The Sun.
London, England, 1835-09-08 00:00:00

11,1WIs parts before it can be safely wrought upon in
may, if we wish to be secure of the harmonious ad-
justment of our alterations to those portions of the
frame which shall be left unaltered. In the mean
time let us congratulate the country that the law has
passed—and we pray that those who come after us
may have reason to add—" sit perpetua." And let
us not forget, that the Bill owes many of its best quali-
ties—those qualities which can alone ensure its per-
manency—to the House of Lords, who, under the
guidance of Lord Lyndhurst, purged it of its uncon-
stitutional matter, and controlled its original reckless-
ness by the limits of law and reason.—Times.
Our first impression was correct. The Commons
have consented to the amendments of the Lords, and
passed the Municipal Reform Bill, and this after loud
remonstrances and grave assurances on the part of the
Ministerial and Radical Press to the effect that the Bill
was a mockery ; that its spirit was slavish ; that its pro-
visions were mischievous ; and that it could not, and
ought not, to be accepted by the representatives of the
people. The favourite alternative of " a collision" was
thus revived again, and many persons began to suspect
that there was something else than fury in the sound,
merely because they had heard the sound so often.
Whether this threat of collision was adopted with a
view to provoke what it pretended to foretell, or whether
it was a bona fide effusion of what we would rather call
fright than prophecy, we have, of course, no means of
ascertaining ; but those who are fond of conjectural
criticism in politics will find in the present position and
uniform character of the Ministers sufficient data to
sustain any theory which takes the love of place and
the dread of losing it for a foundation. If the people
had responded to the outcry of the Ministerial Press by
demanding the rejection of the Bill, there is little
doubt but that a set of Ministers who are always
affecting popularity would in that case have made
a desperare effort to realise it. But, alas ! the outcry
was all from their own lungs ; the crisis was all of
their own making ; the collision was all upon paper,
that paper consisting of certain divisions of the broad
sheet over which they were known to exercise a direct
influence. We owe it, therefore, most probably to the
good sense of the people, that advantage was not taken
even of the slight alterations which their Lordships had
made in the Bill to produce a state of things that must
in its turn have produced danger, if not destruction, to
the Constitution. But happily the Bill is now secure,
and we have already had the satisfaction of hearing a
panygeric on its benefits from some of those who were
the foremost in denouncing it as a mischievous pro-
duction, or rather transformation, of the Aristocracy.
It is true that Lord John Russell and other speakers
have expressly asserted not only their right but their
intention to revive the provisions excepted from , the
present Bill. But we shall then have an opportunity
of knowing more of the working of the measure, and
eve shall have time to look about us and learn what
the real opinion of the people is, instead of taking the
words of those who often speak loudest and most con-
fiently when they have least to communicate.—Morn-
ing Herald.
We have the melancholy task imposed upon us—
and a melancholy one it is—of announcing to our
'countrymen that the great and excellent measure of
Corporation Reform introduced into the House of
Commons by Lord John Russell, has passed that as-
sembly with all the amendments of the Lords upon its
back, and that in somewhat less than forty-eight
hours it will become, for the present at least, the law
of the land. Having already entered our protest
against these amendments, a; well as given our reasons
for protesting—having also denounced the House of
Commons more even than his Majesty's Ministers, for
vi'elding in the first instance, and threatening to do
what they have now done—yielded to some of the
most obnoxious of them, instead of making a bo'.d and
manly stand for principle, for right, and for justice—it
,simply remains for us to add, in our own vindication,
tt'at we still entertain our original opinion, and
that. in that opinion we are justified, not only
by the numerous protests on the part of the
liberal conforynist3 in the House of Commons itself,
but by that of Lord John Russel!, who, in advising:*
unanimity and agreement to the pertinacious amend-
Inents of the House of Lords, distinctly declared that
the measure as now passed, though a great improve-
ment as a whole upon the present corrupt system, was
not to be considered by him as a final measure, but
simply as a step towards the attainment of the whole
of the objects contemplated by the Bill as it originally
passed from the Commons to the Lords. 'There is
much in this announcement to disarm our hostility to
the conduct pursued by the House, as well as to justify
the line of policy adopted—with the solitary but ho-
nourable exception of the Member for Finsbury (Mr.
Duncombe)—by time most liberal and reforming
Members of the House of Commons ; but we arc,
nevertheless, of opinion that many of the latter gen-
tlemen have egregiously betrayed the interests of
their constituents—that the House itself has
greatly lost in character and in estimation with the
public—and, finally, that whatever the Ministry
may have gained in the opinion of the old women and
children who are to be found in every circle roaring
cut at the full pitch of their voice, " democracy,"
" revolution," " stand by the constitution," &c., they
have more than lost in the confidence of those who
have been their warmest, their most sincere, and most
strenuous supporters. And at what a moment were
the concessions made,_ and so much character lost ?

Why when the people of England were declaring their
want of confidence in the Lords---their confidence in
their representatives, and their confidence in the Minis-
try !—When not thousands only, but millions, were
ready to stand the brunt of the fight in their behalf,
and when the rejection of the mangled remains of the
original Bill would not only have ingratiated theni still

more with the people of -England,- but have insured
also what must now be considered a matter of great
improbability—the passing of the Bill in all its en-
tirety. However, we have done with an ungrateful
and disgusting task. Time will show whether we are
right or wrong in our imaginations—and the test of
that time we very patiently await.—Morn. Advertiser.
The House of Commons, on the request of Lord
John Russell, hare accepted the Municipal Corpora-
tion Bill, as the Peers sent it back to them. The
idea of a collision is at an end, to the great and ma-
nifest disappointment of a large section of the sup-
porters of the present Ministry in the House of Com-
mons and out of it, who feel that they have been
treated very scurvilv, but think it good policy, never-
theless, to affect to be satisfied by the promise of Lord
John Russell, that if they will only be quiet now,
they shall have collision enough next year. It must
be gratifying to the country to observe how much the
tone of the House of Commons has changed since
tile leaders of the Ministerial and Radical parties have
discovered that there is a power in the British Con-
stitution, and in the sober and solid sense of the
country, superior to theirs. A few weeks, nay, a few
days ago, threat and malediction were the order of

the day, and were poured forth in unstinted profusion
and with insensate fury against the House of Lords,
and every other constitutional authority save that
of the House of Commons, many Members of which,
with the approbation and encouragement of the Minis-
ters of the Crown, distinctly claimed for that assem-
bly a monopoly .of the trust and duty of legislating
for the British empire. Efforts the most assiduous
.and direct were made, with the full sanction and
the active aid of the Ministers of the Crown, to en-
tice and excite the nation to lend its countenance and
support to this insane pretension of factious and trea-
sonable ambition. Every town and village were ac-
tively canvassed for petitions and addresses, in order
to make a demonstration in favour of the senseless and
criminal project of governing England by means ex-
clusively of the Representatives of something less than
a fortieth part of her population. But, fortunately,
the people of England were immoveable. They could
not understand the Whig idea of transferring the su-
preme authority of the State unchecked and uncon-
trouled to the hands of such men as Mr. O'Connell
and Mr. Duncombe, Mr. Hume, and Mr. Roebuck.
The nation wisely left to Lord Melbourne and Lord
John Russell the task of adjusting as they could the
impending quarrel with Their revolutionary suppor-
ters ; and intimated, in a manner not to be misunder-
stood, that all the pains which had been taken were
ineffectual to prepare it for the unconstitutional course
which Ministers and their confederates had in view.