The Sun.
London, England, 1836-07-16 00:00:00

the mighty majority in support of the " vital principle
which at the last trial of strength was found to have sunk
from 39 to 26, may at the next be still further reduced,.
. if not converted into a minority ; and they urge the Whig,
Radical, and Papist Members of the House of Commons to
hold themselves in readiness for the impending ;trial, in
grateful recollection that the principle of appropriation was
the instrument by means of which this conscientious and pa-
triotic confederacy of Legislators succeeded in forcing the pre-
sent Ministers upon the Crown and the country.' Our. Mini-
sterial contemporaries therefore are right in calling the prin-
ciple- of appropriation a " vital " principle ; for, deadly
though it be to the hope of any settlement whatever
of the tithe question in Ireland—deadly though it be to the
peace and prosperity of that country, it was, nevertheless,
the source of life and power to the present Ad-
eninistration, which. thus enjoys the advantage and
this Ldory of a poisonous origin. The course
whic;; Abee House of Lords will pursue with respteet
to the Irish Tolle Bill is not. doubtful, and has never been
so. • We have des :abed it accurately before that trial of
strength in the Hon:7o o: Commons which shoWed that the.
Majority in that assembly in favour of the principle of des- •
poiling Protestantism for the put ;lose of'upholding and dif-
fusing Popery, had undergone a cleat' diminution of one-third
of its former number. This divisitm was not. calculated to
shake the resolution, or to damp the I:rdozir, of the friends .
of the Church and Constitution in either branch of the
Legislature. -Why should our Ministerial contemporaries
now begin to press .upon the phalanx of t: ...spoilers in
the House of 'Commons the duty of steadfast a.,lberenee
to their bad cause ? Is it that all is not quit' right -
in the enemy's camp? Arc there symptoms o." de-
sertion ? Have the ingredients of the poisoned chalice bout
commended by the irresistible authority of law and justice
to the lips of some of the compounders of the cup ; and is it
perceived how gladly they would dash it to the ground ?
We stated three weeks ago that the House of Lords would -
make amendments in Lord Morpeth's Bill similar in sub-
stance to those which were proposed in the House of Com-
mons by Lord Stanley. We stated that some Irish Kortian
Catholic Members of the House of Commons had rece:vehi
oonpgelaesssthwea rquaegs
taiionns to
ftlitei
d
powerh
tithe
remains o f i dl
aewe pfrsocma r
whi
ethh,asto
its present position, they cannot withdraw without forfeit-
ing the confidence and favour of a large proportion of their
Roman Catholic constituents. And we added, that a strong
disposition had been manifested by these parties to accept,
in lieu of .the appropriation clause, to which it is known
that the Conservative and Protestant party in Great
Britain and Ireland cannot and will not consent, an
addition to the grant for the purpose Of general edu-
cation in Ireland, under the confront and direction or
the present Board of Commissioners. We should'
sincerely rejoice to see the question -in dispute ad-
justed in the manner just described. The compensation
suggested is liable to weighty objections, it is true, but
scarcely any sacrifice can be too ercat which will obtain a
final settlement of the tithe question in Ireland without
yielding to Popery that principle of appropriation which is
manifestly insisted upon merely because it opens the way
to successive, interminable, insatiable encroachment. En-
tertaining these views of the subject in reference to what.
we believe to be its actual position, we cannot regard
without satisfaction the manifest uneasiness of our Minis-
terial contemporaries. They. have no constituents on the
one hand whose votes they fear to lose if they pay their
tithe in the present state of the law. Nor have they any-
thing to apprehend from writs of rebellion on the other.
They can well afford, therefore, to be .uncompromising.
But some of the politicians whoa they desire to support,
and will support, no doubt, whatever course the latter may
pursue, cannot so well afford to be consistent. Why, then
cannot the Globe and Courier -permit those Irish Members
who suffer most severely in the anti-tithe war to
leave town quietly before the Lords' amendments shall have
been returned to • the House of Commons ? If it should
happen that the majority of twenty-six in favour of the
appropriation clause is extinguished, we shall be so well sa-
tisfied with the result that we can almost promise to let
our Ministerial contemporaries explain it in their own
way. It shall be a Conservative manoeuvre, a Tory stra-
tagem," or anything else they please, and we shall be
heartily content, provided the great and unspeakable ad-
vantage of a final settlement of the Irish Tithe question be
obtained for the country. And the settlement of the ques-
tion according to Lord Stanley's proposed amendments of
the Ministerial Bill would, we have no doubt, be a final
and a peace-bearing settlement. It would afford satisfac-
tion to the Protestant Clergy and their flocks. Of this'
there can be no doubt, inasmuch as Lord Stanley, in pro-
posing it, was, in fact, the authorised organ of the Protes-
tant Church in Ireland, whose Ministers; in agreeing to
this mode of adjustment, gave a new proof of that modera-
tion and love of peace which become their sacred profession.
The opinion expressed by one of the Ministerial Papers,
that any settlement of the tithe question which does not •
include the principle of appropriation would not be final, bat
Would merely change the ground of contest by making rent
instead of tithe the object of illegal resistance and hostil iy,
is scarcely worthy of a moment's Attention. The landlords
of a country arc a powerful body.; and in the case of a
lawless war upon the' rights of any of their number, • under
the colour no matter of Wog principle, they would not fail to
make common cause, and to have the unanimous and reso-
lute support also of the possessors of every other description
of property. Such a combination of all that is really ro .verful
in society might well deride the idea of Agrarian outrage.
The Government, even such a Government as that of
Lord Mulgrave dud Lord Morpetb, would be quite sure,
besides, to be decidedly and unequivocally with them.
There would, then, we venture to say, he no tricks or
contrivances to withdraw the public force.fram the repres-
sion of outrage and the assertion of the authority of the
law ; no danger of Lord Lieutenants, or Lord Lieu-
tenants' Chief Secretaries, incurring the rebuke of-the
Court of Exchequer, for throwing impediments in the
way of the King's writ ;, no Bills concocted in the
House of Commons, for the purpose of furtively con-
veying to the Executive Government the power to
protect systematic violators of the law against the
activity of a police, established for no other purpose
than that of upholding and enforcing the law. The col-
lection of tithe Las been made a party and a sectarian
question by WhigS, Radicals, and Papists. But, notwith-
standing the well-considered apprehensions of the Globe,
we think we may safely defy Whigs, Radicals, and Papists,
separately or united, to make a party or sectarian question
of the collection of rent. " The ,why is plain as way to
parish church." Too many Whigs, too many Papists, and
too many Radicals also, are rent receivers to admit of their
raising or agitating such a question, or encouraging any at-
tempt to do so on the part of others.—elloreung Post.