The Sun.
London, England, 1835-08-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Political affairs are evidently approaching a crisis.
Is the country to give way and allow the Lords to do
as they like, to govern in spite of the Commons, as
before the Reform Bill they governed through the un-
due influence they possessed in the Commons ? This
is the question to which the people of this country
must soon be prepared to give a serious answer. 0/ e
know that. by the constitution of this con. itry the Up-
per House of Parliament forms a distinct and inde-
pendent branch of the Legislature ; but when a
practical question of the kind which is now before us
occurs, we cannot but ask ourselves—why is the
House of Lords brought into this opposition with the
popular branch of the Legislature, and whence is the
overwhelming Tory majority derived 1 When 'ive
consider the large creations of Tory •Peers—(and
the House is half filled with Tory creations since li
the accession of George the Third)—when we re-
flect on the constant and united hostility of nearly
the whole Bench of Bishops to all measures of a
popular and reforming character, we see created and
arrayed together a compact and powerful body,
permanently hostile to the progress of public im-
provement. It is not the old Peers nor the greatest
possessors of the soil of the country that are con-
stantly opposed to the people's rights. These men,
the Howards, and the Russells, and the Cavendishes,
and the like, are not opposed to a reforming policy.
The Dukes of Sutherland, of Cleveland, of Devon-
shire, of Bedford, and of Norfolk, the Marquesses of
Westminster and Lansdowne, Earls Carlisle and Fitz-
william, and a number of other Peers, who have really
a large stake in the country to back their exalted
titles, these Noble Peers have property of their own
to live upon. They are not obliged to bolster up a
corrupt and rotten system in order that by means of
the undue influence which close corporations or close
boroughs may confer upon them, they may filch some-
thing for their own support, and share the plunder of
the public purse among their retainers and dependents.
A few wealthy Peers may, indeed, be found among
the Tory majority, but the mass is made up of the
new, the poor, the pensioned, and the spiritual
Peers. The latter may be supposed to act from
the spirit of priestcraft, which, in all religions,
has ever been opposed in principle to all that im-
proves, enlightens, and dignifies humanity in every
age, clime, and community. The bishops, therefore,
only follow their usual vocation in opposing measures
which tend to make people think and act for them-
selves. Why, only think if it should happen that the
people should fancy that they could do without titled
priests, and that men might worship the Great Author
of their being, and fulfil the injunctions of Christianity
and the duties of citizens, without calling in the assist-
ance of Very Reverend Doctors of Divinity, or Most
Reverend and Right Reverend Fathers in God. Cer-
tainly, the idea is horrid ; but there is nothing like
keeping a people in ignorance and slavery ; there is no
knowing how far education and freedom may carry
them. But however this may be at present, it is noto-
rious that WE PAY—we, the people of England,
pay about twenty titled priests large wages, as
Christian Bishops, to go down to the House of
Lords in their carriages and lawn sleeves, and vote
against the measures which the public voice de-
mands, and which a liberal Government was pre-
pared to concede to public justice and public expe-
diency. But are bishops the only persons that we pay
to oppose our interests ? Look at the number of
titled paupers that sit in the Upper House, and de-
rive importance and influence from the means which
we furnish them to thwart our views, and trample upon
us and those who support our cause. Look at Lord
Ellenborough (and he may serve as a sample), with his
twelve thousand pounds a-year from a sinecure office,
in other words, whom we furnish with " meat, drink,
clothing, lodging, and washing," and this at a rate
which would support 300 families at 15s. per week
each (and we only wish that every poor family in the
kingdom had that sum), and for what do we make this
enormous outlay? Why, in order to enable my Lord
Ellenborough to ride down Parliament-street in his
carriage, and swell the list of Tory majorities against
the people's rights. Look at the list of Tory Peers in
receipt of pay and of pensions, holding sinecures of
one kind or another in Church and in State, and
see how large are the sums subtracted from our
pockets to maintain a luxurious race of State paupers,
who in return profess to despise us, and take every
occasion to vote against our interests. Surely this
ought to be looked into—surely we have a right,
as well as his Grace of Newcastle, " to do as we
will with our own ;" and when Colonel Berkeley
—(we beg his pardon) Lord Segrave—talks about
the " independence of the House," it is right to see
whether it is independent or not in any proper sense
of the word. However, the " total of the whole" is
this, that either the Reform Act must be repealed, and
we must again quietly place our necks under the feet
of the oligarchy which we overthrew, or we must have
some kind of " reform" in their Lordships' house.
