The Sun.
London, England, 1836-06-27 00:00:00

PIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The di: 3cussion of the Commons' amendments upon
the " am mdments" made by the Tory Peers upon the
Irish M unicipal Reform Bill, is fixed for this evening
in the '` douse of Lords. Will their Lordships agree
to the modification of the Lyndhurst scheme, to which
the I louse of Commons, for peace sake, have con-
sentad ? Have they, in the interval that has elapsed
sir,ce the mutilated measure left their House, at-
tended to the proceedings out of doors—to the public
meetings in all quarters of the empire in favour t'
Irish Corporate Reform—and, from the tone ult tenor
of the speeches delivered, and of the resolSaions agreed
to, and of the petitions adopted am), since presented
to Parliament, gathered wisdam—even that little
wisdora which suffices to tell them that they
have hitherto deviated into the wrong road in
regard to this ques".ion—and that if they dog-
gedly persevere in, the manifestly insane at-
tempt to interpose between Ireland and the just
and natural advantages to which she is en-
titled by the Act of Legislative Union, and to
set the declared will of the people and of theiT,
representatives at defiance, their very " Order
will be in danger ? These questions will he answered.
by the decision to which their Lordships will ream to-
night. To those who think a reform of Sloe House of
Lards desirable, to every man in the United Kingdom,l
and the elass is now numerous, who thinks that here-
ditary les_cislation is fraught with anomaly and danger
to the state, a persistence on the part of the Peers in
their refusal of British immunities to the Irish peopleal
wordd be extremely acceptable. To-night we shall
know whether the Tory Peers mean to play the game
of their opponents, by making another addition to the
long score of Lordly malversation. This much, how-
ever, is certain, that the Tory Lords shall not have
their way in abolishing the Municipal system in the
sister country. They may refuse to reform that system
this Session ; but extirpate it they shall not. To the
existing race of convicted Municipal peculators and
wrong-doers, their Lordships may, by their vote of
this night, give a prolonged existence—a prolonged
tenure of the right to rob and fill with corrup-
tion the Jury-box ; but if they fancy that, by a
decision adverse to the modified Bill which is to
engage their attention, they can degrade Ireland below
the level of Great Britain, contrary to the avowed
resolve of the people of England, and Scotland—
to say nothing of our Irish fellow-subjects—and re-
move all future chance of reforming the municipal sys-
tem in Ireland, by altogether abolishing that which is
old and corrupt, they have suffered their passions to
comrait sad havoc upon their senses. The present
measure goes up to their House under circumstances
fa r different from those which attended the progress of
'the original Bill from one House to the other. When
the former Bill left the House of Commons, it had in
that House but a majority of 61 ; and, as the distinc-
tion has been drawn, we may add, these consisted of
the representatives of Scotland and Ireland. The
present Bill has passed the Lower House by a sweep-
ing majority of 86, and in this number is included a
majority of 49 English Members. Furthermore, the
former Bill had not elicited a manifestation of popular
feeling ; the Peers need not be told by us what a
spirit has been awakened by their mutilation of that
Bill, and how strong and general a feeling, in
favour of the principle of the present mea-
sure, has been expressed in every portion of
the United Kingdom. These are important facts,
.and they may possibly work a beneficial, prudent
change, in the proceedings of the Tory Peers.
And yet, it is to be apprehended that the maxim
—quos Deus volt perdere—applies to their Lord-
ships. Their backers are evidently either de-
mented, or so blinded by malice, that they
cannot appreciate the signs of the times. We see by
a long and ineffably stupid and grossly dishonest letter,
published with all the showing off' of leaded typography
(heaven knows the writing was sufficiently leaden
without this addition of the base metal) in the apos-
tate Journal, that the huge boa—to use a felicitous
figure applied in reference to the same person by the
late Mr. North—is again coiling his unwieldly folds
through the congenial pages of that print, and trailing
his foetid slime on the public path. This worthy
" comrogue" of the corruptionists imagines, we sup-
pose, that people will overlook his apostacy also, and
the motives which led to his becoming
a renegade
Against the country hr, betrayed,"
and attach importance to hie dull lucubrations. Why,
however, does not the blockhead contrive to escape
palpable absurdity and self-contradiction ? For in-
stance, he says, that the Irish Whigs were the first
who called for the " abolition" of Irish Corporations.
