The Sun.
London, England, 1857-03-10 00:00:00

even though not more. than half a dozen signa-
bums can be procured.
The object should be to get a petition from every
r_c.frish. The number of the petitions, if from
different places, and signed proportionably to the
Population and Anti-Church-Rate feeling of the
rlace, is what weighs with Parliament. We be-
_eve that in nearly every parish some persons are
Dissenters, and feel annoyed to have to pay a
direct
irect tax for services they do not attend, and per-
"Pe disapprove, or which, at least, they do not like
50 Well as another mode of worship. What can
be easier for them than to tell the Government so.
Petition can be written on a sheet of foolscap
Paper if the numbers of persons be few ; signed,
and despatched, post free, to the Hon. Member
for-----. When the penny post ige was under
discussion, nothing more impressed both Houses
of Parliament than the innumerable names of
Places unknown before which asked for the boon.
It Would astonish our sleepy senators equally if
All in every parish who feel Church Rates a griev-
ance informed them of the fact in the black and
'White of a petition.
_ _ _

There is another form of black and white also
'req. effective indeed ; especially effective with a
I)arliament lying under a reprieve ; and that is
letters from constituents. All the constituencies
Whose Anti-Church-rate voters have supported
some slippery Liberal, should let him know that
nothing will now do but a clear vote—if Sir W.
CLAY'S Bill comes to a second reading—or a dis-
tinct pledge, if it does not, for the abolition of
church Rates. The bill is now an unqualified
abolition bill. The test is, therefore, quite satis-
factory. There are no riders to it from Lambeth.
Churchmen will be left to rate themselves, if they
like, for their own casual expenses, and the repairs
of buildings which cost them nothing ; or they
41a7 subscribe as District Churches and Dissenters
1141-0 to do. It will come to this at last, and the
Liberal who would peril his election by refusing
to liberate any of his constituents from the badge
of ecclesiastical subjection would deserve to lose
41a seat.
And here let us just whisper a word in the
644' Of some supercilious Whig who wonders
What they make so much botheration for
about a two-and-fourpenny payment." Why we
illaY ask him would he, who would willingly treat
a 0 Cabby to a shilling glass of something "warm "
11
a bad night, why would he summon Mr.
C4)3131. if he demanded payment for two miles
over Which he had not driven him? Now our
c, lb' may bluster about " law of the land,"
in Immemorial usage," " our glorious constitution
(~ Church and State," and all the approved slang
:hvested wrong and hereditary stupidity—but
en he has exhausted thatintellectual vocabulary
the fact remains. The man who refuses to pay
does it for the same reason that M.P. will not pay
m
f
CA-815Y. The Member of the Conventicle
etels like the Member of Parliament. He kicks
a
the extortion of the shilling. The same man
Would give double or twenty times the sum to
any
case of charity, or perhaps to the very cler-
°Mau himself, if he asked it to enable him to do
l'ellgious or social good in the parish.
full
the usualappliances may, of course, be made
41n1 use of. Public meetings will come in aid of
Petitions and most probably originate them, but
a Petition should everywhere be a settled point,
and the accompanying letter when needful. Now,
t'3o, will be the time to make power felt in
election committees. Why, would you embarrass
ns ? will be the question in many a Whig coterie
klul committee. The obvious reply is—You, not
We, cause the embarrassment. It is a disgrace
4° any Liberal to be embarrassed on a question
Which so many Liberal constituencies have settled
for themselves. Those who feel a Church rate an

°llPression and a brand of inferiority, may well

klic how long they are to be the only party
ae°l-ited, or alighted, or put aside in these days of
r°feased religious liberty ! Dissenters are a
large section indeed of the Liberal constituency ;
tll°Y may well be a majority, in the boroughs at
least ; and they are entitled, if they are to sup-
-I)°rt the Liberal party as a PARTY, to have one of
their prominent claims of the last thirty years
Unconditionally granted. Liberals who quibble
and evade in this case must be but milk-and-
:later Liberals, and had better be out of nails.-
oat for a session, enjoying the tonic influence
of political rustication.

°nee more, we say, let us settle this plaguy
Settled it never will be but by aboli-
tion ; let us, then, have done with it at once.
we hare seen the two returns obtained by Lord
"41cIL and Sir WILLIAM( CL A.; but, unluckily,
they are so incomplete, or rather the inquiries
Itialeh they answer are so ill-devised, that they
tell us as little as such bulky papers could tell us.
We only know this, that the amount paid by Dis-
senters must be so small that for Churchmen to
prolong the contest to wring it from them. is both
ill-natured and foolish. If Churchmen have not
legal power to rate themselves, let them petition
for an Act of Parliament to enable there, in some
Way to do so ; but if they care for their Church
as much as Dissenters care for theirs, then let

them. make up their minds In pay for it a 3 Dis.

senters do. The Church can never escape this
dilemma. Either it has succeeded im rendering
448 worshippers as generous as Dissenting wor-
aappers, or it has not. If it has, it does not need
Church Rates; if it has not, it 'does not deserve
them,

LATEST NEYVS.

NAPLES, MARCH 6.

The official Gazette publishes a roy.l decree, on
the occasion of the birth-day of the Prince Royal,
granting a remission or diminution of punish-
ments inflicted for misdemeanours or other con-
traventions of the law.

In the absenca of any political amnesty, the
mere application of the royal clemency to persons
convicted by the correctional police is considered
a mockery.

Owing to the stormy state of the weather the
French and German mails had not arrived when we
went to press.