The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Mr. O'Cueneil is agitating wan vigour. In our columns
will be found a report of a *dinner given to him at Water-
ford on Tuesday last, in which he is reported in a better
_style than in some of those reporti which we have recently
obtained from Dublin. We find in his speech at Water-
ford a confirmation of what we recently observed respect-
ing the folly of the Tories in exciting a no-Popery feeling
in this country against the Irish. If they gained votes by
it at the last election, they have lost for ever the Irish
Catholics ; and Mr. O'Connell significantly tells them,
"We are now nine millions." We confess we regret the
evidence of the success with which the Tories have kin-
dled strife between the two nations. We prefer, as all Pro-
testants do prefer, the Protestant to the Catholic religion;
and we wish from the bottom of our hearts that the majo-
rity of the Irish were Protestants, and not Catholics. But,
the fact being otherwise, what good purpose could possibly
be answered by stirring up religious strife and animosity ?
We, therefore, have always thought that the crusade of
the Tories against the Irish Catholics was as impolitic as it
was wicked. No wonder that they now become alarmed
at what they have done. Mr. O'Connell turns their wea-
pons against themselves.
" The feelings of bigotry and prejudice," be says, " with
which they regard us are not attempted to be concealed The
Times newspaper, the Tory organ, which Wellington bought
over by an outlay of the most enormous amount—that paper
speaks out those feelings plainly which actuate the party by
which it is supported. It calls the people of Ireland—what ?
Brutes I' Yes, the Irish people, according to the Times,
deserve only the sympathies which are demanded by and given
to ' brutes.' Good God ! and is this the party who might some
day by an evil chance come into office and to power, if we do
not take every step to prevent such an occurence—the party
whose organ, the Times, calls the Irish people ' brutes '
and the ministers of our religion ' surpliced ruffians,' and
demons'? If the Tories should regain power to-morrow,
how would they treat us? They would hunt us down as
brutes ;' they would give our flesh to the eagles, to use the
forcible expression of the Scottish song ; they would let loose
all the passions, and indulge all the virulent hate which
bigotry and prejudice engender; they would counteract the
effects of that repose which Ireland is now beginning to ex-
perience after centuries of oppression and misrule ; they would
drive the people, as they did before, and as they are now
anxious to do, into an unprepared rebellion.—( Hear, bear.)
During the discussion of the question of Catholic Emancipa-
tion Wellington said that Ireland should ba conquered again."
What extent of Reform may be obtained by agitation we
do not pretend to say ; but of ode thing we are certain,
that great changes must take place in Ireland, or the con-
sequences will be dreadful. That the Union never can be
repealed, we hold as unquestionable ; but we can perceive
that passions have been kindled which some day may pro-
duce the most disastrous results to the population of both
islands.—Morning Chronicle.
One advantage possessed by the Government of a free
and enlightened people over one which exercises despotic
power over a race of ignorant and stupid vassals is brought
into action in times of national danger, and cceteris paribus
is almost certain to decide the issue of a war between such
dissimilar antagonists. The advantage we speak of is the
force and energy of public opinion amongst a handful of
freemen, as compared with the servile apathy of an innu-
merable host of slaves. This practical contest between
nations, both as to the principle of Government and the
character of the people, has sometimes been forgotten by
political speculators in reasoning on the probable results of
appearances from year to year, and it is an oversight which
has invariably led to erroneous inferences. The resources
of an absolute Government can be measured by the mate-
rial elements of rule and compass, of magnitude and num-
ber—so many soldiers, so many muskets, bayonets and can-
non—so many miles to march, so many horses, so much
money. The average consumption of each of these articles
given, when we arrive at the end of the stock in hand, and are
left without the means of further provision, we need cal-
culate no more. The question is solved. There is no
longer an inch of fight left in the whole machinery of such
a state. Between the moving power and the mass upon
which it operates there is no combination, but one simply
mechanical. The via inertice survives every other power :
when the pressure upon the people from behind is relaxed
—when the weary despot can drive no longer, it is vain
for him to attempt the new expedient of leading men by an
appeal to those generous passions which it has been
the unvarying rule and genius of his Government to extin-
guish. The contest has been waged for the tyrant alone.
The subjects have no sympathy with him ; no dread of de-
gradation can affect those who are already prostrate from
their birth and by inheritance. No feeling of national
independence or honour reinforces the army by a
single file of soldiers. There are no combustibles
in such a nation wherewith to kindle a second fire.
