The Sun.
London, England, 1838-07-04 00:00:00

sibility of this high trust fell on him alone, the
powers to decide should be commensurate with the
responsibility. Lord Brougham, and Lord Ripon,
and Lord Ellenborough are not, charged with the
responsibility of the high trust committed to Lord Dur-
ham ; and the anxiety that the Noble and Learned Lord
in particular evidently feels that Lord Durham should
prove unsuccessful, does not communicate to the advice
which he is so anxious to give, as to the mode in which
the Governor-General ought to exercise his powers, any
particular recommendation on the score of fitness. Hitherto
some measure has been observed by public men in judging
of the conduct of their opponents. But in thetrase of Lord
Durham all regard even for ordinary appearances has been
laid aside. Before he has even entered on his government
he is arraigned. Without even waiting the answer of the
Colonial Secretary as to the powers conferred on Lord
Durham, he is pronounced guilty of having exceeded his
powers. He ought, it seems, to have made special coun-
cillors, not of the individuals whom he, in his judgment,
deemed fittest for assisting him to discharge the arduous
duties of which the responsibility rested with himself alone,
but of the individuals whom Peers, who have no responsi-
bility, modestly deem themselves entitled to fasten on him.
The Constitution of this country allows, no doubt, great
latitude to the Members of both Houses in criticising the
measures of Government ; but we are not aware that it
allows them to prescribe minutely in what manner the Go-
vernment shall be conducted. It is quite clear that the
tendency of the speeches of Noble Lords, whatever their
object may be, is to embarrass the Government, and to
add to Lord Durham's diffictilties in Canada.—Morniew
Chronicle.
Mr. O'Connell is seldom deficient in impressiveness as
a speaker, but his account of the state of Ireland, in his
speech of Monday evening, was, perhaps, one of the most
appalling statements which he has ever made to the House
of Commons concerning the fate of his country. When
the English public shall well consider it, and reflect at the
same time that the Whig-radical Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland has been made a Marquis on account of his ex-
cellent services in that kingdom, views of cause and effect
will no doubt open upon them such as have not yet been
dreamt of in the philosophy of the most subtle metaphysi-
cians. Mr. O'Connell would not vote for the appropriation
clause proposed by his fiend Mr. Ward, because even
that would be, in his opinion, a deception and a delu-
sion, if offered to the people of Ireland as the condi-
tion of their accepting an Irish Tithe Bill, which they
had almost unanimously rejected. It is, he says, " the
determination of the Irizdt people not to pay tithes in
any shape whatever—no concession of an imaJinary or
possible surplus," (it seas not thus that in April, 1835,
Mr. O'Connell spoke of the much-discussed " surplus")—
" nothing but the entire abolition of the obnoxious impost
would now satisfy the Irish people." Excellent fruits of
the " paternal government" which has prevailed in Ireland
for the last three years ! The Romarists who previously
to Roman Catholic Emancipation, proclaimed from the
high places, and swore in the solemn places, that emanci-
pation being granted, there would tie no more hostility to
tithes, will not now be content with any regulation regard-
ing them. No ; they must have their " total abolition !"
Those excellent suh:ects of the British Crown, in con,idera-
lion of whose peculiar propensities to outrage, the preroga-
tive of mercy has been scattered as chelp as fit-things ; those
grateful admit ers of a Liberal Government, who,in return for
the boon of an O'Connelliscd Lord-Lieutenant, were tobe
everything that was loyal arid deferential, they, through their
Meniber for all Ireland, Mr. Daniel O'Connell,proclai ai that,
no matter what the British Parliament may ordain, they will
not submit to it. They are determined to " appropriate"
the property of the Church, whether the law allows them or
not, and, therefore, they care not the value of a cold potato
whether the Parliament shall or shall not pass a tithe Bill,
containing ar not containing the appropriation clause.
They have issued their declaration of independence—they
will no longer submit to the vulgar restraints of law—
they insist upon being independent of Acts of Par-
liament 1 It is not enough for the Romish priests
that they return three-fourths of the Irish Members of
the House of Commons. They are only concerned about
that on account of the influence which thereby they ob-
tain in the general affairs of the empire. As to the acts
which Parliament may pass with respect to Ireland, their
people will not obey them I This speaks volumes for the
influence which British Government and Legislation have
obtained in Ireland, owing to the healing policy of the
Noble Lord who has just been promoted to a Marquisate
for his services in that kingdom. Mr. O'Connell says that
in the whole course of his life he never knew a time when
Ireland was in so dangerous a situation as it is at present.
He had often known of threats of armed resistance and hos-
tile collisions, but they had always hitherto been averted.
