The Sun.
London, England, 1837-05-06 00:00:00

and the object and intention of which were to allow the people
of Ireland the administration of their own local affairs, and
place then on the same footing with other subjects in the
United Kingdom. If that were the intention of the Noble
Duke, he must say it gave him unbounded satisfaction. If the
principle were really admitted, and if the Noble Duke showed
c disposition to sec it usefully applied, he confessed his satis-
faction was greatly diminished when the Noble Duke and the
Noble Baron declined to go on with the plan, and take the ne-
cessary steps for carrying it into effect. He did not blame the
NoLle Duke and the Noble Baron for not taking the Bill as
it stood ; but what he'blamed them for was for not going into
Committee to consider the details, with a view to confer on the

people of Ireland those inestimable privileges which were en-
joyed by the inhabitants of Great Britain. He wished to call
the attention of their Lordships to the extraordinary novelty of
the course pursued on the present occasion. A Noble Lord
had stated a case to prove that there was no novelty in the
case, though he confessed the argument of the Noble Lord
had failed to convince him, because the case stated had not
the remotest analogy to the proposition of the Noble Duke.
The case quoted was that which happened when the Bill for
emancipating the Catholics was introduced, and when another
Bill was to accompany it, namely, a Bill for disfranchising
the forty-shilling freeholders. Now that was proposed by the
same Government and at the same time. Was that a ques-
tion between the two Houses of Parliament, or one in which
one House sought to controul the decision of the other House
till that Bill was passed? The cases were totally different—
the Bills were introduced by the Government in that House—
they were to go on pari passu, and their influence with Par-
liament was such as to enable them to carry both measures
as one, or as directly bearing on one another. But did that
measure bear on the proposition of the Noble Duke? It
certainly did not. But he had argument still stronger, and
on that point he would appeal to the Noble Duke, and
he was glad that on the occasion he had the benefit
not only of the Noble Duke's spoken, but the benefit of his
recorded, opinion. The present Session was the first in
which the three great measures to which the Noble Duke
alluded had been placed in juxtaposition. Last Session, when
the Noble Duke moved an amendment to the Address in an-
swer to the King's speech, the Noble Duke did not intimate
that there was the slightest connection between the three mea-
sures alluded to in the speech—namely, municipal Corpora-
tion Reform for Ireland, the tithe question, and the introduc-
tion of Poor-laws into Ireland. After the address had been
moved the Noble Duke, exercising that influence belonging to
the high authority and station to which he was so well entitled,
proposed to alter, and he was successful in doing so, part of
the words, and substitute other words on the subject in ques-
tion. And what were the words inserted in the amended Ad-

