The Sun.
London, England, 1836-03-28 00:00:00

THE SEJN, LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 28, 183 G.

or more considerate moderation. The mischief is, in-
deed, great in England, where its source is only in po-
litical animosities ; but it will be multiplied an hun-
dred fold in Ireland, where, as every religious topic is
made political, every political topic is of necessity
made religious. The existing state of the Irish Cor-
porations is represented as abominably bad. If we
concede all their enemies say of them, the very hyper-
bole in which we describe the evil condemns the pro-
posed cure. The Protestant Mayor, the Protestant
Aldermen, the Protestant Police, have been the in-
stalments of a faction. Be it so. The Popish
Mayor, the Popish Aldermen, the Popish Police,
will be the instrument of a faction—of a faction
more numerous, more greedy, less educated, less
!oyal—of a faetion exasperated by the memory of
long subjugation, and stimulated by the intoxica-
tion of recent triumph. Judging the Irish people by
all the evidence which their recent history affords. of
their actual position—by the reluctance of their wit-
nesses to inform, and by the refusals of their juries to
convict—by the shorthand writer's report of the rhe-
toric of their Romanist divines, and by the increasing
premium on the insurance of the lives of their Pro-
testant ministers—by their Corrigans and their Anne
Rooneys,—by their Sheils and their Woulves,—we
think deliberately that the form of Government which
is found to be suitable to England is, prima facie,
unsuitable to Ireland. The adoption of a set of ab-
stract principles for the guidance of Statesmen in the
government of two countries Which have no resem-
blance of circumstance or character is madness. We
appeal from the Whigs of to-day to those of the old
time : from the Russell of 1836 to the Russell of 1683
—from Lord Plunket to Lord Somers—from Dr. Mac•
Hale to the protesting Bishops—and from the prin-
ciples which Lord Melbourne would force upon his
Sovereign to the principles which, for the welfare and
happiness of these kingdoms, placed the family of that
Sovereign upon the Throne.—Morning Post.
The Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Bill, the
third reading of which will be moved this evening in
the House of Commons, is, we believe, very little al-
tered from what it was at its first introduction to that
•House. Sir Robert Peel said, when he proposd a
total alteration of the measure, both in principle and
its working machinery, that, if he did not succed in
this, he would give Ministers very little trouble in re-
spect to the details of their Bill. He has kept his
word, and the consequence is, that the public know
nothing about these details, except that on certain
nights a certain number of clauses were gone through.
We do not know why it was deemed expedient thus to
neglect the Bill as soon as it was decided that a ma-
jority of the House preferred the general plan of the
Government (suggested no doubt by Mr. O'Connell)
to that proposed by
.Sir It. Peel and Lord.F. Egerton.
We hope that no feeling of petty pride was at the
bottom of this neglect. The Bill remains what
we described it to be at the beginning, a party
measure, framed for the purpose of transferring
the local power and patronage of towns into the
hands of the Roman Catholic priests and other
political agitators, and wholly unfitted for securing to
the towns of Ireland that improvement of their local go-
Vernment of which they so greatly stand in need. We
have heard nothing like an argument in favour of the
Bill, beyond some variations and additional flourishes
upon Mr. O'Connell's mock theme of " equal justice."
As Ministers have borrowed the plan, so they have
also borrowed their sole argument in support of it from
the same source. " England and Scotland," they say,
have had a Municipal Reform founde'd upon election
by 5/. householders—let us beware, lest we treat Ire-
land as. if she had not an equal claim to Municipal
Reform with England and Scotland." In such an ar-
gument they seem to forget that an " equal claim"
and a claim to a similar measure are very different things.
