The Sun.
London, England, 1837-10-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Tories, we are informed by their organs, are
ready to reform all proved abuses." The diffi-
culty, however, is to establish the existence of an
abuse to the satisfaction of the Tories. They de-
Sire us to prove abuse, with an inward predetermina-
tion to disallow the applicability of the term in every
given instance. Could we convince the Tories that
anything in Church or State was not as it should be,
thev would redress the wrong immediately ; but to
bring any such conviction home.to a Tory understand-
ing is impracticable, and, consequently, were it to de•
rend upon the Tory party, there would never be the
last mitigation of grievance. To conviction more is
-necessary than proof : there must be a disposition to
Nield to a fair amount of demonstration, and the Tories ,
being utterly deficient in this requisite, argument is
thrown away, for conviction is hopeless. The Tories
were never .'ct convinced of the existence of an abuse ;
and it is reasonable to presume that they never will be.
The Reformers will continue to prove abuses, not with
the hope of making the Tories sensible of the justice of
their conclusions, but because a wise nation will make
no change in its laws, customs, or institutions without
proof that the change is called for. To endeavour to
make abuse perceptible to the Tories is like lecturing
a blind man upon colours. There is a particular faculty
for perceiving nuisance which the Tories want ; and it
is precisely the .want of this useful sense which incapa-
citates them for governing a thinking people. A true
Tory would walk through the stalls of Augeas with-
out the least offence to his nostrils ; on the contrary;
each whiff would be a breeze of Saban odours. We
had a capital instance of this in the case of the rotten
boroughs, and we have another example of it at the
present moment in the case of the Irish Church.
The Tories thought Gatton and Old Sarum the
fairest features of the Constitution ; and they •con-
shier the Irish Church the very beau ideal of a
religious eatablieluncut. What is to be done with
such a party ? When. men extract their perfumes
from the sewers, what will they acknowledge to be a
stench ? Yet the Tories desire us to prove abuse
Have the Tories, as a party, ever acknowledged the
existence of any abuse in Church or State, at home
or abroad, in Leland, Ireland, or Scotland, or in any
corner of the empire Has there been a single
.amendment proposed, attempted, or achieved in our
laws, in our institutions, in any public department, or
iu any branch of the national service, that has no:
tt{et with from the Toriee the most strenuous and per-
tieecious oppo ? Ilas not resistance to improve-
ment been ths single object of all their exertions in
and out of office ? By whom but by this party lies
very philanthropic plan, humane suggestion, enlight-
coed p; eject, or liberal recommendation, whether to
ameliorate the condition of the poor, to elevate the
character of the people, to diffuse the blessings of peace
and liberty, or check the progress of corruption—hy
w-hom but by this party.has every such proposition
been +onionPly, and too often successfully, re-
sived ? By whom were the benevolent efforts of a
Romilly to mitigate the unavailing rigours of our cri-
minal code obstinateiv and malignantly combated
l 3 whom were the labours of a Wilberforce to put an
teid to that infamous traffic in human blood which
thrcatemll to bring down upon this comuitry the sorest
visitations of divine vengeance opposed virulently and
eely ? In whom did the huge abuses that but
five }cars since loaded, disfigured, and disgraced our
representative system find fervent and stench support.
