The Press.
London, England, 1856-07-19 00:00:00

JULY 19, 1856•

Splendid qualities, as our Parliamentary
annals attest, have often been neutralised by
their junction with systematic and ingrained
insincerity. The first Marquis of LANSDOWNE
deceived his colleagues in 1783, and was never
trusted afterwards by King or country. Lord
ROSSLYN (Wedderburn)—an orator, a lawyer, a
statesman—ceased to he a ruling personage
when his double-dealing was discovered ; and
the same might be said of THURLOW. Why,
again, did CANNING not predominate over his
age ? He had spirit, eloquence, knowledge,
and genius, but, unluckily for himself, he was
an intriguer; and his old colleagues fled from
him in 1827.

Yet Lord CLARENDON is the politician looked
to by some Liberals for a future Premier ! We
would defy any Cabinet of which Lord CLA-
RENDON was the chief to remain in office for a
single session. Lord CLARENDON is a clever
man, but he has the reputation of being
addicted to clandestine methods of acquiring
influence. He is a proficient in the Madrid
system of diplomatic espionage, using one per
son to check another. He is not open, bold,
and frank. He is specious and tortuous ;
artfully amiable in manners, dexterously
insincere in his conduct. His simulated
friendliness evaporates in fine words ; his
concealed enmity is not, however, confined to
speech. That such a journal as the World
could have been retained in the personal ser-
vice of an English statesman, and should have
received his " private " thousands for slander-
ing and reviling the employer's political oppo-
nents—is a blot upon the escutcheon of Lord
CLARENDON which time will never efface.

It ought not to be forgotten, also, that the
profession of Liberalism was made by Lord
CLARENDON at a highly convenient time. His
family had all been Tories and courtiers, and
hangers-on upon Carlton-house. Even his
brother, the late Mr. HYDE Vir.ttEns, was an
avowed Tory ; but Lord CLARENDON " drifted "
into Liberalism, and has lived in office, of one
kind or another, since 1830. One brother is a
Bishop, and another holds a high Ministerial
office, with a large salary and few expenses
attached to it. His brother in law is Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, and his Lordship has
certainly got his portion of the " good things "
of Parliament.

Taken in connection with such antecedents,
we have been much struck by some of the re-
marks made on Monday by Mr. DISRAELI on
Lord CLARENDON'S ambiguous conduct. " Count
" WALEWSKI on the Bth of April declared that
" it was desirable that the Plenipotentiaries
" should not separate without interchanging
" their ideas on different subjects which re-
" quired to be settled." Now, mark the words
used by Lord CLARENDON at Paris with re
ference to the Neapolitan question. "He is
" of opinion that it must doubtless be admitted
" in principle that no Government has the
" right to interfere in the internal affairs of
" other nations, but he considers there are
" cases in which the exception to this rule
" becomes equally a right and a duty." His
Lordship then concluded :—" The Neapolitan
" Government seems to have conferred this
" right, and to have imposed this duty on
" Europe."

Well was Mr. DISRAELI justified in saying
that " such language should never have been
`• used in the absence of a definite policy ";
and Lord CLARENDON'S speech of Monday
proves that with "official reserve" upon his
lips, his Lordship is bent upon that mis
chievous " meddling" which is the Alpha and
Omega of the Palmerstonian system of keep-
ing England embroiled with the whole world,
though he makes petty efforts to hide his real
purposes.

THE IRISH ATTORNEY-GENERAL.
ALTHOUGH Mr. NAPIER was right in saying
that he had "no charge" to make against the
Attorney-General for Ireland, still the conduct
of that official is, beyond doubt, liable to
stringent criticism. Our own opinion on Mr.
FITZGERALD nearly coincides with that of our
contemporary the Morning Herald, which
rightly said, on Thursday, that " Mr. Fizz-
" GERALD is freed to some extent from the

THE PRESS.

" suspicion of personal delinquency
"He is too small a man to fill the post of
" the First Law Officer of the Crown, more
" especially in a season of difficulty or excite-
" ment."

