The Sun.
London, England, 1836-12-27 00:00:00

itself ; and the Dissenters cannot be too grateful to
those to whem they are under such obligations. But
something more is wanted. Before the grievances of
he Dissenters can be fully understood or explained in
the British Parliament, they must invest with the func-
tions of legislators many members of their own body.
They must have men who are acquainted with their
master-grievances, men who practically know some-
thing of the genius of dissent, as contra-distin-
guished from the hierarchy. Of such persons they
have only a mere handful at the present time. They
have Mr. Wilks, Mr. Baines, Mr. Brotherton, and
one or two others. But what are these, in a House
consisting of 658 members ? They are not suffi-
cient to make the grand principles of dissent pro-
perly understood in the House. There must be a
great accession to their ranks, before they can pre-
sent that front in the House which will, in the first in-
stance, command the attention of Hon. Gentlemen to
the exposition of the grievances of the Dissenters, and
afterwards secure their redress. Let, then, the Dis-
senters look to themselves. They are not in the help-
less condition of the man who could do nothing with-
out the aid of Hercules. Happily they have sufficient
resources in themselves. Let them only put forth
their strength, and they will be able, at the next ge-
neral election—now, according to all appearances, just
at hand—to return such a number of intelligent and
decided Dissenters as will bring the wrongs of the body
fairly before the Legislature and the public. Let Dis-
senters be only true to themselves at the approaching
election, and they will make such an impression on the
House of Commons and the Government as will in-
sure the most ample redress of their grievances before
the first Session of the new Parliament shall have
passed away. A numerous and intelligent body of de-
cided Dissenters in Parliament would be productive of
other benefits to dissent than the mere redress of civil
and religious ~.arievances. Such a body would make the
principles of dissent correctly understood in the House
of Commons, and among churchmen and others ge-
nerally ; and this is a desideratum anxiously to be de-
sired ; for at this moment the grossest misconception
exists, even among persons otherwise well-informed, as
to the true principles and genius of dissent. It is
scarcely necessary to add, that in proportion as error
as to the principles of dissent is dissipated, will be the
progress of those principles throughout the country.
There is one very important circumstance which de-
serves to be mentioned, in pressing on Dissenters to
return, at the next election, as many of their own body
as possible to Parliament. We refer to the fact, that
in returning intelligent and consistent Dissenters the
electors will be returning a body of men who are the
ardent and sincere friends of civil as well as religious
liberty. Dissent is, in its very nature, irreconcilably
opposed to despotic principles.—Morning Advertiser.
Mr. Sheil, whose skill in " rhetorical artifice" is
well known, has come forward as the henchman of
O'Connell on the subject of a poor law for Ireland ;
but the Learned and Hon. Member for Tipperary does
not venture, as O'Connell did, to oppose a legal provi-
sion for the famishing poor of his native country in a
spirit of direct and avowed hostility—he has too much
discretion for that. No, he does not say, as the
Great Agitator did, that statutable relief would leave
the poor of Ireland still poorer than it found them—he
does not advance such an absurdity as that, which no
man could believe but upon Tertullian's principle of
faith, credo quia inzpossibile est. Mr. Sheil only depre-
cates the discussion and promotion of the question of
a legal relief for the poor at the present time. He
thinks the question may well be postponed sine die,
while Mr. O'Connell and himself pursue their course
of selfish ambition and political aggrandisement, pick-
ing up as they go along every disposable piece of Go-
vernment patronage in Ireland for their connections
and dependants, and leaving the starving masses to
the same tender mercies of misgovernment which have
made them familiar ‘vith the pangs of hunger and the
squalid miseries of the most abject destitution, from
a very remote period up to the present era of anti-
Saxon agitation and Popish ascendancy. In this
country seme of our flinty-hearted and addle-headed
Maithusian philosophers have had the effrontery, or
perhaps, it was only the stupidity, to assert, that pau-
perism was created by the poor laws. O'Connell says
there are upwards of two millions of beggars in Ire-
land, and most assuredly that pauperism so extensive
and so deplorable was not created by poor laws, inas
much as the Irish peasantry have never been tempted
to leave the path of honest independent labour for the
repose of mendicant idleness by the allurements of a
legal provision. Still, Mr. O'Connell, seeing that
to render two millions of his starving countrymen com-
paratively comfortable, or, at least, secure against ab-
solute want, by a judicious poor law, would greatly di-
minish his power, and spoil his trade of lucrative agii-
tion, opposes every proposition for legislative relief
with the earnestness and energy of a mill-owner resist-
ing any alleviation of the factory-system, or an American
slave-owner proving his veneration for liberty and the
" inalienable rights of man," by furiously opposing the
emancipation of the unhappy negroes. But Mr. Sheil,
as we have observed, does not offer any direct resistance
to the " emancipation " of the " two millions " from the
bondage and degradation of a misery that tramples
them almost lower in the creation than the beasts that
perish. No, he says he feels as strongly as any man
the necessity of supplying relief to those famishing
people who stretch out their hands for food ; but he is
not for extending that relief to their necessities now.
