The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-23 00:00:00

—Times.

Whether we attribute the conduct of his Majesty's
Ministers during the .last week to mere folly, or to
something worse—to want of proper understanding of
their own duty, or to a corrupt understanding with Mr.
O'Connell, there can be no doubt of the fact, that they
have acted a part worthy of the heaviest censure. In-
stead of endeavouring to impart something like cer-
tainty to public views, and calmness to the public feel-
ing, before adjourning the Houses of Parliament for
a greater length of time than is usual at this season
of the gear, they have done all in their power to pro-
duce a precisely opPosite eff'ect. They make declara-
tions in. either House calculated to raise the strongest
feelings of suspicion and indignation on the part
of COnservativeS—of lively hope on the part of
those who love disturbance, and the strife which leads
to•revolutiOn ; and no sooner have they done this,
than Parliament is adjourned, and the three king-
doms are to be-left-in all the excitement of vague, yet
agitatin,, anticipation, until Parliament shall re-assem
ble. lii the House of Lords the leading Minister'for
the time being, not having courage to oppose the amend-
ments of the majority of that House to the Irish Cor-
porations Bill, nor the good sense to submit with calm-
ness to what he could' not prevent, indulges himself
with intemperate anticipations of the resistance which
the other House of Parliament will make to decisions
by which he, as one of the minority, should have felt
himself bound. And this he does, at the very moment
that he himself is moving the House to agree to the
measure, which he hopes to see resisted in another
place. He moves their Lordships to pass a Bill, not
that it may become law, but that it may go to another
tribunal, where his party is more powerful, to be 'over-
thrown. Instead of consulting, as a Minister ought,
for the security and peace of the kingdom, whose Sove-
reign's servant he is, he thinks but of the triumph of
his party, and longs to see that triumph achieved,
though the whole fabric of the Legislature may be
shaken in the " collision," through which alone it can
be achieved. Surely the more honest, natural, and
dignified course would have been either to abandon
wholly a Bill which he could not carry in the form he
approved, or to submit to the amendments, and leave
the other House of Parliament, of which he is not a
Member, to act for itself, without any hints from him.
Next we find, in the House of Commons, the leading
Minister following a similar course, as if his object were
of a very different nature from that of preserving the
monarchy and the legislative institutions in peace, se-
curity, and harmony. In a speech, which begins
with an affectation of moderate views, the House of
Lords is attacked with all the energy of which that
Minister is capable. The degree of freedom of action
which might have been szfedred in that Houk is con-
descendingly described ; but that to which it has pro-
ceeded, in undeferential opposition to the Ministry and
the House of Commons, is pointed at with anger, and
threatened with resistance. Surely there was no ne-
cessity for this. The House of Commons has as good
a right to discus; the amendments of the Lords as
their Lordships had to discuss the original enactments
of the Commons. But it is these amendments, and
not their Lordships' right to make them, which should
be the matter of debate. Do we find the Lords
threatening the Commons, or hinting at organic
changes in the constitution of that Assembly, be-
cause they cannot agree with it ? No ; they take the
propositions which it has affirmed into consideration ;
but not the authority upon which they have been
made, for that they know is a thing settled by the
Constitution. And in like manner ought the Com-
mons to act by the Lords, but that the Constitution
is not respected by the more powerful party in the
House of Commons. The Ministers who belong
to that party love their own way, or the way of those
upon whose support they depend, better than the Con-
stitution, even with that reform in the Parliament
which they held forth to the public as as not only effec-
tual, but " final." Along with these demonstations of
the Ministers, which are either in the nature of mean
bravado, to carry favour with the revolutionary party
in the State, or of initiative steps in a contest between
that party headed by the King's Ministers, and the
party of the established Constitution, headed by the in-
telligence and property of the country—along with
these indications of intemperate cunning or intemperate
rashnesseequally unworthy'of Statesmen, we have the
manifestoes, Parliamentary and epistolary, of Mr.
O'Connell, and the elaborate excitement to " agita-
tion "of Mr. Sheil in Ireland. It may be that there
is no direct and preconceried connection between the
declarations of the Ministers, and those upon whose
assistance they chiefly depend in that House of Par-
liament, where they have a majority ; but there
can be no question of the sympathy of political morti-
fication, and desire for vengeance, at the expense of
duty, which has produced the various attacks upon the
House of Lords immediately previous to the adjourn-
ment. By the time that the Houses re-assemble, the
result of this experiment upon the public mind will be
ascertained, and, as in the meantime the Ministers will
have no occasion to commit themselves further, they
can then take the course which may seem most condu-
cive to the retainment of their places, and the gratifi-
cation of their spleen. We trust the public voice will
show them that either one or the other must be sacri-
ficed, and that if they cannot prevail upon themselves
to respect the independence of both Houses of Legisla-