The Sun.
London, England, 1831-01-11 00:00:00

north of Ireland, that the Catholic gentry have no
partnership nor sympathy with the disaffected ; and
that the eyes of the whole Protestant body, from the
highest to the lowest, begin every hour to see more
distinctly the dreadful gulf which yawns already to
receive them. But that is not enough : not merely
law and physical force, and the means of triumph,
ought to be on our side, should the enemy show
himself in arms, but such a virtuous, conciliatory,
and provident course of policy ought at once to be
had recourse to by the Government and Legisla-
ture, as would make manifest to all mankind that
our cause was not that of tenacious power—or of

stubborn selfishness—or of fierce and vindictive pas-
sion ; on the contrary, that the dearest interests of
the Irish people were identified with a resolute resist-
ance to this conspiracy against the duration of the
empire. We have said before now, that the griev-
ances of Ireland must be redressed--and they are
many. The subletting act, designed for the coin-
MOH welfare of landlord and tenant, has been so
acted upon by the almost simultaneous, but unfore-
seen, abolition of the 40s. freeholds, and by the
literal, though not reasonable, construction of some
of its clauses, as to open up and overturn a great
number of pre-existing contracts, and to work wide
and unheard-of misery amongst the ejected poor.
That act must be powerfully modified, and, we
trust, will he so instanter. A great land-proprietor
of the county of Kilkenny is said, but it is only
on hearsay that we have learned it, to have enforced
that law extensively against a numerous body of
under-tenants on his estate. It is this gentleman
whose trees were lately destroyed in his own pre-
sence. If he can contradict the above report, we
shall willingly insert his refutation of it. The
Vestry Act of Mr. Goulburn is a tremendous evil.
It gives to any two or more Protestants in a parish
the uncontrolled right of levying (so far as we are
informed) whatever sums they may think fit, for re-
paling, or beautifying, or enlarging, or otherwise
altering their parish church, and of compelling the
Catholic parishioners, who have no interest in the
application of the money, to pay it by a peremp-
tory assessment ! This we conceive to be a mon-
strous abuse of law,—a cruel violation of the
very first principle of British liberty, which gives
the subject a voice in the employment of his own
money. This grievance ought at once to be re-
dressed. The church of Ireland is far too richly
endowed, in proportion to the number of Protes-
tants. The Catholic clergy ought to be connected
with the State, by a maintenance adequate to their
wants. During the interval that elapses before
any extensive system of Reform can be perfected,
let the Tithe Composition Act, which works so well,
be made compulsory on the parochial clergy. The
Dr. Butler, who was lately visited by a crowd of
menacing petitioners for the reduction of his tithes,
is, we understand, one of those who never would
compound with his parishioners. The poor of Ire-
land must be more tenderly treated, by having funds
provided out of the land, either as wages for their
labour, or as support for them in unwilling idleness.
England, as well as Ireland, demands this improve-
ment in the Irish law. The immense assessments
made on Irish counties must be taken out of the
hands of those notorious job-masters, the grand
Jurymen : 800,000/. per annum has been raised by
them on the people, and wasted the Lord knows
how. These are some, and we believe the principal
wrongs at which Ireland may fairly murmur, and the
continuance of which, now that they are known,
must, in the nature of things, make proselytes to
the O'Connell plot. Let Parliament defeat his
manoeuvres at one great blow ;—let it examine what
ought to be done, and do it without another year's
hesitation ;—let it " be just, and fear not."—Times.
