The Sun.
London, England, 1837-01-25 00:00:00

LOND ON,
WEDNESDAY EVF.NING, JANUARY 25, 1837.

In the Number of the Edinburgh Review just puh-
li-died, there is an article entitled " The Approaching
Session," which contains much that is worthy the
.;rave consideration of our readers—especially as re-
!7ards the present state of Ireland, on which subject
the Reviewer remarks—" When we come to Ire-
land, the case is entirely changed. Ireland can-
not wait. If the Whig Government should be
destroyed or damaged, or obstinately thwarted, we do fear
for Ireland with regard to those very measures in which,
and in their immediate settlement, the safety of that
unhappy country is involved. Imagine the most probable
of all consequences—an Irish civil war. When the
shrieks are borne, and the buntings flare across the
Channel, will England quietly look on ?" Certainly
not. Nor would the Tories survive such a calamity a
single hour. From the moment whim the first signal
of insurrection was given in Ireland, from that moment
their party would not be merely lessened, or put down,
but extinguished—annihilated—leaving not so much
as the. scrap of a wreck to show that they had once
existed. But we have few apprehensions for the sis-
ter country. Let LYNDIIURST bully, and the Lords
cry " Hear, hear," as they please, Ireland must be
righted, and that immediately. She cannot afford to
wait. She ought not to wait ; and shame light
on her, if she does wait ! But why does
the Reviewer insinuate his distrustful "if ?" Why
imagine—for such is evidently his drift—that the Ra-
dicals have any idea of " damaging, or destroying, or
obstinately thwarting" the existing Ministry ? We
have no patience with such misgivings ! Every day's
experience serves to show that the Radical section of
the Reformers have the fullest confidence in the Go-
vernment ; that they are aware of its difficulties ; and
ready to go alllengths in assisting it through them. Even
those who have most spoken out against the Mi-
nistry, have spoken out, not as enemies, but as
zealous and sincere friends. True, they are deter-
mined that Reform shall be on the move, but they
are not such fools as to suppose that it can be driven
forward at a steeple-chace gallop ; no, they are satis-
fied with its making a steady, rational, and continuous
progress. Should the present Cabinet be even ejected
from office, sure we are it will not be owing to the
Radical Reformers- Far otherwise. Ministers, and
Ministers only, can sign their own death-warrant.
Their own indolence and procrastination only can
undo . them. They open the campaign under the
most favourable auspices, for though the Tories will
no doubt get up a vigorous opposition, yet the people
generally are With Government, and Ireland to a man
is with them. What can they desire more ? Diffi-
culties they may have—as what Ministry was ever
without them ?—but difficulties are only difficulties
to the timid and distrustful ; to those who have the
means, and above all, the will, to surmount them, they
are mere cobwebs in their path. Had difficulties been
xegarded, the Duke of WELLINGTON would never have
carried Catholic Emancipation, nor Earl GREY the Re-
form Bill. Making every reasonable allowance, then,for
the embarrassments to which we are well aware Ministers
will be subjected daily throughout the Session—grant-
ing that the Court is against them—that the Lords are
against them—and that a strong faction in the Com-
mons is against them—still we repeat, we know of no
obstacle so overwhelming that they will not be able to
subdue; for to the stout heart and the enterprising na-
ture nothing is difficult but that which is impossible.
With the Reviewer's remarks on the House of Lords
we cordially coincide. They are pregnant with good
sense and significance. "It is high time for the
House of Lords to be on its gUard. It is as its
friends that we say so. We beseech it to look
to the dangers which it will accumulate upon itself, and
upon the Constitution, by intemperate perseverance in
the spirit and conduct which it has recently displayed.
If the House of Lords continue to recognise Lord
LygnittirtsT for its leader, and persist to keep itself,
whether under the same or any guidance, in an atti-
tude of hostility to a popularly-elected House of Com-
mons, it will uon become utterly impossible for those