The Sun.
London, England, 1832-01-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is possible that too unfavourable a construc-
tion may have been put on the conduct of the
Emperor of Russia ; but in the absence of au-
thentic information, we cannot help looking on
the refusal to ratify the treaty, coupled with the
whole tenor of the conduct of the King of Hol-
land, as extremely suspicious. At all events,
we should be sorry to have much dependence on
the tenure of the sovereignty of King Leopold.
But, however this may be, we trust the Govern-
ment of this country will confine its interference
to exertions to preserve the tranquillity of Eu-
rope. We have suffered so much already from
the burthen entailed on us by Continental wars,
that we ought carefully to keep ourselves aloof
from them, except in cases of the most urgent
necessity. We fear the Continent is on the eve
of war ; and that the two principles of Aristo-
cracy and Democracy will come into collision.
But why should we throw ourselves into the
melee? Belgium has not been settled in such a
way as to lead to a hope of its remaining tran-
quil in its present state. These kingdoms, with
all the burdens of expensive monarchical esta-
blishments for provinces, are nuisances which
the people of our days will not tolerate. The
Dutch will soon wish for a Stadtholder, and
Belgium will seize the first opportunity of reliev-
ing itself of its burthensome sovereignty by join-
ing a larger State. It requires many millions of
men, and a large territory, to support a King
and supply provisions for his children. The
petty Kings and Princes of Germany defray their
expences chiefly out of their properties in land.—
Morning Chronicle.

A very important motion was yesterday made
by Mr. Henry Drummond, at the Surrey Ses-
sions, with a view to effect a separation between
labourers' wages and parochial aid. There is this
immense difference between England and Ire-
land, that in the former all have a home, and no
portion of the population can, as in the latter, be
turned adrift to starve or carry disorder into
neighbouring countries. In England, as the late
Lord Liverpool observed, every man has a home.
The consequence of this connection between
the population and the soil is, that no class will
suffer beyond a certain amount of misery, with-
out endeavouring to make others suffer along
with them ; so that selfishness itself is forced to
make exertions for improving the condition of
those who, if neglected, would be a thorn in its
side. This truth has been strikingly exemplified
of late. In the greater part of England the
labourers have manifested a sullen determination
to prevent (by the most odious and detestible
means we admit) the other classes from enjoying
their possessions in peace and security, so long
as their condition remains unimproved ; and the
conviction has been thus _forced on the most
obtuse understandings, that we cannot safely
withdraw ourselves from sympathising with each
other ; that society must be considered as a
family, every member of which must be an ob.
ject of interest to the rest ; and that ,hen we
cease to entertain kind and benevolent feelings
towards others, we deprive ourselves of that kind-
ness and regard in return, without which we are
as in a wilderness where from every covert we
may be assailed by a beast of prey. Calamities
are often the sources of moral improvement. The
fires of the incendiary, the pestilence generated
in the abodes of crowded poverty, read lessons
which find an entrance into the most obdurate
hearts. Mr. Drummond, in descanting on the
evils of the present administration of the poor
laws, said, that " In the first place, the labourer
was deprived of his fair wages ; in the second,
the householders were defrauded by being made
to pay for the culture of land not their own ; in
the third, it was the means of fostering a spirit
of animosity and antipathy between the labourer
and his employers ; and that by this alone was a
system of insubordination induced,which made the
former so discontented, as to be ready at any mo-
ment to assume a fearful threatening aspect ; and
it might be anticipated, that if this much longer
exercised its influence, that feeling would extend
and be aggravated, which now showed itself in
incendiarism, and which arose from not being
able to trust the law for redretss ; but taking that
law in their own hands, and reapin,, a private
vengeance." " Every writer on this subject,"
he afterwards added, " agreed that this was a
matter of such crying injustice, that if it was
not speedily put a stop to, it must end in a ge-
neral convulsion. He was not going to make
any pathetic appeal to the Bench ; but this he
would say, that the cry of the labourer who
tilled the fields had risen to the ears of the Lord
God of Sabbaoth ; and that, unless the present
iniquitous system was altered, they had nothing
to anticipate save a frightful, but, at the same
time, righteous retribution." This is undoubt •
edly strong language, but, as was well observed
by Earl Grey a few days ago, the best way of
dealing with sedition is to remove the cause of
it. Crimes of a horrible die never extensively
prevail in a country without a cause which may
ne removed. There are people weak enough to
say we will not allow ourselves to be inti-
midated. If we were to suffer the agri-
cultural labourers to perceive that they had
succeeded by their crimes in obtaining for
their grievances an attention which otherwise
would not have been paid to them, we are
offering a premium for future crimes. These
people have another maxim to justify non-inter-
ference. When there is no outbreaking, they
say, why stir now—let well alone. In this way
abuses would be continued till endurance could
go no farther. Fortunately the Surrey Magis-
trates had nothing of the silly fear which it is
said brought such mischief in another body—
the fear of being thought to he afraid. They
seemed to think, that in case of an admitted
evil, the natural consequences of that evil could
afford no reason against endeavouring to remedy it.
