10 OCTOBER 1829, Page 7

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE AND THE ELECTORS OF NEWARK. We

have abstained from taking any part in the controversy regarding the conduct of the Duke of NEWCASTLE, until the meeting which was advertised, and which took place on Monday, gave us an authentic version of the facts. The report of the Committee, and the letter of the Duke, verify the rumours previously in circulation, that the whole of the tenants on his Grace's property at Newark who voted for Mr. Sergeant WILDE at the last election are to be ejected. Some accounts stated the number on whom notices had been served as high as two hundred ; the Standard, whose information is probably correct, for it is fair to conclude that it was furnished by the Duke himself, says there are only thirty-seven notices issued. The fact, however, that all who voted against Mr. SADLER are to be turned out of their houses, remains undisputed. If no more than thirty-seven have been visited with aristocratic vengeance, it is because no more than thirty-seven have rebelled against aristocratic tyranny. Of the parties who have been served with notices, one old man, it appears, has resided no less than fifty-two years in the house from which he is now to be extruded : the freehold was in the possession of his family before the land was purchased by the Duke's grandfather: there is no rent due. In several other cases, the tenants have erected on their respective freeholds substantial buildings of greater value than the freeholds themselves. In one case, not only is the tenant to be strip- ped of his property, but a rival tradesman, who voted for Mr. SADLER, Is to be put in his place to employ the capital that the ejected tenant is compelled to leave behind him, in order to deprive him of that which he is permitted to carry away. The property which gives to the Duke of NEWCASTLE so fearful ad- vantages over his tenants at will, consists of about a thousand acres of Crown lands leased by his family, and which encircle the town of Newark in such a way as to render its extension impossible without his Grace's permission. And so well are the terms understood on which alone his permission is to be obtained, that of one hundred and thirty-eight direct tenants of the Duke, only four (who have of course received notices to quit) ventured on the late occasion to vote in oppo- sition to his wishes.

The justification of the Duke, by his partisans and by himself, is made to rest on his legal right to do what he pleases with his own. The ejectment of tenants who will not vote as their landlord di- rects, is, they contend, a fair and legitimate exercise of the powers inherent in the lord of the soil. The Standard has indeed put forward another ground of justification. The turning out of the tenants at Newark was, it argued, no more blameworthy than the turning out of the tenants on the estates of the Marquis of STAF- FORD, or than similar acts on the part of the Marquis of LANs DOWNE. The allegations against the latter, the Standard has in a very handsome manner acknowledged to be unfounded in fact ; but had they been as true as they were false, neither the case of the one noble Marquis nor of the other had a single pont of resemblance to that of the Duke of NEWCASTLE. The object of the Marquis of AF- FORD in depriving a number of small farmers, or cottiers rather, of their lands, (and it ought to be observed that he provided for their future maintenance when he did so), was to introduce a better species of husbandry than those tenants would or could pro ctice. Our con- temporary may prefer the small farming system to the large, but he will not surely impute dishonest motives to all who hold a contrary opinion. The Marquis of STAFFORD ejected a set of very poor, very ignorant, and very indolent tenants, for the purpose of intro- ducing what every writer of name or fame had described as a great. public improvement ; the Duke of NEWCASTLE is about to eject a set of tenants, poor perhaps for the most part, but neither ignorant nor idle, for the purpose of perpetuating what every writer of name or fame has described as a great public abuse. But then he has only exercised a legal right ! If it be meant by this that the conduct of the Duke is defensible merely because it is not actionable, we do not know a heavier imputation. Why, this is a praise that he shares in common with many of the lowest and vilest persons in society—with petti- fogging attorneys, common informers, and spies. Either the Duke of NEWCASTLE let his lands and tenements at Newark at their fair value, or he did not. If his tenants paid as much for their freeholds as they were worth, upon what principle of common justice or decency dared he call for more ? If his tenants did not pay so much rent as they ought to have done, and if their 'votes were intended as the supple- ment, how is the Duke to be excused from a charge of continuous bribery ? His conduct may be legal—on that point we cannot pronounce an opinion—but how he is to be defended from the charge of acting tyrannously on the one hand, or unconstitutionally on the other ?—of demanding from his tenants what he had no right to de- mand, and punishing them for the refusal ; or of making with them a bargain he had no right to make, and punishing them for the breach ? The deformities of the borough system were never brought forward in such bold relief before. There has hitherto been some decency of disguise thrown over the illegal interference of the Upper House of Parliament in the formation of the Lower ; but the conduct of the Duke of NEWCASTLE has exhibited it in all its nakedness. It may be now considered as a ruled case, that every Englishman who dares to give a political vote to the peLson whom he deems most worthy of it, shall be driven from his house and home, and every means used to ruin him that law permits.