We certainly do not wish to deny equal justice to Ire-
land. We desire to see equal and ample justice prevail
every where : but it is possible (from the different cir-
cumstances and habits of the people) that the same le-
;islative provisions which would procure justice in Eng-
land, would procure injustice in Ireland. It is justice to
give to the respectable inhabitants of towns the power of
conducting their own local government by the election of
it persons from among themselves to carry it on ; but
if we happen to know by experience that tIM power
which an Act of Parliament nominally gives to the
inhabitant householders would in effect be wielded by
the Homan Catholic priests, and Made subservient to
their interests, such an Act of- Parliament would not
be an act of justice but of oppreSion. It would be
adding to an influence which is already monstrous, and
i which we well know to be 'tyrannously abused upon
i every occasion of political excitement. The pretence
(for it is nothing better), that Ireland has a just claim
to laws of the same character as those which are con-
sidered safe and• useful in England, is falsified, not
only by general knowledge respecting the different
habits and circumstances of the two kingdoms, but by
the measures and the declarations of those who put
forward the pretence. If the Irish ought to have the
same sort of municipal Corporations as the English,
because it is equal justice, should they not, on the same
principle, have the same sort of police, and the same
small amount of military force to keep them in subjec-
tion ? But Ministers know that circumstances will not
permit of this. They know that Ireland must have
an armed police, such as the English would not tole-
rate, because they are conscious to themselves that
they submit to the law without such force. The
'Ministers know that Ireland must have six times the
amount of military force, in proportion to its popula-
tion, which is required in England, and yet they have
the confidence to pretend that if similar laws are not
given to Ireland as to England, the Irish may, com-
plain that they do not get equal justice t. But the
Parliamentary proceedings of Friday night furnish the
most instructive example that could. be desired of what
Ministers and Mr. O'Connell mean by " equal justice."
Lord John Russell was asked whether it was intended
that the Marriage and Registration of Births Bills
should extend to Ireland. The Noble Lord an-
swered .that Ireland would not be included, for the
Roman Catholic clergy had an objection to it. In
this short declaration we have the whole secret re-
garding the present mode of Ministerial legislation for
Ireland. That which the Roman Catholic clergy desire
to have is " equal justice," but such laws as they do
not desire to have, England may keep, to herself. In
such matters it seems that unequal justice is pre-
ferable ! Such is the state of thraldom of the present
Ministry on Irish affairs, that Lord John Russell
would not dare to tell the House of Commons that he
had taken, or omitted to take, any particular course on
account of the objection of the Protestant clergy ;
but the Roman Catholic Clergy must be attended to in
everything, because their Representative, Mr. O'Con-
nell, will have it so, and their will goes by the name
of " equal justice." We trust we have now said
enough to show that upon this absurd pretence no
thisß even
man
Roman
honest and intelligent Member of Parliament ought to
vote with Mr. O'Connell and the Ministers
ing. It is not, however, merely to prevent the
Catholic priests from obtaining fresh power, which they
would be sure to abuse, that the present Bill ought to
be rejected. There is another motive, which every be •
nevolent man who knows anything about
Thatthe rkeianlosdtoamte
y good and effi-
cient Isroelalanmdeonutaghhltytoinbwe
aancttuoaftead
rbeyail
system of local government, for the amendment
t
of local evils, that it is a deplorableambnopairltdiyshoh eradi
more
dbifi hands
thingofficial
aaa
than lost,
drooaurntsl
ysee
vtNehhreo presentnoeefh btihtuewt it
el
hlxooihsspeet
inofwgr tibluopont,oihtwyj
from
nothing
bsmies f lost,hraoeum:
no
have searched into the most obscure and abominable
recesses of London depravity and wretchedness,
notorioushednescan
stateform anof
thead largerequa adequate idea
of those
eoaoiofthe habituailsh towns, which a
Irish
it is now proposed to invest with the trappings of mu-
Scot.urGtsileasn'sdis'alleys between
thmeay purlieuskow
mu-
nicipal government. Some of our readeorrs
owfh astatihreo sihlbquoarr tetrhoef
Whitechapel and Spitalfields. Let them imagine two
or three decent streets, and the remainder of a town
made up of such habitations and such inhabitants as
the neighbourhoods we have just mentioned furnish—
they will then have a tolerably correct notion of what
the small towns in the Roman Catholic part of Ireland
generally are. The moral debasement, the noisome
filth, the savage destitution and savage excess of these
places exceeds all that language can convey of what is
loathsome and detestable to both the physical and