The Sun.
London, England, 1850-07-20 00:00:00

FISHERIES BILL.

These Bills were read a second time.
The other orders of the day were dispcsed of, and the
Ilcuse adjourned at half-pa:t One o'clock.

SPIRIT of tite PUBLIC JOURNALS.

raomlS MORNING PAPERS OfTIIIS DAY.

TPlES.—Tiiere is a deep feed of lee-alter hi the
It is true that they decepitered cue and
drove out another; the, confiscate' the estates of the
Crown, arid at proper intervals, have sufficiently vindi-
ceted the into eats and majesty of the people. But, once
charge them with the diguiey of the Crown, and they
prcve themselves its best poseib!e guardians. " Office
shows the man," and office always makes a courtier out
of a Whig. We can only say that the present Duke of
Cambridge is a monstrous lucky fellow. His lot is fallen
under a Ministry which shows a most amiable
anxiety to make things pleasant. Besides various
trifles under the late Duke's will, amounting
eventually to near 3,000/. a-year. besides va-
rious military appointments, we should think to
as great, if not a greater amount, tae young Duke is to
have an allowance of 12,0004 a-year, charged on the
consolidated fund. How much more he is to have in
other forms, what wardenahips, ranar,erahipit, and
governorships, when he is to be ma le a
Field-marshall, and, perhaps, Commander-in-Chief,
is not announced as yet, and probably de-
pends on the time when these things may happen to fall
vacant. Lord John, too, expressly desires to say noth-
ing at present as to a possible addition of 6,0001. a-year
in the event of the young Duke forming a matrimonial
alliance. Much less has he permitted his thoughts to
wander to that remote period when the House of Cam-
bridge will have given fresh pledges to fortune and the •
country. Putting these contingencies out of the ques-
tion. the new Duke of Cambridge, besides his profes-
sional income, is to have 12,000/. a-year. John Bull must
not grumble. fie saves 3,0001. a-year by the change.
The late Duke had 27,0001. a-year. Under the new ar-
rangement the Duchess has 6,0001. a-year, the two
daughters 3,0001. each, and the son 12,0001., which
makes up 24,0001. a-year, leaving the British public, as
aforesaid, better by 3,000/. a-year. Did all the circum-
stances of the case permit us, nothing would give us
more pleasure thaw to indule:e a romantic loyalty, and
vote away the money of the nation to descendants
of George 111., even to the third and fourth gene-
rwion. But, unfortunately, we cannot so easily forget
what is passing about Iv. here wo are screwing,
pinching, cheeseparing, starving, cutting down, abolish-
ing, appropriating, and all but cheating, in every direc-
tion. Not a day without some niggardly act, which no-
thing but necessity can reconcile to the conscience and
taste of a gentleman. A Committee has been sitting on
official salaries, which is about to recommend a heap of
reductions to the amount of some 20,0001. or 30,000/.
a year. If a judge now receives 7,0001. a year, his
successor is to receive 6,0001., and so in proportion; be-
sides that various incomes are to be wholly extinguished.
Some scores, aye, hundreds of persons, will, in due
time, succeed to offices with perhaps augmented duties,
equal position, but diminished income. Already the
chill blast of retrenchment has passed over every de-
partment of the public service, blighting present salary
and future promotion. Only last night, immediately
after the above vote, the House heard the case of
more than a hundred clerks in the Money-order
Department of the Post-office, who, out of 70/.
a year, have to pay a substitute for every
day of absence over and above the regula-
Lion three•days' holiday in the year. In fact, the public
service is becoming about the worst a man can take, and ,
is even losing its old character for certainty. Now, when
the first lawyers in the land are to devote their days and
nights to the public on short allowance, and many thou-
sand small officials are to maintain wives and families,
and have good coats on their backs, on pay varying from
701. to 300/. a year, with here and there a prize of 8001.
attainable by one man in a thousand, under these mise-
rable circumstances, we think with our old friend, the
Member for Montrose, that 8,000/. a year for the Duke
of Cambridge would, to say the least, have been much
more suitable to the spirit and necessities of our times.
Ungracious as it may seem, y( t the truth must be told.
The late Dake, with his 27,0001. a year.
for so many years, and his numerous other
sources of income, not to speak of his long Vice-
royalty in Hanover, ought to have made ample pro-
vision fur all his children; nor can we admit any extent
of lavish generosity in private alms or public subscrip-
tions as an excuse for the prior obligations of justice to
his children and his country. But, it will be said, are
the children to suffer for the improvidence of the father?
It is so in every other class of life. Nay, her Majesty
herself la is cheerfully undergone no trifling amount of
inconvenience and self denial, which was all the heri- 1
tage she ever had from her father. The young Duke
of Cambridge should have been made aware that the
country will not always go on replacing the children in
the exact position of their fathers. Under the arrange-
ment so hastily sanctioned last night, it is very probable
that eventually the Duke of Cambridge will be
more burdensome in the second generation than
in the first, whereas the very. most that
can bo expected is that the original grant
should be kept up for two or three lives. For some
other very telling considerations we must refer to the
debate. If the second Duke of Cambridge is to have
12,0001., basides many other sources of income, what are
the Queen's children to have as they grow up? It
might have been expected that the Whigs would have
had warning enough from the scandal created by Queen
Adelaide's 100,000/. a-year, and from the untimely fate
of the 50,0001. a•-year they proposed for Prince Albert.
There was a time when statesmen might bribe Royalty
with no less of credit to either party, but it is
not so now. The age professes purity, honesty,
independence, and economy. Never before were
such enormous sacrifices demanded and exacted
in the name of public good. Whole classes have
been ruined for the sake of principle. Rank, property,
life itself, ye been held of no account when an
act of national justice or national repentance was to be
perfermud. We are reducing our prelates to apostolic
dimensions. Once or twice a year the nation sees the
catastrophe of a noble house with great equanimity.
Never, in fact, did public good assume so stern an air.
In the midst of this just severity a Whig Government
procures for the grandson of a King a larger settlement
than was thought sufficient in the last century for the
sons of a Kiug, though the former is wholly out of the
reach t,f the succession. If the precedent of the Duke
of Gloucester was to be followed, it would be well to
carry it out by a more gradual ascent to the maximum,
That, however, would not have laid the young Duke
under a permanent obligation to her Majesty's present
advisers. Happily we can afford to inflict a momentary
uneasiness, and therefore we venture to tell his Grace
that we would much rather have seen him win his way
to his father's position, than lifted into it by an obliging
Minister.

