The Sun.
London, England, 1835-02-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The notification which we copy from last night's
Gazette will be read, we are sure, with feelings of
high approval and gratification by all true friends of
the Church of England, and of the religious, including
all the other most valuable interests of this great
Christian people. The fiat of the Sovereign has gone
forth, and the Commission for laying- the groundwork
of a large and effective reform of the Church of Eng-
land, temporal as well as spiritual, has been actually
appointed by the Crown. The heads of the Church,
of the Law, and of the State, are included among
the Commissioners for this important purpose. The
two Archbishops, the Bishop of London, Dr. Kaye
(Bishop of Lincoln,) and the Bishop of Glocester,
are the members of the national priesthood to whom
the task has been confided. Sir Robert Peel
(Prime Minister,) Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, Lord
Harrowby, Mr. Goulburn (as Secretary for the
Home Department,) and Sir Herbert Jenner (an
able civilian) with Messrs. Wynn and Henry Hob-
house, constitute the lay body of the Commission.
The subjects to which the Commission are to direct
its attention are as general as can well be conceived,
and the Commissioners as competent to the task
as could have been selected. The incomes of the
Bishops—the more equal distribution of episcopal du-
tiesthe abolition of commendams—the better appro-
priation of the Dean and Chapter revenues, including
a due attention to the state of Cathredral and Collegiate
churches, and the enforcement of residence by the
clergy in their parishes, form the great objects of this
proposed inquiry. We take for granted that some re-
straints upon the privilege and practice of episcopal
translation will be introduced as a consequence of this
inquiry. Undertaken, as unquestionably this impor-
tant measure has been, with a full determination to
render it at once advantageous and satisfactory to the
people of England, we cannot forbear to congratulate
the clergy, the Government, and the country, on the
announcement in last night's Gazette. But, Bis dat
qui cito dat, says the trite proverb : we do not appre-
hend that a long time will pass before the report will
make its appearance.--Times.

The following important announcement appeared in
the Gazette of last night :—(For which see Gazette.)
The issuing of the above Commission, and the de-
signation of the duties which it has to perform, remove
all doubt as to the outline and extent of the plan of
Church Reform which the present Government have
resolved to carry into effect. In the first place, it is
intended to consider the state of the several dioceses in
England and Wales, with reference to the amount of
their revenues, and to the more equal distribution of
episcopal duties. The inequality of the duties and
revenues of Bishoprics has long been objected to, as a
glaring fault of the Church Establishment. Hence
,
the occupants of the poorer Bishoprics were tempted
rather to cultivate acquaintance with the personages
who had the influence or power to translate them to
richer ones, than with the flocks placed under their
pastoral charge, and whose spiritual wants it should
be their constant endeavour to supply. It often hap-
pened that the Bishop, before he had time to cultivate
the spiritual vineyard of one diocese, was removed
to another, and perhaps to a third, to the great de-
triment of religion and the interests of the Church.
If it be practicable to make a complete equalisation of
the dioceses in revenue, it ought to be done, for the
purpose of putting an end to the practice of translation,
and the episcopal solicitations of Government patro-
nage to which that injurious practice gives rise.
Bishops will then no longer be like birds of passage,
for ever either on the wing or looking out for the time
to take flight from one diocese to another. They will
be resident spiritual overseers of the Clergy and the
laity under them—faithful shepherds ivatching over
their flocks in all seasons, instead of seeking the sun-
niest spot of Ministerial patronage wherein to bask, as
too many have done, while the prowling wolf of infi-
delity or fanaticism preyed upon the flock. The Com-
missioners have, also to consider how to prevent the
necessity of attaching by commendant to Bishoprics
benefices with the cure of souls. It would follow as a
natural consequence of the equalisation of the revenues
of Bishoprics, that the foul blot of holding livings in
commendam would be removed from the Church ; for as
every Bishopric would in that case, have a sufficient re-
venue without attaching a benefice to it, there would be
no excuse whatever for a practice so injurious to the
spiritual concerns of either the Bishopric or the be-
nefice. In the third place, the Commissioners are em-
powered to examine the state of the several collegiate
and cathedral churches, with a view to the suggestion
of such measures as may render them most conducive
to the efficiency of the Established Church. This
branch of their duty enables them to suggest the abo-
lition of sinecures, and the appropriation of their reve-
nues, to the augmentation of small livings, or the better
providing for the curates and other working clergy.