It was last month stated by a Morning Contem-
porary that we were actually in a revolution—an
observation literally and essentially true, though not
in the vulgar acceptation of the term. Every dis-
cerning and reflecting man sees the revolution of
opinion and property now in active operation. We
remarked on Saturday week, the singular and almost
unnoticed alienation taking place throughout the
country between all ranks of the people and the
clergy. The country papers teem with reports of
close vestry contests, of rancorous local feuds on
fourpenny and sixpenny church rates, and of the in-
creasing agitation of the anti-union question of
Tithes. Now that the mattress is not large enough
to hold the parson and the agriculturist, the former
is bolstered and kicked out of bed without notice or
ceremony. Religion, so far as the institutions of
priests are concerned, is apt to be considered by
mankind in the light of a luxury. When they can
afford to purchase it, on reasonable and comfortable
teems, they buy freely. But when the necessaries
of life become scarce and costly, men dispense with
the superfluity of a church establishment. Even
the women, who form the majority of eminently
pious persons, lose their evangelical feeling. Two
centuries have not elapsed since the memorable
revulsion in the public mind of Englund from Papal
dominion, and the priestcraft of the Stuart dynasty,
to the Church economy of the Commonwealth. A
few short years of symptomatic warning and groans
against the Established Clergy and Tithes, from
1630 to 1648, placed, in the Statute Book in April,
1649, that hitherto singular 0 Act of the Commons
of England in Parliament assembled for the abo-
lishing of Deans, Deans and Chapters, Canons,
Prebends, and other offices and titles, of or belong-
ing. to any Cathedral, or Collegiate Church or
Chapel within England and Wales." And be it
observed, that this profane Act was passed in times
of excessive religious zeal, and accompanied by new
laws " for the propagation and preaching of the
Gospel." The eonfiscatien of the Church property
by that uprooting Act, was nevertheleas shrewdly
restricted to " the good of the state ," for, to
the credit of our Puritanical ancestors, they ex-
pressly excepted the revenues and rents for the
maintenance of grammar schools, alms-houses,
universities, and other foundations of learning.—
It seems that they valued knowledge more
than priestcraft, This bold legislation and utter
extinction of the Hieratehy was preceded by
those subterranean rumblings and explosions which
give warning of volcanic eruptions. The peesecue
tion of liberal and philosophical opinions ; the pres-
sure of the tithes, aggravated by the pecuniary die.
treesee ,9f civil contentions ; corresponding disre-
spect for the seleisy (the Lord Bishops not being
the Lord's Bishops ide. the eyes
od
of the Reformed
Protestants) ; all these and other pruced
the Ecclesiastical Revolution of the eeeeenteenth
,century, I.Ye will not indulge in any historical dis-
quisitions ; thelan/e. are undeniable, whatever their
first oe secondary causes ; and those who are close
observers of the signs of the inaes, cannot full to
discern singular parallel between the eireemstartees
which preceded tie civil wars and those which usher
in the eventful year 1831. A civil war has come
mteneed between the landowners and the clergy.
Adam :m,!ti:celettlated, fifty years since, " that if all
moduaea end alt iospeo;?riations were taken away, the
complete Church-tithe of lire: Pritaie and Ireland
could riot well be estimated at less thin; sit er:.. seven
saaillione." Its present amount, pumped up by war!
pr ,eeae ie -el rapacity, would be grossly under-rated by
a e , .
comparison With this old estimate. «'e will not
attempt to calculate its net amount or
rI proportionate
i pressure on the several claseee of society. he Stil-
-1 ttsstee egleting to tithes and Titholog;v fill a closely
printed eneteeo ,yolume of 300 pages ; the reported
cases are manis elsonsened in number ! ean it be
supposed that this sewi's4 4,10./I;3,f:quid fasten itself
exclusively on the agriculturists, ees:i Oat, they would
remain quiescent and patient sufferers in it:.', Wipe c
The " burden of tithes" was unquestiottabiy a
sarvisag cause of the origin of the set of Quakers,
and a tire iresrease of the Independents. Liberty
of habit, drab esioeluee, hats with brims like a cottage
roof, and an unlimited snperietsioi
,and use of pre-
nouns, were doubtless pleasant possees,:cne: but ex-
emptions from tithes, from oaths, and thence from
ma;;y burdensome uilices, and security from being
drawn for the militia, were substantial liberties much
more to be coveted. The modern antagonists of
the comuulsive slipendia of tithes are cunningly
imitating-the old Puritans in the rationale of °ppm.