And how does he set about the proof of this men-
dacious assertion ? When, by quoting a sentence
from a letter of Lord Cloncurry, writtes.- some
seven years ago, in which that Noble Lord, ex-
pressing liss individual opinion respecting the pro-
bable results of Catholic Emancipation, says—
" Corporations will be reformed or abolished ; the
public funds will be carefully husbanded and im-
partially administered." Here we see that in 1829
Lord .Cloncurry, speaking for himself alone, antici-
pated as the first portion of his alternative improve-
ment the reform of such corporations. Yet ni the
teeth of the Noble Lord's express words, the plodder
who comments upon his language with consummate
effrontery or marvellous obtuseness of intellect, quotes
Lord Cloncurry in proof of the assertion that it was
the Irish Whigs who first demanded the abolition of
Irish corporations. Supposing, however, that the as-
sertion were true, how far would that circumstance in-
volve in difficulty or contradiction those who now insist
on Corporate Reform in Ireland—the same having been
already established in Great Britain ? Unquestionable
the abolition of the existing municipal system in
Ireland would be a benefit;—but is that a reason why
the greater benefit of a reform in the system should be
refused on the one side, or overlooked on the other ?
Above all, why should the Irish people—forming as
they do a third of the imperial population—be in-
sulted, as they have been so flagitiously by Baron
Lyndhurst and his followers in the House of Lords,
hi the contumelious denial to them of a salutary
British law—and on the plea, too, of their being
" aliens in religion and in blood ?" For, be it eve-r
remembered—and indeed there is little chance of its
soon being forgotten—this is the ground on which the
Tory Lords rest their opposition to the Reform of the
Irish Corporations oil the same principle which guided
the framers of the measure by which the British car-
porate system has been purified and made a fosintain
of usefulness, instead of being a source .)f mischief
and pollution. As we began, so we conclude, by
asking—Will the hereditary Legislators of the Tory
school persist, in that factious opposition, and adhere
to that iniTaitous plea ? Let them take heed, lest
present ol;stinacy lead to more extensive demands from
the peof,e, and mare extensive concession on the part
of the .?eers, in the next session. To maintain Gat-
ton, dee Tories sacrificed all the boroughs in schedule
A. 'Let them take warning from the past, and not
ins-ate the municipal enfranchisement of fifty Irish
towns by their wicked attempt to abolish corporate
government in the Irish capital, and eleven other
ities and large towns. In 1830 the Tory Peers
-would preserve all corruption ; in 1836 they will abo-
lish all, because of the existence of the alloy of cor-
ruption ; in both cases their hatred and their fears
were towards Reform. We had written thus far when
a very able article in the Journal des Debats of Fri-
day last, on the subject of IriS'n Corporation Reform,
was pointed out to us. The looker-on is often the best
judge of the game. 'erne Journal des Debats may be
described as almrSst a Tory paper, and its advice may
produce more eaPrect on that account on the opponents
of Corporate Reform. Having stated the plea that
the Admission of Catholics into the Corporations would
he attended with a re-action against the Protestants,
the writer asks, " But, after all, is it necessary on that
account, as the House of Lords wishes, to introduce
into the general system of the institutions of Great
Britain an anomaly offensive to the Irish people, who
have already suffered so much from a legislation
founded on the same distrust, and will they never
offer them any other than a negative reparation ? Is
this not constantly turning against them, a state of
things which is not their work, resentments which have
been too long provoked, an agitation for which they are
less to blame than their masters ? In vain the Tories re-
peat
that the justice rendered to Ireland by the Catho-