The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

One of the wretched pretences upon which the Tory
Peers have contumeliously refused to extend to Ireland
-that salutary Reform of Municipal Institutions which
the people of England extorted from their fears, is,
hat such Reform would nourish party feuds, end-he
the aliment of agitation in that portion of our empire.
The shalloWness of tint pretext for wrong-doing has
been fathomed by every rational being in the enite,!,
Kingdom. If the Tories desired the aimiliilatioee of
party warfare in the sister country, how does it.;:artepen
that they never dreamed of drying. up the 'teeming
source of strife, by abolishing the Orange. corpora-
tions, until the Liberal Government pro7enimilecl a plan
for the reformation of these pest: horretts '? When the
Duke of Wellington, in an instreet, Converted the anti-
Catholic Peers and the whole: bench of Bishops, in
1829, from intolerant to lib evel views, why did not his
Grace, and his subalter.p, the plausible Tamworth
Baronet, seize the "xeportunity, and when they
yielded the Cathor.;., claims, abolish those
civic
nuisances, wilos".. existence was incompatible with
the spirit ar.d letter of the Relief Bill ? Cor-
porations. in Ireland were as vicious, as profligate,
as proli:ric of fraud and factious feud then as they
have ioeen at any moment since. Though by an Act
of the Irish Parliament Corporations were thrown open
equally to Catholics and to Protestants, from 1793 to
1829, not a member of the Catholic communion was
permitted to enter the gates which enclosed civic au-
thority and civic dignity ; and thus the Senate was
trampled under the hoof of the Common Council, and
the laws of the realm were nullified by the private rules
of the Corporate malignants. These corporate exclu-
sionists, it was well known to the Duke of Wellington
and Sir R. Peel, vehemently opposed the removal of
the Catholic disabilities in 1829. The Right Hon.
Baronet, in particular, had reason to feel that in sub-
mitting to the just demands of the Irish Catholics, he
incurred the furious hate of the Orange corporators.
Alid if Sir Robert. Peel was convinced of their un-
bending bigotry, the Duke of 'Wellington had long ex-
perience of their scandalous peculations. It was
Arthur Wellesley, who, as Secretary for Ireland, threw
the first stone at corporate power in that country.
By him, the rights of the Corporation of Dublin—
the most corrupt and intolerant in the empire--
were first invaded, when he deprived them of the
power of nominating the chief magistrate (not the
Lord Mayor), and laid the foundation of the present
system of metropolitan police. Knowing, then, as the
Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel did, by
personal experience, that the Irish Corporations were
-nests of intolerance and peculation, why, if these
statesmen were anxious to give their own great mea-
sure of 1829 full and fair play, and to remove, as far
as in them lay, all prominent causes of local factious
disputation—why, we repeat, did they not follow up
the Relief Bill by a measure such as that prepared by
Baron Lyndhurst, and acquiesced in, if not actually
suggested, by them ? We shall not, surely, be told
that the evil effects of " agitation" were not felt at the
period to which we allude. It was to " agitation" the
Field-Marshal bent his truncheon ; and " agitation"
was the confessed instrument that wrung a reluctant
assent to Catholic Emancipation from the great master
of cant and plausibility. Both Ministers must have
foreseen that civic agitation would be fearfully in-
creased by throwing open the Senate to Catholics, while
they remained excluded, in a country where they
abound in the ratio of at least 14 to 1, from all partici-
pation in their own municipal government. Still
neither of them adverted even to the propriety of re-
modelling, much less utterly annihilating at one fell
swoop all the Corporations in Ireland. No motion
was made for Corporate Reform—not a whisper was
was breathed about Corporate obliteration. There was
not, then, any apprehension of injury to the peace of
society from the continuance of corrupt and close and
Orange Corporations in the sister 'country, on the
minds of the Tory leaders six years ago. Have;
their present fears sprung from an instinctive horroe of
reformed and open municipalities ? Is this tlee clue
to that labyrinth of perplexity and fraud in Nikiich they
would involve the people of England ? P,ut conced-
ing, for the sake of argument, that tie Tory Peers
