The Sun.
London, England, 1832-04-21 00:00:00

a Reformer as any of his subjects, and'as deter.

mined_ upon a cieation of Peers; and we may
mention as an additional and hitherto unpub-
lished proof of it, the fact, that not only were
the,Royal horses ordered to be in readiness at a
moment's notice during the last night of the
debate in the House of Peers, but that his Ma-
jesty sat up during the greater part of it, and
gave orders to be awakened immediately on the
division taking place, in order that, in the event
of its being against his Ministers, he might go
in person to prorogue Parliament, with a view
to the adoption of all those ulterior measures
which such a fatal result would have necessi-
tated. This fact has been mentioned to us
upon authority which we deem to be highly
satisfactory ; and if it be correct, as we be-
lieve it to be, there is an end at once to all
the lies of the Tory Press—to all charges
of dishonesty on the part of the King—and an
ample proof that if the Bill do ultimately tail, it
will not be from want of zeal on the part of the
King, but from the want of patriotism and de-
cision on the part of his Ministers. There is
another point of view also, which appears to us
to be almost equally decisive of the falsehood of
the rumour to which we have been adverting ;
and that is, that it pre-supposes Lord Grey, on
the one hand, to be wholly destitute of political
virtue, and, on the other, to be as little bur-
dened with political sagacity—that he is careless
of his honour and his pledges to the country,
and blind to the fatal consequences which would
necessarily result from the defeat of the Re-
form Bill. On the former topic it was unneces-
sary to enlarge ; for if a whole life, devoted
to the cause of Reform, be not a proof of inte-
grity, what other, we ask, can either be de-
manded or given ? Who, also, let us ask, could
have lived so long in the political world, and
made such a conspicuous figure in it as Lord
Grey has done, without being convinced that a
deception of the people's hopes, upon a question
of such importance as a Reform in the Repre-
sentation, would not be pregnant with danger to
every institution in the country ? Every page of
modern history tells us that it is from the prac-
tice of sush deceptions upon the people—from
first buoying them up with hopes, and then dash-
ing the cup of bliss from the lips—or else, from
beginning to resist, where concession ought to
have been large and liberal, that almost all revo-
lutions have originated. Such was the use both
with the first and second English Revolutions ;
such also was the case with the two French Revo-
lutions of more recent date; and who will under-
take to aver that the people of England, if
treated as they formerly were by the Charleses
and Jameses, or as the people of France have
since been, would not adopt the same principles
of proceeding ? It must be notorious, in fact,
to every one who looks at the signs of the times,
that while any further delay in fulfilling their
hopes would be fraught with infinite mischief to
all the best interests of the country, their annihi-
lation, even for a moment, would be a signal for
a general war upon all those institutions which
we have been accustomed to consider as the basis
of our Government. In Ireland there is not
much sympathy, either with the House of Peers,
with the established Church, or any other ele-
ment of our national fabric. In Scotland a
long reign of corruption and non-representation
have so wearied the spirit of the people, that
no one could safely predict what might not
be the consequences of a disappoint-
ment of their hopes ; while in this country, which
may be almost said to form one grand political
utdon for the accomplishment of Reform in every
department of the State, it is not too much to
say, that hundreds of thousands are anxiously
waiting, nay, almost desiring, the defeat of the
Bill, in order to commence the game of revolu-
tion. To all these matters, however, the Tory
faction and its organs would have us believe that
Lord Grey is totally or wilfully blind, and that,
consequently, in the teeth of such dangers staring
him in the face, either does not choose, or does
not see the necessity of adopting the only means
of preventing their occurrence ! If they really
think so, it is only necessary to observe respect-
ing them, that there are none so blind as those
who will not see ; and if they do not, that their
conduct in thin individual instance is another
specimen of the lying and corrupt system which
they so long and so successfully adopted in
matters .of a graver character, and of greater im-
portance.—Morning Advertiser.

Some time before the enactment of that fatal
measure which it was vainly imagined would
still the angry waters of strife and agitation then
raging throughout Ireland, we ventured to call
attention to the justice as well as the policy of
establishing some compulsory relief for the indi-
gent classes in that distracted portion of the em-
pire. The justice of such provision we think
was clearly proved from the recognition of the
principle in this country, where the institution of
poor laws was in a manner contemporaneous with
the demolition of those religious societies which
had previously succoured the needy and afflicted.
But on the destruction of the monasteries and
convents in Ireland, when those perennial
sources of relief to disease and poverty were cut
off, the authors of the Reformation supplied
no substitute, but left the wretched natives
to roam through the country unbefriended and
neglected. It is difficult to account for this ill-
judged proceeding. The proprietors of land in
Ireland hold their estates by precisely the same
tenure as that which secures to an Englishman
the possession of his. By what strange obliquity
then, or rather by what blind injustice, is it that
the former should be exempt from those bur-
dens to which he is so equitably subject ?
The impolicy of withholding the benefit of the
Poor Laws from the Sister Kingdom is evident
from the melancholy fact that four-fifths of the
inhabitants have in consequence been driven to a
most abject dependence on the Popish Priest-
hood. It is natural, and assuredly it is com-
mendable, to yield our most cordial devotion to
the hand that gives us our daily bread ; and the
miserable pauper being thus originally attracted
by the offer of succour, and held by the ties of
gratitude, is subsequently bound by the more
durable fetters of priestly bondage. His sub-
mission to the crafty order was at first a volun-
tary homage for favours bestowed ; it afterwards
became a compulsory obedience, founded on the
vassalage of the mind. To have instituted a
code of Poor Laws, regulated in its machinery
by parochial overseers, would not only have re;-
cued the depressed pauper from the searching
tyranny
.of a Popish confessor, but would have
placed in every parish two agents, who must
insensibly have become the instruments of at-
tachingthe `objects of their support to the
Government from whence it. flowed. Of this
Ir. O'Connell is well aware : he knows that
Poors Laws could:not exist six months in Ire-
land without shaking Property to its veryfintn-
dation ; hence all his opposition, all his " in•
lose" eloquence, against the benevolent pro-
posal, With respect to the popular notion of
altoting a' portion of land, by way of garden