THE PRESS.
PARTIES IN PARLIAMENT.
Gtour —Tt is an unprofitable task to speculate, as some pamph- leteers have done, on the numerical strength which the Ministers have gained or lost by the dissolution ; a few days' experience may demon- strate the fallacy of these speculations, or individual interests and caprice may so easily derange them. But there are some indications of the feelings of parties and classes of men at the present moment, which should not be neglected. The pamphlets, with few exceptions, which are now put forth in some numbers by the adherents of the Ministers, in anticipation of the opening of the session, are loud or plaintive, ac- cording to the dispositions of the writers, in calls and cries to the aristocracy, and chiefly the old Tory party to rally round the Go. vernment. The times are represented to be, as Sir Joseph Yorke expresses it, "tremendous."—" Revolution is abroad," and may be ex- pected at home—There live not three great men unhanged in England. There is only one man, in fact, "adequate to the helm," and he, of course, (so kind is Providence even amidst her frugality), is the man who holdsit. How melancholy will it be if by any disunion at this moment among those who have stakes in the country—the constitution (oh !) laws and religion (oh ! oh !) property (oh dear! oh dear ! oh dear !) should be offered up by the spirit of anarchy as a sacrifice to the genius of revolution on the altar of popular commotion ! We do not know or believe that the Ministers have more to do with these pamphlets than with others of an opposite tendency ; they are calls, however, from some of the birds within to the birds without. But the object of the class of politicians—and it is a large one—from which they proceed is to use the revolution in France partly to alarm the aristocracy, partly to afford them a pretext to join the Ministry. The end looked to and avowed is to enable the Minister to support himself without resorting to any mea- sures which would command the attachment of the people of the country. We have no doubt that to a certain extent these appeals, or rather the cir- cumstances on which the appeals are founded, will produce the result which is desired. The revolution in France has frightened many of the aristocracy, who know not how it may end, and many others, because it has hitherto pro- ceeded so well. Others, too, areglad to take the occasion of a changewhich throws the old topics of political discussion into the shade, to join the Government, from which they think they ought not, for their own sakes, to have separated themselves. It is very probable, therefore, that in the Parliament which has met, the Ministry will have an accession of nu- merical strength, and that of the worst kind. What the effect of its new position may be upon the Ministry, the country will wait to see with some anxiety. It will be almost as impossible to prevent the•insti. tutions of the country from improving gradually, as to change them vio- lently; unless indeed the nation be involved in another war, and of this we cannot, if appearances can be trusted, be in any danger, except through the wilful purpose of the Government itself. One of the first duties of the friends of the country in Parliament will be to take care that the system of neutrality, which they willingly saw adhered to even in favour of Don Miguel, be not departed from under temptations different from any which Lord Aberdeen and his leader have had hitherto to resist. The King of Holland, it will be seen, is still constantly referring to the expected interference of his Allies in the affairs of Belgium, and is still apparently averse to any conciliation or compromise with his quondam subjects. There are likely to be materials abroad, out of which a mi- nister may make a war if he pleases, and it must not be concealed that many of those who profess themselves glad to have found a pilot for the storm would be rejoiced to make a storm for the pilot. The good sense of the country must be on the guard against artifices and incitements. We look forward, however, with some confidence to the patriotism of the Duke of Wellington, and his love of lasting and well-founded fame. There is enough at home—not to cause alarm, but to occupy the sedulous care and attention of the Minister. One year of war at the present mo- ment, with Ireland yet imperfectly pacified, would throw the country much farther back than all his efforts have hitherto moved it forward.
ALARMING STATE OF KENT.