Let us, for example, take his speech of
Tuesday. Like his long-winded defence of
the priests who aided in the Sixmile•bridge
massacre, the address of Tuesday was awfully
prolix. Sir A. COCKBURN, or Sir F. THESIGER,
or Sir F. KELLY, would have stated the facts
in a third of the time. Its language was
insipid, its matter was enumerated as from a
brief, it had not one single passage of
eloquence. Was it such an address as might
have been expected from the lips of one
qualified to represent the genius, or learning,
of the Bar of Ireland? The yawns of his
wearied hearers might answer the question.
But let us see to what facts against his own
efficiency he testified.
Thus, he cited letters in which he declared
his inability to direct flout London a prosecu,
tion against JAMES SADLEIR, just as if he had
been asked to conduct a campaign. The
Colonial Secretary finds no difficulty in
" directing" the affairs of fifty colonies ; but
Mr. J. D. FITZGERALD could not give requisite
instructions how to prosecute a swindler who
was a whole day's journey from London !
Then, again, this wonderfully energetic per-
sonage " accidentally learned that Mr. THOMAS
" KEMMIS was in London ;" and Mr. FITZ
GERALD, in his choice diction, " laid an em-
" bargo on that gentleman," and got him into
communication with the English shareholders.
What amazing activity ! But, besides, there
was the important " Minute of Conference "
between Mr. CHRISTIAN (Solicitor-General for
Ireland), Mr. BREWSTER, Q.C. (of whose talents
there can be no doubt), and Mr DONOHUE.
Now, why Mr. BREWSTER was chosen many
persons were tempted to inquire Why was
not a case of that kind left to the confidential
and salaried Crown officers, who should be
responsible? Why did Mr. FITZGERALD select
Mr. BREWSTER, the ex-Attorney General of
Lord ABERDEEN, whose Cabinet owed such
peculiar obligations to the Sadleir gang? If
the Crown lawyers could not " direct " such a
case, a brace of able barristers, entirely un-
connected with Lord ABERDEEN'S tail, should
have been chosen to help the Crown in
difficulty. For observe how the case was
managed.
Mr. CHRISTIAN was an equity barrister, not
familiar with criminal prosecutions ; Mr.
BREWSTER was connected closely with the
Aberdeen patrons of the Sadleirs; and Mr.
Dosotinz, a young barrister, was, we are in-
formed, the near relative of Mr. J. D. FITZGERALD.
Without the least hint of disrespect, without
a wcrd of disparagement to any of those
learned gentlemen, we say that if the case
presented such immense difficulty that the Irish
Attorney General could not " direct " it from
London, without calling in more aid, a dif-
ferent assortment of barristers should have
been chosen. We are warranted in saying so,
because the public mind in Ireland was pus
sessed with the idea that certain persons, not
unconnected with " the Castle," were con-
niving at " letting the Sadleirs down easy.'
The appointment of JOHN SADLEIR, a
third-class attorney, to a Lordship of the
Treasury—the selection of Mr. OFLAHERTY
for an income-tax commissioner—the choice
of Mr. MONSELL for high office, appa-
rently because he had become a Roman
Catholic (as he had no public services to show)
—the cramming of the public offices with the
creatures of the vile Sadleir gang those
things had long inflamed the public sus-
picions in Ireland, and still operate on it, not
without strong reason. We are far from having
yet heard the last of these Sadleir scandals.
It is known that there is more still to come
out.

Whatever was the worth of the " Minute
of Conference " (which gave weak reasons, as it
seems to us, against the prosecution of JAMES
SADLEIR), it was overruled by the ATTORNEY-
GENERAL, who boasted that " he had done so
"on his own responsibility." Of course he
did, for no one else could officially have over-
ruled it; but we should like to know the
exact influence of the English Attorney-

675

General on that overruling? And, really, it is
rather curious to find a gentleman who could
not "direct " a prosecution from London,
boasting of his promptitude to overrule the
decision of " The Minute of Conference."

But, as there is no " charge " against Mr.
J. D. FITZGERALD, we shall not carry our
criticism on his weak and hesitating conduct
any further. Abler and more accomplished
men might easily have been found to fill his
post : and it is a curious fact that Mr. J. D.
FITZGERALD himself was never retained as one
of the leading counsel in the modern State
trials of Ireland. We could heartily desire
to see the post of Attorney-General tilled by
some one more competent to represent the
eloquence and brilliancy of the Irish Bar.
Members of Parliament, after their experience
of his tiresome speeches,are not anxious to hear
him await, and they wish that he would not
bring himself into further collision with per-
sonages who are his superiors in all respects.
When Mr. J. D. FITZGERALD talked of " the
irregular" conduct of the MASTER of the ROLLS,
and made some obscure sort of insinuations
about the duty of a Privy Councillor, it would
have been discreet and decorous if Mr. J. D.
FITZGERALD had paid a tribute to the admirable
industry and untiring talent with which that
eminent judge unravelled the huge woof of
fraud before him.
It was a good joke, truly, of Mr. J D. FITZ-
GERALD to talk of himself as " a political rival"
of Mr. NAPIER! Rivalry implies equality, and
if Mr J. D. FITZGERALD were twenty years in
Parliament he never would extract a compli-
ment like that paid by Sir R. PEEL to Mr.
NAPIER—" Whoever heard him once would
" desire to hear him again ; " the exact con-
verse of which proposition is applicable to the
small nisi pries practitioner, teeming with petty
points, and devoid of deep accomplishments,
who occupies rather than fills the Attorney-
Generalship of Ireland.