The Sun.
London, England, 1838-07-26 00:00:00

Zfn -Itli.

WITH WHICH
THE " TRUE SUN" IS NOW
INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 26, 1838.

We have received several communications on the subject
of the lamentable state of the Shetland Islands, expressing
deep sympathy with the suffering population, and sug-
gesting different plans for their relief. One correspondent
informs us that the London Committee have actually an-
nounced their determination to devote the Destitution
Fund to the promotion of " Scriptural Education," and re-
commends that a Committee should be formed immediately
from among the London subscribers, to take the necessary
measures for communicating with the subscribers at large,
who, it is presumed, when made acquainted with the dis-
tress of the Shetlanders, and the misapplication of the
fund, would demand back their subscriptions, and direct
the money to be applied to the purchase of food for the
starving people. Another thinks that the subscribers
individually should immediately order the Destitution Com-
mittee to transmit their several contributions to the Aberdeen
Committee, through whom,he says, the supplies have hitherto
been sent to the Shetland Islands. We have not been able
to make up our minds as to which of these plans is the
best, but are rather inclined to give the preference to the
last, because it seems to be calculated to afford the speedi-
est, which, in so urgent a case, is the best relief.

The landowners and titheowners, desirous, no doubt,
like Peacheni and Lockil, to agree as long as possible
for the sake of what can be got by both, by allowing
the public to believe that one set are pure patriots,
and the other meek servants of CHRIST, have entered,
we are told by the Chronicle this morning, into a com-
promise touching the rating of tithes. According to
our Contemporary, who is no doubt ace urately informed,
the landowners have consented to allow a deduction from
the rating of tithes, which will be equivalent to 08 per
cent. on what, according to our Contemporary and the land-
lords, the tithes ought to pay. If the whole poor-rate were
paid, asit ought to be, exclusively out of tithes and rent, for it
would be not difficult to show that they alone were originally
assessed to the poor-rates, we should have no earthly ob-
jection to this compromise. How those two classes,
whom we shall continue to call as long as the
Corn-law tax enhances the revenue plunderers of
the public, may divide the spoil betwixt them,
we do not care one straw, except that the more
they wrangle and quarrel, the better we shall be pleased.
But it is to be considered that the compromising landowners
are really sacrificing the property of all the other classes who
pay poor-rates to their own ease, and the advantage of their
associates in plunder. Either the tithes ought to be
rated to the full amount, or they ought not. If they
ought, with what face can the landlords presume to
exonerate them from one sixpence, which sixpence must
be paid by all the contributors to the rate ? That will be
gross injustice to the rest of the rate-payers. If tithes
ought not to be rated to the full, how can the land-
lords defend their present unjust demand, and ask to
be relieved from their portion of rates, for they never think
of the rest of the rate payers, by taxing the tithe-owners ?
As the Chronicle says, compromise may be adopted now ;
but justice and equity will by-and-by insist on being
beard, and then the compromise will be set aside,
to the shame of those who enter into it. But
the whole transaction is of a piece with the general
conduct of our law-making landlords, who have ever
studied, as witness the Stamp and Legacy Duties, and
Corn Laws, their own exclusive advantage. Not con-
tented with an immense income—brought to them with-