It is no use shrinking from the subject, the Tory Peers
only take advantage of our reluctance and patient for-
bearance to strengthen their position, and place stronger
and stronger barriers in the way of improvement. Lord
Grey lost himself in the vain endeavour to conciliate
and soothe them. Lord Melbourne is harrassed,
thwarted, and impeded in every measure which would
benefit the public by their selfish and factious oppo-
sition. How long is this state of things to continue ?
How long will this mockery of legislation be suffered
to insult the people and endanger the peace, and secu-
rity of the empire ?—illorning Chronicle.
We have never happened to see a more amusing,
specimen of " going the whole hog" than the Minis-
terial prints have furnished in their eulogiums upon the
budget speech of Mr. S. Rice. One calls it " able
and lucid ;" another declares that it was " completely
satisfactory," and that it " elicited unqualified appro-
bation from the most opposite parties ;" a third de-
scribes it as " most able ;" while a fourth says it was
a speech of " distinguished ability." This may be
mere stupidity, and in charity we will suppose it is ;
but undoubtedly the character given of the speech is,
from whatever cause, the falsest that the most perverted
ingenuity, or the paltriest sycophancy, could have
devised. The plain fact of tho case is, that Mr. S.
Rice might have said all that a reasonable man would
have thought of saying about such a budget in a
quarter of an hour at tl,! most : and the smallest par-
ticle of good taste would have led him to imitate the
example of Mr. Canning, when placed in a similar con-
dition, instead of consuming two hours and a quarter
in talking about matters which had no relevance to the
question before the House, and the only effect of which,
whatever may have been the object, was to demonstrate
how very shallow a person the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer is. Let us run through the speech and see if
this be not the truth, in spite of what the clacqueurs
in the Ministerial prints may say to the contrary. Mr.
S. Rice began by detailing the amount of the reduction
of taxes since the peace. We stated on Saturday,
and we repeat now, that one of the most common Par-
liamentary papers, continued, on the motion of Mr.
Hume, up to a very recent period, has made every
smatterer in financial affairs perfectly well acquaintefel
with what Mr. Rice thought it necessary to -recite
with so much parade. The finance accoeonts show
the reductions effected in the estimates for the same
period ; but these, too, the Chancelior of the Exche-
quer unmercifully inflicted at length upon his yawning
hearers. Nor did even this satisfy the Right Hon.
