The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-24 00:00:00

fUørning 'Atifv3

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1844.

The proceedings which took place at Edinburgh on
Wednesday will be read with deep interest by every
British subject. After a lapse of half a century
justice has been done to the memory of MUIR, and
PALMER, and SKIRVING, and the other brave re-
formers, who dared to raise their voices against cor-
ruption and oppression—who risked and lost every-
thing dear in life for their country's cause, who suf-
fered and died, with one exception, like felons—men
who advocated principles which were carried into
effect in 1832 by the acclamation of the United Em-
pire. It is melancholy to look back on such a scene,
to reflect on the savage despotism, and the brow-
beating of the Scotch bench, the servile imitation of
the jury, the atrocious sentence passed on prisoners
who are justly entitled to the rank of martyrs in a
great and good cause, and at the same time remem-
ber that these " felons " paved the way to reform,
and only advocated priciples which, forty years after-
wards, were sanctioned by King, Lords, and Com-
mons. The scene exhibits a heart-rending picture
of human nature. They were all men of irreproach-
able character ; they were actuated by the purest
they
of patriotism; feelingsexcited no sedition ; they
merely proclaimed the political doctrines of the pre
sent age ; but they came before their time ; they
were in advance of the spirit of the age, and they
were hunted to death like the vile monsters that dis-
graced the French Revolution. Well may unsettled
minds look with doubt on the dispensations of Pro-
vidence when they find such merit subjected to such
fearful inflictions, and the only redress is a public
dinner and a monument, forty-five years after most
of them had expired in miserable exile, and among
the most degraded and wicked of the human race.
It is some consolation, however, to know that justice has
at last been done to their memory; that an old reformer,
who struggled with them in the noble cause of li-
berty, Sir JAMES GIBSON CRAIG, survived to preside
over the meeting ; and that the son of one of these
martyrs of the people's rights was present to repre-
sent the feelings and the spirit of his murdered pa-
rent. But, after all, it is a poor consolation. Scot-
land can never wipe out the stain by public monu-
ments, or banquets, or by universal expressions of
regret. It must for ever remain a stigma on the country
t, while patriots, struggling for her rights, were
sacrificed almost by common consent, English juries

stood up nobly for their fellow-subjects, saved TOOKE,
HARDY, and their colleagues from a similar fate, and
set all the machinations of a strong and unscrupulous
Government at defiance. We admit there were ex-
ceptions. Some of the leaders of the Whig party in
Scotland, and, among the rest, the ERSKINES, distin-
guished themselves in the cause of liberty ; but their
numbers were small, and the wild fury of the nation
overpowered every generous and patriotic sentiment.
Most of them are gone to their rest. Sir JAMES
GIBSON CRAIG is almost the only survivor. He is
now in his eightieth year. He long kept the whole
herd of Tories at bay ; and it is gratifying to find
that his speech on this occasion exhibits all the fresh-
ness and vigour of youth. Right principles, in the
end, prevail ; but the best and the bravest are generally
sacrificed before the great work is accomplished.

A correspondent in the Times of yesterday,
who signs himself " Politicus," observes, in the course
of some desultory reflections suggested by the late
Parliamentary campaign, that Sir ROBERT PEEL has
completely got the better of the Conservatives, and
neutralised the opposition of the Whigs by consenting
to grant them almost everything they demand. There
is some truth in this remark, but it is a truth, we sus-
pect, which is not very palateable to the Whigs, for it
makes the probability (.f their regaining place more
remote than ever, and compels them to put up with
empty praise in lieu of solid pudding. Why should
the country evince any desire to reinstate Lord
JOHN RUSSELL and his friends in power, when
Sir ROBERT PEEL does his best to conduct the
business of legislation on their principles, and
makes, all things considered, as good a Whig as
the best of them ? If Whig principles be the
order of the day in the PEEL Cabinet, it is clear
that any change of Ministry is superfluous ;
and thus the ill-starred advocates of Whiggery on
the Opposition bench find the ground completely cut
from under their feet, and their restoration to the
sunny realms of office, a land flowing with milk and
honey, postponed to that very indefinite and embarrass-
ing period, the Greek Kalends. The fate of the Whigs
is certainly a hard one, for they are first despoiled of
their principles by the unceremonious leader of the
Conservatives, and then ironically condoled with
on their ill-luck. But stern as is their
destiny, they have none but themselves to blame
for it. 'When they had it in their power
to turn the key of Downing-street on Sir ROBERT
PEEL, by bringing boldly forward such comprehen-
sive remedial measures, as might enlist the sympa-
thies of the great body of the people in their behalf,
and thereby arm them with irresistible influence
in Parliament;—when, we say, the opportunity
served for their acting in this manner, the Whigs
wilfully neglected it, and by their halting, shilly-
shally system of policy, ruined themselves, and paved
the way for all the after triumphs of the Conserva-
tives, and their Coryphmus, the Tamworth doctor.
Our Contemporary's Correspondent goes on to ob-
serve :—" Thus we have at last that dream of
philosophers, a Government without party.
Sir ROBERT has broken the neck of fac-
tion. Noble achievement ! Yet one may tremble to
think how short an experience we have had of this
benefit. England has never yet been without party
spirit. The conflict of parties elicits much honour,
much virtue. It trains men fur patriotism." GOD
help the man who has been trained for patriotism in
the school of party, whether Whig, Tory, or
Radical ! With the best intentions he will be liable
to constant blundering, as people always are whose
range of vision is limited and imperfect. A political
partisan invariably sees but a portion of the truth,
and that but the smallest portion. Of independence
he has not—and cannot possibly have—an atom.
He must see with other eyes—hear with other
ears—and decide with other judgments—than
his own. The selfish interests of a sect, and
not the more enlarged interests of a nation, must be
the guide and prompter of his conduct. The conse-
quence is, that his views gradually become more and
more limited in their range and petty in their cha-
racter, and he becomes as effectually disqualified for
playing the lofty, magnanimous, comprehensive part
of a patriot, as the Bishop of EXETER is for consider-
ing impartially any question that has the slightest
reference to the rich rectory of Stanhope. A man
can never be a patriot, in the true sense of the term,
till he has raised himself from the slough of party,
cast aside its debasing shackles, and learned to think,
act, and decide, in reference only to the good of his
country.

