The Sun.
London, England, 1832-04-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TUE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

This day the discussion on the second reading
of the Reform Bill commences. The eyes of
the nation are now fixed intensely on the House
of Lords, whose decision will be attended with
consequences for weal or woe of a magnitude
unexampled in the history of this country. We
trust that wisdom and moderation will guide
their Lordships, and that the decision will be in
accordance with the hopes and wishes of the
people. As yet all is peace and order, but how
eventful may not the next few days prove ? Dull
and insensible must that man be who can look
forward without apprehension to the issue of the
approaching discussion. As far as we can learn,
the promiseS which Earl Grey has received, and
on the faith of which he enters on the ques-
tion of the second reading without any
creation of Peers, are not positive, but con-
ditional. Provided, it is said, the debate on
the part of the supporters of the Bill be con-
ducted in a certain way, certain Peers are agreed
not to oppose the second reading. If this be
the case, a door is open to all manner of pre-
texts and cavils. We can hardly bring ourselves
to believe (though we have heard this stated in
respectable quarters) that Eirl Grey would ha-
zard himself on ground so very precarious. The
hazard of attempting a second reading of the
same measure in the sitme House which formerly
threw out the Bill, and thus throwing himself
on the mercy of his enemies, is sufficiently ha-
zirdous even with the most positive and uncon-
ditional pledges. The proceedings of the next
few days may have an issue which no British
Statesman may be able to control. Should the
Bill be thrown out, who can calculate the effect
which such a result would produce on the mil-
lions DOW waiting in anxiety the decision of their
Lordships ! Should but a part of what has been
distinctly announced in most of the great hives
of British industry be carried into effect—should
the immense masses of this country be thrown
loose—how soon would the insensate men, who,
by their decision, brought this about, repent
their rashness in sackcloth and ashes ! There is
no return. All confidence in public men would
be gone. The bark of the State would be hur-
ried on like a canoe approaching the falls of the
Niagara. Nothing could stay the movement.
In no country could the franchise be committed
to time people with more safety than in England.
They are cool, intelligent, and orderly ; the
middle class is numerous, and possessed of much
practical knowledge. Even the working classes
in towns, and England is now nearly one great
town, are accustomed to discussion, and capable
of weighing proofs and arguments to an extent
of which there is elsewhere no example. Be-
sides, the character of the nation is rather strength
to resist than briskness in attack. The patience
and forbearance displayed so long under an
almost universal conviction of the necessity of
Parliameniary Reform, as the only means by
which the nation can be rescued from a destroy-
ing and all-pervading corruption, afford the best
answer to those who affect to entertain appre-
hensions from the communication of the suffrage
to the middle classes. If the Bill be thrown out
on the second reading, we question the power of
Ministers to repair the mischief. We have
heard of plans of instant prorogation in such
case, to be followed up by an abundant creation
of Peers But will the people understand all
this refinement ? The Duke of Wellington, in
his straight-forward way, is throwing out lures to
the Irish Orangemen—promising them, that
should he be once more in power, he will not
call them to too rigorous an account, if they
should overstep justice in bleeding the Irish
people. And the English 'Squires are coin-
forted with the promise of indulgence for future
affairs in the style of Manchester. It is obvious
that his Grace calculates on a crisis in which he
may act a bold part. We shall have a fearful
re-action, that is certain, should his Grace once
more he at the helm. Once more we call on
Earl Grey to reflect on the imminent danger to
which we are all exposed. One false step, and
the evil may be beyond remedy.— Morning
Chronicle.

We had not time on Saturday to remark on
the debate in the House of Commons on the
second reading of the Irish Tithe Bill, which'

was protracted to a very late honr. The measure
was strenuously resisted by the small phalanx
of Members that has hitherto opposed its pro-
gress. The object of those gentlemen was to
have further time allowed for the Consideration
of such a baish measure as Mr. Stanley was
about to inflict upon Ireland. It was in vain that
Mr. Hume solicited this boon, and reminded the
Noble Lord opposite of his pledges to bring
forward together his measure of conciliation as
well as that of coercion—it was in vain that
Mr. Leader and other Irish Members urged the
reasonableness of a little delay, and the opportu-
nity which the approaching recess would afford
them of returning to Ireland and conferring with
their constituents on such a vital question—
it was in vain that the manner in which the
Catholic Relief Bills with that for the abo-
lition of the forty-shilling freeholders were
brought forward, was advanced as a fit pre-
cedent to observe on the present occasion. No,
Mr. Stanley was inexorable, and Ireland must
be taught a lesson—a lesson by him indeed ! But
the law must be vindicated, says Mr. Stanley—
and under his new Bill the power and influence
of the Crown must be superadded to that of the
church—and Crown Lawyers, Assistant-Bar-
risters, and Tithe Proctors be let loose on the
harassed and oppressed peasantry and land-
holders of Ireland. Lord Althorp havi%,_ad-
mitted, on a question put to him by the Hon.