He thinks it better that the advocates of a poor law
should throw that question overboard at present, and
employ themselves in forwarding the political specu-
lations of the disinterested, the virtuous patriots, who
help themselves to the good things of power, while
they leave the suffering poor to perish. "It is but
just," says Mr. Shiel, addressing the Intimidation So-
ciety, " that if you have the means, you should em-
ploy the funds at your command in relieving the
popular Members from a part, at least, of the ex-
penditure to which a registry five times a year exposes
them." He then goes on to state that he and Mr.
Otway Cave very much want the assistance of those
funds to improve their electioneering prospects in Tip-
perary ; for that purpose he advises the Registry As-
ciation to " unlock its stores"—au advice which he
says he gives with the greatest sincerity. The sincerity
of the advice we are far from doubting, though its dis-
interestedness is not quite so apparent. He gave the
Registry Association to understand that they have
large sums in their coffers, and assures them that if
they wait for an emergency, that emergency has al-
ready arrived—i. e., the disinterested adviser wants his
election secured, and his own pocket saved, in Tip-
perary. He adds, " What would you think of Ge-
neral Evans, if, having a large sum of money in his
coffers, he should say,' Wait for an emergency ?' "
The allusion to General Evans, and the large sum of
Spanish money in his coffers, is particularly unkind
and cutting at the present crisis. Mr. Sheil ought
not thus to heap ridicule on misfortune, and indulge
in sarcastic remarks upon the emptiness of the mili-
tary chest, which has been so long waiting for supplies
from Madrid, within the fortress of St. Sebastian.
Under the circumstances in which it appears the
county Tipperary is placed, we do not wonder to find
Mr. Sheil advising the application of certain funds
to maintain the purity of election in that quarter,
we suppose after the Carlow fashion, rather than
the gtving of either time, attention, or money,
by the " patriots" to the claims of the starving
poor. He calls the discussion of a poor law the
" entering upon the abstractions of political economy."
Gracious Heaven I the holding out the hand of Chris-
tian charity to the perishing poor, is, " an abstraction
While in several parts of Ire-
loafndfrompolitical
economy
the
failure I"
of the potato crop, in conse-
quence of the bad weather, and the want of turf fuel
from the same cause, thousands upon thousands of the
industrious Irish population— industrious when they
can obtain em 1
p.oyrnent--are threatened with the
most grievous sufferings of cold and hunger, before
the winter shall have passed away. But the patriotic
Mr. Sheil strides over so much misery, both in the
present time and in prospect, as a conqueror strides
over the carnage of a field of battle, and tells those who
would take some immediate means to relieve the suf-
ferers, that they are only entering on the abstractions
of political economy. If the good Samaritan had
been so sage a philosopher as Mr. Sheil, he would have
avoided the politico-economical abstraction of pouring
oil and wine into the wounds of the suffering traveller,
and have allowed him to perish before he had, like a