The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF-THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

This night the Peers will be called upon to decide
—first, whether Ireland is to be governed as an in-
tegral portion of the British empire, or as a conquered
province ; and, secondly, whether their own privi-
leges, nay, their House, is compatible with the
common weal. Never, in our conscience, we do be-
lieve, was a question of deeper import submitted to
the consideration of any branch of the Legislature.
If the privileges of the Peers are continued to that
body for the public good, it is incumbent upon those
to whom these privileges have descended by in-
heritance, to reflect seriously whether the denial of
a participation in salutary British institutions to a
third of the population of the United Kingdom,
to a people proud and brave, and already too much
estranged from us by causes connected with reli-
gion, betokens that foresight, denotes that pru-
dence, that sagacity, which alone can justify in our
times the continuing to any body of men the right
to make laws for the government of the people,
The country will not now be deluded by chi

merical fears or induced to sanction overt wrong
by silly or unprincipled misrepresentations. Rea-
sons must be assigned for the refusal of Municipal
Reform to a country to which has been already
granted the right of electing nearly a sixth of the
representatives of the United Kingdom. It will not
do to tell the Reformers of Great Britain that Ireland
is unfit for municipal institutions, after the concession
to that island of Parliamentary Reform. The Irish
were Catholics in 1832—nay, it was because of their
catholicity that the Bill of 1829, entitling them to sit
in Parliament, and to hold all offices under the Crown,
save the Viceroyalty of Ireland, and the Great Seal,
was passed into a law. And are they to be excluded
from corporate privileges who are admitted into the
Legislature ? And is that profession of faith which
is no bar to the attainment of the chief seat upon the
King's Bench to estop the same individual, perhaps,
who might become the Lord Chief Justice, from be-
coming a Mayor or a Town Councillor ? Upon
this question the House of Lords *ill decide to-night ;
for this is the question involved in the amendments of
Lord Lyndhurst. Amendments, did we say ? What a
flagrant abuse of terms I Of the original-Bill not half
a dozen clauses have escaped the ruthless hand of the
ex-Chancellor, and the man must possess a large
share of cool effrontery who will lay his hand on
his heart and declare that every one of the changes in-
troduced by Lord Lyndhurst is not pernicious. The
cloven-foot appears in the very preamble—for even
that has been transformed—and in the succeeding
pages the spirit of malignant faction riots in the ruin
it has effected. To satisfy the public mind of the
iniquity of the Amended (?) Bill, we will briefly reca-
pitulate its details. The first section squares with the
corresponding section in the original Bill, and repeals
all charters, &c., upon which , the existing Corpora-
tions depend ; in other words, it abolishes all muni-
cipal institutions in Ireland—a vestige of which is not
to remain, should the Peers be so unjust and the Com-
mons so base as to accept the amendments—after the
first day of the ensuing year. The existing and in-
choate rights of freemen are preserved as by the
original Bill ; so likewise is the Parliamentary fran-
chise as guaranteed by the Reform Act ; but here
the affinity and resemblance between the two
Bills cease. Twenty-three clauses of the Mi-
nisterial measure are cut out, and it is de-
clared that henceforth there shall be no corpo-
rate Government in Ireland. The whole system is
wiped out by a dash of Lord Lyndhurst's pen.
Commissioners not exeeeding seven, and not fewer
than five, are to be appointed to discharge the civic
functions, and this valuable patronage is conferred upon
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by those hypocrites
who clamour against the Bill for reforming the con,
stabulary in the sister country because it gives the
Viceroy patronage. The infamous inconsistency of
this proceeding cannot escape public observation and
public abhorence. The solitary fact we have stated
ought and would, if all other causes of quarrel with the
Tories were removed, bring universal contempt and
odium upon that perfidious party. They object to
the Viceroy's having the power to appoint a common
constable, and they authorise him to nominate a sub-
stitute for all the Irish Corporations now in being !
A gnat they strain at—a camel they swallow. To-
day the Police Bill is mutilated, lest the Viceroy
should obtain an increase of patronage : to-mor-
row the Corporation Bill is mangled and im-
mense patronage thrown into his Excellency's
hands. The object and the motive are alike -in
both instances, however dissimilar the procedure.
To do mischief is the design, to insult the Irish
people is the motive in both cases. In the one case,
the Viceroy is denied patronage, because.he might use
it for the public good ; in the other, it is thrust on him,
because this is prejudicial to the public interests, and
hateful to the feelings of the people. By a batch -of
confused, unintelligible clauses, the duties of the Com-
missioners are defined. They are to seize upon all
the corporate properties' in Ireland—to prosecute, de-
fend, or compromise law-suits—to pay and recover all
debts due by or to the present corporations—to keep
accounts of the proceedings—to make annual reports
to the Lord Lieutenant, besides as many intermediate
reports as his Excellency shall desire—to sell advow-
sons, by direction of the ecclesiastical commissioners
of Ireland—to manage the " town fund" (so the cor-
porate property is in future to be designated), and to
pay the salaries of their officers. So far for the Com-
missioners. With respect to recorders and courts of
conscience, these are to be preserved, a power being
given to the Viceroy to abolish the latter at his plea-
sure ; and should any funds remain in the chest of
the Commissioners after defraying the other expenses
already alluded to, a portion of the residue is to go to-
wards paying the salaries of recorders and presidents
of courts of conscience. And in towns where the
9th George IV. is in operation, any surplus
that may still lie over shall be given to the
Board of Commissioners of Paving and Lighting.
—The most important clauses, however, of the
amended Bill, next after those which sweep
away all existing corporations and forbid re-
formation, remain to be noticed. By sections 13 and
14, clauses 58 ands 9 of the original Bill are amended.
And how ? By perpetuating the town-clerks, cham-
berlains, and butter-tasters, after the abolition of their
offices ! The occupation of these gentry will be
gone ; but the occupiers will be preserved by a spe-
cies of embalming, for which the public will be obliged
to pay as dearly as if the process were tried for their
benefit and at their solicitation. We shall no doubt
be told that section 44 authorises the Commissioners to
dismiss these sinecurists, while the 45th clause se-
cures them compensation. Very true ; but it is not
the less true that the 14th clause preserves the officers
after their offices have been extinguished and their du-
ties done away with. What means this vile ma-
noeuvring ? We have heard that an active town-clerk
from the city of Cork has been in constant communi-
cation with Lord Lyndhurst. Was it to meet his
wishes that the nefarious clause to which we pray
attention was smuggled into this nefarious Bill ?
There can be no doubt but that to some equally
cogent and creditable cause we must attribute the
introduction of another precious clause—the nine-
teenth—which preserves to those corporators who
are ex of members of committees of charitable
or other trusts, the right to hold and execute these
trusts after the extinction of the offices by virtue of
which they originally obts,:ned snob right I. It little
matters, however, what the propelling motive in these
cases has been. There are few who will question its
turpitude ; and yet there are some who will harangue
you by the hour upon its purity. Virtuous or pro-
fligate as the motive may be, the Act is vicious, and
must be denounced by the House of Commons, as un-
questionably it will be thrown back in its authors'
teeth with the indignant scorn of the millions, whose
willthat House has been chosen to represent. Of the
idler sections of this iniquitous Bill we have not now
either room or inclination to enter into an analysis.
More than enough has been pointed out to rouse the
feelings of the people of Ireland against the flagitious
machinations of the Tories, and to stir up our reform-
ing countrymen in defence of those wholesome princi-
ples which they have established in Great Britain,
in defiance of the corruptionists, but which can
never be sufficiently developed till they are planted
in *very quarter of the Empire. Reformers of