and their wire-pullers, are sincere iri this pretended
dread of agitation, and that in consequence they insult
Ireland, and injure that sacred. principle of liberty
which is so deeply prized in Britain—do they not see
that they have been but blowing up the furnace, and
throwing oil upon the flames ? Let them look to
the Irish papers, and there they shall behold the in-
incontestible proof of their own fatuity. " Agitation"
is now the order of the day in Ireland. The tocsin
has been sounded in the capital, and its echoes
are reverberating in the uttermost extremities of
the island. And who are the agitators ? The ques-
tion is answered in the Dublin Evening Post. The
nobility, the gentry, the professors, the agricultural
and mercantile interests, the men of most moderate
opinions, ps well as the Radicals, Protestants, and
Catholics—all are aroused into action and into bold
remonstrance against the outrageous insult put upon
the country by the nefarious proposition of Baron
Lyndhurst. Two meeting; have already been held in
Dublin, accounts of which have been published in the
Morning Chronicle and a third—an aggregate as-
semblage of the metropolitan population—has, been
convened at the Coburg Gardens, a localitxtliat has
gathered fame from the astounding sentence passed
upon Mr. Thomas Reynolds by Chief Justice Do-
herty. Upon this meeting we are prepared to see all
manner of abuse and ridicule heaped by the unscru-
pulous organs of the corruptionist Destructives ; but
how with they get over the meeting of the 'county of,
Meath, convened by the High Sheriff; and to Wee
place to-morrow, " for the purpose"—we use the viorde
of the requisitionists—" of petitioning_ Parliament fee, a
speedy and satisfactory settlement of the 'F,the, ques-
tion, and also of expressing the strong sere we enter-
tain of the injustice done to Ireland, "by refusing a
measure of Reform, on the same
principles as the Acts recently Irssed for England and
Scotland ?" The doeimient ;:o which this language is
used, in speaking of the conduct pursued by the Tory
Peers towards Ireland, bears the signatures of three
hundred individ.eals, the most insignificant of whom is
a person in ieidependent circumstances. At the head
of the list we perceive the names of eight Peers—the
.Marques of Headfort ; the Earls of Fingal, Essex, and
Mil%own ; and Lords Sherborne, Cloncurry, Gorman-
sti,n, and Talbot dc Malahide ; besides five Baronets,
f whom three are Protestants, two eldest sons of
Peers, four Members of Parliament, one Lord Lieute-
nant of a county, eight Deputy-Lieutenants, a Catholic
Bishop, and a Clergyman of !Jae Fostablished Church.
Whence will the livrary tools of Toryism collect filth
uherewith to sully a requisition thus subscribed ? For,
as a matter of course, Abuse will be applied when
reason fails. But neither railing nor ruffianism Can
erase or misrepresent facts in this instweee." The
high and influential names to which we. have referred
are affixed to the requisition ; and 'Cu object of the
meeting is declared in terms chat admit neither of
misrepresentation nor of mis.g.'_carception. Such is
the first fruit of the q;:ap,- ,
_le of tne titled abettors of
abuse to lay the slie:.",:a of agitation in Ireland. The
patrician lw:elicators have become the most bunnlinn
breaker; of the public peace), as the self-styled 'Con-
serv:dives have exhibited the4Moet violent propen-
•
nities to destroy. Peace, in, their vocabulary, implies
confusion. Repose is the specific these e:npyrics pre-
scribe for the political disease of Ireland ; and the
narcotic they administer is the most stimulating of
draughts. The nation bleeds after a long war of
party ; and, as a healing measure, the Tory Lords
pour poison into her wounds. They refuse a partici-
pation in the useful institutions of Britain to a third
of the population of the empire, in order, as they al-
lege, to allay agitation ; and the effect of their perni-
cious deed is, to make all Ireland a vast theatre of agi-
tation, where men of the highest rank in the realm are
compelled by Tory tyranny to play a part. That it
was at this object the Tory faction aimed under cover
of the audacious pretence that they only desired the
establishment of order in Ireland, is sufficiently avowed
by their only Evening, as well as by their latest Morn-
ing organ. These journals have, in the folly of their
fury, given wind to the real and ill-concealed design of
the Tory Lords in mangling and destroying the Irish
Municipal Reform Bill. Rebellion' they yearn for.
