The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-26 00:00:00

AMENDMENT,

" Sheriffs to be appointed
by the Lord-Lieutenant (ex-
cept in Londonderry, to which
the Crown appoints), zrd Co-
roners to be appointed by the
Council of the borough."
The Bill, as originally framed, left to the Town-
council the election of sheriffs in counties of cities and
counties of towns ; but at the instigation of the Tories
—to silence their complaints, to stop their cavilling
Ministers, before the measure left the %Commons'
House, consented to deprive the Irish corporations of
this privilege, and to transfer to the Viceroy the power
of nominating sheriffs in cities. This change was
made to please that base faction who arraigned the
Viccroy for interfering with the lists of the Orange
Judges, and nominating of his own choice the sheriffs
in certain shires ; and who, following up their turpi-
tude, now retort upon Ministers those very concessions
which were, we think imprudently, made to their own
clamour ! It is seen, however, that by the Bill as it
Nvent to the House of Lords, the coroners of cities and
towns corporate were to be appointed by the Town-
councils ; while the " amendments" obliterate the very
name of Town-council, and transfer to the Crown the
function that was to be discharged by that body.
DILL. AMENDMENT.
" The Lord Lieutenant, on " The Lord Lieutenant, by
the petition of the Council, to by advice of the Privy Coun-
grant separate sessions. cd, to grant separate sessions.
The public do not need to be informed that all the
difference imaginable exists between a town. council,
upon whose petition the Viceroy was to grant separate
sessions, and the Privy Council, by whose advice the
Lord Lieutenant is, according to the Copley scheme,
to be guided. The Ministerial Bill intended •to in-
vest power in the people ; the Tory measure treats the
people as if they were cyphers or villains, and increases
the already too great power of the Crown in Ireland.
And these two measures are still identically the
same ! But why consume space in exposing the pal-
pable and essential difference between the Bill, as read
a first time in the House of Lords, and as returned
from that House to the Chamber of Representatives
of the people ? The .?vlinisterial measure preserved
municipal institutions in forty-nine cities and towns
in Ireland ; the Copley measure sweeps every
Irish corporation out of existence. The Mi-
nisterial Bill provided for the election of mayors
aldermen, and town councillors in forty-nine
corporations ; the Copley Bill deprives of ex-
istence, now and for ever, town councils, aldermen,
and mayors, by a dash of the pen. Yet we are told,
with a grave countenance, that the two measures—
that which renovates and that which obliterates—are
the same 1 To sum up shortly—the preamble of the
Ministerial measure has been changed ; sixty-six
,of
its clauses have been so mangled as not to leave an
original feature discernible by their framers ; twenty-
seven new clauses have been introduced, each of them
repugnant to the spirit and hostile to the purpose of
the Bill as it entered the House of Peers ; and of the
144 clauses composing the Ministerial measure, eight
only have escaped the destructive paws of Baron
Lyndhurst ; so that, to use the critically correct lan-
guage of the Marquis of Lansdowne,
" The effect of the Bill, as it now stands, and as it has
been adopted by the House of Lords, is, that the corpo-
rate system is for ever annihilated in Ireland, and that the
title of the Bill—for the preliminary words are unneces-
sary—should, insttad of being A Bill for the regulation
of Municipal affairs in Ireland,' be A Bill for abolishing
the Corporations of Ireland, and making the Lord Lieute-
nant of that country, for the time being, corporator sole
thereof.'"
Yet there are writers who have the cool audacity to
tell the world that the Ministerial Bill differs really in
nothing from the nefarious substitute of the corrup-
tionist Destructives. Nay, their impudence carries
Jtravagant assertion that they have, by
e, e14,L.,„
evelrlKl7.l nisite " contrast" to which we have adverted,
4"
d...pevond the possibility of cavil that the Mi-
C..;. •
aaisters..wer6tbey :tilt) in legislating for Ireland sum.
d, and acted, npon the suggestion, that in princi-
.ple and in, practice a clearly and a strongly marked dif-
ference and distinction should be made between the
Irish on the one:hand, and the English and the Scotch