ers ? Name, in short, a solitary instance in which time
Tories have ever yielded an atom of corruption with-
out a struggle, ;surrendered • a monopoly without a
cooks:, or slitrered the friends of the people to re-
diE,cs a grieva.ce, "however cohyssaL without a
blow f-r its prelervinion, and we give my the Ties-
-Ono. IF time Tories had prevailed, would net our
statute-hook- be still the 'nine Moody code that
it was when Sir Santiel llomniiiv undertook
its r.forniAtion ? If time Tories had succeeded, would
not the slave-trade be at this moment a branch of
Brit),l) commeice, and the lash of the driver be re-
sonuding at this hour in the colonies? Would the
I,omt,nozh-monitetitn4 abomination have ever been ex-
toezoishe.l !led the Tories hail their way ? Would
stmt Corporation abuses of Eiielaird fuel :Scotland
have been remedied ?' What :do the tippose that
is we 1: nth ved our memories, that we have forgotten
t.:mt cvent, yestertlar, that they have to deal with a
ma 101 l
.of iihees and dotards ? We are desired to prove
ai.u;y2s to the .iatiSfaCtiOn Of a party which saw no
abuse in the convicted rottenness of Esst It etford,
sshieh sew no grievance in tiattun and Old Sarum,
a hie!' contended, in the face of astonished Europe,
that it was meet and ri,ht that the 54table end of an
old house should return two Members to Parliament,
while such vast towns as Birmingham, Man-
chester, amid Leeds acre excluded from the repre-
eentatann Bat aby return to the past ? Are they a
ray more culighteiled at this instant ? Have they ad-
vaoced a jot in liberality ? Where it; the evidence
that time scales have fallen from their eves ? In the
same Erm.ath in which they insolently- challenge us to
prove the existence of abuSe, they talk of the unre-
formed Church of Ireland as they talked a few years
ago of Gettoc—t hey eulogise it as they did Old Sarum.
It is perfection in their eves, and the pink and model
of petfection. Every enlightened politicinu that this
comory has ever produced has admitted the del,-mice
of this Establishment to he 'it point of the first
ditii-
cnity ; theigrcatest iotellects have confessed them-
selves at a loss to make out a case fur it ; the stoutest
champions of Churches have shrunk from its yin-
dieation ; Pidey knew no principle upon which it was
defensible ; Burke has declared that " it answers
the Irish people no one purpose of a religious
liAahlislonent ;" Hallam has said that its folio- '
dation " involves a principle essentially umm mist,'' amid
that it has " enormously-aggravated the calai'ilities and
divairection of %ti;laUit,",;'‘.iet to theeyes of the Tories
it is
.without spot enal.bleraish.; to hint at the exis-
tence
of the slightest corruption its it is saci ilege ; merely
to glance at its amazing fee-owes is robbery I they see
nothing- else in the country worth a moment's-thought
or care--peace, civilization, and freedom, elsewhere
such great and vital interests, weighed with this insti-
tution, are feathers in the scale. Th,. Tories tell us
that we purchase its blessings only too cheaply, at the-
expense of the ceaseless disturbance and total civil de-
gradation of a third part of the United Kingdom.
Such me the views with which the Tories regard the
present state of the church in Ireland ; yet their organs
tell us that we have only to prone abuse to have their
cordial aid in the work of reforination.—Morn. Clsrosm

I:Ii(;I I

Although so much is heard of Ireland,—for every
wave that breaks across the Western Channel wafts
hitht r the yell of outrage or the moan of suffering
from her shore,—yet the actual knowledge which Eng-
lishmen possess of the people that inhabit, and the
things that happen there, is vastly less clear and c,_an-
plete than their acquaintance with many countries
which concern them not a thousandth part so much.
Committees of the Legislature sit from time to time,
and take evidence about Ireland, and report it in
print ; but the extent of their inquiries, and the never-
wearying efforts of certain Irish members of those
Counnittees to baffle and puzzle the truth, to tire out
the patience of the English representatives, and to
overlay the evidence with irrelevant and tedious matter,
lave made the perusal of such reports a task too long
and too dull for any but the most vigorous and daunt-
less of readers. We make pretension to be of this
persevering class, and we mean that our readers shall
profit by: onr labour. With this view we begin by
condensing, in another part of our paper, the reports
of the last session upon that vitally important subject,
the creation amid registration of fictitious votes in Ire-
land, in other words, upon one great branch of the
syvtem, by which the Irish elections are made to
swamp the representation of Great Britain. The in-
quiry has yet proceeded only to two places, Belfast and
Clonmel ; but the evidence touching the frauds corn-.
witted in these two towns has been made to occupy
610 closely-printed folio pages. If we add to these
the report of the Longford Election Committee, ex-
posing, in a space of :390 pages more, the process by
hich corresponding fabrications arc managed fur
.counties, we shall have a total of exactly 1,000 of
these gigantic pages, exclusively of the 236 which arc
occupied by appendices of lists. Having. waded and
butreted through the whole, in spite of all the storm,
and foam, and weed, we now make fast a rope to
he shore, by which all who seek it may tow themselves