The Sun.
London, England, 1832-03-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Reform Bill reaches this day its last stage,
and will achieve its concluding victory in the House
of Commons. With regard to its treatment by the
other House of Parliament, we wish it were possi-
ble entirely to forego our misgivings. But the stake
is too enormous, even were the probabilities in fa-
vour of a national over a factious triumph more de-
cided than we have yet any reason to suppose, for
the devoted friends of free institutions to build their
confidence on grounds of hope or calculations which
have hitherto sunk under them. It is prognostica-
ted that a certain number of Bishops are to vote for
the second reading of the Bill, and that a majority of
from 20 to 30 Peersaltogether will support the sante
second reading. We have heard too much already
upon this point. The real question is,—and nothing
bet arrant childishness or extreme duplicity can now
adopt any other view of ite—the real question
concerns the amount of resistance which Ministers
Neill be able to oppose to the anti-reformers
in Committee, Since, however, (on the showing of
the optimists themselves) no greater majority seems
to be hoped for than from twenty to thirty votes, in
an assembly composed of 400 persons, and that, too,
tni the second reading of the Bill, is it, let us ask,
imaginable, that Ministers will leave the second
reading itself to a risk of failure so obvious and so
imminent as that arising from a struggle wherein
the conflicting parties, accerding to the most san-
guine calculation, must be so very nearly on a level ?
Errors have been found in former Parliamentary
anticipations, to a greeter extent than twenty voters
in 400. Should even a dozen or fifteen Lords take
a different course from that now prophetically as-
signed to them, where is the majority of twenty or
thirty" contents" on the second reading ? What,
then, becomes of the Bill itself, not of this or
that clause, but of the whole WI, of the very
principle of " peaceful" Reform ? And where will
the Minister who involves us in that calamity
then hide his unhallowed head ? Yet a cunning
party-shuffle may, without difficulty, effect such a
terrible chaster; and by those who view the sub-
ject with the prejudiced ey e of Toryism, the accom-
plishment of such a feat would doubtless be consi-
dered a passport to immortality for its authors. But,
once more, grant the second reading of the Bill.
What does the Committee promise us ? We be-
lieve sincerely that at present the Ministers intend
the most strenuous and manly opposition to any at-
tempts upon the schedules A and B, upon the me-
tropolitan representation clause, and on those which
define the qualifications and rights of electors. If,
nevertheless, the second reading be carried by no
better a majority than from 20 to 30 votes, and if
She purpose of suffering such a majority, however
scanty, to exist at all, be (so far as Lord Harrowby
and his friends are pricy to it) no other than the ex-
traction of the " popular venom" from the Bill with
greater facility, with less odium and eventual dan-
ger, what rational prospect can be entertained of
saving one of the vital characteristics of the measure
—namely, the two disfranchising schedules, the
rights of the metropolis, and the creation of an
effective constituency ? Then a sentiment is ex-
pressed ott which we far no inferences very favour.
able to the consciousness of Ministers in their own
strength can be founded. It is said that " some
changes will probably be attempted as to a few
of the new places to which it is proposed to
grant the franchise ;" and in relation to this point,
adds the commentator—" though it may be of
consequence to indiv;duals, it is not very material to
the country at large." What ! the" changes to be
attempted" can mean nothing less than the disfran-
chising of some of the places on which it is the
object of schedules C and D to htstrow the r;ght of
representation, and is that a thing " not very mate-
rial to the country at large ?" Is it a matter of mere
individual consequence whether places of great com-
mercial wealth, and industry, and intelligence shall or
shall not send Members to Parliament to assist its
deliberations on the general interests of commerce?
Is it no protection to the " country at large," that
large masses of its moral and material power should
in different quarters be able to speak for themselves
in the collective council ? We repeat that we are
sorry to hear such language, because it augurs ill.
But the best of all is coming. The Duke of Wel-
lington is himself, it seems, to be converted, or neu-
tralized, on the Reform Question; and by what means?
Why, indeed, since his Grace showed himself
so very kind and candid as to give up his motion for
papers on the Belgic correspondence, by teason of
Lord Grey's assurance that the production of such
papers might be inconvenient to the public service,
and much more by reason of his Grace's full con-
viction that nothing could be gained to the character
of his own past Administration, or towards the
exposure of M. Casimir Perier, which had not been
already obtained in the course of the debate itself,
" ergal" (most absolute of grave-diggers!) "how
much better would it be for the Duke of Wellington
to act on the Reform question as he did on Friday
'tight (in respect of the Belgic question) ?" " The
moment his Grace learned from Lord Grey that if
his motion was acceded to, it might produce incon-
venience, if not positive injury, to the country, he
withdrew it in the most handsome manner. Let
his Grace act a similar part with respect to the far
more important question of Parliamentary Reform,
and the country will, he may be assured, rejoice to
find him ranged once more on their side." Oh ! oh !
oh ! as they cry in Parliament when any flight of
surpassing wisdom astonishes their feeble com-
prehensions. The Duke of Wellington is to drop
his Anti-R-form principles, as be did his Belgic
papers, and actually to support the Bill, on an assur-
ance flom the Pi ime Minister that his continued
opposition to it " may produce inconvenience, if not
positive injury, to the country." And are we come
to this? Is such our last hope of safety ? Is this
credulous courtesy of the Duke of Wellington to
be Lord Grey's succedaneunt for all vigorous and
efficacious measures on the part of himself and his
colleagues? Does the daily expositor of the Minis-
terial designs and expectations, put it forth gravely
to the world, that there is no hope for the success of
the Reform Bill but in the Duke of Wellington's
conversion, when patted and smoothed down by Lord
Grey ? If that be the case, why, then, Lord have
mercy upon us! In the meantime, the House of
Commons has still its last great duty to execute. It
has this night to pass the Bill,—to pass it by such
a majority as will put the rettetionists at least to
silence, if not to shame ; and to heap the opprobiutn
of its ultimate overthrow—if overthrown it is to be—
on the heads which ought to bear it.—Tinter.
have received a communication from a cor-
respondent, who signs.himself a " Graduate of Ox-
ford," relative to the much-agitated question of a
creation of Peers to carry the Reform Bill. The
writer dissents from our view of the subject. He
reasons with moderation and plausibility in support
of an immediate creation of Peers, but his letter,
under existing circumstances, is too long for inser-
tion; we shall content ourselves with extracting the
material parts, and making a few observations by
way of comment. Our correspondent says, "As I
believe the judgment of a great body of the middle
classes is, in some degree, influenced by your Paper,
as being argumentative, moderate, and not insepa-
rably attached to any Mini ter, or to any party in
the State, I regret that you should entertain these
scruples (as to the creation of Peers.) When I
consider the uncompromising hostility of the T ry
party to any liberal measure, and their almost personal
enmity to the existing Government, I really can-
not see how Reform can be carried by any other
means; and even if the most moderate of its
opponents would cot:cede the principle, and al-
low the essential parts of the Bill to pass, is
it to be expected that a reformed House of Com-
mons would agree with the Upper 'louse as it
:exists at present ? Would they not be in perpetual
n
collisio unless a more liberal spirit were infused in.
to the House of Lords to meet the altered circurn-

stances of the times, and the feeling which now so
generally prevails ?—and if the two Houses continue
in opposition to each other, i; not the WIN of the
Constitution the natural consequence to be appre-
hended ?" It is obvious from the above passage