Mr. Holmes Sumner, while he agreed with Mr.
Drummond as to what was the law and what
ought to be the law, "could not agree in the
description which that gentleman had given of
the state of the poor. He not only would not
admit that there had of late years been any ag-
gravation of their condition, but he would
aver, that for the last fifty years he had
never seen so many of them in that state
of comfort in which they now were. He
had never seen more pigs in the stye than
he had within the last two years ; and he
looked upon it as a strong proof that they were
not in such a wretched condition, when they
could not only afford to buy a pig, but also to
keep it as a provision against a rainy nay." 'We
have always thought that there was some exagge-
ration in the description of the past comforts of
the English labourers as compared with the
present ; but it is not enough to show that
labourers in general are not worse off in regard
to physical comforts than they were. If they
see themselves prevented by a vicious adminis-
tration of the law, from being in the condition
in which they think they ought to be, though
that condition is not materially worse, they will

be satisfied. Now at present a very general dis-
satisfaction prevails, from the levelling system
introduced by the interpretation given to the
poor laws. The single man pays for the family
of the married man. The men with large families
are employed, and the single men are reduced to
the parish allowance. This alone must produce
much bad feeling and discontent wherever it takes
place. The more you sharpen the faculties of
people under such a system, the more you render
them disaffected, because they must see that equal
quantities of labour ought to be equally rewarded,
and that there can he no reason for exacting from
one man that for three shillings a week for which
another recedes fourteen. By separating wages
from relief from the parish, and withdrawing en-
tirely from the farmers labourers receiving parish
relief, it was admitted by Mr. Drummond that
most of the men with large families would he
forced to go on the parish ; but then this
would form an inducement to labourers to re-
main single, and to farmers to take men as
boarders into their houses. Mr. Denison said
that in Dorking, where the principle had been
acted on, its efficacy had been so great, that
though there were sixty persons receiving relief
in this way when the alteration was first attempt-
ed, there now was not one. Mr. Drummond
said, " there was one objection which might he
made to the proposition he had offered, but he
begged to caution gentlemen against it in limine.
That objection was, that the proposed alteration
would cause a greater expellee to the landowner;
and the reason why he gave this caution was, be-
cause, in proportion as they showed how great that
increase would be, in the same proportion would
they show to what extent had the labourer been
previously defrauded ; fcr it could not be denied,
that one element for their consideration was, that
the labourer had been unduly depressed, and
that the landowner had gained an unfair advan-
tage." This is hardly stating the ease fairly be-
tween labourer and landowner. The labourer
may have lost while the landowner may not have
gained. We admit that the landowners, by a
system of constant encroachment, have stripped
the labourers of many customary privileges on
commons, &c. ; but we do not think they have
gained by all the amount that the providing for
an excess of labourers may now throw on them.
In fact, the great mischief of the system was,
that by destroying the connection between labour
and its reward, it produced an excess of la-
bourers beyond the demand, and that the sums
expended on the maintenance of labourers not
wanted were gained by no one. The first effect
of separating wages from relief will, no doubt,
add to the burthen on the land, but the burthen
will not be permanent. We trust the recommen-
dations of the magistrates will be extensively
acted on. The magistrates were the authors of
the mischief, and it is but fitting that they should
exert themselves to put an end to it.—Morning
Chronicle.

An evening contemporary, the Standard, has
taken us to task for having ventured to speak
with moderation upon Irish affairs. We have
been charged with something like presumption
for having asserted that there are two violent
parties in Ireland, and that the Orange party is
one of them. This, however, is no new opinion
of ours, and certainly, whether right or wrong,
we cannot lay exclusive claim to it—nmetv-
nine persons out of every hundred, on this side
the water, believing, as we do, that the struggle
now going on, and threatening to proceed to
still further extremities in that country, is one of
the most deplorable instances of politico-reli-
gions madness which the mind of man can con-
ceive. Even our contemporary himself admits
the state of things to be desperate. What he
complains of is that we have not adopted the
sentiments of either party, nor approved of the
extravagance of both. The charge must sound ra-
t her strangely in the ears of moderate men ; but our
contemporary has candidly avowed his dislike to
that class of politicians, and, even at this distance
fiom the scene of Irish agitation, practically asserts
his right to philosophise with as much violence as
any Orangeist or O'Connellite of them all. The
case which our contemporary has put to illus-
trate the dispute between the two rival factions
in Ireland is humorously and ingeniously con-
ceived. As for its fairness, that is another
Orangeuestion The faction, he will have it,
.