Now, however, things were come to that pass that if some-
thing were not done thp armed resistance and conflict of
parties must come, drawing in its train an amount of
wretchedness, terror, and iasecurity, for person and pro-
perty, almost incalculable. These are, no doubt, the ad-
mirable effects of Lord Mulgrave's government, for which
he has been made Marquis of Norrnanby ! But if the
prospects of tranquillity in Ireland be of that bright nature
which Mr. O'Connell describes, the state of the Government
with respect to that kingdom is no less consolatory. Lord
Morpeth ssys :
" We have not in any respect changed our opinions upon the.question
of the appropriation of the surplus of the Irish Church. We hold to
them as firmly as ever. Twice we have brought in Bills to carry out
that principle, and twice they have been rejected. What then is to be
done ? For the peace ef Ireland it is necessary that a Tithe Bill should
be made law, and the present objectionable system amended. If we in-
troduce an appropriation clause, we know that the measure will be
thrown out elsewhere; and are we, because we cannot do all the good
we wish, to remain inactive and attempt to do none ? We bring forward
the Bill as it stands in the hope that it will obtain the sanction of the
Legislature, and that it will promote the peace, and thereby increase
the happiness and prosperity of the country.
So, then, Ministers confess that they cannot do what they
think ought to be done for Ireland, but for its peace, and
in order to promote its prosperity and happiness, they mean
to pass a Bill which, Mr. O'Connell says, although it be
made law, the people of Ireland will not obey. No won-
der that the administration should be especially proud of
the skill which it has displayed in the Government of Ire-
land, and the success with which that skill has been
attended. The present state of that country, its prospects
for the future, and the honours heaped upon its chief
governor, afford an excellent illustration of the consistency,
harmony, and gobd promise of Whig-Radical administration.
--Morning Herald.
When Lord Melbourne was asked, some two months
ago, by Lord Winchilsea, certain questions touching a no-
torious personage of the name of Turton—as, whether the
said personage, who was known to have accompanied Lord
and Lady Durham and their children in the Hastings to
North America, held any office under the commission of
that Noble Earl, such as would entail upon him public re-
sponsibility, or entitle him to any portion of the public
money, the answer returned by the present head of Queen
Victoria's Government was distinctly and unequivocally in
the negative,awith an assurance that the person in question
had" gone out to Canada without any appointment, without
any prospect of an appointment, and without any intention on
the part of the Government or of his Noble Friend the Ear l
of Durham to appoint Mr. Turton to any public situa-
tion whatever." Such was the solemn declaration of
Lord Melbourne,. pronounced in full Parliament on the
30th day of last April. But we are bound to say it was a
declaration which, however it might have served at the
moment to stop the progress of natural and wholesome in-
quiry, did not tranquillize our apprehensions or satisfy us
that in what concerned Lord Durham and Mr. Turton all
was right and above -board. We so expressed ourselves, if
we remember rightly, at the time. What has since hap-
pened ? Lord Durham safely reaches Canada, and the
very first act of the Noble Lord's dictatorship for which
room can be found in the Quebec Gazette is the public ap-
pointment of this very Mr. Turton as one of the Chief
Secretaries to the high Commission, in conjunction with
Mr. Charles Buller ! if people in general were amazed or
confounded by this outrage, so were not we. Experience
and acquaintance with the position and attributes of
the several performers in the drama about to open con-
vinced us that Lord Melbourne was deceived. On Mon-
day last, Lord Wharncliffe, in Lord Winchilsea's alas( nee,
stated clearly and pithily the facts above referred to, calling
upon Lord Melbourne to reconcile them, if in his power.
But Lord Melbourne could not reconcile them. He did
not attempt it. He admitted fairly, frankly, and like a
Gentleman, that " it was with very great concern and sur-
prise he saw the appointment of Mr. Turton anneunced,"
and, " at the time he made his former statement to the
House, he felt confident that no such apt
ointment would
tale place." Is it, then, otherwise than impossible to sup-
pose but that Lord Melbourne, the head of her Majesty's
Government, must at once quash a nomination to office
which has given him, the Prime Minister, " very great
concern and surprise ?" Is it conceivable that Lord Mel-
bourne could, on the former occasion, have negatived so em-
phatically Lord Durham's intention to"appolnt Mr. Turton
to any public office whatever," without hating been fully au
thorised by the Dictator to give that assurance to the Hour
of Lords ? We say it is not to be imagined. Lien every
rational man must ask, what reliance can Lord Melbouin
or his colleagues place upon the promise or good faith of
the Earl of Durham, after such a flagrant %halation of
both ? What possible co-operation can exist between
parties, one of whom Las been thus self-stignietized,
and the other thus insulted ? Is the arrogance of
Lord Durham so prone to " lick the dust" that he will
swallow patiently these reproaches which Lard Mel
bourne cannot fail to cast upon him, which, indeed,
the bead of the Queen's Government has already
flung cut against him, and that in the most direci
anal contemptuous manner, by his declaration addressed
to the House of Lords last Monday ? What the moral
sense of Lord Durham must have been at the period of
his leaving England, the company in which he left it,