The Sun.
London, England, 1836-03-07 00:00:00

OF THE 13V-BLIC JOURNALS.

Just a fortnight ago we alluded to a trick which the
detractors of the Government resort to at regular seasons
to induce people to believe that a mild and impartial
system of administration produces outrage and dis-
turbance in Ireland. Besides the perpetual alarum
they keep up about the " state of the country," mag-
nifying every trivial assault into a felony, and every
casual riot into an act of rebellion, they muster all
their terrors just before the approach of the Assizes
for the purpose of steeling the public mind against the
evidence of facts which might otherwise militate fatally
apinst their favourite theory. And if they can get
Colonel Verner, or some equally ponderous authority,
to stand up with ominous visage, and call for returns
from any district which has a bad name, that is quite
Pnotinli. It gives their clubbists something to prattle
about ; and, as we ventured to intimate in our former
allusion to the subject, a timely hint is at the same
time thrown out to certain judicial persons to frame
their charges to the grand juries accordingly. With
such around to stand upon, nothing is more obvious
than to take exceptions against a light county
calendar being considered an index of the state
of crime, and to attribute the vacancies in the
dock to the system of terror, which is described as
paralysing justice and defeating the efforts of authority.
This trick is a very stale one : but there are too many
weak and credulous fools in the world for its contrivers
to abandon it. Nobody can deny to them that
" matchless intrepidity of face" which supports them
smilingly through courses where others would blush to
be seen a second time. But as long as the world con-
tains shallow wits to be gulled, these honest gentlefolk
will never fail in the grace of perseverance. Had
Lord Haddington remained in Ireland till now
(always supposing that he should not have run the
,country into a state of open rebellion in half the
time), the Press, which is conjuring up Gorgons
and Hydras, would be seeing visions of peace in those
very districts where its jaundiced eye can discern
nothing but smouldering fires under the delusive
ashes. The charge of Baron Smith to the Grand
Jury of Meath last week, has been published. It is
chiefly taken up with a defence of himself, in ra-
ther a milder tone than usual, against recent attacks in
Parliament ; but he still harps upon that string which
he has been thrumming upon with such unwearied
energy ever since the Whigs made him a Tory—the
calendar. The sum of his argument seems to be, that
the calendar proves nothing, unless it be heavy. If it
is light, it may prove to demonstration the excess of
great crime, but is always an unsafe criterion of its
diminution. Such a mode of reasoning is more inge-
nious than ingenuous. But such as it is, we present
it to our readers in the Learned Baron's own words,
as the sixth or seventh edition, prioribus limatior,
gives it utterance :

