The Sun.
London, England, 1835-02-09 00:00:00

ZTv ;111:1.

LONDON,
MONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 9, 1835.

Our readers must not b:1 offended at the daily itera-
tion of a name, whose owner has done nothing in reality
to.engage the public attention I.ol* one half hour of
time. The pertinacious sermonising 0! the ministerial
prints on the theme of the approaching conte:. for the
Speaker's chair, the sickening adulation bestowed On
Sir CHARLES MANNERS SUTTON, and the vitupe-
ration thrown at his rival Mr. ABERCROMBY, must
be taken as a sufficient evidence of the all-important
nature of the subject in the estimation of the Cabinet,
and a justificatidn of the persevering efforts of the
liberal press, in urging again and again the necessity of
Mr. ABERCROMBY'S appointment.

The warfare of the Tory journals against their op-
ponents upon this point is conducted on a tripartite
plan—namely, to vaunt the eminent fitness of Sir
CHARLES; to decry the pretensions of his competitor;
and to establish if possible a schism among the Re-
formers. Now let us calmly and fairly examine the
question as it thus stands before us.
Sir CHARLES has s;:nply done his duty; has been
well paid for the performance of that duty ; will re-
ceive a very handsome retiring i;cnsion, and might
have secured the honourable distinction of a peerage,
had he displayed to the last that impartial nCutrality
which is blazoned forth as one of his especial attribti
of character, but to the merit of which, unfortunately
for himself, he has by his recent conduct now forfeited
all claim. If these were not prospective rewards suffi-
ciently powerful to induce any man to act faith-
fully we know not what stronger stimulants he
could reasonably require. Sir CHARLES gained the
approbation of all parties for the manner, generally
considered, in which he discharged that duty, and in.
curred the only reproach which has been justly visited
upon him, by a most unbecoming, impolitic, and un-
expected act of partiality, personal and political.
With this approbation, tempered with the merited
reproach, he might have gone on his way rejoicing, and
the public would have thought no more about him.
13ut for no other imaginable reason than that he has
become the great card that is to decide the Tory game,
is Sir CHARLES all at once thrust forth as a man of
surpassing excellence, his negative virtues and accom-
pliShmeilts chaunted out in grandiloquent strains, two-
year old praises of his present opponents raked up, as
though that which, from circumstances, was reasonable
just then, Intist, from altered circumstances, be so
ply, consequentially, that no other
note ; and all to im
honest or fitting m3n can be found in the three king-
doms to do the simple (and very absurdly magnified)
duty which he has done. Thus stands the case as re-
gards Sir CHARLES, his merits, and deserts. Now
let us take that of his opponent.
All that Tory ingenuity has been able to allege

against Mr. ABERCROMBY is found in --the " dis-
qualifying" pension which was justly assigned to
him, upon the abolition of his office as Chief Baron
of the Scotch Exchequer, and of that useless
Court itself. Without alluding to the badness of
grace, that any personal attack on the score of pension-
holding must come from Tory lips, the triumphant re-
futation which the recent plain statement of facts has
given to the slander of jobbing, silences for ever the
only real ground of opposition to his appointment.
Even had Mr. ABERCRONIBY'S pension been acquired
by jobbing, the public would look with a very lenient
eve upon the man who, for a life pension of 2,000/.
a-year, contributed to effect an annual saving to the
country of 25,000/., by the suppression of a useless
judicial Court ! Another objection, to be sure, was
put forth a day or two ago, which, as an exquisite
sample of logic and propriety, may be simply noticed
for the fun of the thing. Because Mr. ABERCROMBY
—says a Tory print—is just as likely to make a bad
Speaker as a good one, therefore he ought to be re-
jected upon the strength of the uncertainty ! Such an
" argument" as this, coming, too, from the pen of a
supporter of a Government that only " asks a fair
trial," and, because untried, is just as likely to make a
bad Government as a good one, is exceedingly amusing.
It would be ignoble to break such a fly as this on the
wheel, and we leave the silliness immangled.
Then as to the desired schism among the Reformers.
At the very moment these cunning and insinuating
Tories are labouring with all their might to produce a
split in that " miserable faction " the Anti-Tories—as
alike represented by the " Russell section of the Op-
position," the coronetted Caries, and the extreme De-
structives—the Reformers are challenged, in the un-
conscious innocence of simplicity, to deny the actual
constitution of two separate Committees—the one cpn-
listing of Lords DUNCANNON and RUSSELL, in con-
junction with Messrs. SPRING RICE, (who won't be
jealous, notwithstanding Tory attempts to make him
so,) and METHUEN ; the other, of Messrs. O'CoN-
NELL, HUME, WARBURTON, and GILLON-110W at
this time engaged in promoting the election of Mr.
ABERCROMBY !—whilst sedulously employed in
hatching a jealous quarrel between their opponents,
their alarm burns a hole in the pocket of their
discretion, and out slips a challenge to deny the exis-
tence of the much dreaded union. Why should the
challenge be accepted ? There is no denial to be
given to the Union ! It does exist, so firm and indis-
soluble, that the Tories cannot withstand itt combined
strength. They see it, acknowledge it, quail before
it, and, in truth, well may they !
The question that now agitates the press is not one
ci person, but of principle ; the rejection of Sir
CIIARL'ES SUTTON is the rejection of the Tories,
and hence the all-absorbing import of the decision to
both parties. As for the qualifications of a Speaker,
there are twenty gentleman among the newly-returned
Members who are equally, if not superiorly, qualified
to Sir CHARLES, long as he has officiated ; the real
contest, however, is not between this man or that
man, but between the real Reformers and mock Re-
formers ! If the sincere wishes of Sir CHARLES'S
heart could be disclosed, we venture to assert that he
would far rather slide quietly into the Upper House,
than harrass himself about the Speakership ; but this
may not be—he has been made the index-hand of the
Tory weather-glass to announce foul or fair, as the
political atmosphere shall determine—and he must
point I

