The Sun.
London, England, 1838-10-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We observe with much satisfaction that meetings are
about to be held in Cork and other places to consider the
best means of promoting the execution of the Great South-
western Railway, recommended in the Second Report of
the Commissioners. We are glad to have such convincing
proofs that the healthy spirit of enterprise has not been
stifled by that document, as has been rashly and inconside-
rately asserted. It has been already stated in this Journal

that the line proposed by the Commissioners contemplates
the connection of the cities of Cork, Limerick, Waterford,
and Kilkenny with the metropolis ; and the circumstance
that certain Companies had anticipated portions of this
plan, upon views and principles of their own, has led to
complaints and charges against the Commissioners, as if
they had started with a deliberate resolution to discounte-
nance all previously-formed projects, indifferent alike to the
public advantage and the private interests already involved.
To show the groundlessness of all such petty attacks upon the
Commission, we cannot do better than lay before the public
the convincingreasons assigned in the report for preferring the
lines there recommended and described to those which had
already been projected upon partial and detached views,
with no general regards to the great objects of railway com-
munication. Let us take, for example, the line from
Dublin to Kilkenny, for the execution of which an Act of
Parliament was obtained last session, and which the Com-

missioners allow has been laid out with great judgment.
The Commissioners object to this line as a main trunk to
the south of Ireland upon the two following grounds :
" 1. As a line to Cork it is four miles longer to Cahir (a
common point) than that by Maryborough.
" 2. The communication from the city of Limerick to
Dublin, by any connection with it, excepting by a branch
diverging at a short distance from the latter, is quite out of
the question."
The Commissioners, however, are blind to none of the
peculiar advantages belonging to the line already laid out.
They are fully alive," they state " to the importance of
a direct railway communication through the rich and popu-
lous valley of the Barrow, which contains the towns of
Athy, Carlow, Bagnalstown, and Leighlinbridge, and which
would greatly facilitate the intercourse between the
city of Dublin and the south-eastern portion of the
county of Wexford." And, " under these circum-
stances," they proceed, " although we consider the Kil-
kenny line highly objectionable as the main trunk to the
south and south-west of Ireland, and also a-; a distinct line
from Dublin to Kilkenny, we think it might be desirable to
connect it as a branch with the.main southern line recom-
mended by us at some point in the neighbourhood of the
town of Kildare." We quote this as the best means of
proving with what extreme injustice the Commissioners
have been reproached with a blind and dogged determina-
tion to adopt none of the lines previously marked out, and
allow no weight whatsoever to the arguments in favour of
any plans not in perfect unison with their own. At the
same time, having a public duty to discharge, and having
the obligation imposed upon them to consider no partial
line, however great its intrinsic advantages, without
reference to that general system which it was the object of
the Commission to determine and report on, the Com-
missioners add :
" This view is thrown out for consideration. The Kil-
kenny Railway Company, having already obtained an Act of
Parliament for their line, may determine to persevere and
complete it for the whole distance from Dublin to Kilkenny.
Should they do so, we are of opinion that the main southern
line from Dublin, recommended by us, possesses so many im-
portant local advantages over the Kilkenny line, that we should
strongly recommend its adoption, notwithstanding the loss
which must ensue from their running parallel to each other
for the first eighteen miles from Dublin, a loss which would
be very injurious to the main southern, and absolutely ruin-
ous to the Kilkenny line. We have no hesitation in saying
that any proposal to prolong the latter, in order to substi-
tute it for a main trunk line to the south-west, is inconsistent
with the general interests of the country, and directly op-
posed to those of several extensive and most important dis-
tricts."

