The Sun.
London, England, 1835-10-24 00:00:00

SPI RIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Vs 7e are s,arry to see that the agriculturists still cling
tip the noti(m that they can be relieved by tampering
with the c urrency. We refer to the account of the
Rroceedin
.gs of the Worcestershire Agricultural Asso-
ciation o n Saturday last, which will be found in ano-
ther col Lunn. An Address to his Majesty, prepared
by Mr, 'Spooner, in which the distress of the agricul-
turists was attributed to the measure of 1819, and
praying that measures for their relief might be adopted,
-was submitted to the meeting. Several gentlemen
der ,recated the introduction of the currency question
m'co the Address, and Mr. Phipps Onslow moved, as
n amendment, that that part of the address which re-
ferred to the currency be omitted. On a division, how-
ever, the original Address was carried by a majority of
40r5t0 1. So the agriculturists would have us, in
1835, replace the currency in the state in which it
-vms before 1819—more than sixteen years ago
The idea 13f any one branch of industry being de-
pressed from a cause which dates so far back, is pre-
pirstero-as. It is admitted that the country never was
triore prosperous than it is at this moment. That the
agriculturists are not prosperous, must be owing to
circumstances peculiar to themselves, and not to the
state of the currency. Landlords who are insolvent,
might be benefitted no doubt by any measure which
might enable them to defraud their creditors ; and te-
nants who are under covenants to pay a higher rent
than prices allow them to do, might equally benefit by
an alteration in the currency. But in no other sense
than allowing debtors to cheat creditors could agricul-
turists be benefitted. If agriculture is in a less heal-
!thy state than the other interests of the country, this is
not because the Legislature has done too little for it,
but because it has done too much. They have been
buoyed up with the idea of artificial prices, and they
have receired all the protection which monopoly can
give. The trade of the country has been subjected to
the most impolitic restrictions for their sake. What
unore would they have than the monopoly of the home
-market ? " It would be well (says one of the speakers,
Captain Winnington, M.P.), to remember that the
time might come, when the farmers would say to others
in their turn, what right have you to the luxuries and
superfluities you possess, when we were obliged to
abandon our comforts ? Until he saw every other class
making the same sacrifices, he would not consent to
see them required of the farmers." The other classes
have no advantages by law over the agriculturists ; on
the contrary, the law has attempted to benefit the agri-
culturists at th !ir expense. The various classes of pro-
ducers are, of course, dependent on their respective
markets; and it would be well for the agriculturists
were they to abandon all idea of prospering by other
means than are open to their fellow-citizens.—Morn-
ivo- Chronicle.

We often read the Gazette de France, and we con-
fess it is because that paper affords us more amusement
than any other published in Paris. Its writers are
certainly a very distinct, if not distinguished, set of
men. One would imagine they were always writing
for people who have no eyes or ears of their own, or
who, if they have, may be living at the Poles. They
:seem to be perpetually mistaking their contemporaries
for the generation of 200 years ago. Sometimes they
take it for granted that no man alive could have any
recollection of events which have occurred between
the present day and 25 years back ; at others they
betray themselves into something like a recollection of
the present, by their lamentations that the roi quand
mbne is no longer on the throne, and the priests do
not enjoy the faculty of being the chief directors and
dispensers of his Majesty's will. Of late the Gazette
de France has taken a good deal of trouble to make
the French people acquainted with the fact that there
is now a vast deal of religion among them. This was
mews indeed to the people of France, for it was cer-
tainly more than any one had been aware of till that
moment. Everybody knew that the hypocrisy and
scoundrelisre of an innumerable tribe of Tarteses,
under the priestly garb, had driven religion right out
of the country, and that the attempt made under the
Restoration to bring back the race had given religion
another b7ow ; but surely the few old women and
chil-
dren who usually compose the congregations in the
churches in France, up to the present moment afforded
no evidence of any great prevalence of religion. Since
the Revolution of 1835, indeed, there has been some-
thing like a religious re-action, but it was not in
favour of the Romish Church, to which the gene-
ral fee!ing, in the country seems to be invincibly
hostile. The re-action was evinced in the nume-
rous converts made to the newly established
" French Catholic Church." This church differed
from the Romish one in some very material points :
Ist, it did not acknowledge the supremacy of the
Pope, and had 113 connexion whatever with Rome ;
2d, it dispensed with the formality of confession ;
3d, the church service was considerably simplified, and
always to be performed in French. All who were re-
ligiously inclined, and vet cultivated no religion on ac-
count of their aversicn for the Church of Rome,
thought of becoming members of the " French
Church." Its followers, in fact, became in a short
time sufficiently numerous to awaken the jealousy of
the whole tribe of Carlist priests, bishops, and arch-
bishops, whom the last revolution had not swept the
country of, because it was thought they would never
again venture to raise their heads. They have, in fact,
raised their heads again in France within the last
t Tree years, tban's to th euragement afforded them
by the present Government, which has even gone so
far as to court their favour and seek their countenance.
