The Sun.
London, England, 1832-04-16 00:00:00

Hate the agitation of Reform ? The bit-and-
bit Reformers appear to fcirget that it is much
easier to begin a --b-itvrit=treform than to
terminate it. A large and liberal' measure of
Reform will satisfy the people, and instead of
abandoning themselves to fresh agitation, they
will endeavour to reap in peace the benefit,
which they anticipated from the Reform. The
Reform is only means to an end, and that end
is good Government. If the people find that
their Reformed Parliament works well—that
it saves them from profligate expenditure and
pillage—that it does not place itself in opposition
to their just hopes and wishes, but sets itself in
good earnest to improve our laws and institu-
tions, they will be afraid, perhaps, of altering
what already answers its end. But the miserable
policy inculcated by the Duke of Wellington
during the late debate, who, to use the late Lord
Ca.stlereagh's phrase, has turned his back on
himself, would only serve to whet and stimulate
the desire for Reform, and the Reformers might
he driven step by step to demands of which they
did not dream at first, and beyond even what
wisdom might sanction. The policy which stops
short of justice is a miserable policy. The in-
iolence and impudence of the Duke of Welling.
ton, and the cunning of the filching school, will
he found equally unavailing at this conjuncture.
The Duke of Wellington may be assured that
he has done himself far more injury than he can
ever do to the cause of Reform.—Morning
eltronicle.

The interest with which the debate of Friday
_ evening will be read throughout the country, and
which was raised in the hearers of it while the
discussion proceeded, is not so much attributable
to any superior force or novelty in the argument
produced on either side, as to the introduction
of certain collateral and personal. but exciting
topics, and still more to the importance of the
question at issue,—viz., whether the principle of
.Reforni should he received by the House, or be
at once rejected. The second reading now se-
cure, and the principles of the Bill—namely,
disfranchisement, enfranchisement, and a more
extended qualification for voters—being recog-
nized by their Lordships, many questions will
arise, to be determined by the Committee, as
to the breadth of application which shall be given
to those principles. It is with infinite satisfaction
that we find Lord Grey declaring upon this
point his resolution to resist a change of the
qualification to a higher sum than 101., and to
maintain at their present number the schedules
of disfranchised boroughs; for, undoubtedly, a
formal adherence to the " principles" of the Bill
itt the mere technical or verbal sense of the word,
might be consistent with a serious depreciation of
its value as at present estimated by the people,
although a partial reduction in the amount of
disfranchised boroughs, or enfranchised towns,
or a more exclusive standard for the elector's
right of voting, would still leave the abstract
principles of the Bill untouched, however little
disposed the country might and must be to tole-
rate such a fraud upon the solidity of its long-
cherished expectations. There must, in fact,
he no tampering with the principles of the
curtailment of its fair proportions—
':o linsey-woolsey fringes stuck, by " im-
proving"Antisßeformers,on its present strongand
simple texture. England will not be amused by
mere words, or give away substances for shadows.
The impudence of the Tory prints becomes
. . more extravagant as their cause declines. The
matinees o what will he done by the Tories in
committee appear to take a bolder swing at the
moire It which has witnessed the utter falsifica-
tion of their prophecies about the second read-
ing. The ultras will have the whole of schedule
B expunged—(turned over to schedule A more
likely). Schedule A itself is to be emasculated,
—the metropolitan members " sent to grass,"
and the 101. qualification, in some way or other,
mystified. We shall see. Along with all this, and
as the only condition by virtue of which so many
great things are to be accomplished, the King
has laid a positive injunction on Earl Grey that
hfeis not to add to the peerage : Lord Grey
" dares not make peers." Here is a drawcansir
for you ! Why, indeed, if that be true, it is suffici-
ently manifest that the schedules, the metropoli-
tat s, and ten-pounders, will all be swept away by
the board: there is neither shroud nor stay, nor
tackle, to support them. But, once again, we shall
see. Lord Grey exhibited no mark of weakness,
or timidity, or hesitation, in his powerful reply,
when he maintained the right of the preroga-
tive to create peers when it mig4it be necessary
to prevent a collision between the "two Houses
of Parliament." As the two houses are at pre-
sent constituted, that collision must at once take
place after the total re-modelling of the Reform
Bill by the Lords, anticipated in the Tory jour-
nals. And two methods only exist by which
ucl► a disaster might be repaired, or such an
unnatural legislative warfare terminated. Ist, the
house of Commons might be sent to a new
election : would that course remedy the evil com-
plained of, by the return of a body of members
more in accordance with the Peers ? We appre-
hend- quite otherwise. Nothing, then, remains
but, 2dly, an appeal to that constituent powe by
which Peers themselves are sent into Parliament,
—a resort to the prerogative of the Crown.
