The Sun.
London, England, 1832-06-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The money-market yesterday displayed some
symptoms of the feverish impressions amongst
bankers and bank directors respecting the Bank
Question. Money was scarce from ordinary
causes, or made scarce by fictitious ones. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer should be on his
guard to ascertain which. Exchequer bills fell
to ss. or 6s. premium ; but as it is in the power
of the Bank to raise them to 30s. or to depress
them below par, according to the pleasure of the
directors, or to what they conceive to be the
interest of that monopolising corporation, the
public and the Government must be prepared
for, and not be supine or alarmed at fluctuations
of this description, under present circumstances.
The cry is, " No further dely ; discussion
is pregnant with danger and embarassment ?
Why ? If all things are sound, the deeper
the investigation, the greater the publicity, the
more for the satisfaction of all parties, and for
the general interest. If unsound, which we do
not believe, the sooner a remedy is applied to the
case the better. This purgatorial state of fluetua•
tion between doubt and security—between per-
fect confidence and an apparent apprehension of
inquiry and publicity—has endured already too
long, and must be set at rest. We presume the
Waverers, even on this delicate subject, cling no
longer to their prejudice for concealment and
mystery. We hear of no rational observer of
the present times, who supposes that the public
can be longer hoodwinked, or that the annual
statement of the Directors, that the current profits,
justifying a dividend or bonus, will be received
as a satisfactory substitute for a distinct and de-
tailed balance-sheet. Are the parties, who now
press for a premature decision on the many i►n-
portant points involved in this question, idle
enough to suppose that anv administration could
justify to a Reformed Parliament a settlement
which did not provide for an entire separation
of the connexion between the Treasury and the
Bank, at least to the extent of permanent loans
and advances—the abolition of all the provisions
of the monopoly, except possibly the issue of
paper money in the metropolis by the Bank,
as an instrument of Government—the free esta-
blishment of other companies for the security
of the public, although not possibly to the advan-
tage of the private banker ; and, above all things,
establish publicity as the condition on which the
power of issuing paper can be intrusted in
future to this or any other corporation or indi-
vidual: We repeat again our humble advice
to Lord Althorp, neither to be cajoled nor bul-
lied by the manoeuvres or the threats of the
moneyed interest. The case may be delicate
and difficult—his course is perfectly clear. He
is not responsible for the faults or blundering of
his predecessors, but he must not adopt them,
He must take the public into council. His own
principles and opinions will tell him that con-
cealment cannot be necessary, unless there is
something which will not bear exposure ; that if
there is anything amiss, it must have been ag-
gravated by shutting out so long the inquiring
and correcting eye of the public ; and that the
continuance of such a system can only end in
danger and in mischief. It is his interest to
avoid responsibility, and if he acts in consistency
with his professions and opinions while in op-
position, he will open the close corporation in
Threadneedle-street with as much advantage to
the public and credit to himself, as he has
opened those of Bath and Edinburgh to the
Reformers of England and Scotland.—Morning
Chronicle.

