The Sun.
London, England, 1835-01-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The public are favoured, by some of the-, Radical
commentators on passing events, with a new construc-
tion of the causes to which have been owing the re-
turns of so many Conservatives for counties. West,
Kent and East, Surrey having chosen Members disc
posed to support the Ministry, the obvious conclusion
one would think might be, that under.so large a mea-
:4lre of reform as that which now determines the choice
of Members of Parliament, few or none can be the
objects of such choice, who have not with them the
force of public opinion. That, however, appears to
be all a mistake. Instead of Conservative Members
being indebted to public opinion for their seats, we
have seen it written in some of yesterday's liapers„
that they could not have been chosen at all, had not
the public been excluded from the constituency by
the Reform Bill being of too narrow and limited e na-
ture. If, say the Radicals, Reform had been carried.
far enough, we should not have seen a Conservative
member in the House of Commons. That, indeed, is
a self-evident truth. If, from the establishment of
universal suffrage, the constituency had embraced the
very lowest of the people, why it is plain that
this class, being ten times more numerous than any
other, would, after periods of public excitement,
return as many representatives as they pleased, and
no small proportion of them from the most tur-
bulent and audacious of their own body. The con-
sequence of such an improvement upon the Reform
Bill would be, that the property and intelligence
of the country must remain altogether, or very nearly,
unrepresented in the House of Commons, and instead
of them we should see destitution and ignorance armed
with irresistible power. The fate of the • Monarchy
would soon be decided in an assembly thus delegated
by the physical force of the nation, but repudiated by
its mind and moral principles. The phenomenon
would present itself of a constituent and representative
body, neither of which had a solid stake in the soil of
England nor in her commercial capital, but a fancied
one in the plunder of both. The first blow of such a
Jack Cade democracy would be struck at the very exis-
tence of the House of Lords,—the next at its pro-
perty, as part and parcel of the great Aristocratic mo-
nopoly of wealth,—the third at the Crowd ; and the
first re-action against this convulsive anarchy would be
in the shape of arbitrary power. The exclamation,
therefore, that we must have an extension of the elec-
tive franchise, in order to obtain a larger infusion of
.this class of Representatives into the House of Com-
mons, means simply that a perfect Reform is one which
would, in practice, confine the choice of Representa-
tives to a single class of the community, and that the
least capable of making a judicious choice in times of
excitement. All Englishmen, who tre not devoured
by the spirit of faction in the pursuit of a selfish
and temporary object, will deprecate such a Reform.
However, we must in one respect presume a good .
understanding to
*exist between the Whig-RadiCal and
Conservative. parties, or assume that one or other is in
a InP.7vellous error as to a most important fact.
"or
ANothing is so remarkable as the loud and exulting
gratification which the Whig-Radical papers express
from day to day upon the general state of the election
returns, and the gross amount of the majority already
ascertained, which indeed grows wonderfully with each
succeeding post. Some of these optimists have gone -
so far as to make out " by figures' which everybody
knows cannot possibly go wrong, that the Reformers
or anti-Conservatives, or what you please to' call them,
exceeded 370 Members, while the friends of Mini-
sters
were only 212. The reason, therefore, why we
affirm that there must be a fatal blunder somewhere.
or a secret convention, is that Sir Robert Peel an-
nounces his entire satisfaction at the result of these
very same elections ; and, in a speech to his con-
stituents at Tamworth, on Friday last, the Right
Honourable Baronet declares " his firm convic-
tion that lie shall be able to conduct the Govern-
ment of the country, tvith the new House of Com-
mons, on Conservative principles, and in the spirit of
those constitutional reforms on which all reasonable
and reflecting men are agreed." 'We insert the ex-
tract from the Premier's speech, for which we are in-
debted to last night's Albion, leaving it to the " braw-
lers" to settle with Sir Robert the knotty point of their
" triumphant" lists, and to digest as they may the
sly allusion made by him to " three tailors" in Tooley-
street, who, once upon a_ time, issued an address to
his Majesty, beginning " We, the people of Eng-
land," &c. In the meantime, since we began this ar-
ticle, we have accidentally seen a striking work by
Fisher Ames, an able and eloquent citizen of 'the
United States, who, in the following, passage, con-
firms curiously enough, and, as it appears to us, in-
controvertibly, some of the remarks which we have of-
fered on the destructive tendency of an ultra-democra-
tic constitution. The writer speaks of his own coun-
trymen, the people of the " favoured region," and to
them, but the principles on which he reasons are of
universal application :
" Many persons seem to despair of the commonwealth.
