The Sun.
London, England, 1836-08-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The annoyance manifested by Sir Robert Peel at
the Home Secretary's waiver of the point of privilege
on Tuesday night, in order to arrive at the discussion
of the mutilated Church of Ireland Bill upon its
merits, has extended itself to the Right Hon. Baronet's
literary retainers. in all the leading Tory journals
Lord :John Russell is assailed, ostensibly for mooting
the question of privilege, but really for not pressing it
to a division, and thus saving his opponents from the
mortification of another defeat upon the great princi-
ple at issue between the Peers and the people—be-
tween the faction longing for place, and the Reformers,
labouring, without prospect or expectation of personal
advantage, for the general welfare. Some of these
lynx-eyed worthies even pretend to see in the Noble
Lord's waiver of this point of privilege the proof of
their own sagacity in attributing to Ministers an in-
tention to " blink by an unsavoury side-wind"—[the
originality of this conceit may, peradventure, excuse its
absurdity]—the question of merits. Did not the Noble
Lord raise the point of form, exclaim our sadly shrewd
contemporaries—and is not this a proof irrefra-
gable, that he intended, at some period or ano-
ther, to " shirk the great question upon which the
heart of the nation is set ?" Such is, literally, the
" device" by which the ingenious journalists in the
Tory interest endeavour to hoodwink the public, and
screen their own scandalous and corrupt misrepresen-
tations for the last week from the country's gaze and
reprobation. To reason with persons so demented by
defeat, and so stultified by passion, would be an un-
profitable task. Still some of their arguments—if so
we may call their attempts at ratiocination—may as
well be stated and answered ; not that the authors
will recant an error or admit a correction ; for, like the
man

" convinced against his will,"
they will be of
" the same opinion still ;"
no matter how clearly that opinion may be demon-
strated to be erroneous : but that the portion of the
public who, upon trust, are in the habit of taking their
notions from the lucubrations of these writers, may be
disabused and set right upon a great question, which
has been so overlaid with falsehood and misrepresen-
tation by the Tories in general, both in Parliament
and out of it, that its real bearing and purpose are nearly
lost sight of. It has been asserted that the Bill for the
adjustment of the long and fiercely-agitated ques-
tion of tithes, as re-meddled by the Peers, is a
measure of unmixed, good ; that its excellence, so
far as it goes, is universally admitted ; and that, con-
sequently, being a healing measure, it ought to be
cheerfully accepted by the Reformers, even though it
goes not to the full extent of their wishes. If this
were a correct description of the mutilated Bill, the
Reformers ought, undoubtedly, to consider the alte-
rations at least in no unfriendly light. But the de-
scription is altogether false, and the argument of the
Tories is built upon a groundless and an unwarran-
table series of assumptions. The mutilated Bill is
not one of unmixed good, and the Reformers have not
admitted it to be good in any respect. By the " amend-
ments" of the Upper House the bonus to the landlords
is curtailed ; an act of injustice towards that class to
whom, with all their heavy weight of malversation upon
their heads, justice is yet due. The 30 per cent. re-
mitted in the original Bill was what these were fairly
entitled to for risking their re,nt-roll by the dange
rous association of tithes. This fact was clearly
estabished by the Marquis of Lansdowne, in his
speech upon Lord Lyndhurst's amendment to the third
clause. The amended Bill also increased the income
of the clergy to such an extent as to raise the Irish
parsons, in a Catholic country, above their brethren in
Protestant England in the scale of wealth. This was
a palpable abuse, a glaring injustice. By the same
amended measure it was provided—though not in ex-
press terms—that no matter how the number of Pro-
testants in Ireland might vary, there should never be
a surplus of ecclesiastical revenue ; and, more intole-
rable still, that the Catholics of Tipperary, and Cork,
wad Galway, and Mayo, should pay for the extrava-
gant maintenance of the Protestant clergymen in Dub-
tin. in 13eIlast, and in Londonderry. The mutilated
MI further interdicted the re-valuation of tithe pro-
perty, rxcept in a few instances, though it is notorious
that the old compositions, under Mr. Goulburn's
Act, were entered into in a manner, and under cir-
cumstances, which made these .compositions the
very reverse of a proper standard by which to esti-
mate the amount of rent-charge under the proposed
enactmcrnt. The parishioners and the parsons
were, besides, the compounding parties under Mr.
