The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-07 00:00:00

etm wing

LONDON, THURSDAY,: JUNE 7, 1849.

We alluded yesterday to the extraordinary dispro-
portion that exists between the extent and population
of the different constituencies which return Members
to the Imperial Parliament—a disproportion so strik-
ing that it must be at once obvious to every unpre-
judiced person that some measure calculated to pro-
duce a greater equalization of the electoral districts is
one of the reforms now most urgently required. It
will be found that in England there is one borough
Member for every 1,045 electors. But many of
these boroughs contain numerous inhabitants and
voters, H hich would entitle them to a far greater
number of representatives than are at present per-
mitted. Thus we find the city of London with no
less than 19,064 registered electors, and containing a
greater amount of wealth and intelligence than
perhaps any portion of the civilized world, returning
only four Me:nbers, and thus having 3,721 electors
for'each Member over and above the average number
represented by each borough Member in this country.
The metropolitan districts also exhibit an equally
arge proportion of registered electors to the repre-
sentatives they are enabled to return to
Parliament, there being no less than 83,062
voters electing sixteen Members, or nearly 5,191
electors for each Member ; while the boroughs of
Bridgnorth, Honiton, Harwich, Thetford, Stafford,
Richmond (Yorkshire), Totnes, and Lymington, the
aggregate electoral body of which amounts to but
3,766, also return among them 16 Members, the
average being one Member for every 235 voters. It
therefore follows that a single voter in any of these
latter boroughs possesses a much greater amount
of political power, and is equivalent in the electoral
scale to twenty-two of the merchants or traders
of this great metropolis. Hear this, ye citi-
zens of London, and ask whether your
chosen Member, the head of her Majesty's Govern-
ment, can fairly refuse to amend a system that gives
equal influence in the national legislation to the 252
electors of Harwich and Thetford to that which is
accorded to 19,064 of yourselves !
But these facts, strange as they may appear, by no
means exhibit this anomaly in the strongest light or
the most striking aspect. On a close examination
it will be found that of the 658 Members,
an absolute majority, or 330 Members, are re-
turned by a population of 3,127,000 persons, of
whom 180,000 only are entitled to the elective fran-
chise ; while the minority of 328 are returned by a
population of 23,873,000 persons, of whom nearly
900,000 are registered electors. If, therefore, popu-
lation be taken as the test, the majority are chosen by
less than one- eighth of the entire community ; or if
the number of voters be the point of comparison, by
little more than one-sixth of the entire num-
ber ; and as the Honourable Member for
Montrose justly remarked, " that majority re-
presents
all the smaller boroughs, and those
under the influence of landlords—the minority, the
greater proportion of the counties and large cities." If
property be taken as the basis, the disparity will not
be less remarkable, for we find that the annual value
of the rateable property represented by the
"majority" is but 6 200,0001., while the value repre-
sented by the minority is 78,800,0001., or, in other
words, one-fourteenth of the whole rateable pro.
perty of the country can control and outvote
the remaining thirteen-fourteenths. Is there not
as great a necessity for a comprehensive
and extensive measure of reform to effect an equit-
able alteration of such a system as there was for the
disfranchisement of Gatton or Old Sarum, or the be-

