The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-19 00:00:00

,S, twilling ~',71,1114

LONDON, TUESDAY. AUGUST 19. 1845.

While the ministerial organs chuckle, as in duty
bound, over the Chichester, Cirencester, Warwick, and
Sunderland elections, we, who own no ministerial alle-
giance, may doubt whether this accord of constituencies

denotes so much love of Sir ROBERT PEEL as defective
electoral insitutions. With the ballot at Chichester
would Lord ARTHUR LENNOX, the Duke of RICHMOND'S
brother, but member of a Government which the Duke
of RICHMOND distruits, have necessarily triumphed, by

the Duke of RICHMOND'S influence, over the Duke of
RicrimoND's politics ? With the ballot at Cirencester,
would Mr. CRIPPS, stripped of Lord BATHURST'S in-
fluence, and the influence of his father's bank, and left
to the resources of his own eloquence, have been sure of
re-election ? Is it even clear that the Cirencester con-
stituency of two or three hundred is entitled to be repre-
sented ? Armed with the ballot, the Warwick electors
would, doubtless, have snapped their fingers at Warwick
Castle, and laughed in the face even of a Greenwich
commissioner- And with the ballot we will not
believe that the electors of Sunderland would have made
a shameless iacriflce of public duty to local interest ;
and, under the great responsibility of choosing a worthy
successor to Lord Howicx, have allowed a mere fortu-
nate railway adventurer to triumph over the venerable
author of the Corn-law Catechism.

Other questions have for some time past thrown ques

tions of Parliamentary reform into the back-ground ;
but, sooner or later, public attention will be again roused
to the necessity of the ballot, and to the large number
of small nomination and corrupt boroughs which still
disfigure our representative system. We can conceive
nothing more likely to revive the intereit in further Par-
liamentary reform than such a batch of farces of election
as has just now followed a shuffle of 111 W-sit-mil Govern-
ment cards. One more such farce is to be played in
Linlithgowshire, where a Government dummy. who has
been rewarded fur a few years' service of silent v3ting
by the governorship of the Isle of Man, is to be replaced,
by dint of landlord influence and faggot votes, by ano-
ther adherent of Sir R. PEEL. Belfast, abandoned by
Mr. EMERSON TENNENT for a life-provision in Ceylon
and a knighthood, will not allow itself to be-ma-de over
quite so quietly to another Conservative ; and Mr.
O'CormELL's son raises the banner of repeal against the
house of Chichester.

In losing Mr. EMERSON TENNENT the Government
have lost the sole representative of a large manufacturing
constituency among them. Mr. CARDWELL, to be sure,
represents a small English manufacturing borough—
Clithero; but Mr. CARDWELL was carefully placed in
an office which did not require reeleetion, because he
did not dare to run the risk of defeat, and, whenever a
general election comes, Mr. CARDWELL will have to
look elsewhere. It is somewhat strange,- also, that Mr.
EMERSON TENNENT'S vacancy in the Government has
not been filled by some other Irish representative. Ire-
land has anything but its fair share of representation in
Sir R. PEEL'S Government. Mr. EMERSON TENNENT
gone, the only two officials connected with Ireland are
two representatives 'of Irish counties, but hardly Irish-
men—Mr. CURRY, Secretary to the Admiralty, who re-
presents Tyrone, and Mr. JOHN YOUNG, Secretary to
the Treasury, who represents Cavan. We mention this,
not to fan any vulgar jealousy, but as a proof of the
small hold of Sir R. PEEL'S Government on any popular
feeling. Mr. SHELL, Mr. M. O'FERItALL, and Mr
WYSE, were members of the Whig Government. Mr
YOUNG and Mr. CORRY, the representatives of Ireland
iu Sir B YEEL's..Government, are. Englishmen in all

their feelings, habits, and connexions, and neither of
them probably spends a month of the year in the sister
country.

A Government, we believe, more wanting in popular
strength, could not be put together than that of Sir R.
PEEL. Every new accession is an accession not of talent,
or of the representative of a popular constituency, but
of aristocratic or monied interest, and respectable, but
certainly not sublime, mediocrity. Never was there a
Government, among whose younger members was there
less talent, or less future promise : and yet, when Sir
ROBERT PEEL has an opportunity of adding three re-
cruits, whom does he take but Lord MAHON, Sir C.
Douonas, and Mr. CRIPPS, not one of whom—not even
Lord MAHON, with all his admitted literary accomplish-
ments--has given any sign that the public know of, of
Parliamentary ability. There are young mea of talent
among Sir ROBERT PEEL'S party : but the genius of
sublime mediocrity repels talent, and talent will not tie
itself down to an undeviating allegiance to Sir ROBERT
PEEL'S caput mo•tuum of Conservatism. And so such
men as Lord JOHN MANNERS, Mr. MONKTON MILNES,
and Mr. SMYTHE, are passed over for Sir CHARLES
DOUGLAS, LORD ARTHUR LENNOX, and Mr. CRIPPS.

The Universal German Gazette gives the follo►ving
account of a serious riot which occurred at Leipsig, on
the occasion of the visit of Prince JOHN of Saxony to