DAILY NEWS.—Twenty years ago, the rival par-
ties in office and opposition were led by two men the
most dissimilar in character and sentiment, but who
might equally claim the merit of having raised
themselves by their own ability and perseverance to the
distinguished positions which they held. Sir Robert
Peel was Ministerial leader of the House of Commons;
and Henry Brougham was chief of the Liberal opposi-
tion. Both have since passed away from popular sight,
though hardly as yet from popular remembrance. Both
have ceased to sway the thoughts and acts of men. The
one by a premature fate has absolutely been removed

from the iurmoil of a troubled world; while the other,
by a still more heavy dispensation, has been allowed to
survive in the flesh his own moral and political extinc-
tion. It hardly violates, therefore, the maxim of the
classic sage, that the true estimate of men cannot be

formed until their career in life has closed, if we
venture to compare the characters of these distin-
guished individuals, and to contrast their relative ser-
vices to their country. Circumstances gave each an early
opportunity of displaying the peculiar gifts wherewith
nature had endowed him. Before entering the arena of
public life the ono had gained as high a reputation for
classical scholarship as the other had for scientific at-
tainments. Both seamed at starting to possess in an

eminent degree the faculty of eloquence; Sand it were
difficult to say which of the two wai the more indefati-
a brtbly industrious. Between their entry into Parliament
there was no great interval of time. The Oxonian
started as a suppor: er of the Tory occupants of power;
the Edinburgh Reviewer avowud himself a candidate for
the post of future spokesman of the powerless, and, at
that tiara, almost hopeless, Whigs. Bigotry was imputed

