The Sun.
London, England, 1837-08-24 00:00:00

be so mixed up with Liberal principles, that for a time
at least they mint stand or fall together—they are well
aware that if this Government be not backed by a de-
cided and universal demonstration of support on the
part of the nation, that the consequences may prove
disastrous to the cause of civil b.nd religious liberty.
It is not, therefore, to point out to the British em-
pire what is the duty of the people in reference 'to
their own principles, and to that Administration, in
whose legislation those principles are embodied—it is
not to point out their duty to them, but to draw their
attention to the fact that the present is pre-eminently
a season in which the practical discharge of their duty
devolves upon them, that we venture on this occasion
to address a few words to them. We are sure we
mistake not the character of our countrymen, when we
express our firm conviction that they will lose no time
in calling, public meetings, and getting up petitions in
favour of those great principles with which the Mel-
bourne Ministry have identified themselves. Nor can
we doubt, after the events of the last four weeks, that
at every such meeting, and in every such petition,
the protection of the vote by Ballot will be insisted
on as the undoubted right of every person on whom
the Reform Bill has conferred the elective franchise.
Right glad are we to perceive that active exertions ere
already making in Essex and other places, to get up
meetings, and to procure signatures to petitions in fa-
vour of the Ballot. That should now be held as the
great sine qua non by every Reformer. We seek no
greater proof of its urgent necessity, and of the in-
finite advantages to the cause of Reform which would
result from its adoption, than is to be found in the
unmeasured horror with which the Tories regard it,
and the unutterable dread with which they contem-
plate the probability—a probability, we beg to tell
them, which will soon be converted into a certainty—
of its being carried..—Morning Advertiser.
The election, adverse as its general result has been
to the power and stability of the Melbourne Govern-
ment, is a theme of exultation to the Irish supporters
of the Administration. The latter do not dissemble
their delight that but for them their friends at White-
hall would be in a minority in the House of Corn,
mons. Their hearts swell, their heads reel, at the
thought—the vain and foolish thought, that the elec-
tion has produced a position of parties in the House
of Commons which will place it in their power to select
the materiel of the Government, and sway the destinies
of the empire. " The majority," exclaims a Dublin
paper, the braggart organ at once of Dublin Castle and
Derrinane Abbey " the majority is exclusively
Irish." It would have been judicious to suppress or
moderate this boast, but in obedience to the combined
inspiration of Dublin Castle and of Derrinane, it
could not be qualified, and still less could it be sup-
pressed. That " the majority is exclusively Irish"
must resound throughout the political world. It is a
truth, and therefore cannot be proclaimed too loudly. It
is a truth which castigates, humbles, and enfeebles
the British Administration—a second reason why it
cannot be proclaimed too loudly. It is a truth which
exalts and strengthens Mr. O'Connell and his servile
agents at the Castle of Dublin—a third and final
reason why it cannot be proclaimed too loudly. " The
majority is exclusively Irish I" This, we repeat, is a
boast which the organs of Dublin Castle and of Derri-
nane may fairly and honestly employ. If there be a
majority at all, the boast may defy challenge ; for that
majority, however small, has the unquestionable dis-
tinction, to exalt or to degrade it, of being " exclu-
sively Irish." We have been rebuked for suggesting
that the majority in favour of Ministers in the House
of Commons would have been a more satisfactory and
creditable majority had it, however small, been com-
posed in part of the representatives of the British
people. It was unconstitutional and unfair in us
to pretend that there could he any distinction
between the representatives of one part of the
United Kingdom and those of another. To
attempt any discrimination of this sort was to un-
dermine the principle of the Union, and to
dissever the empire by a forcible division of its cha-
racter and interests into alien and discordant parts..
We have now reason to hope that the reproaches
which we had to undergo upon the occasion will not
be repeated. This discrimination is no longer ours.