Even if the calendar were lighter than it was, he
should feel that a light calendar was not always a sure
criterion of the situation of a county. If there were a ge-
neral connivance at transgression, the consequence would
be a light calendar and a guilty county ; nay, the calendar
would be light, because the county was not innocent.
Such connivance might arise from sworn obligations to
harbour offenders and conceal offences. It might arise
from a participation in the criminal objects of the trans-
gressors. It might arise from strong and generally dif.
fused intimidation. It might arise in some degree from
that antipathy to the character of an informer which our
lower orders entertain—a generous antipathy, but which
they push to an immoral and mischievous extent, and
with which he feared there was mingled a sullen en-
mity to law—an unwillingness to assist it, or to bring of-
fenders within the sphere of its jurisdiction. Sometimes,
too, when the populace had a point to gain, to the attain-
ment of which their turbulence would be an obstacle, they
knew how to listen to advice, and to be quiet for a time,
and in such an interval of truce the calendars would be
light. I have (said the Baron) taken my share in those
judicial congratulations upon the lightness of calendars,
which I fear may have sometimes misled the public mind,
at.ft made them confide in a tranquillity which was deceitful
and precarious. lam now (continued he) sparing of such
congratulations, until I have ascertained whether the ca-
lendar is a genuine symptom of the innocence of the coun-
try, or whether—
Incedimus per ignes,
Suppositos doloso."
Amongst all these alleged causes, some of them
very far-fetched, is it not strange that the thought
seems not to have crossed the Learned Baron's mind
that the phenomenon which judges are sometimes at
such pains to explain away, might have arisen from a
firm and equal administration of the laws by which
justice is afforded to all, and protection denied to none?
This we believe to be the opinion of nine persons out
of ten among those who are well-informed, though no
judges.--Morning Chronicle.
This day comes on the motion of which notice was
given a few days since for Lord Francis Egerton.
His Lordship will move an instruction to the Com-
mittee on the Irish Municipal Bill, of which the scope
and aim will be to avert that fatal provision, announced
by the O'Connell Government, for handing over the
whole corporate administration of Ireland from the
Protestant laity to the intriguing members of the Po-
pish priesthood.. Now is the time to crush effectually
the reign of faction among the Irish people. Never
was there a country upon earth which called for such
a remedy with a force of truth and justice so unan-
swerable. Never was there an opportunity of esta-
blishing good government in the very heart of society,
which, if lost, would prove so utterly irrevocable as
the present. Saddle the supremacy of priests and il-
literate paupers now upon the country—now, when
the means are in the hands of Parliament to get rid
of that and all other factious yokes for ever—and it is
proclaiming anew that the best system of local government
for Im eland is a government by one party, for its own ag-
-Ira idizeinent, and for the oppression of all other par-
ties ; this, too, proceeding from men who have been
for many years proclaiming that party ascendancy was
the ruin of all Irish peace, civilization, and prosperity.
The argument familiar to all Isish Reformers has
been since the earliest time that we can recollect—" If
one faction be permitted to monopolize power, its rival
will never he at peace, but will keep the kingdom in
hot water, until the equilibrium be recovered." If this
were good as against Protestant ascendancy, will it be
a less cogent reason against the setting up of Popish
ascendancy ? Will the active, haughty, and daring
spirit of Protestantism in Ireland be more quiescent,
more prostrate, more submissive, under a sense of gross
humiliation, than. that of the Roman Catholics has
shown itself ? Will the internal peace of Leland be
served
,by the exasperation of a body, which between
Church of England men and Presbyterians, comprising
four-fifths of the affluence, the independence, and the
warlike spirit of the nation, has already mustered of
armed men above 200,000 ? Has this consideration
no weight with a peace-making Ministry ? There is,
we believe, no country existing which demands a con-
centration of power in the hands of the Executive
Government so imperiously as Ireland always had done.
There is no neutral body of the people to place as a
cushion between the two extremes. There is no popu-
lar support for an impartial Government, because
there is no disinterested class or sect or description
of Irish inhabitants. They are all actors on a busy
and tragic scene—there are no spectators moved ex-
clusively by moral taste, or a sense of justice, to ap-
plaud, condemn, or dictate the action of the drama.
All theories of freedom are derided or shocked by the
actual condition of Ireland. We might as well bid
two hostile armies respect each other's civil rights, as
expect such virtue from the belligerent factions of the
Irish, and years must elapse before the evil can be re-
medied. It' we attempt to legislate without reference
to this fact, the cure can never be applied. It is
therefore, that we concur with Sir Robert Peel in re-
coinmending that the municipal powers now about to
-be withdrawn from Protestant monopolists shall be
vested in the executive government of the kingdom,
administered as it at present is by Whigs—but now,
anj we trust at all future times, to be administered
under the supervision and supreme control of Parlia-
ment. Is there anything_ impolitic in this, or ungene-
rous ? Let the power be in the Melbourne Govern-
ment—let the patronage rest there—let all the benefits
.of its distribution, and all the credit of its success,
belong to the Melbourne Government. They may be
a party, but, disburdened of the O'Connell nightmare,
they are at least an English, Protestant party, and
vinubl hAve some feeling for the honour of the Crown,
, and fife-the welfare and integrity of the empire, which
tS\l/4e1..4

it is too plain that a Popish priesthood, and the 'llse
rable creatures whom it misleads, have not.—Times.

