The Sun.
London, England, 1837-04-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TUE PUBLIC JOURNALS

The Irish Municipal Reform Bill was read a second
time last night,
_without opposition, in the House of
Lords. In consenting to Lord Melbourne's motion
last night, their Lordships did but play a part in
contemptible farce, as .Lord Brougham did not scruple
to tell the House and the country. The observations
which fell from the Duke of Wellington and Baron
Lyndhurst are calculated to dispel all illusion on the
subject of the meeting at Apsley-house on Monday,
as to the prevalence of moderation in the Councils of
their Lordships. It cannot be difficult, we think, to
discover the system of tactics which on that occasion
their Lordships determined to act upon. Not daring
to treat the Representatives of the people with that
that contempt which the Tory Peers are known to en-
tertain towards the House of Commons, their Lordship%
under the advice of.their Commander-in-Chief, have
consented, for form's sake, to go into Committee on the
Bill, with fell intent of once more mangling it. Last year
tl:e first division on this question took place upon
Lori Fitzgerald and Vesci's instructions to the com-
mittee. Will the same Noble Lord repeat the same
performance on Thursday week, the day on which it
ordered that the
,Bill shall be committed ? Why all
this contemptible trickery ? Lord Lyndhurst openly
announced last, night the determination of his) party
not to let this measure pass into a law. What is the
justification, then, for wasting the time of the House
with P. discUs!,ion upon the details of a Bill, the prin-
ciples and the provisions of which are already de-
riounced by those who, unfortunately, compose the
majority in the hereditary and irresponsible assembly,
of law-makers ? We are aware of the shabby pre-
text upon which the Duke of Wellington proceeds.
The Bill, he says, may be amended in committee. It
may, to be sure ; but is mutilation amendment ? Will
it not rather be destroyed ? Is it not the set-
tled purpose of the Noble Duke and his partisans
to be Destructives as far as this Bill is con-
cerned ? Are they not resolved upon assenting
to so much only of the Bill as abolishes the pre-
sent corrupt and exclusive Corporations, while they
mean to oppose and to frustrate that part of the mea-
sure which proposes to reconstruct the municipal insti-
tutions upon a broad and popular basis? And do
they not know that in such en arrangement neither the
King's Ministers, the House of Commons, nor the
people of Ireland can, by any possibility, ever be as-
senting parties ? We presume they will not dispute
hur exposition of their own opinions and intentions,
and there can be no doubt as to the feelings and the
determination of the Government and of the country.
The votes• of the House of Commons indicate plainly
the deteimina.on of the people ; and if any doubts did ,
happen, we know not why or how, to remain upon
ant' body's minds, with respect to the settled purpose
of Ministers, these must be put to flight by a perusal
of. the admirable speech delivered by the Premier
last night. There was no mincing of matters, no he-
sitation as to the course which duty and honour
and principle dictate to the Cabinet, no paltering, no
making of loopholes for the future retreat of reckless
apo tacy or dexterous plausibility--there was nothing
of all this about that spirited expression of the honest
conviction of an upright and independent Minister.
Lord Melbourne spoke as an honest man, confident
of the wisdom of his own opinions, and of the un-
scrupulous factiousness of his place-hunting adver-
saries. Nor did his Lordship limit himself to the
mere assertion of those lofty and generous: principles
which he so nobly maintains. He grappled with the
enemy's pretences, and exhibited their worthlessness.