KENT HERALD—We fear it cannot be denied that a considerable portion of the peasantry of Kent is in a state of reckless insubordination. Outrages on property pf the most alarming description are manifestly on the increase. Bodies of men almost nightly, and of late even by day, assemble and proceed from one farm-house to another, destroying in the most open and daring manner the agricultural machinery on the premises ; and, far worse, the secret incendiary plies his dreadful occu- pation with a frequency and success that must, if continued, ere long desolate the whole county. Alarm naturally prevails all around. No man who possesses and dwells amid property of this description, can lay his head on his pillow without the frightful anticipation of being roused to witness its destruction, and endeavour to rescue his dwelling and his family from the flames. Since our last publication several serious fires have occurred, and demolition of thrashing machines been committed in every district of East Kent. No measures of precaution among the owners of such property have availed. Leniency and severity seem alike employed in vain. Many of the depredators have been committed to prison, and the military are constantly engaged in attempted preven- tion or pursuit—with what effect, the augmentation of outrage and calamity best shows. On the other hand, the unexpectedly lenient sentence passed by the magistrates on some convicted rioters at the Sessions last week, seems equally to have failed in impressing favourably the minds of those associated in crime. Not that we are surprised at this, for these unhappy mess feel that leniency will not benefit their condition, nor can severity make it worse. The fact is, that the labouring classes have been long borne down— oppressed in every way by their superiors, and by the political system upheld by their superiors. They have been gradually thrust down, trampled on, despised, driven to starvation, misery, and despair. The tendency of the whole social arrangement in England for many years has been to foster and protect the great properties at the expense of the poor and industrious. The pressure has worked through the middle orders, and descended at last with its full weight upon the lowest. That there is little direct political feeling among the perpetrators of the pre- sent excesses, we are convinced—little even of personal vindictiveness, since the objects of their attacks are almost promiscuously taken. Some unpopular and arbitrary individuals have indeed been visited, but others of mild and liberal character have not escaped. It seems-, in fact, a war of poverty against property, of destitution against possession. The poor feel that they are not permitted to enjoy, and they are determined that the rich shall not. This is the natural feeling of ignorant, coarse- minded, and ill-treated men, and it seems to have spread wide, and taken deep root. If so, there is no remedy in forcible or in conciliatory treatment, without a change of the whole system. Absolute despera- tion can neither be cajoled nor bullied. We fervently trust then. that no harsh, despotic, and sanguinary means will be attempted, convinced that it would aggravate rather than remedy the existing evils. All that can be done by the occupiers of exposed property, is to exercise a con- stant and complete watch of prevention, however inconvenient. And let the great proprietors immediately offer good employment on their estates to all the labourers in their respective neighbourhoods, however expensive. This inconvenience, this expense, will in the end be found the least. Thins a calm may be preserved while the Legislature are en. acting those great reductions, alterations, and reforms, without which this country must shortly become a scene which the imagination shudders to contemplate.
EIGHT OP THE STATE TO ALTER. THE LAW OF TITHES.
BLACKWOOD'S QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE—The divine right of tithes, like that of kings, has at length silently given way to the progress of opinion and common sense ; and the clergy of England now find themselves compelled to rest their claim of privileges upon a humbler foundation. It is manifest that their rights are solely civil. They hold their possessions by law, as they themselves exist by law. The law, indeed, by which the clergy of England hold their civil possessions, is very ancient. Admitting that they hold their privileges by the same tenure as the church to which they succeeded, their titles are nearly coeval with the monarchy Eself. On whatever pretence, then, the right to a tenth part of the produce of the country was at first obtained, and however unwise the laws may be held to be which con- firmed the claim, the right to the property is now in the Church, as an incorporated body, and by laws as valid and as ancient as those by which any property in this country is inherited or possessed. But then, assur- edly, this Church, as an incorporated body, is in nothing placed beyond the reach of law. The rights which it holds are the rights and privileges of the ancient clergy, or such parts of them as the civil power thought it fitting to assign, when the ancient religion was abrogated. Such are the rights of all the Reformed churches of Europe ; and we believe that in no other but that of England have the clergy presumed to claim their civil possessions by any other tenure than that of the civil law. The canon law, on which the clergy of the English Church have claimed their civil possessions, was burned by the hands of Luther, and never admitted at all by the followers of Calvin. The Church of England, then, holds its privileges and possessions under the sanction of law ; and the same power which gave these rights, or which permits the exercise of them, may, if it shall seem just and for the common good, restrain them, regulate them, or take- them away. The Church itself, as a corporate body, exists solely through the will of the nation, express6d through the lawful organs of the state ; and its existence as a recognized body must cease, if the will of the nation, expressed through its lawful organs, shall so determine. But although, as we have said, there is not ano- ther Reformed church in Europe which has dared to arrogate to itself rights and an existence independent of the civil power, we find persons amongst ourselves silly enough to listen to pretensions nothing short of the exploded jus divinum. They speak of the Church as of something independent of the civil power, and as possessing rights beyond the reach of the law. They speak of alliances between Church and State, not perceiving that this is a form of expression which either means nothing or must lead to false pretensions. No alliance can be re- cognized of this nature, but the alliance between the governors on the one hand and faithful subjects on the other. Such pre- tended alliances have hitherto produced only evil to the human race. Alliances !—unhallowed leagues, let them be termed rather, against the rights of man and the liberty of conscience ! But it is plain that the most zealous advocates of the rights of the Church . can place them uporino surer foundation than upon charters of the Crown confirmed by acts of Parliament. And granting the rights thus esta- blished to the utmost limit to which any legal right can extend, it is ob- vious that there is yet another *in, as much founded on reason and the rights of man in society, as the right of the Church to tithe ; and that is, the right of every succeeding generation of men to govern itself. If this law of tithes is a bad law,—and we shall endeavour to show that it is a very bad one, false in principle, injurious to public industry, and unsuited to the state of society in which we live,—then surely no reason can be given why this, more than any other law, should subsist. Because a generation of men a thousand years ago agreed to submit to an evil law, is every succeeding generation of men, possessing the same right of governing themselves—more capable of governing themselves, and of • knowing what institutions are suited to their altered circumstances—to submit to the same law for ever ? To argue thus, were to argue against one of the first and most necessary rights of man in society. The human race would remain for ever stationary in all its institutions, if such a principle were admitted.
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