It is impossible for an unprejudiced individual to read
the document before us without perceiving and admitting
that it has been framed upon the most comprehensive views
of, and with the most considerate regard for, all the
manifold interests directly or indirectly concerned
in the establishment of railways in Ireland. We have
a striking evidence of this in the tenderness evinced
by the Commissioners towards the existing communica-
tions by canals, which in England have been so very
little respected in railway projects. In discussing the
merits of a proposed railroad from Dublin to Sligo, the
course of which is parallel to the Royal Canal, and passes
through the same towns, the Report observes as follows :
" We are aware that in England this consideration has not
been sufficient to prevent the adoption of railways between
large commercial towns, which commence and terminate at
the same points with existing navigations, as in the case of
the railway from Liverpool to Manchester. But such policy
is not suitable to Ireland, where internal traffic is compara-
tively trifling, and where commercial enterprise has hitherto
made so little progress; and consequently in those localities
where navigations have been completed on a large scale, and
in a superior manner, at the cost of more than three millions,
it appears to us to be injurious to the best interests of the
country to promote other speculations, having a tendency to
injure or destroy them. Hence, in suggesting lines for rail-
way communication, we have endeavoured, as far as local cir-
cumstances would permit, to adopt those which would open
districts beyond the influence of existing navigations.",
—Morning Chronicle.
The present synod of Ministerial divinities in Dublin
has given rise to anxious conjectures among those who
deem the parties and their movements of more importance
than we do. To us it is a matter of more than absolute
indifference whether Lord Lansdowne parades his nullity,
or Lord J. Russell his adroitness at manoeuvre, or Lord
Morpeth, in conjunction with the others, his abject subser-
viency to O'Connell on this side of St. George's Channel,
or to the Westward of it. There is no battery to be
raised by them in Ireland, the fire of which can henceforth
make the shadow of an impression upon the English mind.
" Emancipation" is expended. The " tithe-grievance" is
expended. " Enlargement of the franchise" is expended.
The " abolition of the Protestant Church" is expended.
" Corporate Reform" has twice exploded, and left no-
thing but foul smoke behind. " Justice to Ireland" is a
rejected farce. " Repeal" has a dozen times flashed in the
pan, and if it ever goes off, will shatter the hand that fires
it. What machination is left for the Whig-Radical
and Whig supporting enemy ! None. There is not a
single round of ammunition remaining in the Popish
arsenals. The convulsions of Mr. Daniel O'Connell, like
the gaspings and tlounderings of a shark in his extremity,
are but impotent exhibitions of despair and madness.
They attract no sympathy, and threaten no result. The
Irish rabble may doubtless be prepared, as they always have
been, for extempore tumult, for violence, bloodshed, and
destruction ; but it will be no longer at the bidding of the
obsolete Agitator, who is now discarded by his late em-
ployers, the incendiary and rebellious priests. lylr. Daniel
O'Connell rides no longer the whirlwind which, for selfish
• purposes, he raised. He has abandoned the pretences
on which he first appealed to the furious passions of
his countrymen. Before; their eyes he has betrayed the
expectations with which he himself inspired them, and
has stood by no interests but those sordid ones of
which, with more respect for the opinions of others
than for his own, he has always disclaimed the exis-
tence. The authority once exercised by Mr. O'Con-
nell over the action of the Irish multitude has plainly
though recently, dwindled into comparative nothing.
A power from behind has broken in upon him. The
priests are hourly enjoining their obedient flocks to place
no further confidence in the Agitator, but to prosecute the
ecommonis
objects of Popery by means independent of him.
i a new era for the confederate of the Whigs, and it
puts him in a curious relation with those official jobbers.
Will the Roman Catholic portion of the tail adhere to
O'Connell after the
Priests have denounced him ? We
shall see. Should the tail waver from O'Connell, it will
not be to unite itself
the anti-Connell and a to
the Whigs, but to coalesce with
anti-Whig democracy. What, then,
becomes of Ministers
B t the mortified Agitator, un-
able or not
asantr to carry the
against the priests,
any further with him, or
the pey
cocoon of a lon
of is engaged in the con-
cious Majesty the Queen?,u4‘ petitions" to her " gra-
for favours which (fortunately)
the Queen has no power to grant, and which are one
and all in the teeth of that
to which the
Queen's Ministers already standpoliley
p edged to Parlia-
He is to petition for
ment. " an equal and identical
municipal reform in Ireland as in England." Will
gua-
rantee the British nation that Municipal Reform,he
words, shall work alike in practice ? If , • alike in
not is anything
reform"
but an " equal and identical . He is to petit' f
identical Parliamentar f • ton or
" an equal and y rancluse for Ire-
Will
he stipulate for
land as for England."the same sys-
tem'n Ireland as in England,and
of registration
same guarantees against the overwhelming influx of ficti-
tious"
votes ? If not, there is nothing of
the
and iden-
tical" in his franchise. He is to demand e
abolition of
all compulsory payments to the Established Church." But
he formerly pledged himself to respect and defend the rights
of the Established Church. By what device mil he "split the
difference" with the conclave of her Majesty's Ministers
now in Ireland, who have one and all repeatedly
vaunted the tendency of their own measures to secure
•
and perpetuate the Church, and to maintain " the
compulsory payment of tithes for its subsistence ?"
He is to demand " an equalization of the repre-
sentation in Ireland, as for England and Scotland ;"
that is, an amount of Representatives for Ireland hearing
the same proportion to those for Great Britain as the po-
pulation (we presume) of Ireland bears to that of Great
Britain—in other words, about one-half, or 219 1-3 d
members to 438 2-3ds. How is the Learned Agitator to
settle this knotty point with Lord John-Finality-Russell
These be the threatened conditions of the forlorn Agita-