A large portion of prebends and canonries may be
made available for such purposes, leaving still suffi-
cient to provide for so many clergymen attached to
each cathedral as are required for the daily perform-
ance of cathedral service. Lastly, the Commissioners
are authorised to devise the best mode of providing for
the cure of souls, with special reference to the residence
of the Clergy on their respective benefices. This
part of the Commission strikes at the root of that
great evil called pluralism, by striking at the other
abuse of non-residence ; for it does not require any
elaborate logic to prove that if permanent residence be
an essential condition to the possession of a benefice,
no clergyman can have twd benefices, as he cannot
permanently reside in both. if this outline of Church
reform be well filled up it will, inc!tteil, be a great, a
magnificent work of reform. Nor can fail to satisfy
all, except those whom nothing can satisfys,',.ort of the
utter destruction of the Church.—Morning Herald.
The Tory papers have been instructed to deny the
truth of the assertion made in the Advertiser of yes-
terday, that there is a division in the Cabinet, and
that that division is likely to be the death of it ; and,
to do them justice, they not only buckle on their
armour with alacrity, but fight the battle of their
patrons manfully We yesterday," says one of
them, " with ;Wended vagueness, contradicted certain
rumours confidently circulated for two of three hours
of the day. These rumours have died the death of
their ephemeral race, and therefore we can now
have no difficulty in stating that they related to
divisions in the Cabinet and resignations, the whole
being most absolutely false, and without a shade
of foundation at any time. The public must be
prepared for a repetition of the device, but all may
be assured that there never was an Administration
sc., little likely to afford ground for rumours like those of
yesterday." Another observes, in a still more compli-
mentary strain, that—" Some idiotic tattle about a
split in the Cabinet' found its way into two or three
newspapers yesterday evening, and is repeated in one
of those we have seen this morning. We need not
further notice the silly trash." The more strenuously,
however, that the journals in question deny the asser-
tion, the more thoroughly are we convinced of its
truth ; and our readers, if we mistake not, will think
with us that it would not have been deemed worth
while to contradict the report in such urgent terms, had
there not been a very substantial foundation for it.
Be the fact, however, as it may, the result—the
gratifying result—will be the same six months
hence. If not already divided—which we have every
reason for believing that they are—they will be divided
or destroyed both as a Ministry and a party before
that time. As a party they are devoid of numbers—
in point of principle, they are entirely destitute of any
other shade of it than that of holding place, while the
country will permit them to hold it. Their usurpa-
tion of the reins of Government was a gross attack
upon the liberties of the people—their professions of
Reform, a disgust to all honest-minded men. An enemy
in unwilful error becomes not unfrequently an object of
respect from the mere fact of his persevering in it—
' the "- •ers and turn-coats—waver and turn how
Lye never inspired any other feelings than
nript or disgust.—Morning Advertiser.