stowing Members on Birmingham and on Manchester?
The absurdity is almost as striking as any that could
have been adduced in the olden time, "when GEORGE
the THIRD was King," and when the mere mention
of reform was regarded as but little better than a
species of treason, that should be repudiated with
indignation by overwhelming majorities in both
Houses of Parliament, if any rash Wight should have
the hardihood to mention a subject " so distasteful to
ears polite."
In consequence, too, of the limited number of elec-
tors in the smaller boroughs, local influences still
prevail in no less than 42 of the number sending no
less than 69 Members to Parliament. It is true that
the representation may not be openly sold in the
market without shame or disguise, that there must be
at least some appearance of consulting the wishes
of the nominal electors, but still there are
boroughmongers who can bring into the Le-
gislature partizans bound to act in obedience
to their wishes, to vote in accordance with the
instructions they may from time to time receive, and
who must resign their seats if they waver for a
moment, or exhibit symptoms of insubordination, or
even hesitate to carry out the directions of their
" Patron." If large additions were made to these
still " rotten boroughs" from the surrounding dis-
tricts, this unconstitutional influence would be neu-
tralised and deprived of its worst features. We
should not hear of Noble Lords " doing
what they will with their own," or superciliously re-
jecting all appeals to their reason and justice.
Although we must still deplore the largeness of the
majority by which the just and reasonable demands
of the people were rejected on the present occasion,
there are still some encouraging circumstances
perceptible that afford reasonable grounds for
hope as to its future progress. Last year,
when Mr. HUME brought forward the sub-
ject for the first time, no less than 351
recorded their votes against the motion. On
Tuesday no less than 83 of these Honourable Gen-
tlemen were absent from the division. If they had
not sufficiently made Up their minds to join the
popular ranks, or to vote with the staunch and
thorough-going reformers of Parliamentary abuses,
they at least deemed it prudent to stay away, and to
remain neutral on the subject. This may eventually
prove a discreet and judicious course for these parties,
by which they may be enabled to appear with better
grace on the hustings. The• nation will, however,
recollect the names of those who were faithful from
the beginning, who supported the popular side ere yet
it was taken up by the aspirants for office of any
party. Their names will be chronicled in the hearts
and enshrined in the memories of their countrymen,
and we shall find various constituencies con-
tending for the honour of being represented
by men who were among the earliest and most
energetic supporters of the four great points of
legislative reform. The large and overwhelming
majorities that at first were recorded against the
annual motion of the Hon. CHARLES PELHAM VIL-
LIERS, the honest and enthusiastic advocate of free
and unrestricted trade, must not be forgotten.
At first that distinguished patriot could scarcely
obtain a patient and attentive audience, but
gradually he enforced his views on the Government.
Where underlings were in the former instance per-
mitted to take the burden of the debate on them-
selves, the leaders of the Ministry were at length
compelled to come forward, and to exhibit all their
skill in answer to the simple truths which he enun-
ciated with such force and power. In the present
instance we find the Premier and the Home Secre-
tary coming forward, and treating the subject
as one worthy of their most strenuous
exertions. This again affords good grounds of en-
couragement, and evinces a reasonable hope, that we
shall within a few years find the cause of Parliamen-
tary Reform attaining a triumph as complete and
unequivocal, as that which, in 1846, attended the
free-trade agitation for the repeal of the obnoxious
taxes on a nation's food.

The recently published pamphlet by Mr. HUNTER
GORDON, of Lincoln's Inn,* on the subject of the Irish
Colleges, furnishes an ample justification, if any
such were needed, of the all but unanimous determi-
nation of the citizens of the Roman Republic never
again to submit to that sacerdotal domination from
which they have emancipated themselves. It is im-
possible to read this narrative of the proceedings of
the spiritual governors of the Roman Catholic Church,
who were, until the recent revolution, also temporal
governors of the Roman people, without being con-
vinced that an assemblage of men mere unfitted to be
entrusted with the administration of affairs the inge-
nuity of man could not devise than this same College
of Cardinals, to whom it has pleased successive Popes
to confide for some ages past the exercise of the
pontifical power, spiritual and temporal.
Our readers, no doubt, recollect the outcry with
which Sir ROBERT PEEL'S well considered proposal
for establishing colleges for the benefit of seven mil-
lions of our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects in Ire-
land, who had up to that period been destitute of
academic education, was received by the bigots of all
parties. That Sir ROBERT INGLIS should denounce
it as a gigantic system of Godless education, could
have been a matter of surprise to no one who was
acquainted with the tactics which Sir ROBERT IN-
GLIS has adopted since the day when he became the
chosen representative of the rampant bigotry of Ox-
ford. He, as the representative of that ancient
University, considered every proposition for found-
ing any other academic establishment as an
encroachment upon her monopoly —an attempt
to set up an opposition shop, which would
force her to reform her whole system, or
deprive her of her students, and as to the term " God-
less," that in the vocabulary of Sir ROBERT INGLIS is
merely synonimous with Church of England-less, the
Right Hon. Baronet, believing that none who do not
subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles can be other than
Godless. At the opposition of Sir R. 'Nous no one
therefore was surprised, but every right-thinking
person of every sect was not only surprised, but dis-
gusted, at the unseemly and indecent opposition with
which the proposal was met by certain firebrand pre-
lates of the Irish Roman Catholic Church. For some
time the public was at a loss to account for this force
opposition to a scheme, the principle of which had
been admitted by those very Prelates in the
case of the national schools for the poor