The public subscription now in progress at Man-
chester for the formation of parks and walks for the
use of the labouring classes already amounts, we un-
derstand, to upwards of nine thousand two hundred
pounds, and it is confidently expected that before long
three or four times that sum will be raised. " This,"
says the Liverpool Times, " is the best, because the
most practical and conclusive, answer that could be
given to the charges of selfishness and indifference to
the interests of the poor, which have been so often
directed against the manufacturers of Manchester by
monopolist orators and journalists." It is, indeed, a
conclusive answer—the best that could possibly have
been made to Mr. BANKES and those other great
landholders who, in common with him, are constantly
inveighing against the tyranny and hard-heartedness
of the Lancashire cotton-spinners. Of all people in
the world, the monopolists are about the last who
should indulge in sneers against the manufacturing
system and the selfishness it engenders; for they
themselves, speaking of them as a body—though we
admit that there are many favourable exceptions—
are notoriously regardless of the sufferings of their
poor and humble dependents, and seem to think that
the whole duty of life consists in a rigorous exaction
of rent, and under the specious forms of law, filching
from the oppressed peasantry, now a slice of com-
mon-land, and now a right of way across a green field
or a heath, whenever opportunity serves. With less
parade of liberality, the manufacturers are far more
liberal towards their dependents, and the parks and
pleasure walks which they are now proposing to form
in the over-peopled neighbourhood of Manchester
will remain a proud monument of their well-applied
munificence ages after the existing generation are
naught but dust and ashes. We hope and trust that'
ere many years have elapsed, the whole of our great
cities and towns, whether manufacturing or other-
wise, will have spacious public walks attached to
them, for to say nothing of them as matters of orna-
ment—though this, by-the•bye, is no trifling consi-
deration—they will have a more direct, beneficial
effect on the health of the labouring portion of the
community, than any other scheme that could be
devised. Besides this, they will tend in no slight
degree gradually to refine and elevate the moral
tone of the operative classes, who, when they find,
after the day's toil is at an end, that they have
close at hand cool, verdant, and picturesque
pleasure-grounds to resort to, where they may
snatch a mouthful of fresh air, without the
chance of being warned off as trespassers, or
threatened with the unceremonious attentions of
steel-traps and spring-guns, will assuredly be no
longer in a hurry to visit the beer-shop or the
gin-palace, for the purpose of gaining a false stimulus
by means of ardent and adulterated spirits, whose
only ultimate effect is to increase the mental
and physical debility which for the moment they
appear to remove. If a large portion of the labour-
ing classes are at present in a gross state of demorali-
sation—and we fear there is no denying the fact—
the fault is less theirs, than the inexorable force of
circumstances. No provision has ever been made for
their comforts—no means adopted for the purpose of
benefiting their health—they have been looked on as
mere passive machines—convenient tools for their su-
periors to work with and make money by. Even in
Parliament, which should legislate for the advantage
of all, instead of for a mere fraction of the community,
their wishes and requirements have seldom met with
the attention they deserved. While the pleasures
and interests of the rich man have been protected by
aninfinite number of statutes framed for his express
accommodation, those of the poor man have been
treated
with supercilious indifference; or if, for mere
form's sake, the subject has been brought forward in
the House of Commons, the House has either been
counted out, or else Government—feeling it necessary
to say something—has coolly dismissed the question
with a well-bred expression that nothing could be
done. But the dawn of a better day is at hand.
We think we can perceive indications, neither few
nor faint, that a kindly spirit is at work among the
higher, and more especially among the middle,
classes calculated to be of infinite benefit to the
humbler orders. The freaks of Sintia—the alienation

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