The address to the popular passions, they argue, is gene-
rally successful ; and always very encouragingly rejected,
even when it is not. While the friends of order rely on the
sense of the people, the Jacobins appeal to their nonsense
with infinite advantage : they affect to be entirely on `the
people's ; and their mistake, if by great good luck it is
suniosed they err, is ascribed to a good motive, in a man-
ner and spirit that invites fresh attempts to deceive. Thus
the deceivers of the people tire out their adversaries ; they
try again and again ; and an attempt that is never aban-
doned, at last will not fail. What, then, it is asked, can
be done ? We have an enlightened people, who are not
poor, and therefore are interested to keep Jacobinism down,
which ever seeks plunder as the end, and confusion as the
means. Yet the best informed of this mighty people 'are
lazy or ambitious, or go over to the cause of confusion ; or
are artfully rendered unpopular, because they will not go
over to it. The sense and virtue, and property of the na-
tion therefore, will not govern it ; but every day shows that
its vice and poverty, and ambition will.
"We have been mistaken. In our affairs, we have only
thought of what was to be hindered, and provided.suffi-
ciently for nothing that was to be done. We have, thought
that virtue, with so many bright rewards, had some solid
power ; and that, with ten thousand charms, she could al-
ways command a hundred thousand votes. Alas ! these.
illusions are as thin as the gloss on other bubbles. Politi
cians have supposed, that man really is what he should be;
that his reason will do all it can, and his passions and pre-
judice no mare than they ought ; whereas his reason is a
mere looker-on ; it is moderation when it should be zeal ;
is often corrupted to vindicate where it should condemn ;
and is a coward or a trimmer, that will take husk-money.
Popular reason does not always know how to act right, nor
does it always act right when it knows. The agents' that
move politics are the popular passions : and those are ever,
from the very nature of things, under the command of the
disturbers of society. Those who would defend order, and
property, and right, the real friends of law and liberty, have
a great deal to say to silence passion, but nothing to
,offer
that will satisfy- it ; nothing that will conAince 'a sans
culotte that Ms ignorance, or vice and laziness; ordain
that he should be poor ; while a demagogue .tells.him,
it is • the funding system that makes him poor,And
revolut,',On shall make him rich. Few can reason, all' can
feel ; and such an argument is gained as soon as it is, pro-
posed. While, then, the popular passions are sure to go-
vern, and the reason of the society is sure to be awed into
silence, or to be disregarded, if it is heard, what hope is
there that our course will not be as headlong, as rapid, and
as fatal, as that of all Governments by mere popular im-
pulse has ever been? The turnpike -road of history is
white with their tombstones.

" If our Government must fall, as it may very deplo-
rably, and soon, and as it certainly must with.a violent Ja-
cobin Administration, lot the monstrous wickedness. of
working its downfall really be, and appear, if possible, to
the whole people, to be chargeable to the Jacobins. Let
the lovers of the Constitution cling to it, while it has life
in it, and even longer than there is hope. Let them be
auxiliary to its virtues ; let them contend for its corpse, as
for the body of Patroclus ; and let them reverence its me-
mory. Let them delay, if they cannot prevent, its fate.
Despair not only hastens the evil, but renders any remedy
unavailing. Time, that sooths all other sufferings, will bring
no relief to us, if we neglect or-throw away the means in
our hands. What are they ? Truth and argument. They
are feeble means, feeble indeed against prejudice and pas-
sion ; yet they are all we have, and we must try them
They will be jury-masts, if we are shipwrecked."—Frogs a
republication of a work entitled Influences of Democracy
with apreface by Henry Ewbank, Esq.—(Times.)
There are few traits in the character of British
statesmen more peculiar and more honourable,than
their affectionate and enduring . attacknent amidst
the toil and turmoil of public life to those learned and
venerable institutions in which tire), first imbibed a
knowledge of classic and scientific lore, at once puri-