The Sun.
London, England, 1857-04-24 00:00:00

LONDON FaIDAv, APRIL 24, 1;:i7

It will probalely have been remarked by several
of our readers that we recorded, in our impression
of Tuesday, a meeting which had taken place on
the previous evening, at the Cov:per-atreet School-
room, City-road. A meeting rxpressive of sym-
pathy with the Unsuccessful Parliamentary Can-
didates at Manchester, Rochdale, Oldham, and
Huddersfield. And a meeting further indicative,
it should be observed at once, of the views enter-
tained by the working men of Laudon as to what
Reforms ought to be demanded from the nev,-,
Parliament. Altogether there were present about
a thousand individuals. The room, which was
of considerable dimensions, being crowded, as the
saying is, to suffocation—meaning, to something
approaching it. Resolutions (cut and dried) were
PloPosed—speeches (also cut and dried) were de-
livered. Amendments (impromptu) were intro-
duced—and one of them (an amiable extension of
the " sympathy " to Sir JOZ;EUGA. WALMSLEY)
carried "almost" riernine contraditcate ! And
the upshot of all this—What, let us ask, was
about the English of it ? Why, that a meeting
originated, convened, and organised by the
thick-and-thin Supporters of the Defeated—con-
tained, after all, about equal numbers of the op-
ponents to, and the supporters of, the regularly pre-
pared, and, as we have said, " cut and dried" Fint
Resolution. That resolution coastit ated the very
backbone of the whole proceeding. It expressed
g; sympathy" for the Unsuccessful Parliamentary "
Candidates—for Mr. COBDEN, for Mr. Fox, for Mr.
BRIGHT, for Mr. MraLn, and for Mr. GIBSON, as
ultimately also (by an after thought) for Sir JOSHUA
WALMSLEY. And against this resolution (upon the
spur of the mom en t)there started up abruptly a sort
of a snake-in-the-grass Amendment. An Amend-
racnt absolutely giving the go-by altogether to the
notion of anything like sympathy with the Crest-
fallen Candidates—and, in direct opposition to
to that, pronouncing the expulsion of Messrs.
COBDEN, BRIGHT, GIBSO:-!-T, to be—" a just
retribution !" Subaiitting the resolution and
the amendment successively to a Show of Lands,
the Chairman (a Sympathiser remember) declared
the majority to be in favour of the former, meaning
iu favour of the Resolution. The Reporter add -
ing, however—" the numbers appeared to be
preAy equal " Six of one—and half. a

dozen of the other. 500 pitying the sorrows,",in

the present inclement season, of the Poor Frozen-
ou Reformers ! 500 regarding their rejection
by Manchester, Rochdale, Oldham, and Hudders-
field, as after all, nothing less than a just retri-

bution ! Recollecting that they themselves got

up that meeting—we don't think the Sympathis-
ers have gained very much by their Movement.

Nor can we wonder at it, for the working classes

have, to all practical intents and purposes, during
the last few years, been fairly bamboozled by the
Manchester School of Politicians. LA any work-

ing man in his sober senses ask himself what it is
precisely that those Manchester men (erroneously
so called, now that Messrs. BRIGHT and GIBSON
have been ignominiously shaken off by their long-
slumbering, but at last awakened constituents)
what it we repeat, precisely, that those

so-called Manchester Men have been about

during the last ten years--ever since the
Anti-Corn Law League Triumphed over Mc-
nopoly ! What ? Why for the most part they

have been all this while running wide of the mark
in regard to really practical and comprehensive
improvements. They have been chasing all kinds