The Quarterly Review, in its remarks on the

Peel-Administration, makes allusion to an imagined

difficulty in constructing a new Cabinet upon the dis-
solution of the present ! Selecting the person of Lord
STANLEY, and supposing the case of his being called
upon for that purpose, the writer speciously enquires
where his Lordship would have to look for colleagues ?
Now it seems to be forgotten, or the fact is purposely
unnoticed, that Sir ROBERT PEEL is at this moment
—standing as he does in the strength of his " belief'
in being able to carry on the KING'S Government—
associated with persons whom, two excepted, the
nation and himself regard as but automata, and of
whose pernicious tendencies the Ministerial prints have
publicly asserted there need be no dread, under the mas-
terly control of such men as Sir ROBERT and the Duke.
This assertion, indeed, taken as it may be for a tacit con-
fession of the political nonentity of subordinate officials,
in the estimation of the twin Prime Ministers, at once
quashes any argument on the difficulty of framing a
new ,Idministration. If the personal character of a
Premier is Alone to be considered a sufficient guarantee
of its policy an.. wisdom, the choice of puppets to re-
present certain offices, supposed by the Constitution as
a necessarily integral portion of the Government, is a
matter of small moment : the difficulty evaporates, and
Lord STANLEY might take office to-morrow morning,
with as strong a confidence of being able to manage
state affairs as that enunciated by Sir ROBERT PEEL.

Although the Duke of WELLINGTON'S name has
not been much bandied about lately, in the discussions
upon the unweaned Government, the public have not
forgotten that he is co-Minister with Sir ROBERT ;
that, though nominally subordinate, he is the arch
spirit that directs its councils ; and that the Worshipful
Company of fill-gaps represent nothing more then the
real bias of the man who chose them.

In canvassing the propriety of a Tory Government
to conduct the affairs of an Anti-Tory nation, every
/*,:martial examiner is of course sensible that, if Tory
conver,_;-2on to Reform be sincere, they must, as Re-
formers, fala;,fy by their future acts the whole tenor of
their past politics or, if insincere, that they seek by
means of hypocrisy to ::..!;./Yde the public confidence :
but whether sincere or insinrer,2, that it were incon-

.
sistent with common sense and common rnrudence to
entrust them exclusively with the government of .!..be
country—for whilst in the one case their deceit would
disqualify them wholly, they would, in the other, be
naturally desirous to restrict their reforms to the least
possible minimum, in order thereby to diminish the
amount of their own self-condemnation. Their sin-
cerity, however, was doubted from their selection of
parsons who—emphatically Tory in practice and in
principle—were either to exercise the functions of
State Councillors, and for such a purpose no choice
could be more infelicitously suspicious, or who were not,
and that was too great an infraction of the Constitution
to allay public mistrust.
But the Tories need not be at all disturbed by any
question of " difficulty" in selecting proper persons to
compose a supplanting Cabinet, whether the number
to compose it for the future shall consist of two, or of
two dozen. When the present ministers shall be
exiled from office—and let that first of all be secured
--there will be no lack of " men good and true" to
be constructed into a Government, consonant with the
public wish, men whose life-long concurrence of prac-