The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-01 00:00:00

may perhaps follow the squire to the bench, and see
the game preserver, the employer of labour, the
owner of property, and the Magistrate united in
the same person, sitting in judgment on
the man whose wages he has cut down below
the level of mere - subsistence, and who, to sup-
port nature, has taken some of the wild animals,
which seem to be equally bestowed by Providence
on all ; and he may hold up to public abhorrence this
partial Magistrate, swollen with anger, prostituting
the judgment-seat to the gratification of his own
passions, and hastily sentencing the poor wretch, he
has endeavoured to starve, to expiate his desire to
preserve life by a year's imprisonment. Let the
landlords be assured that a great multitude of such
scenes can be set before the country, and if they
provoke attacks by encouraging furious assaults on
the capitalists, it will not be long before they feel the
effects of retaliation.
It would be more suitable also to assail them in
Parliament, than to assail the millowners. The dif-
ferenceletween the two is that the landlords use the
law to plunder and oppress the people, while the
millowners, according to Mr. FERRAND, do the same
without the sanction of the law. The landowners
can only be effectually attacked in Parliament; we are
not sure that the millowner may not be punished by
the law as it exists. If that be not the case, Wore li
the Legislature sets about making new laws to re-
strain the millowners, let it shape its own decrees by
the principles of justice. The landlords who make
the laws will not be the less able to see the mote in
the eye of the millowner after they have plucked the
beam out of their own.

We alluded very briefly yesterday to the conduct
of some Liberal Members ; we,have now to call on the
constituencies to do their duty. Had the 108 absent
Members, or even the half of them, voted for Mr.
VILLIERS' motion, its effect on Parliament and on
the country would have been very powerful. As
they refrained from voting against Mr. VILLIERS,
while their inclinations and personal interest are, it
is presumed, generally opposed to the repeal, it is
plain that they stand somewhat in awe of their con-
stituencies, in whose power it consequently is to urge
these timid or recreant Members to the upright and
zealous performance of their duty.
We must remind the constituencies that they have
been selected to choose their representatives on the
supposition that they form so large a part of the
nation that they can speak and vote for the whole.
Their welfare, and that of the public, is presumed to
be identical. Through and by them the masses are
said to have a potential voice in the Legislature. As
the unrepresented, however, find no means of in-
fluencing the Parliament as now constituted, their
desire for a great change in the Constitution is
strengthened and justified. If the present con-
stituencies refuse to consult their interest and speak
for them, those constituencies must prepare to give
up their exclusive privilege, and admit the whole of
the people to the privilege of voting.
The lower classes are peculiarly interested in the
Corn-laws, which constitute a poll-tax, falling with
an increasing weight on every man's income as its
amount diminishes. The lower classes are the first
persons to suffer from a deficiency of food, and the
first to profit from its abundance. When there is
plenty for all, they are sure to be well off; when the
supply is scanty, they are the more pinched. In their
behalf, therefore, the constituencies ought now to
exert themselves to obtain abundance of food for the
people. So will they restore the confidence of the
lower classes in them ; so will they lessen, if they can-
not remove, the prevalent desire for great organic
changes ; and so may they, perhaps, reconcile the
people to the Constitution, and to the present dis-
tribution of political power. Not to do this is to justify
all the demands of the most ultra-Reformers, and is
to place in their hands a lever to wrest the Constitu-
tion from its foundations.
We cannot believe that the town constituencies,
weakened and degraded as many of them are by re-
turning Members who vote with the landlords, have
lost the means of saving the State, now rapidly has-
tening into the Scylla of despotism or the Charybdis
of anarchy. A great nation like this, whose popula-
tion is full of intelligence, must be able, whatever may
be the suicidal resolve of its Legislature, to avoid a
danger that is foreseen ; and we believe that, with
some zeal and some sacrifices on the part of the con-
stituencies, the vessel of the State might be safely con-
ducted past it. They must, however, help themselVes
rather than call on the unrepresented people. They
must meet and emphatically reprimand their negli-
gent Members—praise those who have acted well, and
demand new exertions from all. They must inspire
them with courage by the promise of support. They
must kindle, in every manufacturing and commercial
community, what the Manchester men call a stubborn
enthusiasm, by setting a noble, example. If the in-
telligent town constituencies will not or cannot do
that, their Members can at present do nothing, and
there will remain only the alternatives of submitting
to the plundering despotism of the landowners, or
risking the anarchy of revolution.

When we remember, however, that amongst the
representatives of towns we have open enemies, as
well as timid friends, our fear surpasses our hope.
Some of the constituencies have been untrue to them-
selves, and faithless to their trust. Liverpool, for ex-
ample, returns two men who vote in favour of the
landlords. Leeds returns one who has acknowledged
that the distress in his town cannot be surpassed, and
yet he voted for continuing it. It was heart-sicken-
ing to see the representative of that suffering town
decked out, on the first night of the Session, in the
gaudy trappings of a cornet of Hulans, ready to vote
for the starvation of his suffering townsmen. But they
merit that by electing him ; and if England be not
saved, it will be by similar conduct in the town
constituencies.

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