As the hunted hart pants for water, so do the Tory
faction pant for an occasion to draw -Mg sword upon

'be Irish, and to satiate themselves with that blood
for which they are thirsting. The inhuman project
will not succeed. The Irish are too well sehOolcu in
-the science of politital. warfare to rty the ene-
my's game. 'Ette?- prefer the peaceful attainment .of
their rights t:o the extortion of privileges by violent
means. strong in the righteousness of,th•oit Vfe:se— '
strong in the sympathy of the Of England and
'..icotland, whose liberoe:t rile not safe while a majority
of about eighty Tory Peers have it in their power to
baffle the nation's hopes, to thwart a liberal and en-
lirrhtened Administration, they would cherish and
as
abet a corrupt one, and to ride rough-shod over the
House of Commons—strong in the protection of that
wise and paternal Government which has earned the
unmitigable enmity of all that is mischievous, corrupt,
and base in the land, by its zeal to promote the wel-
fare, by enlarging and fortifying the privileges, of the
people, and strong in the honour and consistency of
the House of Commons, aided by all that is virtuous
and prudent in the Peerage—thus strengthened and
sustained, the Irish, conscious of success, though
sternly bent upon obtaining a full measure or justice,
are, as far as the feelings of the Tories are concerned,
provokingly tranquil in the midst of their injuries and
wrongs.—Morning Chronicle.

Our most patriotic Ministers having resolved to en-
deavour to throw the country once more into disorder
and disturbance, have let slip the dogs of agitation,
both here and in Ireland. It happens, however, un-
luckily for them, and for the agitators who are en-
couraged (perhaps employed) by them, that the mat-
ter they have selected to make a stir about this time is
so exceedingly simple, that we doubt whether even
their skill in thimblcriagery will enable them to prac-
tise with success the cheat they seem to meditate upon
the public. At the same time it is necessary to ex-
pose the folly and the fraud in which this new attempt
of the juggling quacks -to derange and distemper the
body politic, for their own personal profit, has been
conceived and brought forth. The Ministers allege,,
that the Bill relative-to—Municipal Corporations hilie-
land.is a mockery and an insult to that country, inaas
much as by the difference between its enactments
and the enactments of the English and Scotch
Corporation Bills, Ireland is told that her popula-
tion cannot be trusted with the same municipal
powers as the inhabitants of the other portions of
the empire enjoy. Such is the charge, such the
complaint of the Ministers. Well, let them, for
the sake of the argument, be considered as just
and well founded ; and let us then examine what
sort of Municipal Bill it was that these same
Ministers themselves prepared for Ireland. One of
two things must, of course, be true—namely—that the
Ministerial Municipal Bill for Ireland made no diffe-
rence between the Irish, on the one hand, and the
English and the -Scotch on the other ; or that, in
charging the House of Lords with mocking and in-
sulting the Irish by their attempt to establish such a
difference, the Ministers, besides disgracing themselves
to the last degree, have, like clumsy thrashers, broken
their own heads with the blow they levelled at the
Lords. And which of these things is true ? To the
shame of public men be it spoken, the last, not the
first ; for the Ministerial Municipal Bill for Ireland
bore no resemblance to the English and Scotch Bills,
and it made a carefully and strongly marked difference
and distinction between the Corporations the IVldbia-
ters had established inßritain, and those they Proposed
to establish in Ireland. We will, on arySi,ner occasion,
carefully compare the two Bills detail. For the
present we content ourselves vvi's'n stating this indis-
putable fact—namely _.that the Ministers vested in
the bodies they created in Ireland, and which they
called Corporat,,ons, no powers of any description
whatever, e)r..cept powers to appoint coroners and to
provide f'sr the watching, lighting, paving, and cleans-
ing of the street's. The Lords said, "If these be all
tho- powers you intend to bestow upon your Irish
corporations, it is absurd to create Corporations for
the administration of matters so insignificant, and
which moreover are already provided for, either by
local Acts, or by the Act 9 George IV., c. 82, that
applies to all parts of Ireland not already subjected to
the provisions of local Acts." Such being the plain
unvarnished truth of this case, what honest man is
there, of whatever party, who will refuse to admit that
the pretence which Ministers now set up for agitation,
and it may be for riot and bloodshed, is contemptibly
fraudulent, and not a whit less foolish than it is
foul, because it proceeds upon the vain hope that by
the misrepresentations of themselves and their ad-
herents they may succeed in keeping out of view the
fact that they themselves proposed to legislate for
Ireland in a manner essentially different from that
in which they had legislated for England and
Srsoiland, while they accuse the House of Lords
of passing insult and mockery upon Ireland, for
attempting the same thing, and nothing more.