out "ball the reward of no merit, the payment for no
services—this selfish, unjust, rapacious class of men has
never ceased, under some pretext or other, to infringe on
the property of all other men.
Let us further say, that tithes are either a property or a
tax ; either like the landlord's rent, they are something
wholly belonging to the priesthood, for which they are
not accountable to other men ; or they are the salary and
reward for service. If they be property, how dare
these landlords who are always vilifying the people for
being only desirous, as they say—we believe most unjustly
—of touching their profits—how dare they touch or meddle
with the property of the priests ? If tithes be property,
what excuse can be found, as the Herald has properly
asked, for Sir ROBERT PEEL and Lord STANLEY, and the
crowd of anti-appropriators, even including that pink of a
pious Baronet Sir R. INGLis—if tithes be property, what ex-
cuse can the Tories invent for taking away, or suffering to be
taken away, one sixpence of it, to be given to the landlords,
either as commutation here in England, or as a bribe to pay
the remainder, as in Ireland ? If Tithes be property,
then has the Legislature of late ordained a violation
of the property of a helpless class of men—of a class of
men, too, whom it pretends to regard as very meritorious,
and for 'whom it is continually boasting of its respect and
attachment—which is, in principle, as gross a species of
plunder as ever was proposed by any class of levellers.
Our opinittn is, that tithes are not property, but a tax,
and this opinion is now professed by the clergy ; for they
claim the tithes as the officers of the Army and Navy
claim their pay—as the salary and reward for services ren-
dered to the State. In that sense, the State may
commute tithes, or give up any portion of them
without the imputation of injustice ; but if tithes be
property, then have the eminent Whigs and Tories in our
day combined to do a flagrant wrong. But if they go with
us, and admit tithes to be a tax, then another and not less
important consideration arises. The Legislature gives up a
large part of the tithes in Ireland and commutes in England,
because the tax cannot be levied in one country, and is
excessively mischievous in the other. In the former case
those Statesmen admit that they are impotent to enforce
the observance of their own laws, and in the latter they ena-
able us to assign the reason for their impotence—the law
is unjust. They may take which alternative they please, but
which ever they take their reputation will be damaged,
adding one more proof to the many that have before
been pressed on public notice, that it is contamination for
Statesmen to meddle with the Church. The whole con-
trivance of an established Priesthood being founded in error,
all that flows from it, and all the contrivances for its sup-
port, have the properties of the parent error, and are a
mass of error, humbug, delusion, and injustice. It is like
pitch, and defiles all who touch it.

The men calling themselves the friends of the Protes-
tant Church in Ireland, assume great credit for having
forced Lord JOHN RUSSELL and his party to give up the
appropriation clause in the Tithe Bill. If we are to believe
their words, they consider the question settled. Lord
STANLEY, last Session, told, the Ministry that though they
could turn out the PEEL Administration by means of a re-
solution, that resolution should never be carried into effect ;
and believing himself a true prophet, he this Session ex-
claims, "what a justification to those who had all along
opposed it was the admission of his Noble Friend." And
what was the admission of his Noble Friend ? Simply
this—" If the Irish Church retained a moderate share of
the tithes, sufficient for the spiritual wants of its followers,
it would, and could be maintained." In other words, that
the Catholics will not be satisfied now with 50,0001. a
year—that the Church must be content with a moderate, in-
stead of an immoderate share of the funds—and on that condi-
tion her security rests. Lord J. RUSSELL has given up the
point for the present, but with the firm conviction that the
appropriation clause, and something more, must be brought
forward speedily ; and that by no other means can even a
portion of the tithes be secured to the Protestant Church,
or the Catholics be reconciled to the Establishment. All
impartial observers take the same view of the question.
Foreigners, Protestant as well as Catholic, are struck with
wonder at the folly of our Tory leaders, who lay down a
law, as immutable with Lord STANLEY as the law of the
Medes and Persians, that a certain religion is the best,
and because a third of the inhabitants of the empire think
otherwise, resolve that they shall be for ever deprived of
the funds granted by their ancestors for the maintenance
of their religion ! A proposition so monstrous could be
supported only by religious prejudice, which too often has
sanctioned the greatest absurdities, led to the perpetration
of the greatest crimes, and which the bigoted party think
as strong in this country now as it was in the height of
their power, when GEORGE the Third was King. They
are blind to every change that takes place around them.
They cannot see the changes which have been effected on
the people of Ireland by the Emancipation and Reform
Acts, or on the people of this country by the intercourse
between Protestants and Catholics in the Legislature,
and by the cordial support which Catholics have given to
every measure for improving our institutions, or abating
what the moral and religious people of this country con-
sider the greatest of crimes—the crime of slavery. The
Catholics of Ireland are no longer degraded outcasts such
as they were in the last century, when they were treated
by the English more as Eastern slaves than as fellow-
subjects. Persons who have visited the country, after a
lapse of years, bear testimony to the vast change which
has taken place both in the character and conduct of the
people. They act with a unity of purpose, and have ac-
quired a moral power which they never before possessed ;
and when we consider their number, the justice of their
cause, the support which they receive from a majority of
the Representatives of the people of the United Kingdom,
and the determined and successful resistance which they
have made for the last ten years to Orange dominion, we
cannot for a moment doubt the issue of the contest.