Member for Middlesex, that coercion ought to
be accompanied with conciliation, was again
pressed by Mr. Hume to state how soon the mea-
sure of conciliation would be ready ; and having
replied, that as the Tithe Committee was still
sitting, he could not give a positive answer, Mr.
Hume very properly observed, and every reason-
able man must agree with him, that his Lordship
gave a sufficient reason for stopping the present
measure altogether. Mr. Ruthren, however,
proceeded to address the House for some time,
and then moved, as an amendment, that the Bill
be read a second time that day month ; in which
he was supported by Colonel Torrens, Mr. J.
Grattan, and Mr. Shcil, who delivered one of
those fine effusions of eloquence for which that
gentleman is distinguished. He observed, " It is
said we must vindicate the law; but a bad law ought
not to be vindicated by a new one more defective."
He contended that " the Bill was unsustained by
evidence—it was against all precedent—it was
opposed to all principle, and contrary to sound
policy." The evidence, he observed, " went to
show that the arrear could not be collected ; the
testimony of seventeen Protestants and one Ca-
tholic was taken from the vestry-room and from
the police barracks—it was clerical and consta-
bulary—yet, bid as it was, it proved that the
arrear could not be collected." The Bill, he
Bays, " was against all precedent—no such en-
actment waa to be found in the English Statute-
book, though something analogous might be
discovere4 in the Draco-Code of Irish Legisla-
ihneg th the Parliament King
assignee
hadtion ;
refrained alt ottg Ifironi evenmhakt
of a most odious system of litigation, which tar-
nished the Crown with the dust of every Court
of Piepoudre. The Bill, he contended, was
against principle, because it deprived the defen-
dant of all due notice, and substitwed for a sub-
poena and a civil-bill a proclamation and a pla-
card. It was also repugnant to justice to inflict
coercion first, and leave redress to contingency.
It was lashing over-burdened and oppressed Ire-
land up the hill, and waiting till the summit was
reached, to lighten the load." To Mr. Shen
brilliant effusion, the manufacturers of the Bill, Mr.
Crarnpton attempted a reply, in which he stated that
it was necessary to resort to the present measure,
" because the arm of the Crown and the
law was strong ; but the arm of the Church
was weak !" and he denied " that the present
was a coercive measure, but, on the contrary,
one in which justice and mercy were most equally
blended." We turn, however, with no very
pleasing reflection from Mr. Crampton, and his
legislation and his law, to take up with consi-
derable satisfaction the excellent counter-resolu-
tions laid before the House on Monday last, by
the Learned Member for Drogheda, and we recom-
mend them, and the sound constitutional doc-
trine which they contain, to the serious and de-
liberate consideration of every Member of the
House while this Bill is in Committee—to com-
pare them with the Bill, and reflect well whe-
ther this ill-judged coercive measure of Mr.
Stanley's, if. adopted, would not be " at once in-
jurious to the rights of the subject—derogatory
from the honour of the Crown—and, instead of
vindicating, powerfully tend to disparage and de-
grade the law of the land."—Morntng Chronicle.
This evening, as the public are aware, the
Reform Bill stands for a second reading in the
House of Lords, and the only part of the
struggle from which we apprehend any danger
begins. At this trying hour we have the satis-
faction of stating, that though we have strongly
censured Ministers for delaying the creation of
Peers, we never for a moment doubted their
honesty, or their sincere desire to carry the Bill.
We are moreover convinced that theyattgehoaottbojteitlcleitye,
sweicilonbde
arebaledintog usuncdceeredthien fitiriemirbuelltiiemf
ttip.ahroiteilrsmtt
iiwnnwghi
which
answering
trwltstietei
refiypanlrgiohmatt
lihiseeee s
rrpeae
suicipbedoil
vincaessdisbe.o rances of sup-
iii)tShouldexpectations,
inl
asthey
ion having
neglected the warning voice which the friends of
Reform have raised ; but, in the second place,
the faithless Peers who have broken their en-
gagements,—if such there be,—need not hope
to escape with impunity. Their promises are
registered, and the indignation of the public
will not be slow in avenging on the- traitors
their known perfidy. But let it not be sup-
posed that these are the only parties whom
the people will hold answerable for pro-
tracting the fulfilment of a nation's just and
reasonable expectations. While a severe ac-
count will he exacted from the Ministers
who exposed the great measure to the pos-
sibility of hazard, and from those professed
supporters of the Ministers who deserted
them in the hour of need, the third party must
not flatter themselves that they will be forgotten.