" Sheriffi and Coroners to
b,: appointed by the Grown."

on the other," and not the Tory Lords who have re-
fused the benefit of Municipal Reform to Ireland, nor
the Tory scribes who have dared to avow that in their
opinion Ireland is not fit for the enjoyment of those
salutary institutions, and of that share of civil liberty,
possessed by the inhabitants of Great Britain.—Morn-
zng Chronicle.
There is a burst of indignation from the revolutionary
journals, loud enough to, be quite natural, if the feeling
were real, at the charge against their party of propos-
ine. to " destroy" the House of Lords. " We destroy
the House of Lords !" they exclaim ; " what an in-
famous Tory calumny ! We have no wish but to re-
form it, by rendering that assembly more compliant
with the will of the people." Here, then, is the ques-
tion fairly propounded. If this class of politicians in-
sist, by their schemes of alteration in the House of
Lords, that they are going to effect a decided " amend-
ment" in that body, as a Legislative Chamber, our an-
swer is—a flat contradiction. Their plan is no amend-
ment at all. The Reform which they have suggested
must be taken in its literal sense, as a forming, over
again—a reconstruction, with materials differently
scraped together, adjusted differently, designed for, and
made subservient to, different ends, altogether differently
cemented. We do not speak without book, in
submitting to the general sense of • our coun-
trymen this ciew of the desperate and frightful
extremities to which the abettors of the fac-
tion, now in office, conceive themselves to be re-
duced. The text which we quote was that of Mr.
O'Connell's speeches at all those meetings throughout
the north of England and Scotland, at which, in the
course of last autumn, the scattered Members of the
Whig interest were summoned, by orders from the
Treasury, to attend and receive the new canon of le-
gislation from the Agitator's own lips. The same text
is that for the exposition and practical enforcement of
which the letter addressed within these few days to the
people of England by Mr. Daniel O'Connell was ex-
pressly published—namely, a House of Lords to be
elected by the people—that is, by those whom Mr.
O'Connell assumes to be the people. Now, when
the " Reformers" tell us that they must have a
House of Lords obedient to the will of the "people,"
we might be ' satisfied with stating it as the intent
and direct Ipurpose of the constitution of England,
that the House of Lords should invariably
have •a will of its own. If the House of Lords
be good for nothing but to echo the sentiments
of the House of Commons, and to obey the man-
dates of those by whom the House of Commons
is elected, why have any such incumbrance as a
second chamber ? Why not simplify the machine of
the Government—since mere simplification passes
'among sages like Joseph Hume and Daniel O'Connell
for wisdom—why not boil down Parliament into a uni-
form jelly, and serve it up in a single dish ? Those
who would make the Mouse of Lords elective ought
to assemble Lords and Commons in the same room,
after the notable fashion of Lord Brougham in his
chapter on free conferences. The spirit of the project
is manifestly to get rid of all pretence for revision, or
prolonged deliberation, between the proposal and the
enactment of laws, however complex or intricate the
subject, however fatal and irretrievable the consequen-
ces of one precipitate error. But what sort of House
of Lords is it that Mr. O'Connell requires to generate
by this democratic process ? Not, assuredly, one
which shall oppose the O'Connell scheme of policy
for Ireland. He avows as much when he de-
clares that he will have a repeal of the Union,
(still repeal) or an equivalent for it—viz., an elective
House of Lords, whereby he admits that an elective
House of Lords, that is, a House of Lords which
inclined to vote for all the measures of the
Melbourne Cabinet, would answer his (O'Con-
nell's) purpose as well as a repeal of the Union ! It
needs no more to inform us of what nature that pur-
pose is. In fact, no House of Lords would do the
work demanded of it by -the Radicals which was not
chosen by a constituency at least as nearly approximat-
ing to universal suffrage as that which returns the Ra-
dical majority in the House of Commons. Any high
qualification as to property, were it 'but 501. a year,
would return a House of Lords (or Comnions) Con-
servative in the proportion of 10 to 1. Then, what
do these new pranks of the agitating clique amount
to ? A broad, glaring, palpable, gross, democratic
tyranny, to be established on the ruins of a mixed
constitutional monarchy—a substitution of one estate
for three—a delegation of Peers as well as Commons,
by the British Destructives and the Popish priests
of Ireland, to be nicknamed a Parliament, making
Whigs their tools, and law and property, civil
and religious liberty, the internal peace and union
of the empire, their avowed and deliberate victims.
That such plots arc stupid frenzies, and the decla-
mations in support of them idle pueiilities, we are
well aware. When brought to the test, either of -ar'-
guments or blows, none are more at case than we are
as to the issue of any coining conflict. Yet it is good
to show what game is now afoot. A yell must be got
up like the hired hoolaloo of an Irish, Papist burial.
And all other topics having been tried and failed, the
House of Peers is now. assaulted. What comes next ?
—The King. As Mr. Daniel O'Connell has already
notified that his protection of the Whig Ministry is
contingent on their doing "justice to Ireland,'.' which
signifies augmenting his individual Power, and that
the alternative wiebe, either a repeal of the Union,
or an elective House of Lords—this last turning out
abortive, what, we say, comes next ? Why, thew re..;.
mains but one other pis aller for our Cabinet-maker—
to wit, an elective Monarch. The animus of the fic-
tion is pretty clear, and so, we trust, will prove to be
its impotence.—Times.
The Ministerial writers have been desired by their
paymasters and patrons to "go the whole hog" in
abusing us for exposing the disgraceful fraud which the
Ministers are attempting just now to practice upon the
public for the advancement of their own selfish and
sordid views. This was of course expected by every-
body, and few will be surprised to find that the agents
and instruments of such people as our Ministers are
proved to be, have acquitted themselves of the task im-
posed on them in a manner that must continue to insure
them pity for their stupidity, which is their chief misfor-
tune, and scorn for their mendacity, which is their ruling
vice. They would have their readers believe that we have
shown that the Ministers and the Lords concur, to a
certain extent, in their views relative to municipal insti-
tutions in Ireland ; and that, having demonstrated this,