dress ? His Majesty in his Speech from the Throne adverted
to the expediency of inquiring into the state of the Municipal
Corporations of Ireland, and in the Address the Noble Duke
proposed to add the fiillewing sentence :—Lb Being in pos-
session of the Report of the Commission appointed to in-
quire into the state of the Munjcipat Corporations in Ire-
land, we will proceed, without delay, to the consideration
of any defects and evils which may have been shown to
exist in those institutions, for the purpose of applying
such remedies as may obviate just causes of complaint,
and insure the impartial administration of justice." Did
that amendment refer to anj other Bills ? Did it advert
to the administration of justice, or to any other of the topics
now considered by Noble Lords opposite so intimately con-
nected with the subject under discussion ? Not in the least.
Now, what was the cause alleged for the proposed course
of proceeding? When Noble Lords talked of their intention
to delay the consideration of the Bill for a month, he did not
mean their object was to defeat the measure by delay, for
he was bound to take the assurances made that night, but
when they talked of delay, and said time was of little conse-
quence, lie would able Noble Lords to call to mind whet they
had said of the gross corruption and the incalculable mis-
chief which attended these institutions in Ireland, and then
ask if thej were prepared, admitting all that confusion and
all that corruption, to hang the present measure on two
others never connected with it before, and to one of.which
there were, on the pet of some, insuperable objections ?
But the real cause of the objection to the Municipal Biil was
said to be the way in which it would affect the safety and
permanency of the Established Church. He admitted that
there had arisen sonic connection between these two sub-
jects; but his cause of apprehension was directly the contrary
of that entertained by the Noble Duke, because if there was
danger to the solidity of the Established Church in Ireland,
he thought the very mode kroposed, instead of ditriiiiishing
that danger, :could greatly increase it, and that the hestility to
that Church would become more active than ever if the Church
was connected with the refusal to the people of Ireland to ma-
nage their own concerns. He believed the greatest danger
was to 'be apprehended on that account, and he hoped and
wished that the Noble Duke had abstained from mixing them
up together. The Church of Ireland, all knew, was is an
auomalous condition ; and if they were to tell the people of
Ireland that on account of. their Church they were to be de-
barred of their privileges—that they were to be deprived of
the rights and privileges enjoyed by Englishmen—Of the Mu-
nicipal rights, too, which they had long enjoyed before—did,
Noble Lords think that would increase the security of the
Church ? He wished Noble Lords would descend to par-
ticulars and point out how the present Bill would endanger
the Church ? for notwithstanding discussion year after yeai--
alter dit.cwsions in that House and in the other House, no
one had pointed out an act of hostility, or shown boor the
danger was to arise.—(, Hear, hear.) If the Municipal Bill
was granted, and the• people of Ireland were placed. on
the same tooting pith the people of England, they mildit
not exercise those privileges in the best way for them-
selves, or exert themselves as much in managing the
town concerns ; but it did net follow from that, because they
did not regulate the municipal afftirs in the best way, they
were to uirect their batteries charged with the ammunition
with which that Bill would supply them against the sacred
fabric of the Church. Ile contended that no such power
would be g von to them by the passing of the present
measure. But Noble Lords said though the power ought not
to be given, still the exercise of municipal rights would
give rise to a spirit of restlessness which might ho directed
against the Church, or any of the Protestant institutions of
the country, and that it was therefore the daty of the Legis-
lature to deprive them of the power of inflicting airy net of
hostility. He saw no such danger. The Noble Duke and
others spoke as if the Bill would give exclusive rights to the
Roman Catholics, or something amounting to that. Now
he contended that they were not justified in bringing such
a charge against a whole population. The Noble Baron
could not say that the people of Ireland would abuse these
privileged—he (Lord Lansdowne) would not say they
would -abuse them, and he was not therefore prepared to
prefer a Bill of Indictment against a whole population,
and say that they would act in opposition to their Own
interests and the proper management of their own con-
cerns. He could not fur a moment conceive that a whole
population would act so inconsistently and so absurdly ;
and experience confismed his arguments and views on the sub-
ject. He had some anxiety to ascertain the grounds on which
' Noble Lords came to such a conclasion, and he had in conse-
quence exerted himself to find out how the affairs in certain
towns in Ireland were conducted under the management of die
inhabitants, and he found that so far from there being any reason
for casting such imputations on the people of Ireland; they
were more free from blame on dolt head than he could pos-
sibly have expected. He would give a few instances; and he
trusted Noble Lords more intimately acquainted with the
country than he was would correct hint if wrong. He would
take four towns, more completely Catholic than any others,
and where the Catholics predominated, in order to show how
they managed their municipal affairs. He would take Wex-
ford, Cork, Limerick, and most Catholic Galway. He se-
lected these towns because the peculiar bodies which ma-
naged their affairs were analagous to those which would becratedceted by the Btll under their Lordships' consideration. He
would begin with Wexford. From accidental circumstances
the old Corporation, which had long enjoyed the ascendancy,
had been deprived of their exclusive privileges and forced to
admit Catholics into the Corporate body. That had taken
place some ten years ago, and while the Roman Catholics
predominated in the town, and could have returned all the
Members of Council of that creed, out of the mayors who
had been elected since the change, only three had been Ro-
man Catholics. That certainly was a prhof that even if the
majority of the inhabitants were Catholics, they would not
elect Catholics to the most important situations in the ,towns
and boroughs. Noble Lords probably were aware that by an
Act passed some years ago, the new town of Limerick had
the power of electing commissioners for paving, lighting, and
watching the town. A large portion of these commissioners
were generally Protestants, and on a late occasion a Roman
Catholic banker of great respectability was proposed as a can-
didate, but he was not elected; but a Mr. Watson, a Protes-
tant gentleman, was preferred to the Roman Catholic. He
would quote a similar instance as regarded Cork. In the
Chamber of Comnteke in that town there were a great many
not only Protestants, but Protestant dissenters. He would
come next to Galway, and though he was not much ac-
quainted with that town, he believed there were more Catho-
lics in that town than in any town in Ireland of the same po-
pulation. By the 9th of Geo. IV. twenty-one commissioners
were elected by the householders for managing the affairs
of the town ; and it was rather singular that among the first
acts of the elective body—that body which . the Noble
Duke seemed to consider so hostile to the Church Esta-
blishment—was the election not only of a Tory, or a Conser-
vative, as some preferred the term, but a Protestant clergy-
man as one of the Commissioners.—( Hear.) In a few months
after the death of a Roman Catholic Commissioner his place
was filled by Mr. Mansell, a respectable Protestant clergyman.
That proved that so far from the Church exciting hostility in
the minds of the people of Galway, Roman Catholics of that
town elected a member and a clergyman of that Church to
administer and assist in managing their local affairs. What
reason, then, was there for supposing that the .people would
abuse the trust, and apply the power which they would acquire
by the Bill in battering down the Church ? He said, then,
that their Lordships ought to pause before they refused a great
act of justice to a people who had so conducted themselves.
It was said they ought to take a large and general view of the
question, and wait till they saw what the measures were which
had been' introduced into the other House. If they took a
lake view, and wished to go on successfully and peaceably
in their career of legislation, he begged of them to consider
how the Roman Catholics had been excluded by the old system :
he begged them to consider the condition of the Roman Catho-,
lies • he begged them to consider their pride and their strength;
lie begged them to consider their present position and their
ancient rights; but, above all, he begged, their Lordships to
consider their former measures, in order to see what advan-
tages they had gained by delay. He would ask what they
had done in 1790 and 1791, and with what grace-they yielded
and gave up to the Catholics what they had long denied them.
He asked them to look back at the exclusive system which had
prevailed almost since the Reformation—the system which
excluded Catholics from the army and navy—,and consider