We do not now mean to enter on the de-
bateable ground of holding to bail for libels, nor
to contend that Mr. Roe has exceeded his powers
as a Magistrade in some recent proceedings at
Bow-street. Admitting, however, the power, it
was in his discretion either to bold the boy to
bail, or to leave the party complaining to prefer
an indictment at the Sessions. To hold a boy
to bail, is to punish him by anticipation, or
rather to punish him for that which would sub-
ject him on trial to no punishment. Under the
mask of equality before the law, the same pro-
ceeding which subjects the rich man to no in-
convenience, is oppressive towards the poor ; for
holding to bail a poor man is, in fact, imprisoning
him. The reason for holding a man to bail is, that
he may be forthcoming at his trial. In all cases
in which the punishment to which absence from
the trial would lead, would be greater than the
Court might inflict if the party were present,
bail is superfluous. Now, no Court would
think of inflicting a sentence of perpetual banish-
ment for so trifling an offence as that with which
this lad was charged. Bail, therefore, in his case, and
a hundred others which occur every day, was quite
superfluous. We have during the last ten or
twelve years exposed, times out of number, the
monstrous hardship of the law of England
towards the poor. We wish we could say that
the effect has in any way corresponded to the
intention. But the truth is, that in England
there is no possibility of attracting attention to
any abuses which are felt merely by those who
are not respectable people—that is, those who
are of some consequence in society. A sub-
stantial man, as it is called, can easily find bail
at all times ; and who cares for the poor man,
who must go to gaol because he cannot procure
it ? This indifference towards the treatment of
the poor reacts frightfully on the rich in the
long run. We are now paying in England the
penalty of our brutal indifference to the feelings
and the self-respect of the poor, in filling the
prisons unnecessarily before trial, with men
accused of trivial offences. There is, how-
ever, in this case of holding to bail for libel,
a machiavelism that cannot be too severely re-
probated. -When the Magistrate dislikes an act
which he knows will not be punished, and which
consequently he cannot prevent, he seeks to ef-
fect his object indirectly by the oppressive act of
holding to bail. There is a great deal of truth
in the complaints of the labouring classes in
England, that their grievances never will be at-
tended to in a Parliament chosen by the tipper
classes and middle classes exclusively. The Re-
form Bill will be productive of immense benefit ;
but it leaves this evil where it was. The caste
to which the working man belongs is below the
Legislature, and the Legislature takes no concern
in him. In our manufacturing towns, where
the working classes are becoming intelligent, the
heart-burnings between the middle classes and
them ire very great ; and some day or other we
may feel the effects of them. There is no
country in Europe—not one—in which the
lower classes have been so much placed at the
mercy of the rich as England.—Moen. Chrolz.
We agree with our contemporary (the Globe),
that " the only mode in which dangerous opi-
nions could be corrected by the cheapness of
newspapers, would be by an increased knowledge
of the facts on which opinions must be founded,

and not by counteracting opinions, which people
might now buy if they were suited to their ac-
tual tastes or their apparent interests." We
agree also with our contemporary, that Mr. Bul-
wer " very much over-rates the prevalence of
dangerous opinions." There are, we know,
publications in which very erroneous opinions
are disseminated, with regard to subjects of great
importance to the well-being of society ; but,
upon the whole, the opinions, though strongly
expressed often, and in questionable taste, are
not generally, in the proper sense of the word,
" dangerous." Our contemporary has been at
some pains to show that Mr. Bulwer has not
satisfactorily accounted, by the fact of the ex-
pensiveness of newspapers, for another fact on
which he lays much stress, that the dangerous
pamphlets are more popular than the salutary
pamphlets.
" The same law (says our contemporary) applies to the
republican and the conservative—to the friends of property
and the Owenite—to the salutary and the dangerous. The
salutary penny pamphlet cannot indeed be a periodical
newspaper, but neither is the dangerous penny pamphlet.
Both are now on a level. Yet Mr. Bulwer tells us the
dangerous ones are the only popular ones. There is the
difficulty out of which he does not help us.
" Let both these pamphlets be converted into periodical
newspapers—let each of them, in addition to its present
contents, have the same advantage of containing the news
of the day and of regularity of publication, let each fly
o❑ the wings of the post—what reason is there to sup-
pose that the same addition to the forces of each of the
rivals would make any alteration in their relative popula-
tity among the classes whose taste Mr. Bulwer wishes to
amend ? And if there were no alteration in their relative
popularity, the antidote would soon labour under addi-
tional disadvantage compared with the poison pamphlet.
The greater returns of the latter would enable its owners
to expend more, so that, besides being more popular as a
pamphlet with the lower orders, it would be recommended
to the upper as a better newspaper.
" Mr. Bulwer says, that the present papers address
themselves chiefly to the interests and tastes of those who
can afford to buy them—the twopenny and fourpenny pam-
phlets address themselves to the interests and tastes of the
majority of their customers—and this will he the case
whether they are allowed to contain news or no."

