The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-11 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JULY

BERT PEEL exercises so undisputed a mastery
as he does just now—and we suspect, will long
continue to do—over the Conservatives. And these
degenerate creatures, who dare not call even their
thoughts their own, once constituted the power-
ful, energetic, tyrannical Tory party—that party of
which the Premier was for upwards of twenty years
of his life the pliant, submissive tool ! Verily the
tables are turned now. He who was once the slave
is become the master; and they who once laid down
the law to him, are now content, humbly and obse-
quiously, to receive the law from him. How long
this state of things is to continue—how long a
Minister who, laughing at the idea of political
principle, takes expediency as his sole guide
of action, is to be permitted to govern the country
through the agency of a party as devoid of political
principle as himself, it is impossible to say ; but if we
_ _

may judge from the signs of the times which are daily
developing themselves with more significance, we
should say that England—as Ireland has long been—
is beginning to be heartily sick of the domina-

titan Of Sir ROBERT PEEL and his sycophantic
Conservatives, and is anxious to be governed l)y a
Ministry that can rightly appreciate the character of

the age ; that is, not too proud, or too timid, or too
hedged in by party prejudices, to place a manly
reliance on the people; that knows how to act with

energy and decision at the fitting season, that prefers
to move forward rather than to retrograde ; and, above
all, that repudiates the expediency system of action,
and legislates solely in accordance with principle.

The friends of Sir ROBERT PEEL ought to use
their best exertions to accelerate the termination of
the present session. He is a species of " perishable
commodity," which deteriorates rapidly in this warm
weather. He will not " keep." If he be not speedily
withdrawn from the corrupting moral atmosphere in
which, as a public man, he seems to " live, and move,
and have his being," we would not give many weeks'
purchase for his official existence. Besides all the
indications of premature weakliness which his Minis-
terial deportment has afforded for the last twelve
months or so, some of the symptoms of organic dis-
ease, apparent in his Ministerial psychology, are be-
coming, almost daily, more and more aggravated, to
the serious alarm of his friends. His overweening
vanity has degenerated into a confirmed obstinacy.
His obstinacy assumed, on the "Bank Charter Bill
discussion, a character of discourteous recklessness ;
and his peevish impatience of opposition to that dis-
graceful measure vented itself in a sort of bullying
discouragement of all hostile discussion on a measure
which, of all others that had been introduced into the

House of Commons since the commencement of her

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MAJESTY'S reign, most imperatively called for ear-
nest, ample, mature, and unfettered deliberation. To
say the truth, the proximity and example of Sir J.
GRAHAM appear to have communicated to the once
most dulcet of Premiers not a little of the stubborn
acerbity and arrogant reserve which characterised Sir
JAmEs's responses in the House, as Home Secretary,
until the recent untoward Post-office discoveries.

These have so remarkably assuaged and moderated

his tone, that we wonder, so much the more, at the
authoritative manner of his leader's refusals on Mon-
day evening to answer some of the most important
questions which were ever addressed, in a national
assembly, to a Prime Minister. Yet, in truth, a

House of Commons, which has twice within little
more than twice the same number of weeks, rescinded
its own must solemn decisions at the simple dictation
of that Minister, has little right to complain if this
facility and obsequiousness have produced their natural
effect upon him. Sir ROBERT PEEL, as %se shall
show, treats the solicitude of the House for informa-

tion, on questions of the deepest public interest, with
a reserve savouring of the indifference of official
irresponsibility. But the House had, in the first in-
stance, carefully supplied him with the justification for
such conduct towards it.