The jealousy evinced against the new church ap-
pears to have been taken hold of by the Government as
affording an opportunity to try a reconciliation with the
ecclesiastical dignitaries who had chosen to keep aloof
from the new dynasty, so that the Government hesi-
tated not to set its face against the new sect. All
kinds of difficulties were thrown in the latter's way,
and means were even employed to compel congrega-
tions to separate immediately after they had assembled
for prayers. This gave a distaste for the sect to the
sectarians, and we believe that many of them have
dropped off; but we never heard that the old Esta-
blished Church has gained a single member in conse-
quence thereof. The articles about England are above
all things amusing in the Gazette de France. Its
writers can never mention this country's name without
coupling it with some anathema. 'How England has
managed till now to withstand all the downfalls and
destructions to which the Gazette de France has so
repeatedly devoted her is really matter of great
amazement. But if the ocean has not washed
us clean away yet, so as to make us disappear
entirely from things that are, it is not from
any desire of the Gazette de France that we
should in the least be spared. And all this, why ?
Because England has been guilty of two enormities
which the hard-hearted people of the Gazette de France
can never forgive :-Ist, she has abjured Catholicism,
and repudiated the authority of the Pope ; and 2dly,
she has given to the world the example of constitutional
government, and has turned all' the continental peo-
ple's heads by talking so much about liberty. What
the Gazette de France considers and calls the misfor-
tunes of the world are derived from that most hated
origin. In one of its precious articles about England,
on Tuesday last, the Gazette exclaims—" Well may
the Journal des Debats be frightened at the idea that
the Doctrinaires should have such men as the English
for their allies ; really their model, England, is in a
very bad way." The writer then assures us, that if
" France was again herself "—that is, if she was
again under the happy regime of a Louis XIV., she
would be mistress of the world, England included of
course. How foolish France must be not to choose
to be "herself " again ! Will she not listen to the ex-
cellent advice coming from so truly patriotic.a quarter ?
—Times.

The papers in the interest of the Whig-O'Connell
Ministry are furious in their denunciations of Mr.
Fowler, the High Sheriff of Meath, for having re-
fused to convene a political meeting of that county, in
obedience to a requisition which has been addressed to
him. This refusal is described as an act of " unpa-
rallelled effrontery on the part of the High Sheriff',"
first, because the requisitionists were very numerous
and highly respectable ; and, secondly, because the
address to Lord Mulgrave, which was to have been
proposed, and would certainly have been carried, was
to be of a very meritorious descziption. We must be

indulred with a word or two under each of these
heads. It is boasted t} tat the requisition presented to J
Mr. Fowler contained the names of six Peers, two
heirs apparent of Pee rs, four Members of Parlia-
ment, four Baronets., three Deputy Lieutenants,
twenty Magistrates, &c. &c., with other names
equally respectable, to the number of a hundred
and ten. To make v.p this array seems to have cost
some pains, since we; find that there was a preliminary
meeting, for the pr .pose of arranging it, held at Cavan
so long ago as the latter end of last month ; and, after
all, we can scarcel y bring ourselves to think that it was
so very authoritat' the that it ought to have peremptorily
overruled the dis. cretion of the High Sheriff. We
cannot positively state who the very respectable and
important person ages were who signed the requisition
to the High Sheriff of Meath, but we have before us a
list of the individuals who, subsequently to the refusal
of that officer to convene the county, issued a notice
for a public meeting -upon their own authority ; and if,
as we suppose, the names to the two documents are the
same, we are not ashamed to confess our conviction that
the High Sheriff did what was quite right in pre-
ferring his own judgment to theirs. That there are
some respectable r.ames in the list we do not deny.
It would be hard., indeed, if in the county of Meath
there could not be found a single respectable Whig
or Roman Catholic willing to put his name down
in favour of ai Administration composed of Whigs
and governed by O'Connell. Still we do not
see in the fol'iowing list of the elite of the con-
veners of the approaching county meeting any-
thing which ought to make the High Sheriff re-
gret that he refused to do what they have done.
The signatures are as follow :—Headfort, Conyng-
ham, Essex, Fingall, Milltown, Gormanstone, Sher-
borne, Cloncurry, Killeen, J. Cantwell, D.D. ; Hon.
E. Preston, Hon. T. Barnewell, P. Pellew, Bart. ;
W. M. Somerville, Bart. ; T. Chapman, Bart. ; H.
Meredyth, Bart. ; J. Nugent, Bart. ; F. M'Donnell,
Knt. ; M. L. Chapman, M.P.; W. S. Crawford,
M.P. ; H. Grattan, M.P. ; M. O'Connell, M.P. With
most of these names our readers are familiar, and
we are persuaded that they will not think the High
Sheriff of Meath has any reason to be ashamed that
his opinion as to what will or will not tend to the
peace and welfare of the county is different to that
of the subscribers. But if the High Sheriff has no
reason to be ashamed of his refusal to co-operate in a
.gratuitous political movement with the persons above-
mentioned, still less cause has he to blush that he
would not convene a meeting for the purpose of con-
cocting an address, the predetermined purport of which
was "to congratulate the Earl of Mulgrave on his
appointment to the Government of this country, as
well as on the improved condition of Ireland since the
commencement of his Excellency's Administration."