But, after all, the difference between our con-
temporary and Mr. Bulwer is more verbal than
real. Our contemporary, in the position first
noticed by us, admits that the opinions of the
people would be improved by an increased know-
ledge of the facts on which opinions are found-
ed. Now there are no means so efficacious for
increasing the knowledge of facts as the reading
of newspapers. They not only supply facts, but,
by presenting the arguments of opposing coun
sel, speakers on various sides in Parliament, at
meetings, &c., they sharpen the intellect, and
accustom men to exercise their judgment. Of
all the means ever devised for extending the
knowledge and improving the mind, newspapers
are by far the most effective. Volney, who had
seen men in all the stages of civilization, in his
Lectures on History, observes, " It is necessary
to have lived in countries where the Press does
not exist to conceive all the effects of its privation
—to imagine the confusion thrown into recitals,
the absurd hearsays, the uncertainty in opinions,
the obstacles to instruction, the ignorance in
the minds of all, caused by the want of books
and newspapers. History owes benedictions to
him who in Venice first thought of issuing bul-
letins of news for the small coin called a gazette
from which they have received their name ; and,
in fact, Gazettes are instructive monuments,
precious even in their aberrations, as they
paint the prevailing spirit of the times, and
their contradictions present fixed bases for
the discussion of facts. Hence, when we
are told that in their new settlements, the
Anglo-Ameircans make first a road, and carry a
press for a newspaper, it appears to me that in
that double operation they attain the object, and
make the analyses of every good social system,
as society is nothing but the easy and free corn•
municatton of persons, of thoughts and things;
and all the art of Government is reduced to pre-
venting violent frictions capable of dissolving it."
The opinions palatable to ignorant men would
not he palatable to better instructed men, and
newspapers are constantly instructing men, and,
consequently, disposing them more and more to
the reception of sound opinions. Though, there-
fore, the sudden concession of newspapers to men
previously in a state of brutal ignorance would
not insure a taste of sound opinions—and the
newspapers might be disposed to cater for the
opinions most palatable to the classes among
whom they counted on circulating--yet the igno-
rance being transitory, an increasing knowledge
would constantly increase the demand for
sounder opinions. Newspapers, therefore, afford
the only means of correcting the disposition
to be pleased with dangerous opinions. There is a
proverb, that an empty head is the Devil's garret.
Mental occupation is as necessary to a sound
moral state, as bodily exercise is to physical
health. The ignorant man requires the aid of
gross sensuality to kill his time, when he has
any on his hands. The man who can read news-
papers, has the means of that healthful occupa-
tion
for his mind, which is indispensable to
cheerfulness, constantly within his reach. By
enabling men to command newspapers, you make
them not only more intelligent, but more happy
and virtuous. The attempt to stop the circula-
tion of newspapers by taxing them, was the
work of a Tory Ministry in 1712. Swift, in
his " History of the four last years of Queen
Anne," throws a curious light on this subject.
It is singular that the Ministry, according to
Swift, were the chief sufferers by their own
measure. " As the person," says Swift (Mr.
Secretary St. John, now Lord Viscount Boling-
broke) " who advised the Queen in that part
of her Message, had only then in his thoughts
the redressing of the political and factious libels,
I think he ought to have taken care, by his
great credit in the House, to have proposed
some ways by which that evil might be removed ;
the law for single papers having produced a
quite contrary effect, as was foreseen by
many persons, and hath since been found
true by experience. For the adverse party,
full of rage and leisure since their fall,
unanimous in defence of their cause, employ a
sort of writers, by subscription, who are well
versed in all topics of declamation, and have a
style and genius levelled to the generality of
readers; while those who would draw their pens
on the side of their Prince and country, are dis-
couraged by this tax, which exceeds both the in-
trinsic materials and the work ; a thing, if I be
not mistaken, without example." Swift adds,
" A particular person may with more safety
despise the opinion of the vulgar, because it does
a wise man no real harm or good, but the Ad-
ministration a great deal ; and whatever side the
sole management of the pen, will soon find hands
enough to write down their enemies as low as
they please." The subject is one of immense
importance. The reason, as we have seen, for
first taxing newspapers, was to protect Ministers
from attack. That an Oligarchical Government
should have wished to retain the people in ig-
norance, is natural, as knowledge had a tendency
to shake their dominion. That an honest Mi-
nistry should have a dread of the diffusion of
newspapers from witnessing the productions
most acceptable at present to certain classes, be-

trays a misconception of the causes of the evil.
—Morning Chronicle.