The attention of every person who takes an interest
in Parliamentary and party affairs is anxiously directed
to the business of this evening in the House of Com-
mons. The debate and division upon Lord F. Eger-
ton's motion respecting corporations in Ireland, to the
terms of which we called attention on Saturday, will
present the most decided trial of strength between the
Ministers and the Opposition, which this session has
yet afforded. The principle in question is one of great
moment, and the indication which will be afforded of
the disposition of the House of Commons towards the
O'Connell influence in the Government, is scarcely less
important. A very large proportion of the Members
of the House will no doubt be present, and the division
will show whether any prospect of saving Ireland from
the predominance of O'Connell's religious, political,
and personal influence, may rationally be entertains -l.
Should any considerable majority be obtained by the Go-
verumnent and the Irish democratical pai ty against Lord
F. Egerton's motion (which we certainly do not antici-
pate), the Protestant interest in Ireland may be consi-
dered to have received its death-blow ; but should his Lor-
dship's motion be carried, or rejected only by the amount of
the force which Mr. O'Connell himself commands, the
Protestants of Ireland may rally, and recover strength,
under the well-grounded confidence that the British
Legislature is still disposed to protect them from the
combined effects of religious detestation and political
' animosity, which they experience at the hands of the
Roman Catholic body. We have already gone at some
length into the merits of the question upon which the
expected debate of to-night will be taken. We see
no reason to change our view of the subject, and we
do hope that the plan which has been developed by the
Government respecting Corporations in Ireland will
be materially corrected, both in spirit and letter, before
it passes into a law. Time Bill, as it at present stands,
is neither more nor less than Mr. O'Connell's scheme,
adopted by time Ministers. It is the price they pay
this-Session for his support. It is a measure to deli-
ver the local Government, and the administration of
the local funds of all towns in Ireland into his hands.
The 51. householders in these towns are not indepen-
dent men. They have neither judgment nor temper
—neither information nor impartiality, to make them fit
depositaries of the power of managing local affairs, or
of the trust of faithfully administering local funds.
They are almost all subject to undue influence—influ-
ence of a kind which has been laid before Parliament
and the public on so many occasions, that all but the
wilfully blind or the unpardonably negligent, must be
acquainted with it, and with its monstrous effects. If,
however, there be any one still in the dark as to its
operation and its results, let him read the speech of
the Member for the county of Carlow on Friday even-
ing, in reply to a petition presented by the Member for
Greenock. The forcible details of that speech were
not denied, and they prove enough—too much, alas—
for those who fondly hoped that the extinction of civil
disabilities on account of religion in Ireland would have
led to peace and good-will among the inhabitants of
that kingdom. We have never read a stronger or
more appalling description of the practical working, on
a great scale, of malice, hatred, envy, and uncharita-
bleness, than is to be found in Colonel Bruen's speech.
The tendency of the Ministerial Bill regarding Irish
Corporations .being palpably and certainly to give
great additional force and extensiveness to this evil in-
fluence, we cannot contemplate the probability of its
becoming a law without great apprehension. We are
aware, however, that on general grounds there are se-
rious objections to the plan proposed by the Opposition,
of placing the local affairs of towns under the con-
trol of persons appointed by the Crown. As a
general and abstract principle, we are opposed to such
policy ; but, in the peculiar circumstances of Ireland,
we believe it is the best thing that can be done. We
do not see any other way which would present less pro-
bability of abuse. Hitherto the municipal affairs of
these towns have been in the hands of .the aristocratic
few. From this evils have arisen, which it should now
be our object to remedy. The proposition is to trans-
fer these affairs to the democratic many ; but this would
not be to remedy the evil—it would only be to create
greater evil by means of other instruments. Whoever
believes that the democratic many in Irish towns would
manage municipal business and municipal funds in an
honest, orderly, and impartial manlier, must be igno-
rantly blind to all that has been going on in that kingdom
for the last seven years, or perversely determined to be-
lieve exactly the opposite of that which experience
teaches. A transfer from the nominees of an aristo-
cratic patron, to the nominees of a political priest,
or a bigoted agitator, would be a transfer from bad to
worse. Therefore it is, that they who really desire to
do all for improvement, that the nature of the
case, and the circumstances of the country, will
permit, are driven to the course of throwing the
responsibility upon the Executive Government. If
we approve of this it is not because we think it the
best mode, according to general principles, but the best
under which the peculiar and unfortunate circum-
stances of the Irish Roman Catholic population we can
adopt. This, we submit, is the fair and candid view
for Englishmen to take of the matter, and we trust that
many Members of the House of Commons will act
upon this view, ivithout reference to the success or dis-
comfiture of either of the great political parties.which
divide the Houses of Parliament. If the Ministerial
Bill be supported and carried, we shall have given_up
the towns of Ireland to an irresponsible authority—a
dangerous authority—an authority hostile to the reli-
gion and the monarchy of Great Britain—an authority
which we have no direct means of calling to account
in Parliament, and which will take care to exclude all
persons likely to call it to account, within its own local
sphere. If, on the other hand, Parliament should de-
termine to take the Corporations of Ireland out of the
hands which have neglected or abused the trusts of
those Corporations, and to put them under the ma-
nagement of persons appointed by time Executive, there
will still indeed be a liability to abuse, but its likelihood
will be lessened by time responsibility of the Executive
to the Crown and to Parliament. No one can pretend
that this plan is without objection, but it is the least
objectionable which presents itself, and certainly pre-
ferable to that devised by Mr. O'Connell, to which the
Government has unfortunately bound itself. If the
Government will do this in spite of all the warnings it
has received, it must take the consequences arising from
the feeling of the people of England and their repre-
entatives, regarding the undue influence of one indivi-
dual. This influence has already gone much too far for
the reputation of Ministers and the safety of our Pro-
testant Constitution.—Morning Herald.