of absurd crotchets, and whimsies, and will-of-the-
wisps of political hallucination. They have been
careering on their hobbies against all sorts of
Quixotic Windmills in Parliament and out of it.
They have been going Clean daft about some pre-
posterous notion of reviving of an Arcadian age
nowadays—in the midst of the smoke and dust of
mines and factories—in the midst of the roar of
the steam-engine, and the flesh of the electric
telegraph. And of accomplishing this miracle of
regeneration—how? By moans of the mono-
maniacal Peace-at-any-Price Principles—by the
disastrous Principles that only two years since
led the nations of the North and of the
West by such a horrible and sanguinary Dance of
Death to those wholesale graveyards, the Crimean
battle fields ! And it is men who have been
wasting their own energies, and the public time,
and the nation's blood, and their country's trea-
sures thus—that the working people of England
are expected to lament now, forsooth, now that
they have at length fallen "by a just retribution"
under the scorn of the patriotic constituencies of
Manchester, Rochdale, Oldham, and Huddersfield !
By how much have these Defeated Delinquents
brought the working men of England nearer to
the attainment of any ono single point out .of the
six points of the Charter ? By how much, during
the last ten years, live they even striven to
bring them nearer to any one of those six com-
prehensive Improvements ? Why it has by this
time become notorious that the Chiefs of these
Discomfited Politicians are, practically speaking,
men of One Reform and that Reform ten
years old ! Men of One Reform, and of a
Hundred Crotchets. Had they been really
earnest and energetic Reformers, instead of being
mere Political Dreamers of Dreams, and Mock-
Humanity-mongers, they must during these ten
years past (with their undoubted ability)
they must, as by necessity, have accomplished
" something " further in the way of practical
and actual improvement. Instead of which they
have done no such thing. They have attempted
no such thing. They have been babbling about
Arbitration while Russia has been mustering her
barbaric legions to devastate Christendom through
Ccnetantinople. They have been maundering
about "Peace, Peace," when there has been no
Peace, but, on the contrary, War as bloody as any
recorded in the pages of History. So that, after
all—their One Reform accomplished in 184 G, and
they themselves at last rejected as worthless in
1857--the interim may be masked as nil in regard
to " any " comprehensive supplementary improve-
ment accomplished subsequently by theinselve -.
Insomuch that there still remain every one of the
Six Points of the Charter up to this very =mast
intact. The whole series has to be token in hand
de 770V0 by the True Reformers ! Let men, like
Lard JOHN RUSSELL, look well to it. lie, at
least—his public career proves it—has net bean,
by any means, merely a man of One Reform.
Rather than that a man of Many Reforms, and
those Reforms, for the most part, great and com-
prehensive. Now is his opportunity—peculiarly
his opportunity. Can he once more be relied
upon? Candidly—he has disappointed us so often
(in spate of all his many, and some of them, glori-
ous achievements) that we hardly dare to
hope it. At any rate there is the oppor-
tunity--there is his opportunity. Let him
—again, we say=look well t) it. It may
never present itself—it probably will never
present itself—again t) his grasp so temptingly.
We are well rid at Fist of many of the Weightier
Clogs of Reform. We have got a " clear stage"
once more. We have "no favour" to hamper
the Good Cause in the shape of any impeding
Predilection. It matters nothing whether the
Reformer of the New Era is to be my Lord Joffe-,
Or my Lord PALMERSTON, or anybody else, patri-
cian or commoner. All that the country does
want, and that it does incontastibly, is—A Re-
former !

Many complaints have been put forward in the
City respecting the dilatory character of the Bink
Returns. Without entering into the vexed ques-
tion respecting any publication thereof, it must be
admitted that if it is to take place it should bemade
at the earliest possible period, so as to prevent
"the initiated few" from obtaining extraordinary
advantages over
.their less favoured co►npetit )r ..
ft is more than hinted that the general na►ture
of the Returns are permitted to leak out at the
commencement of the week, and that those who
have received authentic, albeit secret information,
are thereby enabled to enter into engagements
under the most favourable circumstances—that
they are, in fact, playing " the game of specula-
tion" with marked cards, or loaded dice, by means
whereof they must win largely in the long run.
The Times declares that " the evil under the pre-
sent system is incurable, since the Governor, and
leading Directors, and also the Court, as a body,
have in vain made the most strenuous
efforts to trace it to its source." It therefore
earnestly advccates the propriety of publishing
the Returns up to the end of each week in the
Gazette of the Tuesday, instead of that of the Fri-
day. This might in some degree alleviate, al-
though it could not altogether prevent, the mis-
chief. It would limit the time for operations to
the " enlightened few," to three in place of to
six days ! But much may be effected within a
few days, or even a few hours I And the unfair
advantage will still be obtainable by unscrupulous
operators. It is simply ridiculous to speak of the
difficulty of making up the Returns before the
Tuesday. The quarterly financial accounts are
made up to the very evening on which they are
published, and they give at least approximate de-
tails of the Scotch and Irish accounts. Early
preparation is all that could be required, and the
1 Directors of the Bank of England have no possible
excuse for refusing to take a little additional
trouble in order to accomplish so great a desi-
deratum.

Why, we ask, might it not be made out and
published on the very day, including matters re-
lating to the provincial branches to the previous
day ? If the Governor, leading Directors, and