The Sun.
London, England, 1832-02-04 00:00:00

country has been the ruling passion under which this
dangerous measure has been conceived. For it is
understood that Sir .Tames Graham's intended Bill

goes little beyond investing the Government with
power to swamp these great departments of the
public service when they choose to exert it, without
restricting the mode of doing it to any specific
plan. It is evident that the measure has been de-
cided upon without any necessity being shown to
exist for such an important change, and without any
arrangements made for its execution. All this is to
be left to chance, or to the wisdom of those who
pull the secret wires by which the astute statesman
at the head of the Admiralty is moved. Parliament
is not to adapt its powers to the measures to be
adopted, but a wide license for the speculative
theoretical plans not yet concocted is to he required.
This is like a medical practitioner bleeding his
patient before he is informed of his complaint, and
giving the nurse power to administer any physic or
other remedies which she may suppose to be
necessary. But is it possible that the House
of Commons will lend itself to such a dan-
gerous course ? 'Will it trust an ignorant
and unskilful pilot to unmoor the vessel which
is freighted with the means of the naval glory
of Great Britain and the comfort of her gallant
sons, and to put to sea without chart or compass, to
navigate an unknown coast amidst a thousand diffi-
culties, incurring the risk of being dashed to atoms
while in search of objects not defined and scarcely
imagined ? Is Parliament so eager for reductions of
establishments as to stultify its judgment and wil•
fully blind its eyes to the consequences which must
ensue if that object is recklessly pursued without
due security to the public that the business trans-
acted in these large departments, involving an annual
check and controul over the expenditure of six or
seven millions sterling, should be systematically,
correctly, and deliberately executed ? Can that hr
the case if the details of these departments are an-
nexed to the Admiralty ? Will not the effect be to
clog the wheels of that important arm of the public
service with respect to its own more important
duties, while the detailed business to be united with
it will be imperfectly, unsatisfactorily, and ineffec-
tually performed ? The contemplated course ap•
pears to us, from all we can learn of it, to be founded
upon a complete misapprehension of the duties of
the controlling and subordinate departments, and
can never work well. It is an attempt to unite the
duties of master and servant, and it may happen that,
though the wages of the groom may be saved, the
corn may be stolen, when the master is otherwise
occupied, and the horse may fall a sacrifice to mis-
taken economy.—Morning Post.

Although we understood, many weeks ago, that
the number of Peers necessary for carrying the Re-
form Bill successfully through the House of Lords
would not be created until the Bill itself had passed
the Commons, we, nevertheless, took the liberty, and
were very severely handled by a correspondent fur
taking it, of urging upon his Majesty's Ministers the
propriety not only of declaring such to be the fact,
but ulso of Gazetting the Peers, with all possible dis-
patch, as the best means of relieving public anxiety—
of doing away with the envenomed opposition of the
Tories—of retrieving the commerce and industry
of the country—of adding to the amount of the
revenue, and of enforcing our influence in all the
foreign relations of the country. We may have
been " unwise," as a correspondent assured us, in
a few days afterwards, as well as unjust towards
his Majesty's Ministers, in urging the adoption of
such a line of policy ; but how does the fact staid
now ? Is the Opposition less mild because it has
been mildly dealt with ? Has less opposition been
offered to the Reform Bill ? Have his Majesty's
Ministers been less free from attack on any question
of foreign or domestic policy ? The very contrary
is the fact. The Opposition has been more busy in
opposition than it was ever known to be—it has not
been satisfied with either opposing the Reform Bill
in its various stages, or with attacking the Ministry
on all questions on which a point in dispute could be
raised—but it has actually improved the time given
it for repentance, to persuade the country that the
King will not create the necessary number of
Peers—that Lord Grey does not enjoy his Majesty's
confidence—and that the Bill is now precisely in
the same, or rather in a worse situation than it was
before the late prorogation ! We have said per-
suade the country, because assuredly there are
many who, if they do not believe both the Bill and
the Ministers to be lost, are at least inclined to give
that half-and-half sort of credit to the Tory false-
hood, which is quite as injurious to the interests of
the country; and if this statement be correct, it fol-
lows, as a necessary consequence, that the advice
which we took the liberty of giving was the very
contrary of " unwise"—that it was sound and judi-
cious, and that had it been adopted, the country
would have been spared of much anxiety—its trade
much of its depression—and Lords Althorp and Rus-
sell much of the annoyance to which they are

now subjected by a persevering and trickery oppo.
sition. With regard to the main point—namely, '
the creation of the number of Peers necessary to
carry the Reform Bill successfully through the
Lords—it is not for a moment to be believed, with-
out a greater belief in unprincipled conduct than we
are possessed of, that the King is not willing to
complete that great measure to which he gave his
consent months ago—for the sake of which he ac-
cepted the resignation of one Cabinet and in-
stalled another, dissolved one Parliament and
summoned another—and when the Peers refused
their sanction to what were considered to be
his anxious wishes, sent them to their country seats
to ruminate on what they had done, and what they
ought to do. We are not, perhaps, so conversant
with the Machiavelian politics of Courts, and of the
influence of foreigners on the British Court, as some
others who pretend to a sounder judgment of the real
state of affairs—but looking, we say, at these cir-
cumstances, on the one hand, we cannot for a mo-
ment give credit to the rumour that the King is un-
willing to create Peers, and looking, on the other, to
the truly high and venerable character of Earl Grey
—the invariable and consistent supporter of Reform
—to the pledges which he has given to the country—
and to the danger either of any great compromise of
the pi inciples of the Bill, or of its utter rejection—
we say, looking at all these things, how is it possible
for a reasonable being to imagine, far less to set it
down as a settled matter, that there is the slightest
chance of the rejection of the Reform Bill on the
ground alleged—of Lord Grey demeaning himself
so far as to continue in office for even one hour
without the certainty of implementing the engage-
ments into which he entered with the country
at the time of the rejection of the last Bill ?
Look, on the other hand, at the consequences of any
possible misconduct on the part of the great sup-
' porters of Reform, and at the dangers that would
result from the rejection of the Bill. What are
they ? Disgrace on the one hand, revolution and
anarchy on the other—a Tory Cabinet and national
opposition—a struggle on the part of the few to
maintain their unjust dominion, and a determination
on the part of the many, to act, as the many have
always acted when their patience has been worn out,
and they have been goaded into the use of the only
means of redress which nature and misgovernment
had left at their disposal ! —.Morning Advertiser.

We understand that Sir WALTER SCOTT,
who is now at Naples, intends to make a considerable stay
in Italy, and to return by the Tyrol through Germany,
where he will visit Hungary, Vienna, Prague, Toplitz,
Carlsbad, Munich, Dresden, Leipsic, Stutgard, and other
principal towns and cities in that empire. The accom-
plish( d Baronet is attended by his eldest son, Major WAL•
TER SCOTT, Of the 15th Hussars, and Miss ANN SCOTT,
his unmarried daughter. Mr. CHARLES SCOTT, the
youngest son of Sir WALTER, is, we believe, a❑ attachi,
to the Legation at the Court of the King of the Two
SicruEs ; so that, with the exception of Mrs. JOHN
Lcc HART, Sir WALTER is at present enjoying the society
of his nearest connections • Sir WALTER had the affliction
to lose his Lady, who was the daughter of a French gen-
tleman of Lyons, in the spring of 1826.