The Sun.
London, England, 1836-09-29 00:00:00

positions which the reviewer advances—singular, we
mean, as regards his own argument—is the very ex-
traordinary one, that it would be unsafe, as well as un-
constitutional, to have the legislative functions vested
practically in only one of the Houses of Parliament.
This is, indeed, a passing strange position to be ad-
vanced at the very moment that the writer is vindicat-
ing the conduct of the Peers last session, and stre-
nuously resisting the slightest reform of that body.
The Reformers may lay down such a proposition—
it is, indeed, the grand basis on which they
ground their advocacy of Peerage Reform; but that it
should ever have entered into a Tory mind, or pro-
ceeded from a Tory pen, is only adding another to
the many proofs the Conservatives have lately given
that they are not overstocked with the commodity of
common sense. The Tory, who would, with any de-
gree of plausibility, resist a reform of the Upper House,
should at once boldly lay down the position that one
branch of the Legislature is, practically, enough for all
useful purposes. We would not ask him to name the
House of Lords as the branch to which he refers.
That would be sufficiently understood. His opposition
to a reform of that House would then be perfectly intel-
ligible—at present it is the very reverse. It is precisely
because, as already intimated, we hold both Houses of
Parliament to be essential to sound and salutary legis-
lation that we assert the necessity of Peerage Reform.
At present we have practically only one branch of the
legislature, though theoretically two. The Lords
have of late been everything—the Commons nothing.
Whatever measures now become the law of the land
are the exclusive workmanship of the hereditary
legislators. The representatives of the people
have virtually nothing to do with them. It now
becomes a question whether it was prudent to expend a
single farthing in fitting up a new House for the
Commons after-their last place of meeting was des-
troyed by the fire of 1834. The people, as the event
has shown, were egregious simpletons in making such
extraordinary exertions, and submitting, in many in-
stances, to individual sacrifices of no ordinary magni-
tude, to return Liberal Members to the House of
Commons, in the beginning of 1835. Not less ma-
nifest is the folly of the Members so returned, in at all
crossing the threshold of St. Stephen's ; for as Mr.
Hume very justly remarked at the close of last ses-
sion, there was no use whatever in their having at-
tended in their places in Parliament. If the Lords are
to remain unreformed, and to monopolize in future, as
they did last session, the legislative functions, the
Members of the House of Commons may henceforth
as well remain at home, attending to their individual
interests.—Morning Advertiser.
Among the many new and curious axioms of politi-
cal truth which, through the progress of " enlighten-
ment," have burst upon the mental vision of Ministe-
rial writers, that which proves the excellence of Lord
Muigrave's Governthent in Ireland is perhaps the most
purely original. It consists in this—to abstain from
carrying into effect the sentences of the King's Judges
upon robbers, murderers, and other spirited criminals,
who have exhibited their sense of Tory oppression by
practical contempt of those laws which unenlightened
Tories hold in bigotted respect. The Tories while
they held power were so blind to the proper course
of Irish lustice—so stupidly neglectful of their
popularity—nay, of the ardent affection of the Irish
peasantry which they might have acquired, that they
punished crimes, and the more dreadful the crime
the more prompt were they in bringing it to judicial
investigation, and the more stern in executing the
legal punishment. But the Whig-Radicals, of whom
the mild and milky-hearted Mulgrave is the fitting re-
presentative in Ireland, saw at once that this was
not the way to the affections of the Irish peasantry.
With a piercing sagacity, which could alone be ex-
pected from Whig-Radicals, they saw through the
difficulties of the Irish character, and of the posi-
tion of British government with respect to that cha-
racter. By profound study, such as the indolent
aristocrats of the Tory party would never have un-
dertaken, they discovered that the Irish peasantry
did not like. to be hanged, even when they had
done that to which the law awarded the punish-
ment of hanging. Upon this grand discovery is the
policy of Lord Mulgrave founded, and a most po-
pular policy it unquestionably is. In a country less
abounding with those who postpone their respect
for the criminal law to the gratification of their pro-
pensities to robbery and murder the policy founded on
such a discovery would have been of less im-
portance ; but in Ireland it was everything. In no
direction could Lord Mulgrave turn without find-
. ing a great many who were interested in the highest
degree in his new policy. Everywhere—at all events
in the Roman Catholic part of the island—there was
an abundance of persons to whom it was a matter of
life-and-death concern. A Government that would
act upon the impropriety of thwarting their prejudice
against being hanged was to them a Government of
heaven-born wisdom. Lord Mulgrave was received by
them with shouts of applause which rent the skies ;
and there can be no manner of doubt that these ap-
plauses will continue so long as any one that the pea-
santry consider worth robbing or murdering shall re-
main in the country. For years upon years they have
indulged in these practices to a considerable extent,
notwithstanding the restraint put upon them by the
unenlightened Tories, who are daily and devoutly
cursed for the same—cursed as much as Lord
Mulgrave's Government is blessed. The " finest
peasantry," robbed and murdered a good deal--
though tolerably sure that (through Tory prejudices)
the season's amusements in that way would conclude
with the hanging of some of them, and the exile of
others, a termination which they, with all their hearts,
abhorred. Who, then, can wonder that their gratitude
should be great as their delight, to find they have a
governor who will neither interfere with their favourite
pastimes, nor make himself unpopular by consenting to
the punishment of offences ? Who can be surprised

,hat the memory of Tory rulers is associated with sen-
timents of hatred when it is taken into account that

these unreformed Tories went upon the system of exe-
cuting the penalties of the law upon those who violated
its precepts—who were so neglectful of the applause
of the multitude as to apply the powers of British
law to the repression of popular Irish habits ? That
the Government of Lord Al ulgrave is extremely agree-
able to the Roman Catholic Priests and peasantry
of Ireland no impartial observer can deny. The
reason is obvious, and we have stated what it
is.

But when we consider the different way of
viewing crimes, and the different feeling with
regard to the propriety of punishing them which
prevails in this country, we should have thought
that his Excellency's peculiar mode of popular Irish
Government would hardly have been made the theme
of panegyric in England. We were, indeed, prepared
for general terms of eulogy—.such as, with equal mo-
desty and moderation, we are accustomed to see poured
forth whenever Whig-Radicals speak of themselves or
their agents ; but we should have supposed that, out
of deference to our prejudices here, the principle of
the popular Government of Ireland would have been
kept out of sight. We should have thought that,
though vanity might have led the friends of Government
to affirm that it was very popular among the wild Irish,
prudence would have forborne to inform us that the
shouts of applause for the Administration were inspired
by gratitude for not being hanged according to due
course of law—that the way which his Majesty's Repre-
sentative takes of protecting the liberty of the subject is
to turn all the criminals out of gaol. The Ministe-
rial prints, however, not only admit this, but make a
boast of it, and contrast this—which they are pleased
to call the
" merciful" Government of their patrons—
with the hateful, monstrous, law-executing policy of
the Tories IWe need not say-that we prefer the Tory
method of Government, though it must, of necessity,
be very unpopular with the Irish peasantry so long as
they remain subject in mind and body to the present
race of Radical Roman Catholic Priests. But it is
our misfortune, in many things as well as this, to pre-
fer the oid political lights to the new. We believe
that there is
110 people under the sun whose improve-
ment more depends upon strict discipline—upon a
steady and firm enforcement of all the rules laid
down for their guidance—than the Irish people. We
say it to the shame of British Government of Ireland,
that that kingdom never has been ruled with the
steady uniform strictness which is alone fit for such a
people ; and we are now suffering the consequences—
such as parents suffer from the conduct of spoiled