;-Radical journals flatter themselves that
!quent presentation to the public mind, an
tIl men of moderation and intelligence re-
as an extravagance, may in process of
endurable. Hence their pertinacity in
pretensions to the Chair of Sir Charles
pn and Mr. Abercromby. The mere

allocation of these two names in the same paragraph,
or even in the same column, of a newspaper is uni-
versally felt—felt equally by the friends of both--to be
an elevation to the one and a degradation to the other ;
and it is to this, we are persuaded, that we ought to
ascribe the endless dissertations which the Whig and
Radical •journals devote to the comparative merits of
Sir Charles Manners Sutton and Mr. Aberciomby, as
it is undoubtedly by this consideration chiefly that we
have been restrained from enlarging much upon that
subject. Nor will we now enter upon a comparison
which six months ago all the world would have pro-
nounced to be ridiculous ; which is still as ridiculous as
it would have been then ; and at which the public
have only ceased to laugh, because a fit of laughter
on the same subject cannot last above a month. Of
Sir Charles Manners Sutton's qualifications for the
Chair it is needless for us to speak. They are not
unknown to any of those who, during the last seven-
teen years, have paid any degree of attention to the
proceedings of the House of Commons. As some of
our Radical contemporaries, however, are striving to
agitate the lowest and most ignorant classes of the
electors of Westminster upon the subject, and to incite
them to an attempt, which would be equally hopeless
and unconstitutional, to bully the Hon. Baronet who
represents that City out of his personal independence
and consistency, we think the present a fit opportunity
to recal to recollection the tennis in which Sir Charles
Manners Sutton was described by Sir Francis Burdett
on the 29th of January, 1833, in the speech in which
the Hon. Baronet seconded the motion of Lord Mor-
peth, that the Right Hon. Gentleman do take the
Chair :

" He would take this case upon its merits, upon its merits
alone would he put it, and the question was who of the Mem-
bers of that House was known to be the fittest to discharge the
important functions of Speaker? At a time of great difficulty
in the eyes of many persons—a time of embarrassment and
danger in the eyes of many—in his of nothing but of hope,
and to be looked forward to with satisfaction—at a time when
undoubtedly it was highly important that the Chair of the
House of Commons should be filled by a person of abilities,
not upon a speculation of what any Member might be capable
or willing to do, but possessing. experience, and bringing for-
ward the most solid grounds of competency—who could pos-
sibly be put in competition with the Right Hon. Gentlennan,
who had for sixteen years pursued a course of conduct in that
Chair that had called forth the universal approbation of the
Members of that House during many successive Parliaments,
in which the Hon. Member for Middlesex had invariably joined ?"
And again—
" The House would recollect the conduct of the Right Hon.
Gentleman during the great struggle for Reform, when he
made no distinction between one Member and another of that
House. It was not only his conduct in the House which en-
titled him to commendation, but it was his great services in
regard to private Bills, which were far more important and
laborious. It seemed, indeed, to be trespassing unnecessarily
on the attent'on of the House, to repeat those feelings of ap-
probation which were expressed on all hands. He (Sir F.
Burdett) was in a situation something like that of the man
who was reproached at a public meeting at Rome while prais-
ing Hercules, and who was cut short by a person exclaiming,
Quis vituperavit?'"
Such were some of the terms in which Sir Francis
Burdett spoke of Sir Charles Manners Sutton in 1833.
Yet the latter is now to be insulted it seems by a small
faction of his constituents calling upon him to vote
against the pretensions of the same Right Honourable
Gentleman, who, in character and qualifications, is
precisely what he was then, and whose position has
undergone no other change than this, that he now stands
in the way of a Whig-Radical job, got up for the factious
purpose of embarrassing the King's Government, and
for the mercenary purpose of giving an additional in-
come of 3,0001. a year to Mr. Abercromby at the
expense of the country. Sir Francis Burdett, by no
means an incompetent, and certainly not in this case a
prejudiced, judge, has told us what are the merits
which give to Sir Charles Manners Sutton a claim to
the office of Speaker. Who can tell us what are the
peculiar merits of Mr. Abercromby ? To say
the least he is untried, and is, therefore, for
what anybody knows, just as likely to make a bad
Speaker as a good one. It is a matter merely of
conjecture and speculation.. Mr. Abercromby is
principally known to the country as the recipient of
an unearned and unmerited pension of 2,0001. a year ;
as the man who foisted himself into a sinecure Judge-
ship.in Scotland, which he knew would very soon be
abolished, and thus, by doing nothing for a few months,
secured to himself a handsome income for life out of
the public pnrse. The zealous advocates of Mr.
Abercromby talk fluently of his unspotted reputation.
To be o'ire his reputation is unspotted, for it never was
of a colour upon which a job of this description could
imprint a spot. There is another reason besides our
reluctance to derogate from the eminent reputation of
Sir Charles Manners Sutton, why we should refrain
from any eomparison between his ability for the due dis-
charge of the duties of Speaker and that of Mr. Aber-
cromby ; and this is, that the fitness of Mr. Aber-
cromby for the office has been compared by his own
friends and party, and compared to his disadvantage,
with that of men who are by the common consent of all
mankind immeasurably the inferiors of Sir C. M. Sut-
ton. Mr. Abercromby is not the candidate whom the
Russell section of the Opposition wished to bring for-
ward. It is notorious that Mr. Abercromby's pre-
tensions were never thought of until it had been fully
ascertained that there was no chance, of a decent mi-
nority, even, in favour of Mr. Littleton or Mr. Spring
Rice. For the latter gentleman Mr. O'Connell pe-
remptorily refused the votes of himself and tail, and
these votes were indispensably necessary to the cause
of faction. Accordingly Mr. Abercromby was re-
sorted to as a pis oiler. He is the Opposition candi-
date for the Chair, because, and only because Mr.
