The Sun.
London, England, 1838-06-15 00:00:00

tett) by virtue of the "compact alliance" at Lichfield House,
and as further inducement to the continuing services of the
O'Connell faction, mist invest with the robes of those high
offices whatever persons the chief of that faction designates
as the worthiest candidates for promotion. Indeed some say
that the Chief Justiceship of the Queen's Bench is an office
which O'Connell has for a long time past had an eye upon
for himself. We do not know whether that is so or not, but we
do know that the man whose recommendation of others for
all sorts of Irish appointments is irresistible with her Ma-
jesty's Ministers, cannot become a rejected candidate when he
recommends himself. Still as long as he can command forty
or fifty votes in the House of Commons, indulge his darling'
passion for agitation, and collect from the poorest people in
the world 15,0001. a-year to gratify his no less darling passion;
for pelf, we doubt that even a Chief-Justiceship of the Irish
Queen's Bench would tempt him off the stage of turbulent
politics into a life of stately dullness and dignified tranquil-
lity. Already a Roman Catholic—a protege of O'Connell—
a man indebted for whatever success he had at the bir to his
favour and patrona se—is Master of the Roils in Ireland;
another is a Judge of the Queen's Bench ; another a Baron
of the Exchequer, the only jurisdiction in Ireland to which the
Protestant clergy can look for the recovery of their tithe.
If it were not for the firmness of that Court in issuing its
writs of rebellion against tithe defaulters—or more properly to
describe them, anti-tithe conspirators—the Protestant
clergy would be now as they were before those writs of
rebellion were resorted to, in a destitute and starving con-
dition. Let it not be forgotten that the law officers of the
Government, the Irish Attorney and Solicitor-General were
employed at first to argue against the jurisdiction of the Court
of Exchequer-in this matter, and to contend that the only legal
process which has proved successful in protecting the property
of the Church against a lawless combination was obsolete, and
not possessed at the present day, of any legal validity. The
Lord Chancellor of Ireland is now an aged man, as arc several
of the yet remaining Protestant and constitutional judges. A
session or two longer of " clipping and compromising" by the
parliamentary conservatives on one side, and tenacious adhe-
rence to office in spite of the public contempt by the Whig Mi-
nisters on the other, and the Irish judicial bench will have ef-
fectually undergone the process of popish epuration, to use
a French word very much employed when the Bourbons, soon
after their restoration to the throne by the arms of protestant
England, were " purifying" the public offices, colleges, and
other places of trust and education of those able and intelli-
gent protestants whose talents the more enlightened Napoleon
had availed himself of for the public service. At this moment
Lord Mulgrave is performing the process of popish epuration
upon the magistracy of Ireland. It is said that no less than
200 protestant magistrates are to be excluded from the com-
mission under the new arrangement. In the meantime Sir
Robert Peel and other leaders of the Conservatives in Par-
liament take no notice of those doings in Ireland, but propose
still further to strengthen the hands of the agitator by ex-
changing the Protestant Corporations for " normal schools of
political agitation !" And this is called a "settlement !"
Morning Herald.
Mr. Wyse's motion last night in the House of Commons
for an" Address to her Majesty that she will he graciously
pleased to appoint a Board of Commissioners of Education in
England, with a view especially of providing for the wise,.
equitable, and efficient application of sums granted or to be
granted for the advancement of education, by Parliament,
and for the immediate establishment of schools for the edu-
cation of teachers, in accord with the intention already ex-
pressed by the Legislature", comes before the attention of the
Legislature and the public with the strongest recommen-
mendation of concurrent circumstances, and, we trust, will
have duo weight with the public. From the long
and laborious consideration which the Learned Member
for Waterford has bestowed upon the great ques-
tion of national education, his opinions are deserv-
ing of the most serious attention, and the perusal
of his speech last night will not disappoint the ex-
pectations which the previously distinguished reputa-
tion of the speaker might justly have excited towards it.
The contrast drawn between the state of education in Great
Britain, where it averages only as one in fourteen, with that
of the Continental States, wherein the average is as one in
six, illustrates in a way not more lamentable than nationally
disera ceful to the intellectual and moral condition of the po-
pulation of these realms. Mr. Wyse proposes that the sys-
tem of education should be conducted in a manner totally
distinct from all sectarian influence—that the Government
should not have any controul in its management—and that
the religious instruction should be left to the option of the
parents and guardians of those seeking the assistance of the
institution. We regret that the difficulties of carrying these
suggestions into effeet were considered by the Government
to be at peesent so insuperable, as to induce Lord John Rus-
sell and Mr. Spring Rice to recommend the withdrawal of
the motion. However, as discussion furnishes the best guide
to the mode in which these difficulties are to be overcome, the
motion of Mr. Wyse has conferred an essential service on the
public.—Morning Advertiser.
The public must have observed—we trust without any ma-
terial concern—that the conduct of Sir Robert Peel for some
time past, and especially in the course he has taken selith re-
gard to the Irish Municipal Bill, has completely failed to ob-
tain even the faintest approbation from those sages of the press
who support the present very respectable Administration.
They are surprised and almost offended at his perseverance.