But, will any rational being be persuaded that there
is not more than meets the eye in this discreditable
conduct of the Ministers ? We think not ; and when
we betake ourselves to the somewhat humiliating task
of endeavouring to track these tricksters through the
dirty and devious paths in which alone they can hope
to shelter themselves for a time from the 'ionominious
fate that sooner or later must inevitably befal them, we
are influenced only by a desire to caution the public
that there is no game too profligate for such politicians
to attempt, no means too dishonourable for them to
have recourse to, in the hope of prolonging their Mi-
nisterial existence, and of deferring their fearful day of
reckoning even for a period however brief. Look, then,
at the position which the Ministers occupy, and recol-:.
lea their course for the last few weeks. Up to a few
-dar,-s ago, the debate in the Lords on the Irish Muni-
eipal the bubble out of which Ministers are now
attempting to make a boil, went on quietly enough.
While Lord Melbourne managed it on the part of the
Government, it was rather smart and jocose than
otherwise. It became dull enough when Lord
Lansdowne first succeeded the Premier, and so it
continued until that very sober senator suddenly as-
sumed the air of a scolding vixen, and publicly
courted that collision between the two Houses,
which he had before deprecated ten thousand times
in speeches that, from their manner, made much too
heavy an impression, for the little matter they con-
, tained, ever to be forgotten. Nobody who had ob-
served Lord Lansdowne's political course could doubt
that now, at least, there was something in the wind.
While yet conjecturing what that ".something" might
he, the town was favoured with the publication of the
Big Beggarman's address to the people of England,
recommending the destruction of.tke Peerage, and then
the chan.witr- Lord Lansdowne was no longer inexpli-
cable. Upon this followed closely Lord John Russell's
speech for agitation in the House of Commons, and the
news that the other great man of the party, Mr. Shed,
was doing as much mischief as his small means would
allow him in Dublin. There can be no doubt the lkhole
of this affair was " got up" from the beginning of it
to the end : first, the old womanish spite and railing of
Lord Lansdowne ; next, the letter of the vain old
Beggarman, who sends his greasy hat round to every
door for coppers, that he and his may eat the bread of
idleness—or, if they work at all, work mischief only :
then the speech of Lord John Russell, and the pre-
meditated impromptus of Mr. Hume and of the rest of
his Radical supporters ; contemporaneously with these
the disinterested displays of the Destructives of the
Ministerial press ; and, finally, the mandrake shrieks of
Mr. Shiel piping all hands to their pikes in Ireland.
But the object of all this wickedness and absurdity—
what is it ? 3..-Look, we say again, to the position in
which the Ministers are placed. Last Session their
stalking-horse was-the Irish. Tithe Bill. Since that
measure was thrown out—at which time the Minis-
ters in the most 'outrageously violent declamations pro-
mised to renew it as soon as the Parliament should re-
assemble, and pamphlets were penned at the expense
of Radical Associations connected with Ministers, and
moved by them, in which the certainty, of carrying the
measure with a high hand, and soon, was' demonstrated
to the perfect satisfaction of the writers and their em-
ployers—since that event, we say, a vast change has
taken place in Ireland with regard to the collection of
Tithes, and England has acted as well as spoken in
a manner not to be misunderstood'. The Barons of
the Exchequer have enforced the law in spite of the
Mulgraves and Morpeths and Drumraonds ; and
one of the most splendid subscriptions ever raised in I
any. country has manifested the sympathy of the
British Protestants with the persecuted Clergy.of the