On Monday last Mr. SHEIL asked the following
questions :—The first, whether Lord ABERDEEN had

received any answer from the French Government to

his dispatch of the 28th of January, 1842, and if so,
would there be any objection to lay that upon the
table of the House ; the second, had the British Go-

vernment applied to the French Government for an

exepatur for our Consul at Algiers; and the third,

present Government are content to pursue their piti-
ful game of throwing over, by all manner of quibbling
and management, the just demands of four-times
solemnly recognised creditors of the State. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer says the law officers
of the Crown have determined, that " under the or-
dinary usages of war, as established between civi-
lised nations, these claims cannot be acceded to."
That " it is the constant practice of war, that ships
taken at sea are considered in a different light from
ships seized in harbour and property taken on land,
for, when taken in harbour, they are exempt from
confiscation ; but this is not so at sea."

We shall, to-morrow, demonstrate from the argu-
ments of the Members who supported Mr. CHRISTIE,
the utter futility of the pretext on which this distinc-
tion is attempted to be raised ; and the invincible title
of the claimants to what they seek, if the country be
unwilling to abandon every tittle of its pretensions to
a character for national honour, public faith, and un-
biassed justice.

The Dublin Pilot gives an account of the present
condition of Toryism in Ireland, which is anything
but encouraging to the professors of that egregious
political faith. " The once Orange north," says our
Contemporary, " has hardly made a manifestation on
its favourite anniversary. The Conservative Society
is dissolved. In fact, instead of a stimulated Tory
agitation at present, never was there a time when
Toryism was so divided, so doubtful in its adherence,
or when so many of its best spirits were hanging
loose, or totally estranged from the craft. The causes
of this are fully as important as the fact itself. Every
day the Protestants are sliffet ing in common with the
Catholics from the neglect and injustice done the
country, and the deterioration consequent on both;
and they have at length begun, with their Catholic
brethren, to discover the cause. The Repeal agita-
tion, therefore, is now looked upon by almost all
Protestants with indulgence ; by many with approval,
as at least preventing the total neglect of Ireland ;
and by some, and these not a few, with cordial con-
currence." The cold, distrustful, and desponding tone
adopted by the majority of the Irish Tory journals
for some time past, warrants the belief that there is
much truth in the above remarks of our Dublin Con-
temporary. But not only in the sister country is
genuine Toryism in a state of all but complete
paralysis ; here, in England, it is at an equally low
ebb, dissatisfied with the present, doubtful of the
future, having no faith in the sincerity of the Go-
vernment, none in the sympathies of the people, and
scarcely any even in itself. Even in its mitigated
shape of Conservatism, it is utterly without boldness
and confidence, and being compelled from the pres-
sure of inexorable necessity to give in its adhesion to
a chief on whom it places little or no reliance--know-
ing well that he will send it to the right-about the first
convenient opportunity—it is filled with all sorts of
gloomy forebodings, and in sullen resignation awaits
the hour that shall see it numbered among the things
that once were. We rejoice at the contemplation
of this inevitable issue, for none can deny that modern
Toryism, or Conservatism—or whatever other alias
it may please to assume—is at best but a shuffling
Political creed—a sophism, not a truth—a shallow
make-believe, that has not even the sorry virtue of
ingenuity to recommend it. The Conservatives have
been often asked the question what it is they propose to
conserve, but they have never yet been able to give
any satisfactory answer. Moreover, when questioned
about their principles they have been equally at a loss
for a reply ; and no wonder, for their conduct during
the three last sessions—more especially during the
present one—clearly shows that principle has never
once entered into their calculations, but that they
have been influenced in their speeches and votes
solely by the consideration of what was most
likely to accord with the views of their
imperious task-master, Sir ROBERT PEEL. It is a
humiliating fact that though the Tories, or Conser-
vatives, as they prefer calling themselves, have more
than once ventured to show something like a spirit of
independence, and even to array themselves in hosti-
lity to the Premier, yet every effort they have made
has had no other effect than to rivet his chains still
closer upon them, and place them more completely
within his power. At the present moment they are
in the most abject state of political thraldom, with-
out, apparently, the slightest prospect of their being
able to emancipate themselves ; nor is there one
servant in his establishment over whom Sir Ro