We fear that the Irish Reform Bill, when
passed into a law, will not have the effect so
much to be desired, of satisfying the bulk of the
people of Ireland, and contenting them with
this, as a permanent and final measure. This
motion made by Mr. O'Connell, on Wednesday
last, for restoring to the franchise persons seised
of 40s. freeholds in fee may or may not have
been a motion which deserved support oil its
own account; but it does not appear that the
objections made to it possessed any soundness or
validity. The abolition of the 40s. franchise on
the passing of the law for removing Catholic
disabilities, was proposed on a popular and con-
stitutional principle—namely, that the great mass
of 40s. voters, being leaseholders, and many of
them fictitious, had never exercised an inde-
pendent voice, but had been made, with scarcely
a single exception, the tools and slaves of their
respective landlords, who drove them to the
hustings, like cattle to a market, and disposed of
them for their own emolument. Now, the ob-
jection made to such votes does not apply with
equal force to 40s. freeholders in fee ;—they
are persons, whose tenure of their inheritance
(however small) does not depend upon the
will of any landlord. They have, generally
speaking, some little means of existence, be-
sides the bit of land from which their qualifi-
cation issues ; and however open, like other
men, to venal influences, are not, of necessity,
like the other class of 40s. electors, compelled
to act at the bidding of other people. In Eng-
land the franchise remains to that order of pro-
prietors, viz., the possessors of 40s. per annum
in fee ; nor do we see why in Ireland they ought
to be deprived of it. Certainly the argument
employed by Mr. Stanley, that they are " a
trifling and scanty body," ought not to affect a
question of positive justice. Nor, on the ground '
of policy, is such a consideration admissible, for
the purposes to which the Right Honourable
Gentleman would convert it, since if the claimants
be few and feeble, no shadow of danger can re-
sult from their exercise of the right contended
for. We do not agree with Mr. O'Connell,
that the requisite assimilation of the two coun-
tries in respect of suffrage, would demand a
reduction of the Irish household qualification
from the sum of 101. to 71. There are many
remote parts of England, Wales, and Scot-
land, where money is of as much value,
compared with its worth in London, as
throughout the greater portion of Ireland.—
Yet an adjustment of the qualification to
the existing state of such localities has been
steadily (and in our opinion wisely) refused,
when pressed upon MinisterS by the refrac-
tory Anti-refomormers. Is it good to have a
uniform scale of qualification for the whole king-
dom ? The Anti-reformers have made it one
of their chief grounds of panegyric upon the old
borough system, that under all its apparent ano-
malies, all classes of his Majesty's subjects had
actually the right of being represented. Yet
these same persons were the foremost to charge
Ministers with injustice, for having, under colour
of a nominal uniformity in the franchise, failed
to administer equal favour to the inhabitants of
great cities and of remote districts, by requiring
from the latter, amongst whom money was scarce
and prices moderate, the same money test of their
fitness for electors, as from the constituency of
places—as London and Liverpool, where prices
were high, and pecuniary means were more abun-
dant. It is obvious that if prices vary in diffe-
rent parts of the kingdom, the nominal standard
of qualification remaining the same, the elective
franchise must, in substance, be enjoyed by the
different orders of citizens. It little, therefore,
became the " Conservatives," except in malice,
to urge the adoption of a varied scale of qualifi-
cation, on the plea of an uniform standard being
incompatible with the enjoyment of equal rights,
by the same descriptions of Englishmen, in
central and populous, as in remote and thinly
peopled quarters. The tendency of an uniform
denomination is, unquestionably, to a admit as
electors an order of persons in the heart of stir-
ring and wealthy communities, more remote
from the highest class of society, and more con-
tiguous to the lowest, than in places where busi-
ness may be languid, prices nominally humble,
and the command of money small. And such,
in fact, would be the principle of every discreet
arrangement. The inhabitants of towns are
more intelligent, more alive to the real merits of
public men, and less at the beck of individual
parties, than are villagers or agriculturists of far
superior station. A 101. London voter may be
a poorer man than a voter on the same nominal
franchise in Cornwall or Devon, but his head
and habits form a valuable part of his qualifica-
tion, and so is the balance maintained. If Mr.