Mr. Hi:ENTER GORDON, however, has enabled us by the

well-timed publication of his pamphlet, to ascertain
the fons et origo mali. These prelates are them-
selves interested in seminaries, from whichthe proposed
new colleges would drain off the lay, and conse-
quently paying students. "It cannot be doubted,"
says Mr. HVNTER. GORDON, "that the Anti-College
warfare, now raging in Ireland, is mainly prompted
by the apprehension of the Bishops, lest the new
colleges drain their seminaries. The Prelates are
frightened at the prospect of competition with superior
institutions." Hence the hostility of the MCHALES and
O'llioaiNszs to these academic institutions, and their
determination to use the thunders of the Vatican in
order to scare the superstitious from giving support to
the Government academies. Mr. GORDON thus describes
the motives which induced Dr. McIIALE and his sup-
porters
to evoke the question to Rome, and the man-
ner in which it was dealt with by those persons to
whom the POPE has confided the administration of his
affairs :

-------
" The motives which determined the malcontent pre-
lates to this course was very powerful, and to unscrupu-
lous minds, probably irresistible. The College of Pro-
paganda is the department to which the spiritual affairs
of Ireland belong in the Pontifical Administration.
There is a considerable body of Irish priests
at Rome,
holding official and other influential situations, both in
Propaganda and in other colleges : and of these, all,
with hardly an exception, have long been, and still. are,
either openly and notoriously of the faction of Dr.
McElale, or so passively submissive to his sway, as to be
equally subservient to his purposes. Now, it was from
this body of priests that the Roman authorities, who are
in daily contact with them, derive whatever knowledge
they possess of the social and political condition of Ire-
land; the Irish priests stand before the cardinals as the
representatives of the Irish hierarchy; the only authen-
tic
and infallible expositors of the internal concerns of
Ireland. Dr. Mcnale was well aware, that by these means
he had an unbounded sway over the Council of Propa-
ganda, and could, as it were, with his own hand, work that
forcible engine against the English Government. On
the other hand, from their being no English minister at
the court of Rome (a chasm in our diplomacy which
has been regretted by some of the most eminent English
statesmen, both by Mr. Canning and Lord Brougham),

* "The Question of the Irish Colleges shortly Stated;
with some Observations on the Validity of the Rescripts
relative to these Institutions. By Hunter Gordon, Esq.,
of Lincoln's Inn." Ridgway, Piccadilly 1849,

