The Sun.
London, England, 1835-02-12 00:00:00

manifest and notorious that political sentiments pre-
dominated, which were not in unison with those enter-
tained and professed by that Right Honourable Gen-
tleman ? To this question one answer, and one only,
can be given. They preferred Sir Charles Manners
Sutton for Speaker to any other individual, because
they believed that the business of the House of Com-
mons would proceed with greater regularity, expedi-
tion, and facility, under his guidance and direction,
than under the guidance and direction of any other of
its Members ; and because,. both as Ministers of the
Crown, having to conduct many important public mea-
snres through the House of Commons, and as the au-
thors of the Reform Bill, naturally anxious that the
character of that assembly should be well sustained
during the first Session of its reformed existence, they
had the strongest personal added to the strongest pub-
lic motives for desiring that the business of legislation
should proceed with ease, promptitude, and decorum.
This explanation of the conduct of the Whigs in 1833
ie clear, explicit, and satisfactory. It is that which
they themselves have given, and it is only fair to admit
that it is very creditable to them as a political
party. But now comes another question, which
we lament to say, cannot be answered in a manner
equally honourable to the Whig party. How happens
it that any of the men (we hope and expect that they
will be but few) who in 1833 implored Sir Charles
Manners Sutton to assist them in the capacity of
Speaker of the House of Commons, in carrying on
the business of the country in Parliament upon the
alleged and sole ground of his pre-eminent and un-
rivalled qualifications for the office, should now, in
1835, seek to supply his place by another person, and
by one whom their own repeated and emphatic decla-
rations authorise us to describe as less qualified for the
discharge of its onerous and important duties ? It
cannot be pretended that the objection to Sir Charles
as Speaker on the ground of his belonging to the
party of the minority is as strong now as it was in
1833, when the Whigs literally forced him into the
Chair. On the contrary, the party to which ti a Right
Hon. Gentleman is understood to be personally attached,
if it do not constitute a numerical majority of the
whole House, is undeniably at the present moment the
strongest in point of numbers of any of the various
parties of which the House is composed. Why, then,
we are curious to know, should any section of the
Whigs now be so anxious as they show themselves
to exclude from the chair the gentleman whose
election in 1833 they laboured so zealously to pro-
mote ? We have already suggested the only an-
swer which can possibly be given to this question.
The Whigs were in office in 1833. It was con-
ducive to their interest and convenience at that
period that the business of the House of Commons
should be well conducted, and, in order to this, that
the man best qualified for Speaker should be placed
in the chair. Personal and public motives in the
minds of the Whigs were then arrayed on' the same
side of the question, for the management of the
affairs of the country were in their hands. But now
the case is entirely altered. The Whigs are out of
office. It is no longer essential to their interest or
convenience that the business of the House of Com-
mons shall be well conducted. They care not, there-
fore, whether the Chair be filled by a good Speaker or
a bad one. In a word, the personal and the public
motives of the Whigs, which when combined gave the
chair to Sir Charles Manners Sutton, are no longcrin
unison. Every public consideration must impel the
Whigs to vote now as they did before. But some of
them, we fear, are about to demonstrate that in their
minds public considerations are of little force unless
when corroborated by personal motives, andthat when-
ever the two classes of feelings come into competition,
the latter are sure to prove triumphant.—Morning
Post.

Every day supplies us with additional evidence of
the certainty of the success of Mr. Abercromby.
The Times, is quite at a loss to know what the
Reformers will do after choosing Mr. Abercromby.
" What (says our Morning Contemporary) do the
Whigs expect would come after. Do they believe that
the Ministers would resign ? Those who do are shal-
low greenhorns. The Duke of Wellington did not
accept the seals of office, nor did Sir R. Peel return
post-haste from Italy, to be sent to the wall by any
factious vote—no, nor by a dozen such votes. They
know what is at stake, and will stand the hazard.
If a peevish address even were to be sent up to the
Crown, his Majesty would not be pushed from his
stool by such an apparition. Nothing but their delin-
quency would induce the Sovereign to dismiss expe-
rienced servants, in submission to a capricious or a
selfish vote, dictated by those whose exclusive pur-
pose was to trip up the heels of the Ministers whom,
they threatened, and to occupy their vacant places."
We never imagined the Duke of Wellington and Sir
Robert Peel would be very anxious to quit their places.
What his Majesty would or would not do in a given
case, is not a question which ought to be mooted. We
have nothing to do with his Majesty. We know only
his Majesty's Ministers ; and it is to us a new reading
of the constitution, that any set of Ministers can hold
their places long, in defiance of the House of Com-
mons and sense of the country. The Standard in an
unguarded moment told us that another dissolution
would be attempted, should the House of Commons
not prove sufficiently subservient. The Times seems
to point to such a proceeding when it says that nothing
short of delinquency would induce his Majesty to dismiss
his Ministers. If Sir R. Peel has the courage to try such
an experiment, well and good. We do not fear the re-
sult. The country would unquestionably return
a House more decidedly opposed to Ministers than
the present. And we do not believe ,Sir R. Peel
such a greenhorn (to borrow from our contemporary's
vocabulary) as to provoke the indignation of the con-
stituencies by a course quite unprecedented in our
modern history. Let him, we say, only try the peril-
ous experiment ! The Tories will do their best to
keep their places, and the Reformers will do their best
to oust them. He must be a craven Reformer indeed
who will be less disposed to oppose Ministers, and
who will remain with his hands folded, because the

Times chooses to tell him that all his votes will have
no result. That remains to be ascertained. We ap-
prehend the Reformers will not be thrown on their
backs by a succession of majorities. They will follow
up their majorities by measures, which, allowing to
Ministers the possession of more than an ordinary
share of audacity, will probably bring them to their
senses. The English are said by Goldsmith to be pe-
culiarly cast down by the maladie de poche. We heard
a foreigner in a court of justice yesterday boast (he
had much besides of which to boast) of his poverty.—
he said he gloried in it. But few men in England
boast of the want of money ; and a Ministry without
money would have but a scurvy following. The House
of Commons, having the command of the purse-strings,
might provide for the public service, and leave Minis-
ters rather scantily provided for. There is certainly a
great convenience in having a well-filled Treasury, and
we apprehend that that convenience cannot be obtained
without the consent of the House of Commons. And
is it supposed that the Reformers will be deterred
from doing their duty by gasconading like this ? They
believe Ministers insincere in their professions. They
know that they opposed all the ameliorations, for the
sake of which the country demanded the Reform Bill ;
and they know, moreover, that they procured the dis-
missal of the Melbourne Ministry, because that Ministry
were determined on remedying abuses in Church
and State. Knowing this, they would be greenhorns,
indeed, were they to suppose that the present Minis-
ters professed to be Reformers with any other view
than to delude the country. They believe that Minis-
ters took office in the hope of being able to undermine
the Reform Bill—of regaining the ascendancy for the
Oligarchy which they lost by that Bill. They are
persuaded that Ministers cannot succeed in their

schemes ; but they know that the very attempt will
dreadfully agitate the country, and must endanger its
prosperity. _ Under such circumstances, it is their

. -
duty, their bounden duty, to seize every opportunity
which presents itself to them to deprive Ministers of
the powers to do mischief that they derive from being
in office. The question of the choice of Speaker is
important, because the Reformers have determined
to try their strength on it. We will not now
inquire whether the Reformers acted wisely or
not, in determining to carry the election of
Mr. Abercromby. We think they have decided