The commencement of the Parliamentary Session
was begun with more tranquillity than was expected ;
but to our view the period of the hush which generally
precedes the hurricane is rapidly nearing its termina.
Lion, and all the elements of a great Parliamentary
battle of opinion are gradually but obviously maturing
their materials of collision. A crisis is at hand, and
it will depend in a great measure on the tone and pro-
ceedings of the anti-popular party in both Houses, in
what manner we shall be enabled to draw our infer-
ences as to its development, issues, or consummation.
This night is one of the critical periods of the battle's
preparatory skirmish. The Irish Municipal Reform
Bill, which has passed two readings in the House of
Commons, goes into Committee ; and it is quite evi-
dent, from the complexion of the debate last Monday,
that the Tories will play their usual game of tactics—
and put forth all their strength in Committee to impair,
or mutilate, or nullify, the most beneficial and most
important provisions of the Bill. Under whatever mask
their approaches are made, and under whatever cloak
they wield their weapons of destruction against it, this is
the real question at issue between the proposers and
assailants of the Bill—whether Ireland is to be placed
on an equal footing with England and Scotland in her
institutions, or whether she is to be ruled as a con-
quered country by a dominant minority, alien to the
great body of her population alike in political feeling
as in religious belief. Stripped of all time wordy dis-
guises of factious sophistry, that is the real question,
and that is the question to be discussed by the Com-
mittee of the House of Commons this night. What
is the essential feature of the Irish Muniiipal Reform
Bill ? It is simply this, that the same enactments
for the improvement of the English and Scotch muni-
cipalities, which have come into operation with the
commencement of this year, shall be extended to the

Isister country—to a party in the same co-equal eon-
tract of national union. Its general characteristics
;ice election differ nothing from those to which
Lord ~.,g.tanley gave his assent, as regarded the
Reform Bi7i ,
and to which Sir Robert Peel
affixed
Municipalxed Reform ill
the seals if his sanction as regarded the
passed last year. When we
say it differ in nothing, we ought,
one exception—and.however, to make
exception—that
owe cuoroasir(gieurmetiliet byof tit-riot
franchise-101., for instance, in Dublin and the great
towns—though nominally the same, comparatively
not so—and more unfavourable to the democratic
principle in Ireland than here. This exception, how-
ever, is one which ought to win favour with the
Tories rather than the contrary, and would do
their objections to the Bill were not founded
on far deeper and broader considerations of rooted
antipathy. They have seen the new British Town
Councils, in almost all instances, send up ad-
dresses to his Majesty, expressive of their cordial
and sincere approbation of his Majesty's present
Ministers. " That's wormwood to them," as Hamlet
says ; and they have chewed the bitter cud in silent
rumination on the best means of defeating or limiting
the augmented powers of their present enemy and
final toaster, the democratic principle. In those ad-
dresses they have listened to the Ichabod of the de-
parting glories of Tory corruption ; and in the very
strong-- holds of Toryism they have recognised the
handwriting on the wall which announced that the
rule has passed away from them, and been transferred
to another, dynasty—that of the people. The struggle
since then, we admit, is one of life and death with
them, and they will contest it like men, fearful in the
result of the encounter of being made the helots of
that class on whom they have hitherto trampled as
their helots. These are the grounds on which they
pronounce " war to the knife" against the principle
of the Irish Reform Bill being extended, according
to the strictest principles of equitable government to
the people of Ireland as well as to those of England
and Scotland. The feeling appears acrimoniously
transparent through the gauzy fabric of Sir Robert
Peel's usual Jesuistical sophistry. He told the
House that he would not deprive the present Cor-
porations of their power, lest in depriving one
party of the municipal authority he might be trans-
ferring it to another. For " one party," read Tories
—and for " another," the Ministry, and we have
the undisguised meaning of Sir Robert Peel, after
tearing away the gossamer verbiage in which it is
enveloped. Lord Stanley, however, with his usual
blundering candour, furnished a sufficient gloss on
whatever was doubtful in the ambiguous text of the
auxiliary Tory leader. He at once plainly confessed
that he feared the result would be to take the abused
municipal rights out of the hands of the dominant
Orange faction which now abuses them. This is quite
enough to show the animus of the whole resistance to
the measure. Sir Robert Peel, as always happens
with special pleaders, is caught in the meshes of his
own mock liberality, and flutteringly tries, with a con-
sciousness of the shame of inconsistency, to escape
out
of his
is oawbnustersapo.f
theH E
He hansolaislhreacdoyrid)oernaotuionucse,d
peculating the
admitted the necessity and rightb of placing an extin-
guisher upon them. Why should robbery then exist
in Ireland when it is put down in England and
Scotland ? That question met Sir Robert in the
full career of his argument. He felt its force, and
he was driven into another subterfuge. Hence
the extraordinary proposal that the present Cor-
porations should be abolished—that the government
of the towns should be vested in the Crown—
and that the municipal property throughout Ireland
should be confiscated and placed at the disposal
of Commissioners. This proposal at once throws off
the mask, and exhibits the despotic principle in all its
naked deformity. It avows at once the determination
of governing Ireland by force as a conquered country.
It is in vain to reason with men who can entertain and
avow so wild and outrageous a project. The Bri-
tish people, we are satisfied, will repudiate it with
scorn and detestation. All men not maddened by
the goads of faction, and possessing common sense,
will arrest the hand which madly consigns such a •
two-edged weapon to the advocates of a repeal be-
tween the two countries. We trust that a majority
of the House of Commons representing the intelligence
of the country will this night teach the Tories that
they have no sympathy with their feelings, projects,
or designs—that they have no sympathy with their
mania for oppressing Ireland—for setting up two
scales of morality, law, and justice in two co-equal
countries, and for adding incessant fuel to the flame
of agitation—...which they with lo:low, false and insi-
dious deprecatioM, affect so continually to denounce.
—Morning Advertiser.