there was nobody to counterwork his machinations: for
the Roman authorities pay no regard to the representa-
tions of Englishmen, considering Irish affairs to apper-
tain to the Irish only.
" Such were the reasons which induced Dr. MeHale
to proceed to Rome, to which the cause was now evoked.
To Rome he went ; and then there began a course of
artifice, misrepresentation, concealment, and direct false-
hood, which has certainly not been equalled in the annals
of the Apostolic See, since the time of the solicitations
addressed to Clement VII. for and against the disso-
lution of Henry the Eighth's marriage with Catherine of
Arragon. In their appeal to the Cardinals, the first
suggestion of Dr. Mcflale and his colleague was
that to which a conclusive answer has already been
given, that the English Government, in instituting
these colleges, bad a covert purpose of pro-
selytizing the Catholic mass, of erecting so
many colleges of Protestant Propaganda. They
affirmed that the principle of mixed education
was part of the same scheme, and contrived for the
same end; although they had never objected to it until
disappointed in their demands. They assured the Cardi-
nals that this Ras an attempt on the part of the English
Ministry to introduce into Ireland the same system of
public education which had filled France with scepticism,
Prussia with neology; well knowing all the white, that
no provision is made in the French and German schools
for the religious instruction of students, while one groat
object of this measure is to afford them private and do-
mestic education in religion, according to their faith, and
that more effectually than could be supplied from the
academic chair. They were not content to represent
that portion of their brother prelates who support the
colleges as the firebrands who were scattering divisions
and anarchy in the Irish Church; they went so far as to
describe the provinces and dioceses of these prelates as
the seats of civil war and rebellion; that the bishops thus
acting, had lost all control and authority over their flocks,
while the anti-college dioceses remained submissive to
their bishops; this statement being made in the face of
the fact that Tipperary, which is within the Cashel Arch-
bishop's district (Dr. Slattery, a most intense anti-college
prelate) was the battle field of the late rebellion. They
studiously concealed the all-important fact that they
themselves had at first recognised the necessity of a
mixed system of education in the colleges, and that
that system had worked well, and in direct antagonism
to irreligion, in the national schools of Ireland during
their twenty years' existence, under far less vigilant and
efficient guarantees for the protection of faith and
morals, than are offered by the improved statutes of the
colleges.
" This mixed tissue of falsehood and absurdity was
indited in a pamphlet in choice Italian, which was dili-
gently circulated both among the ten or twelve Car-
dinals (the Council of Propaganda) the judges of the
case, and among all their advissrs, the Irish officials at
Rome. Availing themselves of the panic which pre-
vailed at that period of the civil disorders of Rome, they
fastened on the fears of the Italian prelates, who were
then apprehensive lest the Mammiani faction's threats
to wrest or wring education from the Church constituted
authorities should be carried into effect; and thus the
domestic alarms of the Cardinals were easily converted
into a lively sympathy with Ireland threatened with a
like catastrophe! In order to decry mixed education,
which was their main object, Drs. MeHale and O'Hig-
gins represented the measure of the colleges as a con-
templated experiment about to be made on the Irish
nation, instead of a legislative Act in certain pro-
gress of execution, thus leading the Cardinals to
suppose that their adverse decisions would annihilate
that contingency. Again they assured the Cardinals that
the dioceses of the anti-college bishops were the abodes
of peace, that of the Archbishop Murray the scene of in•
surrestion. In vain did a deputation from the same part
of the Irish priesthood labour to disabuse the Council of
the Sacred College; in vain did they present to their
Eminences the statutes of the colleges, bearing on the
face of them the refutation of the Archbishop's averments.
The Roman mind, thus cijoled, and at such a crisis,
easily arrived at the conclusion desired by Dr. McHsle.
The first rescript, condemnatory of the colleges, issued
in due form, signe.l by Franconi, the Cardinal Prefect of
Propaganda. And the Irish Archbishop returned from
the capital of the Christian world to his own desolate
domr in, exulting in his victory not only over his brother
prelates, but over the English Government, and made
his triumphal entry into Tusm, bearing aloft the rescript
which he knew to be the firebrand of discord to his
country.

"A second attempt was subsequently made to satisfy
the Cardinals of the glaring falsehood of some, and the
absolute impossibility of other allegations contained in
that most singular document, on which the rescript
against the colleges issue d. They agreed to reconsider
their judgment. In so doing they again said, this is a
local matter; we must consult local authorities; they saw
nothing with their own eyes; they knew, and to this
hour they know, nothing of their own knowledge; they
never sought any better ground or rationale of decision
than the bare fact that there was a majority of seventeen
bishops to nine against the colleges. A second rescript
followed, adhering to their first judgment. And thus
the matter now stands."

