The Sun.
London, England, 1832-01-10 00:00:00

where it is sure to undergo a long discussion, if
not a considerable modification, before it is trans-
mitted to the Upper House. In this country,
where there are so many rich and intelligent Com-
moners, it cannot be a matter of much difficulty
to make the arrangement, if such an arrangement
be considered necessary, before the measure is
again introduced into the House of Peers. We
trust it may not be necessary to have recourse to
such a proceeding, and we think there are some
indications of the state of the public mind at
present from which a reasonable expectation to
that effect may be drawn. But we must not
venture into the region of prophesy, lest, like our
contemporaries, we should be left in the lurch.
They have ventured boldly—no doubt in the
hope of succeeding greatly ; but it is one of the
consequences of too vehement a pursuit of truth
itself to be sometimes obliged to jump over the
fugitive, like a greyhound that employs more
force than is necessary to overtake a hare.—
Morning Herald.
We yesterday suggested some considerations
which appeared to us not unworthy of the regard
of those to whom the Ministers of the Crown
may apply to become their confederates in the
unconstitutional project of packing the House
of Lords, and we again implore those persons
to reflect upon the position in which they will
place themselves before the country in submitting
to receive a dignity which, ex confesso, they do
not deserve. These gentlemen are now wealthy
and respectable Commoners, occupying the sta-
tion to which by the consent of all men they are
entitled. The station to which they are invited
is one, even in the opinion of those who give
the invitation, to which they are not entitled.
They will owe their elevation, not to their in-
dividual merits, not to the grace and favour of
their Sovereign, but simply and unequivocally
to the necessities of an Administration which
thinks the degradation of the House of Lords
and the subversion of the British Constitution
a smaller evil than its own removal from of-
fice. The new Peers will remain, until their
lineage is extinct, or their titles obliterated by a
counter-revolution, a blot and disgrace upon
the roll of Nobility. The recollection will al-
ways cline, to them that they were admitted
as an undeniable evil, in the estimation even of
the Ministry which created them. They must
still remain, what they were at first, Peers to be
apologised for by the tyrant's plea of necessity ;
and the least inquiry will in all future time shew
that necessity to have been merely the sordid de-
termination of Earl Grey and his colleagues to
retain to the last possible moment the emolu-
ments of office. They enter the House of Lords,
as many enlist into a mercenary troop, bound
by no obligation but that of military obedience
to the commander whose arms and uniform they
assume ; and as it is most fit that they should
be distinguished from the honourable nobility of
England, they will only be known hereafter by
the distinctive appellation of Earl Grey's Swiss.
Men must be very fond indeed of rank and title
and withal very unconscious of what is required
to render rank and title objects of respect, who
will consent to be made Lords upon such an
occasion and upon such terms. But, as we sup-
pose Earl Grey has already ascertained that
he can find the necessary number of men
who are not unwilling to undergo the infamy of
such an elevation as he has the power to impart,
it may seem more reasonable to address ourselves
to the selfish apprehensions of these candidates
for the Peerage than to that sense of honour and
dignity the existence of which in their case can-
not very safely be assumed. The new Peers are
appointed to carry the Reform Bill. They permit
themselves to be thrust in the House of Peers,
in defiance of constitutional principle and prac-
tice, in order to force a particular measure upon
the House. It follows of course that they be-
come in a very peculiar and unprecedented degree
responsible in their persons and estates to the
nation, whose established Constitution they
suffer for such a purpose to be outraged in their
elevation, for all the consequences of that mea-
sure of which they thus stand out as the conspi-
cuous cause. The Reform Bill may be a good
Bill, although many well-informed persons
doubt it. It may produce none but the happiest
effects, although many impartial and considerate
men anticipate from it the greatest evils and con-
vulsions. But these are not the questions for
Earl Grey's Swiss Peers. It behoves them to
consider the Bill as men who are about to make
themselves responsible in body, lands, and goods
for its consequences. They do positive wrong
for sake of this measure. They assist the Mi-
nistry in violating the spirit of the existing Con-
stitution in order to carry it. They consent to
becotrie marked men in connection with its
effects upon the happiness and welfare of the
nation. It will not do for them to say hereafter
that they were mistaken, any more than for the
Ministry, whose tools they are in packing the
House of Lords. They ought not only to think
the Bill a good Bill before they agree to
assist the Ministerial project for forcing it
upon the House of Lords, but by sifting
and scrutinising all its provisions, to convince
themselves that it cannot fail to produce bene-
ficial effects, a clear balance of advantage to the
community, and then to rise to their new dig-
nity, fully prepared, if the measure should fail,
to meet and endure the concentrated indignation
and vengeance of the British people. It is not
for fallible men to do evil that good may come.
The Ministers and the new Peers will have vio-
lated the spirit of the British Constitition to I
carry a measure which they perhaps believe to bel
good. They exercise the privilege, and must be
content, therefore, to endure the responsibility '1
which only belongs to infallibility. We venture
to address these remarks to the consideration of
the Commoners to whom the offer of the new
order of Nobility, that of suborned and subser-
vient Lords, has or may be made; for we till
not permit ourselves to believe that any sufficient
number of the sons of existing Peers will permit
themselves to be employed as instruments for the
destruction or debasement of the order to which
by birth they belong, and with the honour
and interests of which their own is identified.
Earl Grey, we are persuaded, will have to resort
to a baser kind of material for his creations, and
will probably be put to a hard trial of his
patience and industry before he can find a suffi-
cient quantity of such material as will at all
answer the purpose. It will probably at last be
found in the requisite number of ambitious and
unprincipled men, of such slender pretensions in
respect to station, property, and reputation, that
they could never have hoped to be elevated to
the Peerage in any other than revolutionary
times, or for any other than a revolutionary pur-
pose. Any man who imagines that he would
ever have had a coronet but for such a lucky
chance as the revolutionary scheme of the pre-
sent Ministers affords, has of course the strongest
motives for spurning from him with contempt, upon
the present occasion, the polluted and poisoned
gift which Earl Grey can offer.--,Morning Post.