to Peel, as a reproach; sedition'Was the muttered taunt
perpetually on the lips of Broughain's enemies. Neither,
probably, was just. The youthful Secretary for Ireland
found himself flung into a lion's den, and the accusation
against him is, that he made friends of the Orange
beasts of prey, and eventually tamed them. In like man-
ner, when a meeting at the Crown and Anchor or a
crowd at a contested election was to be amused, excited,
and sent quietly home, without doing themselves or any-
body else any mischief, Brougham was the readiest and
verbally the most reckless man. Where steam was to
be got up, and at the same time let off, noisily but
harmlessly, there was scarcely to be found a match for
him. He was at once boiler and safety-valve; and this
double function was well understood and appreciated by
the calmer and more earnest men of the party whose co-
lours he wore. It is a curious and not uninstructive
point of resemblance, however, that while the two
champions were for years the most applauded and ca-
ressed men in their respective camps, neither was ever
able to win that personal loyalty which many persons
confessedly their inferior in every intellectual respect
are known to have inspired. From some cause or other
per.s o
Peell
seldom appearsconversetd), haveand been
all always
more rarelywa nt-
ingwrote even to his most intimate friends, the platitudes
about Church ascendancy or the maintenance of landlord
monopoly, which twice a year his position required him
to put forth intsr
shrewdness
wpt
oldapnc
persuade
srissnu Parliament.
lt
IhTueshrtertihzoaeuatsliot zealots dared
eRi
not repudiate, and yet they could not cordially trust
ll
warning
gtiethhcaet
at
tt
intervals
celebratedl him.muti-
neer, rt ; bTuht consummateey
they were incessantly anxious, perplexed, and
oartchoisnsmeravravteilslmou: moyrs:ehroioudsonees
forgottenhftiyipl
criesthe oon;
wy
who was ultimately destined to overthrow the dic-
tatorship remember
the
ttoi om, withr e
ffoorrt hatleh—ev
ae
Westhn cam et nhßte
ixanumgl
,toaunrte
thatr
uttaahnntehoiafirnspjtured Queen—the irrestrainable advocate
boaster,
oft
laets
eevasroo, sevuaiagntwrhedohti
osceofatnhtdei
eduo
can-
didatenruicnaog
his long reign, that " the cause was in danger?" So,
suf-
frages of the people on the ground that he possessed
' neither property, station, nor influence." Had his
laugh at las Colleagues for their really thinking their
royal client innocent never been over-heard—had his
future desertion of the cause of four universities
never been foretold—had his latent longing after
title and rank not been self-betrayed to all who had op-
portunities of judging—Henry Brougham would still
have failed to win the affection or confidence of the
better men of his party. The fundamental cause of this
result in both instances was doubtless the same. Both
were egotists—egotists not in the vulgar sense of the
term, but in the deeper and sub:ler meaning of the
phrase—men thoroughly self-engrossed and unsympa-
tbising, wrapt up in their own vievrs, projects, and
thoughts, not without sincere opinions for the time

lining., but essnntislly without fixed or noted faith la
I any opinion. And mankind are wisely furnished with
au instinct that f n•bids Or- in to put much feith in those
who havolittle in themselves. Pe. lin his latter days
seems to have keenly Fit and silently to have
' mourned over his pditical Isola ion. But, even to
the last, he }mew not -how to confide frankly or
affectionately ; the habit had been never formed
in early life, and when the solace • of chiv.t;rous
and intimate sympathy would have been rriceless to him,
it came i.ot, for it could not come. As fur. the contem-
porary with whom we have been comparing him, it may
be enough to say that the difference between them in
this essential respect was, that while Peel listened to
every friend's thoughts without disclosing his own,
Brougham was ever ready to tell every one all that came
into his mind without caring to hear what any one felt,
or thought, or desired. The physical propensity was
the most opposite; but the moral want and tendency was
the sane. Their dreams and their aspirations who shall
venture to surmise? The eagerness of the one to snatch
a coronet, and the interdict imposed by the other on his
family receiving the distinction of ennoblement, are
rather indications of diversity of temperament thal
P• ofs of diversity of feeling. It is ton soon to pry too
'
curiously into these things.