The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times of yesterday puts us strongly in mind
of a puddle in a storm. It is prodigiously agitated,
and vapours at a mighty rate. And wherefore all this
commotion ? We can discover no other cause than
the simple circumstance that the Reformers of Dublin,
feeling deeply aggrieved by the refusal of the Tory
Peers to grant even to the capital of Ireland a reformed
system of civic government, have issued a circular to
the friends of Reform thrOughout the country, in
which circular a string of resolutions, adopted at a
late meeting of the citizens of Dublin, is embodied,
together with a short formula of petition to the House
of Commons, for the convenience of those persons in
the provincial towns and rural districts who might
wish to express their feelings to the popular branch
of the Legislature upon a matter seriously affect-
inc, the interests of Ireland, but are very likely not
acquainted with the correct mode of wording their
petition, or with the routine form of addressing the
assembly to which they would wish to direct their
prayer. Surely, in acting thus, the Reformers of the
Irish capital committed no offence, either against
society or the State, for which a public journal is jus-
tified in abusing their conduct as "sneaking scoundrel-
ism." If we are not grievously mistaken, " scoun-
drelism" is a term applicable rather to the diatribe of
the Times than to the proceedings of these patriotic,
consistent individuals, whose adherence to principle, as
much as their devotion to the cause of civil liberty,
has provoked the rabid hatred of the reckless apostate.
The journal in question labours, in another article, to
convince the people of England that the Tory Lords
and Commoners have gratuitously insulted the Sister
Country ; for what other effect can b© produced on
any rational mind by a thesis which goes to prove that
the Ministerial Bill for -the reform of Corporations in
Ireland, and the "amendments" of Baron Lyndhurst,
are critically the same ? If the two measures are
identical, then all the time and money that have been
spent in discussing and printing the amendments have
been thrown away. If the two measures are the same
in effect, then whatever has been said of the one may
be predicated of the other ; and if, as the faction
have alleged, the Ministerial Bill would foment
agitation, and fan the flames of party feud in
Ireland, equally pernicious to the peace of society
must, upon the showing of the Tories themselves,
be the precious amendments propounded in the
corruptionist cabinet at Apsley-house. In asserting
the identity of the Ministerial measure and the Copley
scheme, the Tory writers speak truth or falsehood ; •if
truth, then what legitimate pretence can the faction
advance for negativing the Ministerial Bill, and thus
convulsing Ireland from the centre to the extremities ?
If, on the other hand, the Tory assertion is untrue,
grossly, glaringly untrue, and so it is—then there must
be some reason for propagating the erroneous notion
that the measures are similar. That reason is obvious.
The faction perceive the danger of the position in
which they have been placed by their hostility to Mi-
nisters and their hatred of popular rights ; and all their
ingenuity is now taxed, and their entire energies are
directed to produce on the public mind in this coun-
try an impression that the original Bill by which
Corporations would be reformed, and the Tory
" amendments," by which they are altogether and
for ever abolished in Ireland, are, after all, one and
the same ! Fortunately the people of England are
not the stolid blockheads the Tories would repre-
sent them ; and unless they were the veriest dolts
in the universe, they could not fail to perceive,
even in the statement of the case as concocted by the
hireling scrilie of the corruptionists, irrefrarrable evi-
dence of the complete dissimilarity of the two measures.
On a future occasion we will present our readers with
an analytical view of the Bill and amendments, in order
to point out their discrepancies. To-day we shall con-
fine our remarks to the " contrast" manufactured in
Printinghouse- square.
THE MINISTERIAL BILL. THE PROPOSED MEASURE.
" AU Acts, charters, &c., " All existing Corporations
re;;ealed, that are inconsistent in Ireland to be abolished from
with tic, Bill (i. c.), in effcet, the Ist or January, 1837."
an ah,lition of existing- Cur-
porationi, with a view to re-
construction.,'

The passages marked in italics suffice to demon •
strate the complee variance between " the Ministerial
Bid" and " the proposed measure."
BILL.