A High Sheriff would scarcely, perhaps, be jus-
tifiable in refusing to convene his county on an
adequate requisition being presented to him, on
the ground merely that he disapproved of the
object for which the meeting was desired, although
if any circumstances would justify such an exertion of
self-will, it would surely be when it was proposed to
give the sanction of a county meeting to a proposition
so revolting as that it can be a subject of congratula-
tion to a British Peer, even the most insignificant of
the Peerage, even Lord Mulgravc, that lie has been
appointed to the station and office of menial slave to
Mr. O'Connell—that he has been placed in a position
in which he must implicitly obey the commands of an
irresponsible despot, and promote the purposes of an
unprincipled mercenary, who daily preaches sedition,
and sends round among his miserable dupes the annual
begging box for his pay ; and when it was further pro-
posed to assert that the effect of an appointment de-
grading and pernicious, alike to the Lord Lieutenant,
to the country that sent him forth, and to that which
received him, had been to improve the condition of
Ireland. But the defence of the Sheriff of Meath
rests upon grounds totally different from these.
Few persons, we suppose, will deny that a High
Sheriff may, without blame, refuse to convene a
meeting for the agitation of political questions when
he knows, or has good grounds for believing, that at
such meeting, whoever may presume to adopt onelpar-
ticular side of the questions to be there agitated will do
so at the imminent peril of their lives. Mr. Fowler.
secs nothing to convince him that it would be safe for
the Representatives of die Protestant and Conservative
party in the county of Meath to appear at a public
meeting, and there to say what they think of the pre-
sent Irish Government, and of the improvement which
it has produced in the condition of the country ; and
he does not think it his duty to afford an occasion for
the commission of outrages which would probably not
stop short of murder, notwithstanding all the improve-
'pent of which the Whig and O'Connell party make
an empty boast. The High Sheriff, acting under this
just estimate of his official duty, has undoubtedly
acquired a claim to the grateful thanks of all par-
ties. As to the improved condition of Ireland, it is
just what we have invariably heard spoken of whenever
it has for a moment been the policy of the Roman Ca-
tl4)lic Priesthood and their instruments to be, or seetn
to be, upon good terms with the British Government ;
or, in other words, when they have been in the expecta-
tion of a quiet arid willing surrender to their demands
of some privilege, or endowment, or defence of the
highest importance to the efficiency and safety of the
Protestant Church. At such moments there is always
a lull in the tumultuous sea of Irish outrage and agita-
tion—a lull, as all experience has shown, sure to be
succeeded by a fiercer storm as soon as the immediate
object is attained, and the party commences its next
and more advanced movement in the career of ambitious
and indefinite aggression. These moments of com-
parative tranquillity are no otherwise beneficial to the
country than as they demonstrate to what influence its
habitual temper and condition are to be ascribed.—
Morning Post.
The second step in the reformation of the House of
Peers, and the bringing it into harmony, after having
got rid of the Bishops, with a Reformed House of
Commons, is, that those entitled to sit in it, and to
legislate for the people of these realms, should be
made responsible for their proceedings, and derive
their authority directly from the people, instead of
from the favour of a Minister, or the caprice of
an idiotic monarch or corrupt Court—in other
words, that they should be elected, at stated pe-
riods, in the same manner as the House of Com-
mons, and he subject to all the responsibility and
risk of change to which the latter are liable. With-
out the admission of this principle no good can be
done. The outward form might be changed--the face
of the constitutional monster might be changed—its
evil designs and still more evil doings might be veiled
under a semblance of a law, and a disguise of
reform ; but the monster would still have the mark of
the beast upon it—the substance would still be the
same—and the spirit equally obstructive of every mea•
sure tending to promote freedom of conscience, liberty
of speech and action, or to strike off the galling fet-
ters of those who are now suffering over all Europe
for constitutional right and national independence. The
House, consisting as it does of more than two-thirds
of Tory Peers, would still be Tory all over—Tory
in principle, Tory in design, and Tory in practice,
always leaning to the side of arbitrary power, and never
conceding anything in behalf of the people, until the
people, with their hundred heads and hundred hands,
came forward en masse to threaten the idol with
that destruction which they could so easily inflict.
Then, indeed, they would yield, even as they did in
the case of the Reform Bill ; but their concession
would only tend to bring, not them only, but all legis-
lation, into that contempt with the people which would
terminate in the subversion of all law and order, and
the usurpation by the mass of that power which can
only be wielded beneficially by the few. Further, we
may add, that any reform of the House of Peers short
of that radical reform which we propose, and which
the oligarchs during the last three or four Sessions of
Parliament have done so much to hasten, could
have no other effect than that of perpetuating agi-
tation—keeping up a disagreeable and unwhole-
some ferment in the public mind—paralysing the
trade and commerce of the country—breaking asun-
der the sympathies which ought to exist be-
tween the different classes of society—and weakening
its influence with foreign powers to an extent most pre-
judicial to its character and its interests. We have
dwelt at so much length upon this step, firstly, because