O'Connell stands out for the establishment of a
71. qualification in Ireland, because 71. in Ire-
land may be of equal value with the greater sum
of 101. here, he lets in a troublesome and dan-
gerous standard of adjustment. For, if it can
be proved by and by, that, in any large district
of Great Britain, the value of money is as great
as on the average throughout Ireland, one of two
things happens—either the local scale of franchise
in England must be lowered, or that of Ireland
raised,—that is to say, if we once accept the
principle of the Member for Kerry, who can
foretell what fluctuations may occur in the state
of commerce, and the relations between money
and commodities, at even so short period as ten
years hence ? • Who can say that 10/. in Lan-
cashire will not there buy more goods than the
same sum in the county of Dublin ? Are .we,
then, to vary our test of political fitness, as we
do the admissibility of foreign corn, by a resort
to averages, and a Mark-lane return ? If the
Reform Bills (including those for the whole
kingdom) be really intended for durable measures,
they must be framed on general, not on local
views ; and probably the least objectionable
datum will be, the tendency of prices and re-
sources, throughout these adjacent islands, to a
condition of ultimate equality, any and every other
hypothesis leading to.eternal change. It seems
to us, that if a case be made out against the
mode of registry in Ireland, as adverted to by
Mr. O'Connell, it ought to be fairly considered
by Ministers as a preliminary to the simplifi-
cationt of the act of registry ; every complexity
and delay
olnceea:tending which, must serve to feed
he violence, the chicanery, and iniquity of elec-
tion contests, as well as often, by mere technical
obstructions, to defeat honest men in the career
of their constitutional rights. Mr. O'Connell
brings against Ministers the grave charge of so ma-
nufacturing their Reform Bill, that instead of an
abridgement of election struggles to two or three
days—one of the most valuable effects of our
English Bill—those seasons of ill-blood and
outrage may still be protracted in Ireland to fif-
teen days, as before the introduction of the
measure. So with regard to the additional
Member for the Dublin University, it is, in our
judgment, a most absurd proposal. The cause
of good policy, of peace, of useful learning, or

of true religion, has never gained a straw by the '
power of that body to truck its stupid preferen-
ces with any faction in the state. Instead of
of giving our silent sister a representative, it
would have been better to strip her of that one
whom she at present delegates. There never
was a worse abuse of the name of Reform to un-
popular and needless objects, nor can we con-
ceive a greater aggravation of the folly, than
Mr. Crampton's monstrous acknowledgment,
backed by Mr. Stanley, that the end of it was
to uphold the Protestant cause. If the service
of Protestanism, of Orangism, of parsonistn, of
landlordism, or any other of the " isms," or
schisms, which have already more than half
ruined Ireland, be still ingrafted upon the policy
by which she is to he misgoverned—we can only
say that the sooner she is invested with the
power of self-government, the better both for Eng-
land and for her. When—when shall we have
practical and judicious statesmen, instead of
glib talkers and dextrous weavers of senten-
ces ?—Times.

Undoubtedly, if the principal journals among
the existing members of the daily press were to
regard their own interest exclusively, they would
stimulate by all the means at their disposal such
efforts as that of Mr. Bulwer, on Thursday last,
to reduce, or abolish altogether, what some per-
sons call the taxes on " knowledge" or, in
plainer English, the stamp duties affectingnews-
paper publications. In America, it is quite
true, as stated by Mr. Bulwer, that a much
larger newspaper circulation may be found than
in this country ; but what sort of newspapers?