O'Connell preferred him to either of the favourite
men of the Whig party. Should Mr. Abercromby
be elected, Mr. O'Connell may fairly boast that
he, and lie alone, had given a Speaker to the House
of Commons. One of the Whig-Radical journals
ventured yesterday to reproach Sir Charles Man-
ners Sutton with the offence of canvassing mem-
bers of Parliament for their votes. This imputation is
fa'''qe and absurd. It is co rbined however with ano-
ther ass'.:'rtion, which as it is intended to convey cen-
sure, ought -.;•!‘ prudence to have been withheld. We
are told that great interest is made to secure the re-
election of Sir Charles-Yranners Sutton. This is pro-
bable enough ; for every mcnber of the House of
Commons who knows the importaned to the House
and the country of having an able, accompLhed, and
honourable Speaker in the Chair of that Asseni,',ly,
and who is free from the influence of factimis motives,
must feel bound to exert whatever influence he possesses
to secure so desirable a result. But if making in •
terest be an offence which ought to.be visited upon
the candidate in whose favour it is made, whom
will this affect so deeply as Mr. Abercromby ? It
is not great interest truly that is made for him; but
it is, nevertheless, all the interest, most unscrupu-
lously exercised, that the miserable faction which
has brought him forward can make. We challenge
our Whig-Radical contemporaries to adduce any pre-
cedent for the formation of canvassing committees in a
contest for the Chair of the House of Commons.
And we challenge them to deny that twp Committees
have been constituted to conduct the canvass in favour
of Mr. Abercromby—a Whig Committee and a Ra-
dical Committee—the former consisting of Lord Dun-
cannon, Lord John Rusk% and Mr. Spring Rice,
three of the late Ministers who are the most eager to
force themselves back into office, together with Mr.
Methuen, who lends them the sanction, such as it is,
of his name ; while the latter comprehends the follow-
ing eminent Senators, viz., Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Hume,
Mr. Warburton, and Mr. Gillon. Until this challenge
be fairly met, we trust we shall hear nothing more, at
least in the tone of reproach, of the great interest that
is made to secure the re-election of Sir Charles Man-
ners Sutton.—Morning Post.
We yesterday stated that we should this day give an
exposure of the scandalous falsification of facts with
respect to Mr. Abercromby, contained in an article of
the Times of Monday last. We now proceed to re
deem our promise. We derive the facts from a source
on which we can place implicit reliance ; and, at the
hazard of displeasing Mr. Abercromby, whose reluct-
ance to occupy the public with himself is such, that
his friends awe persuaded he would rather suffer under
a calumnious imputation like the present than stoop
to refute it,' we lay the following statement before our
readers ;....-Before the meeting of Parliament in OM,
Mr. Abercromby, while at the house of a dis-
tinguished Nobleman, a member of the late Cabi-
net, received a letter from the Duke of Welling-
ton, requesting an interview on public business

the next day. He was even at a loss to con-
jecture the business to which the interview requested
could refer. The place of Judge Advocate was then
vacant, or on the point of being so, and it occurred to
Mr. Abercromby that it might be intended to offer him
that place ; and he obeyed the summons with a deter-
mination to refuse it. He found, however, to his sur-
prise, that the object of his Grace ;n seeking the inter-
view was to offer him the judicial situation of Chief
Baron of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland ; and he
was assured that it was with a view of his assisting in,
and facilitating great reforms, both judicial and
financial, in that branch of Scotch judicature, that
the offer was made to him. After consulting with
his friends, Mr. Abercromby somewhat reluc-
tantly gave his consent ; stating that he did so
chiefly with the hope that he might be able, with
the co-operation of Government, to render the
Court more efficient, and the burdens on the country
less expensive, by sundry projected improvements in
the constitution of the Court and in its procedure.