It is impossible that those uncompromising ene-
mies of the national cause who have never ma-
nifested any relaxation of their hostility, and who
pride themselves in their consistency of resist-
ance to the Bill, should move unharmed atnidat
the storm which they will have so madly perse-
vered in raising. Amid all this anxiety—amid
all this alarm for our country at the possible
postponement of a measure so long delayed, and
so
".eloudlyhave do en ma s
°l
tdi
oi naL immediateon
esuresosuertcteelomfent,—
confi-
dence, that the King is stanch, and resolved to
Pteoerscwarhryichtitlete
measure.ciiraeyate
tahtirtyiknunmebeeerssaorfy
Would that his Majesty's gracious peralission
had produced earlier fruits Times.
To doubt 'the determined resistance of the
Peers to a project so perfectly insane, and to
which the property and intelligence of the country
are so utterly opposed, would !ie to libel them in

• - -
the grossest possible manner. Looking at their'
past conduct, and the present state of the coun-
try, we are surely entitled to consider its final
rejection as an absolute certainty ; but' we do
earnestly hope that Viet will Be 6 the importance
of rejecting it fearlessly on the second reading;
Without censuring the motives of Lords Har-
. towby and Whaincliffe, we ask them, imploringly,
to consider how they can possibly recognise the
principle of the Bill, as propounded by Lord
Grey, who is pledged to a measure " equally effi-
cient" with the last, and who would scarcely know
how to look his ignoble Jacobin allies in the
face if he permitted any important alterations.
To extract the venom from the Bill would
be impossible, for it is all venom. It involves
complete opposition to all the prestrlptive rights,
chartered privileges, and ancient usages dri
which the Constitution rests, and proposes to
give us liberty based on the assumed rights of
man, proclaimed by the French atheistic school
of philosophy. Those who talk of restoring to
the people their " rights" by this Bill do not
mean rights which they ever possessed accord-
ing to English law, but rights which are claimed
on the principles of the jacobins and infidels o
France. We call upon the Bishops, one
and all, to rescue the Church they repre-.
sent from the indelible disgrace of sanction-
ing there principles. Their late vote we
know exposed them to the utmost hatred
of tie Radical faction, but that hatred was
mingled with respect. If they now falter
in their course they will have to encounter the
same hatred, with the added ingredients ofscorn
and contempt. The question is one of life or
death to the Church of England ; and how can
the Bishops call upon the members of that
Church to stand fast in the evil day if they them-
selves set the example of tergiversation aid
anostacy ? It appears (thanks to a noble con-
stitutional firmness somewhere existing) that
there are to be no new creations to force the
second reading ; but what is to prevent them
from being resorted to for the alleged protection
of the Bill in Committee, when the principle=--
the fatal principle, has been recognised? Before
the waverers put into execution their unac-
countable purpose of voting for the second
reading, ought they not to demand distinct
and solemn pledges on this head ? We im-
plore those few Noble Lords who may be
yet undetermined not to fall into this specious
snare. Once conceding the principle, they will
abandon the elevated position which they now
occupy, an i which, defended with ordinary zeal,
would prove perfectly impregnable. As to the
possible swamping of the Peerage by subsequent
creations, the Bill having been thrown out, such a
thing is scarcely conceivable ; but in any circum-
stances, a steadfast adherence to principle will
prove to be the safest course. Constitutionally
speaking, the attempt to stifle the voice of the
second estate would be as revolutionary and trea-
sonable a step as the decapitation of Charles by
the Long Parliament, and would probably lead
to similar results. Such Peerages would never
possess a proper legal character, and the Radi-
cals would he the first to remind the people that
violence having been, done to the Constitution,
their moral allegiance could no longer be de.
manded. The fictitious Peers of the Revolu-
tion. would, doubtless, be contemptuously dis-
missed by the re-action of another. One firm
and virtuous vote for the total rejection of the
Bill would, we doubt not, save the country
from revolution, and deliver it, at the same
Moment, from an Administration in whom no
important class of the community can place the
slightest confidence. The eyes of the Empire
are turned with some anxiety, but with greater
confidence, to the ranks of its conservative Piers ;
and v 4 hen at their head is seen the first soldier
and statesman of his age, who was always at ,
his post at the hour of England's need, and Who
never led his followers to aught but victory, .all
solicitude for the result must yield to calm and
tranquil security. On the one side is Arthur
Duke of Wellington and England ; on the other
Earl Grey amid the Radicals! Posterity will
certainly wonder that such a country should have
been brought to the brink of ruin by so con-
temptible a fiction ; but those who save her front
the danger will.not be on that account ,the less
entitled to the meed which they will assuredly
receive the gratitude of future ages.—Morning
Post.