and, in the majority of cases, calculated for what
sort of public ? Where any man who pleases,
or can command credit to the value of 201. for
types, and a third of the money for presses, may
set up what he pleases to call " a newspaper,"—
as, indeed happens frequently amongst our
brethren of the west,—it is not difficult to guess
what species of knowledge the greater portion
of such adventurers would be qualified to promul-
gate through vehicles of such an order. Have
any of our readers ever encountered " a news-
paper," printed in the United States, and beyond
the limits of some eight or ten towns, the names of
which are familiar to all the world ? If so, let us
ask, did they ever yet see anything professing to
tell men facts which they did not know before,
or to publish opinions for their guidance, so ut-
terly disgraceful to the community in which it
originated, as to the art of paper-making, the art
of printing, the power of thinking, or the love of
truth ? The newspaper press of the United
States, we have been assured, and we can easily
believe from the specimens constantly before us,
has not the confidence of the better informed
classes of their citizens. Apart from advertise-
ments, it communicates to them almost nothing,
save very ill-written reports of what takes place
in Congress, or in the local legislatures of the
Union : original matter there is next to none :
the cheapness of the article places it within reach
of every one,—it is bought and read in the
same spirit in which tobacco is bought and
chewed or smoked, having as much beneficial
influence upon the mind of the citizen, as the
former nuisance has upon his stomach. But
when Mr. Bulwer, and members no better in-
formed than he, talk of the stamp duties
upon newspapers, as producing or assisting
the " monopoly " of those which are now
circulated, we would again ask these theo-
rists, what we asked yesterday, whether
they suppose that a business which pro-
spers under a burden of stamp duty, amount-
ing, exclusive of advertisements, to more than
1,0001. per week, must not be likely to succeed
in a degree far more eminent, on the removal of
such a pressure ? The actual release of capital,
consequent on the repeal of the stamp duty must
surely be a more available and effective benefit,
to a journal already in full activity, of matured
experience, and standing well with large and
long-established connexions, than the mere
clearing away of au obstacle to the commence-
ment of such an undertaking, could prove on
behalf of others. The vantage ground of the
old journal would be further increased instead
of diminished by the proposed change, and we
at least have little reason to object to it on that
account. If there be no objections offered for
the public, let Mr. Bulwer, and those who
agree with him, carry their improvement into
execution as soon as may be ; but though we
have doubts respecting the advantage to our-
selves, we confess we have very considerable
doubts as to any beneficial result to the public.
The repeal of the advertisement duty is another
and distinct matter, and would, no doubt, be
useful to the public.—Times.
There is now no doubt that a telegraphic de-
spatch from Bayonne to Paris, has announced
the landing of Don Pedro on the coast of Por-
tugal. Letters which arrived yesterday from
Paris state that the French Queen sent a note
to the Empress of Brazil to inform her of the
fact ; but nothing is known, either as to the
means by which the intelligence was conveyed to
Bayonne, or as to the place at which the landing
was effected. The credibility of this announce-
ment depends, of course, entirely on the nature
of the channel by which it was conveyed to
Bayonne ; and, in the absence of all information
on that point, we shall content ourselves with
observing, that it is by no means improbable that
the news is true. Let, however, the expedition
arrive when it may, it can hardly fail to seal the
doom of the Portuguese usurper. By all ac-
counts, the expeditionary troops amount to about
10,000 men, and the naval force by which it
will be convoyed and assisted is greater than
any that Don Miguel can command. This
army consists of the chosen soldiers of Por-
tugal, led by her best officers. They return to
claim their country, from which they have
been exiled by the usurper for adhering to their
constitutional oaths, and supporting their lawful
Sovereign. With them success is the restora-
tion of every thing which men hold dear, and
failure is massacre on the field, or death on the
scaffold. They must, therefore, be prepared to
stake their all in the cause—to encounter every
danger or difficulty—and to fight as long as a
drop of blood remains in their veins. On the
other hand, the troops of Don Miguel, though
more numerous, possess fewer motives for ex-
treme exertion, and have given fewer pledges of
unflinching fidelity. The Ex-Emperor will re-
visit his country with an amnesty ready made,
and his object will be to prevent a re-action of
vengeance. Should the troops of his brother be
induced to desert their colours, they will be
sure not only of pardon, but of reward. And
that they are not very firm in their fidelity to their
present master is evident, from the number of
conspiracies in his army, which he has been
obliged to check, and from the massacre of
whole companies, which he has been obliged to
order through the forms of a court-martial. The
complete exhaustion of all the revenue which
lie could wring from an oppressed people, and
the necessity of resorting to the fiscal robbery of
a forced loan, sufficiently show the economy of

his civil government, and the extent of his civil
protection to property. They, at the same time,
may be taken as evidence of the manner in
which the arrival of a professed deliverer will be
hailed by the general body of the people. Our
own desires as to the result of this contest, as
well as those of the civilized world, cannot be
for a moment misapprehended. Wherever there
has been four years of external peace without a
tendency to the consolidation of internal trail-
quility,—wherever a brutal force domineers over
the growing intelligence of a people, and main-
tains itself only by atrocities and bloodshed,—
wherever the supreme power reigns only by a
faction, and keeps the most enlightened mem-
bers of the commonwealth in prison, in chains,
or in exile,—wherever a few of those exiles are
sufficient to overcome a national army, and to
recover their long-denied rights, there a civil war
against tynanny is the most sacred of all duties,
and victory the first of all blessings to both
parties.—Times.