Mr. Hue TER GORDON then goes into a lengthened
argument to prove that these rescripts, having been
obtained by deceit and fraud, by the assertion of di-
rect falsehood and the suppression of truth, are null
and void, According to the canons of the Roman
Catholic Church, and are, therefore, not binding on
Ro man Catholics ; and in our judgment he succeeds
' completely in proving his case. With this we, as
Protestants, have nothing to do, but we quote
this case as a proof that these Cardinals are
either so stupidly prejudiced, and so utterly
wanting in discrimination, as to be unable to distin-
guish truth from falsehood, or so bigotted and so
corrupt as knowingly to accept falsehood as truth,
and decide in favour of that Ns hich they know to be
false, if they think that such unjust decision will in
any manner tend to their own private advantage. In
either case they are unfit to be entrusted with power,
and yet it is to restore the rule of these men that the
Catholic Powers of Europe are in arms.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
The delivery of the Message of the PRESIDENT has
been again postponed, and this postponement has
tended to induce persons to give credit to the rumours
which have been circulated of a split in the Cabinet.
It is supposed that General CHANGARNIER, General
ItumnExus, and M. DE FALLoux will go out of office.
In the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, General
CAVAIGNAC elected to sit for the department of the
Lot, and M. DUFAURE for that of the Charente In-
ferieure, two additional vacancies are in consequence
created in the representation of Paris.
A discussion then arose on the validity of the
election for the department of the Yonne, in which
it was said the election had been influenced by M.
LEON FAUCHER'S dispatch which hal been sent,
there countersigned by 11. FREMY, the chef de
Cabinet of N. LEON FancilEa, and who was himself
a candidate for the representation. After MM. LEON
FAUCHER and CEEMIEUX had spoken the debate was
adjourned.

111. DE LESSEPS arrived in Paris yesterday morning.
There is no doubt whatever as to the state of the
mind of the unfortunate gentleman.
It is said that orders have been sent to General
OIJDINOT to enter Rome at all risks, and even to
bombard the city, should it be necessary. It is said
that as soon as he shall be in possession of the city
he is to appoint a Governmental Committee, composed
of Romans, but placed under the protection of France
(it is not said how the members are to be selected),
under whose auspices a Constituent Assembly, elected
by universal suffrage, will be convoked, which will
have to determine whether the Roman Government
is to be a republic or a monarchy, and whether the
POPE is to be recalled, and upon what terms. There
can be no doubt that an Assembly chosen under
French protection will adopt French views ; so that
this mode of leaving the affair to the choice of the
people is a mere dell Dion.

We read in Ordre :—" A report was current yes-
erday, and accredited that, in pursuance of recent
orders sent to General OUDINOT, the French troops
had made an assault upon Rome and entered the
city after a strong resistance. If this news had come
officially, as was :said, by a telegraph dispatch, the
Chamber would, no doubt, have been made acquainted
with it. Although therefore, this news is by no
means improbable, we are not able to guarantee it.
Other reports as to the attitude -which the Austrian
army was seeking to assume in Piedmont, and which
estt. hinlkt,
areb alarming for us, were also propagated yesterday,
theyappe shouldappears,
u unfortunately,
r t listenedun atel
yt
twitho extremebe
more
muits,trwu
certain that our envoy at Home,
M. FERDINAND DE
LESSEES, whether from fatigue, the influence of the
climate, or agitation of
mind, has been attacked with
a brain fever in the midst of his efforts to fulfil his
arduous mission."
With respect to the hostile attitude assumed
Austria, the Assemblee Nationalesyatbat it h
by
learnt with sorrow, but without surprise, that the
s
Cabinet of Vienna insists on the young King
of SAa-
DINIA giving up to it the possession of the forts of
Coni, of Pas-de. Seze, and even of Genoa, under pre-
text of a possible invasion of Italy by the French. It
adds, "We do not know if the pretext be true, but
in any case France cannot suffer an occupation so near
to her frontiers."
It was considered among the best-informed in the
Political circles of Paris, that a war with Austria was
imminent and inevitable.
N. PROUDHON was arrested on Tuesday evening
at eight o'clock, just after his arrival by the Northern
Railroad. lie was recognised the moment he left the
carriage, and was followed by a police agent until he
came opposite the barrack in the Faubourg Poisson.
niere. The officer then declared to M. PROUDHON
that he was his prisoner, and invited • - him to enter the
barrack quietly, in order to avoid an arrest in the
public street. N. PROUDHON, perceiving that all re-
sistance would be useless, at once yielded, and a
hackney coach being called, he entered it, accom-
panied by the agent, an adjutant belonging to the
barrack, and two non-commissioned officers. Al•
PROUDHON was then taken to the Prefecture of Po-
lice, where he was placed in the hands of N. CARLON.
The Nonfteur cwat4i43B A decree from; the riigbi-