What havoc he made of the shallow declainations
about normal schools of agitation, and the Protestant
(that is, the Orange ascendancy) interests which
have formed the entire stock in trade of Sir Robert
Peel,-and the rest of the corruptionist pack, ever since
this question was brought before the Legislature
" Why. (exclaimed the Noble Viscount), is it not a
notorious fact that agitation has been increased
to an incalculable extent by the refusal of this
House to reform these corrupt bodies (the Cor-
porations), and concede the just demands of the
people ?" This cannot be denied ;it is notorious to
the world that 'the factious and unjust decision of the
Peers, and the atrocious 44 alien speech of Baron
Lyndhurst, have generated more agitation—more ill
feeling—more violence of opinion—and a stronger
aversion to the Established Church in Ireland within
one year, than could have been produced by all the
speeches and all the resolutions of all the. agitators is
that country in fifty times that period. And yet the
Duke of Wellington made it a matter of complaint
against Ministers, that they did not debase themselves
and propose to debase the House of Commons, and
insult.the feelings of the nation, by coming down with
a measure such as that which—being manufactured
by Lord Lyndhurst—was last year scouted by the
Ministry, the Commons, and the country Is that _
the fashion in which the Gallant Duke would settle
the differences that have arisen between the represen-
tatives of the people and the irresponsible Peers ?
His Grace did not manage matters in the same
fashion, as Lord Melbourne, in indignant terms, -
reminded him, in 1829. In 1828 the Peers, by a
larger majority than that against the Municipal Re-
form Bill, rejected a Bill for the relief of the Catholic'-,
after it had received the sanction of the other House
of Parliament. . And what did the Noble Duke in the
following spring ? Did he, to consult the dignity of
their Lordships, cushion the Catholic question, or at-
tempt to cushion it? No ; but' he brought in a Bill
himself, ten times more liberal than that which the
Peers had the year before rejected ; and that Bill the •
Peers then passed by an overwhelming majority. And
this is the man to complain of Lord Melbourne's inat-
tention to the dignity of the House of Lords—lie who
dragged their Lordships through the -mire—as he
would again drag them to-morrow were he in office,
and did he deem it convenient to carry those measures
against which he now marshals the array of- those who
have set him up as their dictator. The dignity of the
Peers, forsooth ! Lord Lyndhurst's dignity, and
Lord Wynford's, and fifty other Lords, who have
within half a century received their coronets as
the reward of their abandonment of principle
and political subserviency in St. Stephen's Chapel I
But is no account to be taken of the sense of the
country and the dignity of the Commons ? On both
occasions the Bill originated in the Lower House, and
it was the Peers whooffcred an insult to a co-ordinate -
and a more important branch of the Legislature. Sir
Robert Peel declared in Merchant Tailors' Hall, that
henceforth the Government of this Empire -must be
conducted agreeably to the will of the majority in the
House of Commons ; the Duke of Wellington, not
being a Commoner, and being less oily than the plau-
sible Baronet, will have it that the Minister should
square his measures according to the caprice of the
Peers. After the refresher given-to his Grace by Lord
Melbourne, we don't expect to hear him utteiinp, such
doctrines in future—doctrines so completely at issue
with his own practice when he was Prime Minister, or
rather dictator, in Downing-strset. With the exception
of Lord Melbourne's speech and his cutting reply,
there -was nothing in the short discussion, or rather
conversation, which the motion gave rise to, de-
serving notice. The Duke of Wellington, Lord-
Lyndhurst, and Lord Brougham, were, besides
the Noble Viscount, the only speakers, and they
delivered merely a few sentences each. • When the
Duke of Wellington next reproaches Ministers with a
want of respect for the House of Lords in offering to
them a Bill approved by the Commons, which their
Lordships had before rejected, it would not he amiss
were he to refresh his memory with the arguments
which he intended to offer to the Peers to induce them
to pass a Reform Bill equally efficient with that which,
on his recommendation, they had thrown out a little
before. His Grace on that occasion could not easily
have produced any arguments implying that he held
their Lordships in very high regard. He could only
have told them—" In 1830 I extolled rotten boroughs
as the ingredient in our constitution which made it
matchless. You have thrown out a Bill destroying all.
that is •excellent in our constitution, namely, borough-.
mongery, But I could only form a Ministry on the
erudition of proposing a similar Bill, and your Lord-.
ships Surely_ will deem that a sufficiently good reason
for your suffering yourselves to be dragged thrOugh the
rrire." It is true his Grace was spared the necessity
of performing this not very dignified part; but be was:
Quo!: ready to perform it, and was mill prevented 'by