By means of the Reform Bill a new set of
freemen start into life, and the way in which they
use that freedom will be one of the standards by
which both the present age and history will judge
of its value. Should the new class of voters
choose, as we trust they will, persons duly quali-
fied to represent and advocate their various inte-
rests in Parliament, great indeed will be the boon
which the Reform Bill will have acquired for
them and for the country ; but should any of the
new voters be unfortunately led away by flowery,
captivating appearances, and sacrifice sense to
sound, they will not only bring great disgrace
both upon themselves and the measure, but give
a sort of triumph to its opponents, which they
should especially take care to avoid. As far as
we have yet heard, there seems but very little
danger of any fears on this head being realised.
In the manufacturing districts persons seem to
be coming forward every way qualified for the
trust which they aspire to ; nor does the landed
interest seem backward, as far as we have
yet seen, in bringing forward proper persons to
fight its battle in the most formidable war-
fare that interest ever had to enter upon. Still we
are not without our fears that there may be
places or districts where the mere political de-
magogue may be likely enough to show his face
with some prospect of success. We need not
particularize. Our readers themselves will, most
of them at least, do so quite as readily as we
could. It is to the electors in such places that
we would direct a few cautionary remarks. It
is, generally speaking, no bad test for any man's
fitness for office, either in Church or State, to
try him by the correctness or incorrectness of
his private life and obligations. A bad father,
husband, brother, son, or friend, or one give❑
to any notorious vice, is rarely a person who ac-
quits himself much better towards the public.
It is true that he may for a time gloss over or
conceal in one capacity what mars his respectabi-
lity in the other. But sooner or later the truth
breaks through the veil, however artfully or firmly
put on, and the betrayer of his social duties
proves himself unworthy of public trust. Let
the electors of the districts we allude to try their
noisy, boisterous, professing candidates by this
test. Weighed by it, not a few of them, we are
confident, would be found wanting, and as such
utterly unworthy of the confidence which they
aspire to.—Morning Herald.
The cuckoo complaint of Mr. O'Connell and
his worthy coadjutors in agitation in the House
of Commons has uniformly been that the Mem-
bers of Parliament have always neglected Irish
interests, and have wilfully absented themselves
from all discussions on Irish subject. We take
for granted that these Gentlemen are desirous
that British Members should follow on Irish
questions the same course which they, the Irish
Members, adopt in Scotch and English debates.
We have, therefore, great satisfaction in being
able to point out to our English readers the line
of proceeding which must obtain the approbation
of all these Irish Members, and conciliate the
good feelings of their countrymen. It it simply
this—carefully to avoid listening to the debate,
but to come into the House after a division has
been called for, and to vote, not according to the
merits of the point under discussion, but at the
beck of the Minister. Last night a debate
arose upon the propriety of joining Port Glas-
gow to Greenock, which was admitted by the
Guvernment to be a very doubtful question, and
which turned entirely upon the details brought
forward in argument. To these arguments a
certain number of the Irish Members were cer-
tainly little inclined to listen, as, besides others,
Messrs. Wyse, D. O'Connor, J. Grattan,
Chapman, Blackney, Macknamara, and Walker,
reached the House barely in time to save
themselves from being locked out, and of
course had not heard one word of the debate.
If this be the course they recommend, be it
so. We are sure it will not be a difficult task to
persuade English and Scotch Members to ab-
stain from listening to the harangues of Mr.
O'Connell and the frothy spouting of Mr. Sheil,
who, by the by, have last night carefully absen-
ted themselves from Scotch Reform. If they
choose to vote without listening to discussion
they need not be surprised if others conceive
their ranting to be little worthy of notice, and
imagine that it must be a full justification for a
vote to find persons such as these ranged on the
opposite side ; but we could give them fair no-
tice that, when language and conduct are so to-
tally at variance, persons who so contradict them-
selves must not be surprised if they find them-
selves treated with equal contempt both by
friends and opponents.—Morning Post.

