cabinet entertained on the subject of reci-
procal good faith and fair dealing among colleagues.
Had it been decided to set aside Mr. Spring Rice's
claims to the chair in favour of those of some other
person, the Right Hon. Gentleman had aspired (and
we think with some reason) at least to the post of
leader of the Opposition ; and, perhaps, might have
been satisfied. to fall back upon this, albeit (Heaven
knows) no very great honour as that Opposition is now
constituted. But to be thus jockeyed out of both—
".-Speitltership and Leadership—and by Lord John
Russell ! " But what (say poor Mr. Littleton's
friends)--what is that in comparison with our wrongs ?
Is it not enough that Lord Grey and Lord Althorp
should once have broken their words plighted to
our friend ? Talk not to us of Mr. Abercromby's
being a more favourite candidate with the Move-
ment. Are poor Littleton's exertions to conciliate
them, as evinced in his ' intimate friendship' and
' confidential correspondence' with O'Connell—are
they all to go for nothing ? Has not his very portrait
been placed as the frontispiece to Burke's second vo-
lume of the ' History of the Commoners of Great
Britain,' as the best ' pendant' to that of Sir Charles
Manners Sutton, which adorns the first—and is this
' nothing ? Is this no evidence of the public estimation
in which Mr. Littleton is held, and of his undeniable
claims to the Chair ?" But, seriously, we are not as-
tonished at the clamour and disunion which this pro-
ceeding upon the part of Lord John Russell has
caused in the camp of the Destructives ; at the anger
of Mr, Littleton ; or the disgust of Mr. Spring Rice.
To be overreached by Lord John Russell and to be
postponed to Mr. Abercromby are two stages on the
road to degradation which are not easily borne at one
and the same time, and may well justify the angry
words and sullen looks which, all yesterday, marred
the harmony at Brookes's, and the hilarity at Hol-
land House. Since the defeat of Lord Palmer-
iton in Hampshire no event has caused so many
doubts as to the perfection of the Reform Bill, or
the purity of Whiggism ! " But the worse remains
behind," say the friends both of Mr. Spring Rice and
of Mr. Littleton. " The claims of our friends have
been set aside in favour of one sure to be beaten in
the trial. You cannot surely expect that we—or any
moderate Whig—should vote for Mr. Abercromby,—
and Sir Charles Manners Sutton will accordingly walk
over the course." That this will, almost literally, be
the case we entertain but little doubt. The intimation
given so anxiously in the Globe of Saturday evening
to Mr. Abercromby's friends to attend punctually at
two o'clock on Thursday, the 19th inst., in the House
of Commons, will act in every Conservative society
where that journal is received as a summons to each
true friend of his country and of his King, who has a
seat in the present Parliament, to postpone all otheis
to this paramount duty—to defeat the Destructives in
this their first attempt against the peace and happiness
of the State.—Morning Post.
We quarrel not, as we have already said, with Sir
Charles Manners Sutton on account of his Toryism.
His principles were no secret to the Reformers who
voted him into the chair ; and it was never understood
"that the condition of his election to preside over a Re-
form Parliament was that he should become a Refor-
mer himself. But Sir Charles Manners Sutton,
though not called on to renounce his principles, from
the moment of his being chosen Speaker of the late
House of Commons, was in honour bound to identify
himself with it, and more especially to avoid all partici-
pation in intrigues tending to terminate the existence
of the body of which he was the organ, and of whose
interests he was the guardian. Is it not notorious
that Sir Charles Manners Sutton was deeply
implicated in the intrigues for the dismissal of the
Melbourne Ministry, and that he took an active share
in the formation of the present Ministry ? And as
the change of Ministry could not but lead to a disso-
lution, he was thus contributing to the destruction of
e -bogy of which he was the guardian. It is a well-
4iiiblvn factilhat when some members of the Corpora-
_,on of Bridgwater, in Somerset, heard of the dismis-
' Asil of the 'Aletaourne Administration, and that the
r ' . Tories were again in office, a member of that Corpora.
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