A singular domestic docum...
The Times, 1824-10-01T00:00:00

A singular domestic document will be foPPd among the artieles contained in thlii day's jourpal: it is a declaration of principles issued by the Whigs of Cheshire and the ad. joining counties, preparatory to their meeting on the ap- proaching 11thof October. The production will no be read witlh a due degree of attention, as proceeding from men of the highest rspeetability antl stake in the country, (to say nothing now of another cause which we shall men- tion hereafter), and as relating to the rnost important in- terests of the state-the vital parts of the Constitution. The address speaks of the deviations of the British Con- stitution froru4ith original schelme-of the influence of Mi- nisters-the dependence of public liberty upon their will, through the instrurnentality of a Parliament essentially not chosen by the people-in terms with which we are jut toC well acquainted. Neither is our reason less convinced of the truth of the facts stated, than our memory loaded with the description of then). At the samne time, however, a proper acknowledgment is made of the moderation with which Ministers at present exert the dominion which they possess over the Constitution,-a modteration said to resuilt frorn the late change in the persons, temper, and policy of the Government," to which we may also add, and ii the situation of the country. But what are those liberties, we ask, which depend upon persons and times-upon persons over whom the Constitution, as at present administered, gives the people no control, and upon times the pressure of which is to be uncontrovertibly pronouncecd by those per- sons ? The corrupt Juges in CA ARLES I,'s reign, not only declared that the KrNG might take his subjects' money without consent of Parliament, in a case of great necessity, but that His Ai AJ xSTY alSO was to be judgeof thenecessity ! The reforms which this lVhig proclamation recommends, and for the enforcement or which it pledges the authors, are four-the exclusion of inefficienit and subordinate place- men from the House of Commons, a less expensive mode of conducting elections, a more equal representation of the Feople, and a repeal of the Triennial Act. We have placeA the first last, as it is the only one which our remarks will follow. The authors of the address cannot but be aware, that it is to a Whig Parlia ment that we owe the introduction of the Septennial Act, anid that their sect is justly taxed with this inroad on the Constitution. However, the introduction of a measure from an apparent cause which soon ceases to operate, is very different from!n its indefinite continuance nithout cause. A suirgeon may recommend the application of a ligature to stop a hiemorrbage, but that will not justify the continuance of the painful bandage by a secondl practitioner for years after the bloo(d is stanched, and that in spite of all the remonstrances of the suffering patient and hIis first operator. If the WTiigs introducedl the Septennial Act when a pretendler to the Tlhrone was alive, arid an inva(ding army in the kingd omn engaged in assert- ing his right, there is no reason, wve presume, why they shouild riot urge its repeal, since the moving causes have ceased to exist. Such, tihen, are the opinions of the WVIings ; and we ap- prelhend they will not be charged with extravagance. But this is not all : a more important circumstance, to which we have above alluded, arises to view. Such have been the opinions of His MAJESTY himself also, we may in truttl say, all his lifie long. They were the opinions of his youith and manhood; they were the opinions of his earliest, and perhaps we might add, his hldest fi-iends-of Fox anid WATSOX; to name no otlhers fromn whomn His MAJESrY wYas wont to say he had imbibed his knowledge of the Britishl Clonstitution. IVill a respect for these considerationis pre- vent the miserable adherents of his Mlinisters from vilifying the opinions, and calumniating those who irofess them ? IJiS IMAJESTY will see. There is no reason why lie might not return to thie predilections of his yotith and( the con- victions of his maturer age: for the season at which the enforcement of thoso opinions was held to be dlangerous is past; and the forrAer times, during which they were pre- fessed with so mueh ardlour and sincerity, were trot more tranquil, or more secure, or more prosperous than the pre- sent. BLt tle period when the frierrds of a mild and ra- tional reform, be they great or small, shall cease to be slandered by th,)se who live oun the corruptionis of the State, will never arrive.