The second report of the Committee on the
Irish tithe question has just been printed and
delivered. The recommendations of the Com-
mittee extend, as will be seen from the follow-
ing extract, to the adoption of three measures
for meeting the difficulties of the case proposed
for their consideration ; but neither of which, we
will venture to affirm, will be found adequate to
the evils complained of. All of them con-
template, in one shape or other, the con-
tinuance of a system which has already received
its death-blow—we mean the system of tithes,
against which the people of Ireland may be said
to have risen en masse, and to which they will
never submit. Constituting, as the Catholic
population of Ireland does, six-sevenths of
the whole, it is truly ridiculous to imagine that
they can be brought, either willingly or by
force, to pay for a tax which has for its object the
support of a Church from which they not only
receive no benefit, but to the establishment of
which they may not unfairly trace the manifold evils
under which they have so long suffered. No,
there is no remedy but one for the evils of the
tithe system, and that is, to allow it to die the
natural death to which it is rapidly verging; and
we are
oto s
ed consider,by the Committee, should
in consequence, the
three
they be introduced and passed, as neither more
nor less than so much waste paper. We, of
teßiinllcsli proposed
course, find no fault with the motives which
guided the Committee in their recommendation.

They were no doubt as pure as they were
peaceable, and the recommendations as well
meant, as they will be utterly unavailing to any
useful purpose. With the best intentions, in
fact, the Committee has not gone fat enough. It
has taken a limited, instead of an extended view
of the tithe question in Ireland, and, in conse-
quence, were its recommendations to be carried
into effect, either the same, or another Committee
would have to assemble in order to undo what it
had done. The concluding part of the report
respecting the first fruits in Ireland is judicious
and manly, and an ample justification of the many
motions made by Mr. Hume on the subject. It
is only a few years since the Honourable Mem-
ber for INliddlesex could scarcely procure a dozen
of votes to keep him in countenance when touch-
ing upon this subject—and now the very doc-
trine which he broached, and which was then so
vehemently opposed, is not only fully embraced,
but recommended for adoption by a Select Com-
mittee !—Morning Advertiser.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH, JUNE 16.

MERCHANT TAILORS' COMPANY.

REX V. MASTER AND WARDENS OF THE LONDON

MERCHANT TAILORS' COMPANY.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL had applied for and
obtained a rule nisi for a mandamus to be directed
to the Master and Wardens of the Merchant Tailors'
Company, commanding them to summon, for the
24th of June, instant, a meeting of the body of the
freemen to elect a Master and 'Wardens of the
Company for the ensuing year. The application
was made on behalf of Messrs. Franks and two
others, freemen of the Company, and the ground
laid for it was, that by the Charter of Henry the
Seventh the election of the Master and Wardens
was in freemen of the Company as a body, whereas,
according to the system of election that had pre-
vailed for a considerable time past,, he Master and
Wardens had elected their successors out of the
body of the Company, to which the choice was
limited by the Charter.

Sir .JAMES SCARLET; Mr. CAMPBELL, Mr. FOL-
LETT, and Mr. Sergeant COLERIDGE now showed
cause against the rule. The writ of mandamus was
a great prerogative writ, and the object of it was to
enable parties to enforce and complete inchoate
rights. But such an application had never been
heard of before, as an application for a mandamus to
compel an election contrary to the usual mode, and
while officers elected according to that practice were
in existence. Why did they not move for a qua
zvarranto calling on the existing officers to show by
what authority they exercised their offices ? But
this was only the second act of the same drama.
Those on whose behalf the present application was
►nade, had, in the course of 1830, made an appficaa
tion of a mandamus to compel the Master and
Wardens to exhibit all the documents and muni-
ments of the Company for the inspection of the ap-
plicants, and other freemen. This was a fishing
bill, and the Court refused the mandamus. The ob•
ject of the present application was the same; but
surely the Court would not grant a mandamus
without some ground being laid for it, and here none
had been shown.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL and Mr. POLLOCK, in
support of the rule, contended that the mandamus
was the proper course, since it would have been
useless to move for a quo warranlo against persons
who would be out of office on the 24th of June, and
before any proceedings could be had on such a rule.
The COURT was of opinion, that on the principle
of the cases mentioned, and the general rules and
practice of the Court in cases of mandamus, this
rule must be discharged, leaving the applicants to
apply for a quo ivarranto in the course of the next
term against the officers to be elected on the 24th
of June—the discharge to be without costs.—Rule
discharged.