Thus, and thus only, can the several branches of
the, legislature be brought again to co-operate to
their common and lawful purpose—the main-
tenance of peace throughout the land, and the
sectivity of regular government. But if that
mosrnoxious and daring assertion of the Duke
of !Wellington were true, that the King
disapproved the Reform Bill brought in
by his, Ministers, is it probable that a fact
of ouch transcendent importance would be
withheld front Lord Grey, or that Lord
trey, being apprised of it, would not retire from
office ? or that, showing a disposition to remain
there for the achievement of a design so hateful
to the Sovereign, his Majesty would not, ere
now, have given the Noble Lord his dismissal ?
The palpable absurdity of this tale about the
King makes it more than wonderful that the
Noble Duke should have suffer, d his party ve-
hemence to betray him into an avowal of his be-
lief in it. Poor Lord Eldon, whose thoughts
take now and then an entertaining turn, °de-
scribed the constitution as " the best property
handed down to us by our ancestors ; and truly
it has been made by certain Noble Lords a
property with a vengeance. It has been to
them a property, not merely enjoyed, but
bought and sold as regularly as any other mer-
chandize ; only they who sold it were accus-
tomed to forget that they sold what was not
their own, and they who . bought it shut
their eyes to the fact, that an unlawful
purchase could confer no legitimate rights of
ownership ; so both are now, in the late but
righteous dispensation of public justice, brought.
to their own account, and the whole political
value of Gatton- (one example among many,)
which fetched some years ago many shameful
thousands of pounds, is confiscated for the be-
nefit Of that nation from whom it had been made

tie corrupt instrument for plundering as mans
millions. • But the-dying attempt to arrest tln;
inarch of Providenw.T,lvHll prove abortive.
The growing civilization and intelligence
cf mankind will push aside the miserable
fiction which strives to block up the path
of peace and liberty. The maxims of borough
policy by which England was ruled 70 years ago
are as little suited to the genius of the present
day, as was the despotic fury of Henry VIII. to
the times of Charles I. and James 11. One
truth is clear, and Lord Grey will of course not
lose sight of it for a moment : his Government
has carried the second reading by a majority of
not more than two present Peers ; and in com-
mittee proxies cannot vote. Now, of those who
voted personally for the second reading, more
that twenty are pledged against the main clauses
of the Bill. is that a position which can be
defended by his actual force, without ruin to the
Bill, to the Ministry, and to Reform ?—Times.
The more closely Lord Grey's conduct on
the Reform question is considered, the more
unquestionably is he entitled to the gratitude,
applause, and confidence of his countrymen.
Assailed on all sides by alternate threats and
inducements, abused by enemies, and not very
kindly treated by friends, with a greater responsi-
bility on his mind than ever fell to the lot of any
public man, his Lordship has kept the even
tenor of his way, and has, up to the present
mement, mei'and subdued all the difficulties of
his situation with a philosophic dignity and
calmness, not the less remarkable and praise-
worthy when compared with the total absence
of that quality in many of his opponents, and
not a few of his supporters. It is to the admi-
rable tact and temper, with the firmness and
consistency exhibited hitherto, by Lord Grey
throughout every period of the trying situa-
tion in which he has been placed, that
the present favourable situation of the great
question is mainly owing ; and the county
may therefore look forward with the most
cheering hope and confidence, under the
same auspices, to a safe, a peaceable, and
full fruition of those national advantages which
Parliamentary Reform can scarcely fail to bring
with it. If there is any one point upon which Lord
Grey is mora entitled to applause than another,
it is the admirable skill, judgment, and forbear-
ance, which he has shewn in carrying the Bill
through its most important stage in the House
of Lords, without any new creation of Peers.