Goullnun's Act ; the rent-elrarge was proposed to fall
upon the landlords, who were not interested in the old
compositions, and whom yet, against all fairness, the
Lords would bind down by the acts of others. Such
were the leading provisions of the Tory amended Bill,
and this Bill is dcsetibed as one of " unmixed good !"
It is, doubtless, " good" in Tory eyes—in the estima-
tion of a party -who imagine that the Church establish-
men! cannel be too large or too wealthy, nonuatter
how disgustingly disproportionate to the Protestant
population, and who have arrived at this conclusion for
the very natural reason that they are themselves the
chief gainers by sinecures, pluralities, enormous titheS,
and extensive glebes ; but a far different opinion is
formed of the altered measure by those who have the
pressure of the " Anomalous Church" (we quote
Lord Mahon's words), and by those Eirdishmen and
Scotchmen who prefer the peace of Ireland and the
general weal to the personal interests of a selfish
faction, who care not a jot for the Church, but
love its revenues, and who sully and endanger
Protestantism by making the Reformed Faith
a mask for cupidity and an engine of oppression.
`We have more than once asserted—and the
assertion remains unrefuted—that the Bill, even
as it left the House of Commons, was not a good mea-
sure in all its parts ; and that without the appropria-
tion clauses it would have been scouted with scorn by
the great body of the nation. These clauses alone in-
fused into it a healing property—by these alone could
it possibly produce the desired effects—the pacification
of Ireland and the security of the Church Establish.
ment. But, say the Tories, would the concession of
these clauses by the House of Lords make the pro-
posed settlement final ? How preposterous to talk of
finality in connection with human affairs I This is
fixing a limit to things in their nature illimitable—and
investing things temporal and evanescent with a Divine
attribute, by declaring that they shall be immutable.
We cannot say—who dares to say ?—that any settle-
ment of any political question will be " final." That
would be limiting the powers of Parliament and the
rights of the people—it would be doine, what the
present generation have no authority to do, viz.,
destroying the rights of posterity. But though
we cannot aver that .the settlement of the tithe ques-
tion in Ireland proposed by his imai„`ty,s Mi-
nisters, approved by the representatives of the United
Kingdom, and acquiesced in by the people whose
acquiescence is in this case of paramount value
and importance,—though, we repeat, it is impos-
sible for us to say that this settlement would be
" final," we assert, unhesitatingly and at once, that the
settlement proposed by the Tory Peers did not in the
smallest degree partake of the nature of a final arrange-
ment. The application of the simple term " settle-
ment" to the lordly plan, is an absurd abuse of words.
To couple the term " final" with such a "settlement,"
is an outrage upon common sense. The lordly ar-
rangement lacks the essence of settlement, for it wants
the consent of the people of ll•eland, without which
no settlement of the tithe question can be temporary—
far less final. Of this truth the Tory Peers were well
aware ; this conviction was deeply impressed upon
their minds when they extracted the appropriation
clauses, and by that means made the whole Bill a
nauseous mass. They, therefore, deliberately, and
with malice prepense, entailed upon Ireland another
year of bitter resentment, and acrimonious, turbulent
agitation. Their newspapers have predicted the shed-
ding of blood from the non-adjustment of this ques-
tion. Should the prophecy be verified—which Heaven
forfend—on the heads of those whose perverse and
factious policy shall have caused the calamity, be the
guilt and the consequences I Ministers and their sup.
porters stand already acquitted.—Morning Chronicle.
Mr. D. W. Harvey's speech on Tuesday night sur-
prised no one. It was in precise accordance with the
anticipations of his auditory. Each side of the House
expected an attack from the " paragon,' and neither