The Sun.
London, England, 1832-12-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TliE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Our columns continue to be filled with accounts
of the triumphant progress of the principles of Re-
form. In almost all the counties, where there is
any public voice to be expressed, and the consti-
tuency consists not, in any considerable degree, of
mere boors and hinds, the success of that measure i,
complete. The exceptions are very tare. In Hert-
fordshire indeed owing to the want of accurate in-
formation upon the canvass returns, a young Con-
servative, a Tory Lordling (with whose class the
House of Commons, under the corrupt system of
nomination, was so offensively and it oriously in-
fested) has fortuitously slipped into Parliament.
Great as is the influence of his father the Lord-
Lieutenant, and greater still as is that of the Mar-
nide of Salisbury, whose tenantry, with that of all
the other Anti-Reformers, were driven in herds tc
the poll to vote for their candidate—all the effort-
to prevent the return of three Members of
liberal and constitutional opinions would have
been ineffectual—had not the anxiety of some
of the too-cautious friends of Sir John •Se-
bright and Mr. Calvert induced them to give
two votes only—leaving out Mr. Alston—lest, by
any accident, the seat of either of their long-tried
and valued representatives might be endangered-.
The considerable majority they both obtained over
Lord Grimston, and the very trifling one of the
latter over Mr. Alston incontestibly prove, that if
this groundless anxiety had not existed, the Re-
formers would have returned all the three Members.
Our forebodings with respect to North Essex are
unhappily confirmed. By a few votes Mr. Western
"has been onseated ! There are not many towns in
that division containing any considerable population,
and in consequence there is a great deficiency of in-
telligence among a large portion of it. A favour-
able field was thus presented for the exercise of
the influence acquired by landlords in counties by
means of the voters under their control, who, fot
the first time, as occupiers•of land, were to exer-
cise the elective franchise. Mr. Alexander Baring.
deprived of his two seats at Caliington by schedul,
A—driven fiom his third seat at Thetford by his
conduct on the Reform Bill—hopeless at home in
Hampshire (which has nobly rejected the son and
heir of the Duke of Wellington), with that calcu-
lating sagacity that has made him one of the richest
individuals in Europe, determined to hoist his
standard in that part of the county. Althogh
stranger, and notorious for his uncompromising op-
position to the landed interest, before he turned hi.
money into acres—the Conservatives or Tories im-
mediately fell down and worshipped the golden cal'
—forgetting the contumely to which they had been
exposed, happy in having a candidate who would
save their own purses iu their struggle to regain the
ascendency of their party in the county ; while the)
hoped to gratify their petty personal resentment and
jealousy, which had ranked deeply since their signal
defeat last year. The loan-jobber's calculation has
prayed correct. The tenants of the committees of
Tyrol( and Baring alone, without making an esti-
mate of those of others of the party, have
been sufficiently numerous for his purpose. Strip
the poll of the occupation votes, thus sent to tht
hustings in favour of the corruptionists, and Mr.
Western (and Mr. Brand too in all probability)
leotild have been returned. The result of this elec.
fon will be taken by the kingdom at large as deci-
f.l eof the necessity of the ballot. The eyes of tht
nation have been fixed upon the issue of this contest
In a county purely agricultural—almost literall)
without a manufactory—with no commerce beyom
the peddling concerns of country shopkeeping—sucl
a marl as Mr. Baring hits beaten Mr. Western ! The
latter has been forty years in Parliament—twent)
for Nlaldon and twenty for the County. A mort
consistent public character never lived. Al'
tie great measures of improvement that mark the
present times have found in him a zealous and at.
ini•gtitened supporter ; and all the pernicious and
ruinous and unconstitutional acts of the successive
Tory Administrations, a decided and unflinching op-
ponent. Above all, with reference to pectilito
claims on his old electors, he has ever been
distinguished not less by his ardi nt advocacy of
the interests of agriculture, than by his own
practical knowledge of its concerns and his at-
t. chment to its pursuits.A few months ago Essex was
among the loudest in calling for Reform. Two
county meetings were holden on the subject. At
the dissolution Me. Western was returned by at;
overwhelming majority, while the candidate of the
Anti-Reformers could not bring to the poll a fourth,
part of the constituency. What then has now pro-
duced the success of Mr. Baring, who, with almosi
every possible objection that lies against a candidate
for such a district, stands pre-eminent for his bitter
hostility to the Reform ?—Nothing but the admis
5;0,1 of the occupiers of land to the elective franchise
(a measure, by the way, Mr. Western seconded),
which has given to the landlords in certain parts of
the kingdom that power of nomination which it wa•
the object of the Reform to abolish. It is expected
that the counties of Essex and Hertford, and some
others, will be convened to petition for the ballot,
without which county elections stand on a more
unconstitutional footing than before the representa-
tion was reformed—altogether a mere delusion.—
Morning Chronicle.

Next in value to the feeling of security which we
derwe frem the result of the present elections—
that, by tie free exercise of the popular choice, we
shall have converted the Commons' House of Parlia-
ment into an effective instrument for controlling
every item of the public expenditure,—fer correct-
ing 'every acknowledged abuse, however venera•
jAe,—and for promoting every prudent measure of
internal improvement,—is the feeling of confidence
that the same popular Legislature,—supporting the
interests and identified with the feelings of the coun-
try,—will insure us peace abroad arid command for
us respect among foreign nations. We have already
adverted to the anxiety with which the eyes of all
the Governments and all the political parties of
Europe, have been turned towards England
in the present crisis of her history—in this
first trial of her new institutions. That anxiety
could scarcely have been greater among some
a our neighbours though their own fate had been to
decijed at our polling-booths, or, to use their own
language., though their destinies had been to be
drawn " from our electoral urn." Had the English
elections of 1832, under the new Reform Act, given
us either a band of Jacobins, ready to adopt every
Innovation because it was a change, or a predemi-
nant phalanx of Conservatives, prepared to resist
every improvement because it was innovation,
the tranquillity of Europe could not have
been preserved for three months. A Govern-
ment can only be strong abroad by being power-
ful and secure at home ; it can only be a
moderator of the destinies of other nations by being
ette,ased from alarms about its own; it can only
allay the waves of stormy contention by being able,
like the image of the fabled sea divinity, to rise
above them, and to be calm -in the midst of their
agitivio:i. Hid levelling innovators succeeded, we
sliould have had a repetition of the same political
propagandism which was attempted by the 'mime-
meat party in France; we should have had fraterni-
zation with all the revolutionists over the world
whether their cause were good or bad ; We hoold
have bad a war on the most frivolous pretexts with
absolute Governments, ruerolY because they were
absolute, and therefore differed from us in their po-
litical creed. Had the Tory faction, on the other
hand, gained the ascendancy, a Tory Ministry' would
have been formed, and a union with continental
despots, to aggravate the oppression of their own
subjects, and to crush the rising liberties of other
nations, would have been the inevitable consequence.
The assumed prejudice of the English people in fa-
vour of a Dutch alliance would have been made
the pretext of breaking off our present engage-
ments with France to secure the indepen-
dence of Belgium. France would have found
it impossible under her new dynasty to permit a
restoration of the Nassau family at Brussels, to the
exclusion of-the Belgic Monarch allied to their own,