Gentleman. The quarterly accounts for the year and the
balanze-sheets were 'read with painful minuteness, and
when the conclueion of that operation opened a prospect
that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was about to
be good enough to come to the point, the horizon was
again clouded with darkness " that might be felt ;"
for a long and heavy comparison between Lord Al-
thorp's estimates and the actual receipts, even to the
uttermost farthing, succeeded. Mr. S. Rice at length
told the House that he calculated the revenue of the
ensuing year at 45,550,000/., and the expenditure at
44,715,000/. ; so that, if there were any truth in sub-
traction, his surplus would be 835,000/. Instead, how-
ever, of telling Members the only other fact they cared
two straws about ascertaining—namely, what he in-
tended to do with his surplus—another " thick in the
clear" threw his hearers back upon the benches in de-
spair. The interval between the communication of the
amount of surplus and of how much of it was to be

disposed of, and in what manner, was filled up with
an overwhelming quantity of oppressively heavy mate-
rials. Among these figured the West India loan,
about which he repeated all he had ever said before
and without adding anything new. Then came a mi-
nutely microscopic detail of the grounds of his esti-
mates, which proved, not only that he had not rec-
koned upon too large a revenue from given articles, but
that estimates are much too low. e merely
state this fact : we by no llieene ("01111)14in t4f .k_eeti
Chancellor of tin; Exchequer citing on the side of
caution. A very IMd ridet is quite right to get him-
self tied to the saddle, and to keep always half R. utitt
from the bank, must be admitted to ti'd among the
surest means of guarding against tumbling into the
river. To these proofs that he had not calculated the
revenue for the ensuing year too sanguinely, the Right
Hon. Gentleman added a volunteer defence of the
principle that reduction of duty tioes not always pro-
duce a corresponding diminution of revenue ; but that
on the contrary, increased consumption in consequence
of reduction of the duty frequently brings a larger return
to the treasury. Mr. S. Rice was even so obliging as to
illustrate this doctrine by stating the effect of the reduc-
tions of the duty on oils, tea, cum rants, &c., madeby Lord
Althorp. Now, however novel this doctrine may be
to the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, we beg to
assure him that it has for many years past been looked
upon as a truism; and if his financial tether had been
any longer than the tail of Lord Althorp's coat, he
would have known that the whole history of taxation
would have illustrated it, even if his predecessor had not
taken off the duty on oils, &c. Mr. S. Rice will,
perhaps, shortly have a little time on his hands, and
we earnestly recommend him to employ part of it in a
perusal of the fourth report of the Finance Committee.
He will find in that, accounts which demonstrate that if
the reduction of taxes which took effect after 1823,
had diminished the revenue in the proportion which the
taxes reduced bore to the produce of that year, the abate-
ment of revenue in 1827, as compared with 1823,
would have been 9,182,5711., and that it proved to be
only 3,308,3161., the difference of 5,874,2551. being
the increase of revenue from increased consumption.
Further, now that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has
discovered this principle of finance, it would be as well
if he were to try the application of it on rather a larger
scale than he has ventured upon in his operation with re-
gard to flint glass ; for if it be true, as we fear it is,
that no very large sum can now be saved by economy
and retrenchment, the burdens of the country can be
lightened, its commerce extended, and its comforts in-
creased, by no other means than the substitution of
duties for revenue in the stead of prohibitory and pro-
tective duties. For the rest of this speech of " dis-
tinguished ability," it consisted chiefly of details rela-
tive to the consumption of certain articles of customs
and excise, with the view of showing that the country
was in a very flourishing condition. That we may not
prove as tiresome as Mr. Rice himself, we defer our
notice of these till another opportunity ; and so, too,
for the present, we pass by the shocking instance of in-
gratitude exhibited by that Poor Law Commissioner,
who, regarded by Mr. Rice with the " greatest affec-
tion," has requited the Right Hon. Gentleman's love
by humbugging him into a belief that the Poor Law Act
will be better for the agriculturists than " any remission
of taxes," and that one-half of the poor-rates may be
reduced without such a destruction of life and property
as would shock even a professor of political economy.