We have received a Newfoundland paper of the 22d
June, containing the Speech of his Excellency the Go-
vernor, of which we give an extract :

Mr. President and Honourable Gentlemen of the Council :

Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of Assembly :
" It gives me particular pleasure to meet you this day, the auspicious
anniversary of our beloved Sovereign's accession. May your labours
contribute to the fulfilment of her Majesty's ardent desire for the pros-
perity and happiness of this important Colony. I shall have the honour
of laying before you the copy of a despatch from Lord Glenelg, by
which you will learn that the Queen has been graciously pleased to
offer her Royal mediation for the settlement of those differences be.
tween the Council and the House of Assembly, which, last year,
unfortunately prevented the passing of any Appropriation Act. I
feel confident that an adoption of the measure suggested by her Ma.
jesty will obviate similar misunderstandings in future, and afford the
best means of securing a satisfactory application of the public funds.
My remarks at the opening of the last Session respecting the Acts for
the relief of the disabled seamen, fishermen, and other persons, and for
the encouragement of education, I beg once more to offer to your consi-
deration. I must also renew the recommendation to your favour and
protection of the hospital at the river head—the value of that institu.
tion having become more and more apparent.

Mr. Speaker, and Gentlemen of the House of Assembly,

I shall immediately transmit to you copies of dispatches, in answer
to your late addresses to her Majesty, and to her Majesty's Government.
[He further states, that in consequence of the peculiar and painful
incident attendant on the prorogation, his Excellency found himself
compelled, during the recess, to assume the responsibility of issuing war-
rants for such sums as were indispensably necessary for the administra-
tion ofjustice.)

The deficiency of seed potatoes, owing to a scanty crop and early
frost in 1837, was placed under my observation in such a manner as to
render it impossible for me to withhold considerable assistance in alle-
viation of a want so serious and so pressing.

The estimates for the approaching year shall be prepared without de-
lay. It is, lam sure, unnecessary to enforce the expediency of my
being promptly enabled to pay up the fixed salaries, and to discharge the
various claims on the Government. I am desirous to recal your attention
to my former suggestion as to the propriety of making provision for a
stipendiary magistrate at the Burgas Islands, and I would propose a like
arrangement for La Poille.
Mr. President, and Hon. Gentlemen of the Council,

I invite your attention to a despatch from Lord Glenelg, of the 3d
January, en the subject of Crown lands; you will observe under what
limitations I am therein permitted to assent to an Act for their future
regulation.

The Paris Papers of Tuesday contain no political news
of importance. Sir GEORGE VILLIERS was to dine on that
day with the King of the FRENCH, and on the day follow"
ing with the President of the Council. His Excellency's
departure for London was fixed for Thursday. On Tues-
day M. MENnizADAL arrived in Paris from Madrid.
The following are extracts from the French Papers :
There is no official article in the Moniteur this morning. The
Phare de Bayonne of the 21st announces the return of Gen. Harispe,
who had resumed the command of the 20th military division.
The Indicateur of Bordeaux of the 22d says---" Don Francis de Paula
and his family visited our Great Theatre, and many other public build-
ings of the city. They were accompanied by the Prefect. At one
o'clock they set out for Blaye, on board the steam-boat The Spanish
Consul and Gen. Cardonel attended at their embarkation. M. Lapane,
at the head of the mounted municipal guard, was on the spot, and also a
detachment of the line, to preserve order.

The suite of the Prince consists of 4S persons, Chamberlains, Secre-
tary, Ladies of Honour, Intendant-General, &c. The Prince accom.
panied by the Princess and eight children, together 48 persons, are now
all gone, either in the Prince's carriages, or by the steam packet.
The Prince is going to La Rochelle for the benefit of sea bathing for