Mr. Abercromby accordingly accepted the situation,
partly as a judicial office, and in the firm hope that he
would be able to make it more efficient, .and at the
same time less burdensome to the country. Before,
however, -he had presided a year over the Court, he
discovered that all the improvements he had projected
were impracticable ; and that, with the preservation
of its machinery, it would always be an excrescence
and a burden, and the office of Chief Baron a mere si-
necure. It is well known to the friends of Mr. Aber-
cromby that he was uneasy at the thought of re-
ceiving public money for an office not only not benefi-
cial, but positively injurious and burdensome to the
country ; and he urged on Government the necessity
of instituting an inquiry, with the view of suppressing
the whole Court; and he signified, de proprzo
niotu, his willingness to accept as an indemnity
for the 4,0001. per annum for life, and the retiring
pension annexed thereto, the lowest income which any
Reformer might fix. It is certain, that when the in-
quiry was established, Mr. Abercromby was active and
eager in furnishing both facts and araumehts in favour
of the reform, and he earnestly pressed on Lord Grey's
Government the abolition both of his place and the
Court itself, with as little delay as possible, from a
conviction of its uselessness and expensiveness ; and
that he left to the Government and Parliament the
fixing the amount of compensation to him for his salary
of 4,0001., and his claim, after serving a certain num-
ber of years, to a retiring pension of 000/. A Com-
mittee was accordingly appointed ; and its report
strongly recommended the immediate suppression of
the Court—acknowledged the full right of the Chief
Baron to his entire salary during his life, and his equi-
table claim on retiring,whether after a period of years at his
own desire, or immediately for the convenience of the
public, to a pension 0f3,0001. a year. But when a Bill
was introduced in pursuance of 'the report, Mr.
Abercremby, from considerations of delicacy, would
neither express an opinion, nor make an inquiry, as
to the amount of compensation- he should receive. He
confined himself to -earnest recommendations to his
friends to save the public an unimessary expense, by
passing a law for the suppression of the Court as
speedily as possible. The Bill was brought in by
Lord Althorp in 1831 ; but owing to a variety of ac-
cidental circumstances, it had not passed the Com-
mons when that Parliament was dissolved, which led
to a delay, which, though obviously advantageous to
Mr. Abercromby in a pecuniary sense, he. was not a
little impatient under. The bill was reproduced in
the next Parliament, and virulently opposed both in
the Commons and the Lords, but more especially in
the latter. Mr. Abercromby was more arraigned by
the Opposition for recommending the suppression of
the Court, for pushing the notion of Reform and Re-
trenchment too far, and for lending himself to the abo-
lition of an office and Court of high antiquity in Scot-
land, and secured to that country by an article of the
Union, than for any pecuniary advantage derivable by
himself from the bargain. If the opponents of the Bill
did not actually acknowledge, they manifestly felt and
thought, that Mr. Abercromby had made large and
disinterested sacrifices for the accomplishment of what
they deemed his favourite crotchet. Perhaps, too, the
indirect censure of the Duke of Wellington's Govern-
ment, for not suppressing the Court, when the subject
came under their consideration, somewhat embittered
the resistance made to the Bill. They were clearly
dissatisfied with Mr. Abercromby for having reported
so unfavourably of the utility of the Court over which
he presided. The result is that lr. Abercromby has
given up 4,0001. per annum, to which he was legally
entitled on certain conditions—that he has surrendered
a claim to 3,0001., to which he was contingently and
virtually entitled after a term of years—and that he has
accepted 2,000/. ; by which the country is enabled to
save not only immediately 2,0001. per annum, and sub-
sequently 1,0001., but ultimately the whole expense of
the Court, amounting to not less than from 25,000/. to
30,0001. per annum. We have thus repelled the
calumnious imputations thrown out against Mr. Aber-
comby by the Times. We might have borrowed from
the columns of our contemporary, at the time to which
these transactions refer, abundance of confirmatory
statements ; but as it might plead that it lied then to
gratify the Whigs, as it now lies for the sake of the
Tories, we have deemed it more advisable to dispense
for the present with that authorify.—Morn. Chronicle.

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