'We don't know who this Poor Law Commissioner may
happen to be, but we know that there is one called
Gul-stone, and we find that there is also one who
ought to be called Gul-rice. These were the chief of
the other kill-time topics which the Chancellor of the
Exchequer pressed into his service on Friday, they
were not the only topics of that nature. The Right
Hon. Gentleman favoured the House with a disserta-
tion upon another recognised principle of finance,
which, however new to him, happens, like that we
have noticed above, to be one of the oldest on record,
—we allude to the reduction of the debt by the conver-
sion of portions of it into terminable annuities, which
has been urged by almost every writer upon the sub-
ject in modern times, from Price down to Parnell. We
have no doubt, that when the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer " regretted that, during the war, Government
had not contracted the debt in Long Annuities," he
was endeavouring to repeat from memory the follow-
ing passage of Sir H. Parnell :—" If all the loans
which have been raised since the beginning of the war
in 1739 had been borrowed in annuities for 99 years,
in eight years from this time the extinction of them
would commence, and in 84 years the whole debt in-
curred up to 1815 would be extinguished. More need
not be said to prove the expediency of borrowing in ter-
minable annuities." For fear, however, that this princi-
ple should mislead Mr. S. Rice into any dangerous m Tee)r-
ries,we beg leave to remind him and his authority that there
was this little difficulty in the way of the Government
" contracting the debt in Long Annuities during the
war"--Lit would have required a very much larger
present charge, and this Mr. S. Rice should have had
the candour to mention, as it is clear he has discovered
that fact ; for, if not, how has it happened, that, tak-
ing credit to himself for making part of his West In-
dian loan in Long Annuities, that part bears so insig-
nificant a proportion to the gross sum ? Shall we search
further into this speech for evidence of the " distin-
guished ability," &c., which the parasites or the
blockheads of the Ministerial press talk about ? It
would be in vain ; and we think we have given proof
enough that our original estimate of Mr. S. Rice's
oration was correct. It would be unfair, however, if
we neglected to state, that there was one notion pro-
pounded in the speech for which the Chancellor of
the Exchequer claimed the merit of " originality."
No doubt it will be considered exceedingly important,
• and we strongly suspect that it is by means of it,
and of it alone, that the " distinguished ability" of
the speech is to be made manifest. Not to keep
our readers in suspense, know all men that it is
the Right Hon. Gentleman's conjecture respecting the
reason of the falling off in the consumption of soft-soap,
and his conjecture, we assure the public, was delivered
by the Right Hon. Gentleman with an air of vast tri-
umph, which said "plaudite" as plainly as his tongue
could have said it. The conjecture was, that the " re-
duction in the consumption of soft-soap is to be attri-
buted to the substitution of cheaper oils for this article
in many of our manufactures." We are very much in-
clined to concur with the Chancellor of the Exchequer
in this opinion, but as the duty on oils had been re-
duced, and as inferior oil is the chief ingredient in the
manufacture of that delectable compound called soft-
soap, we do not think that the " conjecture" of Mr.
Rice can have cost him much wear and tear of intel-
lect. However, to use his own words, " This is only
a conjecture of ours." May there not have been a
mortality amongst the bugs ? We think the solution
of this important point would furnish a good excilse
for another commission of inquiry. Perhaps we eught
to apologize to our readers for bestowing tl`j,s second no-
tice on this budget speech. The fafv is, that we should
not have reverted to it had. -we not seen the foolish or
dishonest attempts tq puff it off as a masterpiece.—
Times.

The, 'nuagct of Mr. Spring Rice, as opened on
Iriday night, beats the celebrated tile and taxed-cart
budget of Lord Althorp hollow. It does not even
hold forth so much semblance of relief to the suffering
agricultural interests as the Spencerian budget did, by
the Emancipation of shepherds' dogs from the fiscal
grasp of the Exchequer. The speech with which this
budget was introduced was as long as the relief which
it proposed was small and insignificant. Mr. Spring
Rice, as a Finance Minister, understands the cabalistic
use of numbers as well as any mystificator of vulgar
arithmetic that has preceded him. He strings Par-
liamentary Returns together in a way which covers a
great deal of space, and a very little common sense,
with a most formidable Idisplay of figures. When one
comes to the nucleus of his budget, if one can arrive
at it, through such an envelopement of extraneous
calculation, it reminds the fortunate finder of Dr.
Johnson's illustration of " a guinea wra.c:p eel up
in a woolsack," only that the guinea itself is but a
counterfeit, for the promised relief to the coun-
try is any thing but real. Mr. Spring Rice corn-
men.ces his financial narrative ab ovo—lre begins with
the peace, and consequently traverses the same ground
that has so frequently been gone over by former Chan.,
cellors of the Exchequer. He repeats all that every-
body knew, who knew any thing of the several itews