It is otherwise with a nation of freemen, who are
jealous of any exercise of power, of all organization of
force, and outlay of money on the part of their rulers, of
which the necessity is not apparent, imminent, and unques-
tionable. Such a nation carries the demand for curtailed
expenses and reduced establishments to a pitch which
oftentimes sound policy does not warrant, because the
executive power is frequently induced by it to forego the
assertion of the national dignity, and to tolerate from un-
friendly Governments both language and conduct which a
more matured state of its military or naval preparation
might have deterred such Governments from risking.
The condition, therefore, of the two classes of powers
which we have been considering preliminary to a resort
to arms between them, seems for the most part ex-
tremely favourable to the despotic, and very little so to
the free. The cause is plainly, that the world has taken
into calculation all the means and resources of one
description of those Governments, and has omitted
the main resources of the other—viz., its moral force.
It is in the nature of things that the moving prin-
ciple of a constitutional Government should be the people.
It is not until the popular mind begins to stir that the war-
like means and capacities of a free state can show them-
selves, or afford just grounds for rational conjecture upon
the issues and results of whatever war it may be engaged
in. The first campaign of a despot against a free nation
bids fair to be his most successful. By the time that his
resources, which are all material, have been in some degree
wasted, then, and possibly not until then, the most formida-
ble resources of a representative Government are, slowly at
first, but with a progress which soon accelerates, brought
into the field. The pulse of the nation beats high—its en-
thusiasm rises—its Government is rebuked and taunted
with inaction. Money is poured out in rivers for the public
service—troops and seamen rise from earth and ocean, until
the enemy, who began by bullying, ends by crouching ; and
after a treaty forced upon him, which he signs with the full
intention of evading it whenever he can dare to do so, he
finds that his work has all to be attempted over again.
Nobody will doubt that Great Britain and Russia
have been sitting to us as the originals of the above two
portraits. The latter of these two Powers has, for three or
four years past, assiduously filled all the gazettes of Europe
with the terrible vastness of her warlike preparations, as
well as with more than insinuated threats against the terri-
torial possessions of England in the E,st, and her mari-
time supremacy throughout the seas of Europe. Whether
Russia meant to deceive the world, is a question which we
have no business nor leisure to determine ; but it is mani-
fest that she has egregiously duped herself. She measured
the force of this great British nation by her pinched army
of an hundred weak battalions, scattered over the four
quarters of the globe, and by her seven or eight sail of the
line, with half as maay steamers, on the Mediterranean
station. Russia will now find, to her cost, that such a poor
equipment was no indication, nor symptom, nor sample
of what she must encounter in a British war. That
meagre squadron, those Few quiet garrisons, were not even
the advanced guard of the English power. They were
but videttes and look-out ships to give England notice
when she would begin to move. Lord Palmerston never
would have signed those defensive treaties which were no-
ticed by us two days ago, and to which (so far as their
provisions have been made known to us) we gave, as ho-
nest men, our ready and hearty approbation—the Foreign
Minister, we say, would never have dreamed of binding the
empire by such engagements, had he not been assured be-
forehand that they must obtain the unanimous concurrence
of the people of England ; and that every national feeling of
pride, honour, and interest would support any Govern-
ment, no matter of what party, in carrying them most re-
solutely and inflexibly into execution. The Emperor Ni-
cholas was not prepared for this. He judged England as
Bonaparte had judged it before him, always imperfectly
and absurdly, from a total ignorance of the operation of
freedom upon a great people, and he will have measured
out to him a punishment no less signal, but far speedier,
than that inflicted on Bonaparte. His empire is " a giant
with feet of clay."
The first movement forward from its
fixed position will crumble the incohe ive mass to atoms.—
Ti-nes.
ears to have it in view
A Government Print, which app
to prepare the public for a greater degree of suffering by
the of the new Poory-
the common people, under the operation
Poor-
law, states its opinion that this law has " unquestionably
added to the privations of the agricultural labourer in
years of scarcity, for it could not give him the advantages
resulting from independence without subjecting him to the
disadvantages incident to seasons when prices are high.
The high price of food is an evil to all classes
except the
producers unmitigated of food." Either this is sheer, non-
sense, or it means to convey that, in all other years whi.clel
are not years of scarcity, the new Poor-law gives to th
agricultural labourer the advantages resulting from inde-
pendence. If such an assertion as this can be made in a
sprit of mockery—mockery of the hardships which the
poor labourer must encounter even in the best seasons—it
may be very good Wiggery, but it is a very bad jest.
the writer be really so insane as seriously to hold the opt
he
t poor labourer is in any case made " indepen
nion that
Poor-law he will perhaps cure his delu
dent" by the P