They cannot understand it. It does not accord with their views
of what ought to happen. They would fain persuade him to
another mode of proceeding ; and they are so obliging as to
resort to every variety of means for this purpose, with the ex-
ception of argument. One newspaper thunders at him as the
insulter of the people of Ireland, and threatens, with the ut-
most energy of Billingsgate rhetoric, that if he will persevere
in " heaping insult" upon that kingdom—that is, in assuming
that respectable Roman Catholic inhabitants in towns live in
houses really worth ten pounds a-year, and in limiting the ex-
ercise of Municipal privileges to that class—the wrath
of the " intelligent masses" will certainly fall upon his
devoted head. Another sage " public instructor," with ex-
quisite talent for ridicule, calls Sir Robert (with reference to
the two divisions on the amount of municipal franchise) " the
Napoleon of defeat ;" and a third, with wondrously felicitous
variety, both of idea and of phrase, says that he is " the hero
of defeat." As Sir Robert Peel is the leader of the Opposi-
tion, and as these kind remonstrators and critics are (very
disinterestedly no doubt 1) exceedingly opposed to the Oppo-
sition, it seems rather strange that they should be evidently so
displeased at what they represent to have happened. If Sir
Robert Peel have so insulted Ireland that henceforward the
" intelligent masses" even in England will be against him, so
much the better for his opponents. They, at all events, have
no reason to be sore upon the subject. If his perseverance
do in truth bring him nothing but defeat, why should his
adversaries so evidently writhe, when seeming to smile
at his heroism in this particular Were the representa-
tions of these adversaries true, and bona fide, we opine that
the result would be the utmost satisfaction and good humour
on their parts ; but we suspect that their objection to bona
fide qualifications is a general one, and holds equally with re-
spect to their comments upon Sir Robert Peel's proposal in
the Irish Municipal Bill, and with regard to that proposal
itself. The fine flourish about the Opposition having been
defeated by a Ministerial majority of 20 in a full House would
some years ago have been totally unintelligible. It was re-,
served for the Ministerial leadership of Lord John Russell to
discover a victory in outnumbering the Opposition by 20 votes,
When people talk with such an air of glee about defeating the
Opposition, they seem to forget that not only the natural but
the necessary state of an Opposition is that of defeat. It is of
the essence of an Opposition (in the British House of Com-
mons), that it should be outnumbered by the adherents of
Government, for when this ceases to happen the party not
outnumbered ceases to be an Opposition. It obtains pos-
session of the Government. When an Opposition comes near
to the defeat of the Government it is (qua Opposition) in a
much more flourishing condition than the Government, which
only escapes from being beaten by a few votes. When the
Whigs were in Opposition (we mean while they had yet some
character, and were not sold for the lucre of place to the Ro-
manist faction of Ireland) they considered that to come within
50 of the numbers on the Government side was to be in a very
triumphant position. And so it was, for in those days the
Government was held by men who felt that, unless under very
peculiar circumstances indeed, they were scarcely justified in
pursuing any line of policy that had not a majority of at least
fifty to sanction it. And yet those were the days in which
it is said public opinion was disregarded in the Government
of the country ! Perhaps the Whigs consider that at pre-
sent what they lack as a Government in numerical
strength is made up by the superior respectability of those
who constitute their small majority; or by the wonderful
talents, directorial and oratorical, which at present give forth
their lustre from the Treasury bench. It cannot be denied
that in the days of Tory ascendancy, when a Government ma-
jority of 20 would have been looked upon as a Government
defeat, the administration could only boast of being supported
by an immense preponderance of the representatives of the
wealth, both landed and commercial, of the nation, and by
the leading persons in rank of the various districts of the
kingdom which sent Members to the Imperial Parliament.
It is true that the present Ministers are not obliged for their
majorities to any such support. So independent are they of
this old-fashioned way of succeeding that they boast of carry-
ing such measures as they do carry, while the majority of the
representatives of Great Britain are hostile to them. In-
stead of being under obligation to the leading gentry
of the kingdom for the majority in the House of
Commons, they can independently contrive to treat the
principles and feelings of that class with contempt,
being secure in the noble and disinterested alliance of that
highly respectable and accomplished set of gentlemen who are
nominated to Parliament by the Romish priests of Ireland.
Then as to the Ministerial talent which now presides in the
Lower House of Parliament, what wonder that men should be
content with the smallest majority when, in addition to that,
they have the largest capacity, the elevated views, and the
nobly energetic oratory of Lord John Russell, not to mention
the bold candour of Mr. Spring Rice, and the vigilant readi-
ness of Lord Viscount Palmerston ? These are no doubt the
things which reconcile Ministerialists to small majorities—
which make them think that a majority which is in number not
so much as two-thirds of the number of Members holdine place
in the Government is, nevertheless, worthy of being considered
a triumph—and which leads them (in all sincerity) to imagine
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contemplation of his strange conduct. Again and again—we
promise them—will he afford them their" triumph" (if that
they consider it) of leaving the Opposition in a majority of 20.
Again and again will Sir Robert Peel expose himself to the
arrowy shower of Whig Radical wit, by coming forward at the
head of the Conservative gentry of Great Britain who sit in
Parliament, and sleowieg that his phalanx is less by twenty -