COURT OF CHANCERY.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL-V. SHORE.

Mr. WIGRAM moved in this cause, on the part of fifty-
one congregations of the Protestant Dissenters of the
north-western district of England, for leave to go before
the Master and propege certain persons to be united with
the present relators in the cause, as fit and proper persons
to be appointed trustees of Lady Hewley's charity, and
also for liberty to join with them in proposing a scheme for
the future government of the charity. The Court was
aware that the decree of the Vice-Chancellor, declaring
that Unitarians could not be trustees of the charity, had
been affirmed by the Judges who heard the appeal. The
relators, who are of that class of Dissenters called Inde-
pendents, had accordingly taken advantage of the decrce.
to go before the Master, and recommend certain persons of
their own persuasion to be trustees, and the consequence
was that seven principal trustees were about to be ap-
pointed, who were, one and all, Independents. The peti-
tioners, who represent the congregations he had named,
were the body of orthodox Dissenters to whom, as they
believed, Lady Hewley belonged, on conceiving that it was
not the intention of the Court, nor agreeable to the will of
the founder of the charity, that the management should
fall totally into the hands of one body of Dissenters—the
Independents—they now sought the leave of the Court to
go before the Muster and exhibit their right to participate
in those educational advantages which were placed in the
power of the trustees of this charity.
Mr. JACOB, on tlic part of forty-three congregations of
the ninety-four congregations of the North of England, ap-
peared also with a petition for leave to go before the Master
and establish their claim.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL, for the Attorney-General,
took no objection to these petitions, their object being
merely to watch proceedings.
Mr. KNIGHT, on the part of the original relaters in the
suit, admitted that they belonged to that class of Presby-
terians called Independents, but he contended that as such
they clearly came within the disposition of Lady Hewley,
and that they were entitled now to possess the manage-
ment of the funds of the charity.
The Loan CHANCELLOR said, although he would not
refuse the application of the petitioners, still he must call
on the parties to arrange among themse'.ves which, of the
two classes who now appeared would elect to be let in be-
fore the Master in support of the claim to s'lare in the ad-
vantages of being trustees,
His Lordship rose at two o'clock.

-7ICE-CHANCERY._SATURDAy.

JONES V. LAMBERT.

curious
The question in this cause, upon the Master's report,
related to the construction to be put on the will of Mrs.
av e
Frances Brook, late of Chipping Sodbury. The difficulty
in
daroseh
,frao mg r theeat eccentricp
rhoapbeirt
tsyosfetchree Ladd who hrayd, at her
manner about her house, of which property, it was evident,
the person who had prepared her will was wholly ignorant.
The case lasted the whole day, and is not yet concluded.

ROLLS' COURT.-SATURDAY.

KAY V. MARSHALL.

This was a motion, heard some time ago, for leave to file
a double plea. The bill was filed by a gentleman who
alleged that he was entitled, under certain letters patent,
to rights which he contended had been infringed by the
defendant, Mr. Marshall, one of the most extensive manu-
facturers at Leeds.
His Lordship the MASTER of the ROLLS this morning
gave his judgment. After alluding to the facts of the case,
he granted the application, the party applying to pay the
costs of the motion.