On this point he has not only out-generalled his
enemies, but has falsified the threats and fore-
bodings of many who call themselves his friends
and adherents. We beliete that of the latter '
the greater number differed from Lord Grey
upon this important topic. It is clear, however,
that his Lordship knew better than they did
what he was about ; and as the success has been
all his own, so ought to be the honours of the
victory. Whether it may be necessary in any
future stage of the measure to create Peers in any
considerable numbers, to insure its success, be-
: comes comparatively a very minor consideration.
1 Such a step now will not be resorted to, to
compel the House of Lords to change their
minds, but to compel them to be consistent
with themselves. In fact, the odium, if any,
of such a step, will not now attach to the
advisers of the Crown, but to those, if any,
who may be found to blow hot and cold
in two different stages of one and the same ques
tion. But we are strongly inclined to think
that no resort to any such proceeding will now
become necessary. On the one hand, we have
the high authority of Lord Lyndhurst, one of
the most uncompromising of Anti-reformers for,
believing that the Bill having passed the second
reading, " there can be no possibility of prevent-
ing it from becoming the law of the land ;" while
on the other, to insure its speedy success, as
well as the peace and tranquillity of the country,
there is no honest reformer who, in the spirit of
Lord Grey himself, would not be ready to make
any reasonable minor concessions of detail which
did not encroach upon the great features and prin-
ciples of the measure. At any rate we see every
reason to congratulate the country on the point
at which the measure has now arrived. The
Reform Bill may again come into jeopardy—it
may encounter a fresh storm—it may ineura re-
lapse,—but the more probable conclusion, is, that
it will arrive safe in port, under the guidance of
a pilot who has steered it thus far through so
many great and palpable hazards.—Morning
Herald.

We have no pleasure in contemplating the
result of the debate on the second reading of the
Reform Bill, nor in adverting even to the splen-
did and triumphant arguments of the conserva-
tive Peers upon the main question, since all that
a manifest superiority of eloquence and talent
could perform was performed in vain, so far as
this stage of the measure is concerned. Yet,
though mortified, we are not desponding.—
Much yet remains to be done before the Con-
stitution of England can be effectually de-
stroyed ; and if the glorious minority of 175
keep firmly together, and manifest the same zeal,
ability, and energy they have hitherto evinced,
there is little reason to doubt that the revolu-
tionists will yet be defeated. To the grounds of
confidence in- the final triumph of the Con-
stitution which we find in the conduct and
character of its . defenders. we,. have only to
add those which are to be discovered in
the temper and proceedings of its assailants; and
we have a foundation for hope scarcely inferior
in value to the actual possession and enjoyment
of assured and complete victory. The Durham
episode in the late debate is in itself sufficient to
assure us that the cause which is supported by
such characters as are there exhibited cannot
long be in the ascendant in a nation consisting of
honourable men. Let us briefly describe this
tragi-comical performance of the greatest. and
most powerful of the Reform statesmen, Lord
Durham. The Bishop of Exeter, in the course
of his luminous and unanswerable speech on
Wednesday, happened to say, in allusion to the
revolutionary Press, that a certain Journal
was supposed by ignorant persons to breathe
the inspiration, rf not of the Treasury
itself, of some other high office. Lord
Durham, after two days' deliberation, thought
proper to take this inuendo to himself,
and accordingly came oat on Friday with an
attack upon the Right Reverend Churchman, in
the choicest style of Billingsgate, accusing him of
wilful and malignant falsehood, decked out in
the flowers of pamphleteering slang, &c. Upon
this the Bishop of Exeter, who is by 00 means a
rnan to be silenced by the petulant Lordling,
even although the latter should become thegreat
Parliamentary man which it is a main object of
the Bill to make him, begged to say that he
thought the reports alluded to were not unlikely
to be in some degree true, and maintained the
probability of the report, an allusion to which
had excited so much impotent and silly anger,
by referring to a recent instance in which
passages in a letter from a Noble Peer to his
Majesty had found their wAy to a