we have, on the one hand, blamed and reproached the
Ministers for approximating to the views of the Upper
House, while, on the other hand, we have extolled
those views as prudent, statesmanlike, and wise. If
the readers of these scribes he as doltish as the scribes
themselves are dishonest, they will believe the senseless
tale. Our readers, however, know perfectly well that
we have been guilty of no such unfairness, whether
from dulness or design, as that which the blockheads
would persuade the boobies they address constitutes
the gist of our argument. What we have done in
this matter is told in few words. First, we have stated
the indisputable fact, that the so-called Government,
their mendicant master, O'Connell, and the go-be-
tweens of the Government and the Beggarman—
namely, the Ministerial Press—are endeavouring to
to run down the Lords on the ground that their Lord-
ships have legislated for Ireland with reference to
municipal institutions in a manner different to that in
which they have legislated for Great Britain. Se-
condly, we have stated, and proved beyond the possi-
bility of successful cavil, that the Ministers themselves
had so legislated in the first instance—that their Irish
Municipal Bill was essentially different from the Eng-
lish and Scotch Municipal Bills,—and therefore, that
if any blame be attributable to that species of legisla-
tion,
it attaches at least as completely to the
IVlinis-
ters as to the House of Lords. As a consequence,
we have inferred, what is as clear—quite as clear—as
either of the other two facts--namely, that none but
knaves would have cried up the Ministers and cried
down the Lords, for no other reason than that the
Lords have improved upon an example which was set
by the Ministers themselves. Upon this statement
of facts, we are quite willing to go to the country.—
Times.
There are certain political games which may be
played once, or perhaps twice, with success, but which
will net answer the purpose oftener. They
,who play
the game of Irish agitation ought to remember this.
The boy in the fable, who cried " wolf" so often, ended
at last by receiving no attention when thejwolf really

..11iNILLIE-111--‘ Arm -a.m. a ...

-- - -