is a gentleman, or what is called in the city of
London a respectable man—a man who has
money in his pocket. The Catholic faction,
according to the same authority, is any thing but
a gentleman, rho wants to pick the pockets of
the former—to rob him of his rights and privi-
leges. Now the Catholic faction would reply to
this, that the Orangeman was the robber—that
he had nothing in his pocket but what had been
purloined from the man who sought restitution,
not plunder—and that it was only an act of
common justice to make him deliver up the pro-
perty which he falsely called his own. But it is
nearer the truth of both parties to say that they
resemble two drunken haymakers, who, having
an obscure recollection of an old family quarrel,
set to work to fight it out, and leave it to other
parties to determine which of them lost the
most, or had the most to lose, in the scuffle.
Our contemporary is all in raptures at the
eloquence and spirit of " the great Armagh
meeting." It certainly was a great meeting
in point of numbers ; and, as for spirit, why
it was a match for the blustering balder-.
dash of the opposite side. But we repeat,
at the hazard of again incurring censure for
our moderation, that the tone of the different
speeches delivered at that meeting was anything
but creditable to men of education and reflec-
tion. What the consequences may be it is im-
possible for us to foretel ; but that Ireland can-
not long continue in her present feverish state is
a truth to which no man can shut his eyes. The
two parties by whose violence that feverish state
is aggravated are acting, we repeat it, injuriously
fOr themselves and for their country, and it is the
bounden duty of Government to legislate be-
tween them, not at the dictation of either, but
for the benefit of all. Legislating in this spirit,
it will remove the causes out of which the pre-
sent state of things has grown, and, by so doing,
will cease to be responsible at the bar of its own
conscience for the errors or the crimes which
party rancour may commit. • Such are the opi-
nions we have always maintained respecting the
conduct of the two factions by which Ireland is
unhappily distracted. They are opinions which
we share with the great bulk of the English
community. They are moderate, which, in it-
self, is some presumption that they are not irra-
tional. We are confident that they will never
sink us in public estimation, though they can
never raise us to the unenviable distinction of
being regarded as partisans.—Morning Herald.
The French Papers of Sunday, which reached
ua yesterday, mention the arrival of a courier
from St. Petersburgh with the intelligence that
the Emperor of Russia has declined, for the
present, to ratify the treaty of London for the
separation of Holland and Belgium. We have

already repeatedly alluded to this subject, and
have explained what we considered the real situa-
tion of affairs. The Emperor hopes, that by
rivetting the attention of western Europe on the
menacing aspect of the Belgic question, he may
perpetrate with perfect impunity, or without in-
dignant notice, every species of injustice and
horror of unhappy Poland. Accordingly, the
work of confiscation,—of oppression, —of ba-
nishment to Siberia, is going on in that heroic
but unfortunate country, without any regard to
the forms of justice or the obligation of treaties.
Though the Emperor swore to maintain its na-
tionality, he has now gone so far as to proscribe
the Polish language from its establishments of
education ; though he engaged, immediately
before the taking of Warsaw, to respect its rights
and privileges as a separate kingdom, he has
broken his pledges, and has treated it like a
Russian province. The Chamber of Deputies
was occupied a considerable time on Saturday in
discussing a petition of some importance in
France, and of some interest in this country.
This petition was transmitted by' the Abbe
Saulnier, and prayed that the Chamber might
be pleased to grant him permission to take
legal proceedings against one of its Members—
the Minister of the Interior—for having given
illegal orders to break up his establishment at
Meilleraye. The establishment here alluded to
was a monastery of Trappists, on the borders of
La Vendee, which, in consequence of numerous
complaints that it was encouraging rebellion, and
that it constituted a focus of disturbance in the
distracted departments of the west, the Minister
of the Interior ordered to be closed in the
course of last autumn. A great howl was raised
among all the Carlists at this act of what they
called liberal despotism, and subscriptions were
formed to defray the expenses of an action
against the Minister. There can be no doubt
that the austere fathers thus ejected from their
cells were great encouragers of resistance to the
present Government. They had been established
in their monastery of Meilleraye by the
especial interference, and tinder the especial
protection, of Charles X. and his family.