The organs of Dublin Castle and of Derrinane con-
cur with us in making a distinction between Irish anti
British Members. It is with them a matter of exul-
tation and triumph that the Ministerial majority in the
new House of Commons is " exclusively Irish."
Dublin Castle and its paramount Derrinane are in
a tumult of joy in virtue of the very distinction to
breathe the least hint of which was in us the deepest
of political crimes. The numerical weakness of the
Ministerial majority is abundantly atoned for by
the exhilarating fact, that its composition is " ex-
clusively Irish." The English' counties have, it
seems, done good service in rejecting the Ministe-
rial candidates with such unusual unanimity, for
had they been less uniformly unpropitious the Minis-
terial majority would not have been so " exclusively
Irish." The merit and efficacy of the Ministerial
majority in the new Parliament, according to the or-
gans. of Lord .Mulgrave and Mr. O'Connell, are not
that it is numerous, which we all know it is not, but
that there is an ample compensation for the paucity of
its numbers in the cheering and glorious fact " that it
is exelusivel3 Irish." The majority, weak as it is in
numbers, is strong, because it is " exclusively Irish ;"
equivocal as it is in reputation is honourable, because
" it is exclusively Irish ;" destitute as it may be of
political sagacity or information is wise, because it is
" exclusively Irish ;" incapable as it will probably
show itself of British feelings and motives is patriotic
and virtuous, because it is " exclusively Irish." No
Englishman or Seotchman who is not the enemy of
the Union lutist so much as glance at the idea of
a distinction between the representatives of Great
Britain ;And those of Ireland in respect to political
weight in the Legislature or moral influence through-
out the empire ; but, when it suits the purposes of the
Mulgrave-O'Connell faction to talk big, nothing can
be more natural and patriotic on their part than to as-
sume that every Irish Member of their party is as
good as three Members of any other description. The
Mnlgrave-O'Connell faction seem to take it for a set-
tled thing that their fifty or sixty Irish Members are
to have everything absolutely their own way. We ap-
prehend they are a little too confident. The British
part of the House of Commons will, we imagine, rehe-
sitate to commit the destinies of the empire exclusively
to Mr. O'Cormell's nominees. This is a degree of sub-
mission or subserviency for which, warm supporters of
the Union as they are, they will scarcely be prepared.
The Ministers may be, and we have reason enough,
unhappily, to conclude that they are, indifferent ,as to
the kind of influence which keeps them in power, so
that they be only kept in ; but some of those Eng-
lish Members of the House of Commons upon whose
support they most confidently reckon may still retain
some vestiges of the national and manly feelings which
Ministers themselves have long; dismissed. It may be
flattering to Lord Mulgrave and Mr. O'Connell, it
may not he disagreeable to Lord Melbourne, Lord
John Russell, or Lord Morpeth, to be told that
" Ireland is not only the arbiter of a Ministry, but
hat in the close balance of parties which we witness,
she has it in her power to turn the scale." The as-
sertion, so far from being; ungrateful to them, may,
for anything we know, be their own, that " no Minis-
try can exist without the active aid of the Irish Mem-
bers." But these vapourings of the Mulgrave-
O'Connell press of Ireland, if they are to be followed
up, as there is little reason to doubt, by corre-
sponding arrogance on the part of the, nominees
of Mr. O'Connell and the Roman Catholic Priests
in the House of Commons, will speedily have the
effect of converting the Ministerial majority of the
House of Commons, such as it is, into a minority,

and these " arbiters," these turners "of the scale,"
these important persons, " without whose active aid
no Ministry can exist," into a knot of mere, disap-
pointed, ineffectual, and . factious grumblers and
plotters. We can scarcely be wrong in imputing
the presumptuous anticipation, that the Irish Mem-
bers of the Mulgrave and O'Connell school are to

enjoy supreme authority in the British Govern-
ment and Legislature, to the Irish Administra-
tion ; for we find several of the persons who oc-
cupy its most prominent positions described in the
article to which we allude in terms which we most
powerfully and potently believe could never have
entered into any mind or been spontaneously ex.