He had sent a ship of war to bring
over a cargo of its self-tormenting in-
mates from this country to France ; about
seventy of these unshaven, squalid, gloomy, and
fanatic brothers, or fathers, were Englishmen
and Irishmen. The Abbe Saulnier, who, we
believe was long in England as an emigrant be-
fore the restoration, and who was placed at the
head of the new establishment, had himself se-
lected these foreign recruits. Had the Abbe
been more cautious and discreet, he would not
have been disturbed in his living sepulchre,
though his establishment was contrary to the
law which prohibits all monkish confraternities
in France. The brothers, whose industry was
equal to their austerities—or rather whose hard
labour constituted one of these austerities—re-
presented themselves to the new Government as
a great agricultural institution ; but this pretence
could not protect them when complaints were
made by the people of the neighbourhood, of
their disposition to foment rebellion, and of
their practice of spreading false intelligence, to
encourage the rebels. M. Casimir Perier,
therefore, put the law in force, dispersing the
monks, without, however, interfering with their
property. The Chamber refused permission
to the petitioner to prosecute the Minister,
and thus gave its sanction to his proceedings.
The Chamber of Peers, though its hereditary
privileges have been abolished, and a new mode
of recruiting its ranks has been adopted, seems
to proceed in its legislative functions as if no-
thing had happened. None of the Opposition
Peers who threatened to resign have yet recorded
their resignation, though it is evident, from the
smallness of the divisions on Friday and Satur-
day, that they do not attend. It will therefore
be necessary, in order to give weight to the de-
cisionsof this branch of the Legislature, to create
new members. Before the revolution of July,
1830, the Upper Chamber consisted of 378 or
380 members. The framers of the charter, by
ejecting from that assembly all the Peers of
Charles X., reduced it to about 290, and up-
wards of a hundred having declined to take the
oath to the new dynasty, the Chamber was
reduced before the creation of the late batch
to about 170. Should the 70 who voted with
the Duke of Fitzjames follow his example in
resigning their seats, scarcely more than a hun-
dred will remain to perform all the necessary
duties and business of a second legislative chamber,
M. Perier will therefore be called upon to sup-
ply numerous vacancies, and will thus have it in
his power to secure the gratitude of a great body
of his friends, by conferring upon them the
highest distinction which the revolution has left
in the hands of his Sovereign. The manner in
which he carried the great act for abolishing the
hereditary succession of the Peerage, to which
his own personal opinion was opposed, does him
the highest
.credit, and will soon be better appre-
ciated by his country. He saw that the here-
ditary privilege of making laws, whether ulti-
mately beneficial or otherwise, could not at pre-
sent be maintained ; that the tide of popular
opinion, which had set in against it, was too
strong to be resisted ; and that, consequently, he
had no alternative left but to effect its quiet aboli-
tion, through the observance of constitutional
forms, or to witness its violent extinction in the
midst of a tempest. The Minister of a free
people, he submitted to the necessary condition
of its service, and by a concession—perhaps to
prejudice, perhaps to error, but certainly to
irresistible conviction—saved his country from a
new convulsion. In thus yielding in time to
the judgment of the nation, he might have
pleaded the authority of a passage of Cicero,
which we may quote for the benefit of our own
refractory Anti-reform Tories;—" iudicium
(populi) non tibi rescindendum est, sed feren-
dum. Male judicavit populus ? At judicavit.
Non debuit. At potuit. Non fere. At multi
clarissimi, et sapientissimi cives tulerunt. Est
erum hze conditio liberorum populorum, posse
suffragiis vel dare vel detrahere, quid velit cui-
que." As the end was justifiable—so were the
means. The only means for saving France from
the necessity of resorting to revolutionary expe-
dients in re-organizing its Upper Chamber, was
the creation of liberal Peers—the only means of
preventing the more dreadful calamities which
would follow the second rejection of our Reform
Bill in England is an infusion of Reform Nobles
into our Upper House.— Times.

An honest cartman, named SNOWBALL) be-
longing to this town, was last week seited with violent
symptoms of cholera, as he was following his vocation
near to Durhara.lane. Immediate assistance being at hand,
the poor man was conveyed in his own cart to his home,
where, fortunately, his wife was busily engaged in heating
water to scald a pig. With great presence of mind she
immersed her afflicted husband in the warm fluid, gain!
him a large dose of salt and water, which caused a copious
vomiting, and then a liberal allowance of brandy, com-
pletely effected his restoration to health, and the man was
enabled to resume his customary labour on the following
day !....cunderland Herald.