The Sun.
London, England, 1838-09-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Unwilling as we are, and ever have been, during the ex-
periment of conciliatory n.easures, or measures professed to
be conciliatory, to make any observations calculated to
impede their success, we cannot close our eyes against the
evidences springing up on all sides in Ireland of the utter
inadequacy of the recent Tithe Act to give satisfaction to
the people of that country, or set at rest that much agi-
tated question. Independently of the numerous meetings
preliminary to the formation of the Precursor Society
and its several branches, at which it was declared, almost
with the solemnity of an oath, that nothing short of
the total abolition of tithes in name and nature should
be received by the people as a fair adjustment of their
claims, there have been a variety of other recent
meetings of . which the specific and only object was
the utter extinction of this abhorred and bloodstained
impost. This determination on the part of the Irish people
is not the result of any individual exertion, but a simulta-
neous and unanimous action excited by a deep and univer-
sal consciousness of wrong and oppression. Excitement
raised by the violent declamation of a few individuals more
sensitive of injustice, or more restless than their fellows, is
easily appeased, or exhausts itself ; but it is far different
when a sense of injury furnishes a constant stimulus to the
pursuit of justice. When a people are thus urged on, agi-
tation may be expected to cease only with the wrong which
goads it into action. There can be no greater mistake than
to suppose that the present agitation in Ireland is caused
by Mr. O'Connell and a few coadjutors. On the con-
trary, /Slr. O'Connell is at the present moment the mere
agent of what has been not inaptly termed " the
pressure from without." He cannot, if he would, beat
back the swelling tide which impels the ark of liberty and
justice. Were he to attempt it, he would be speedily in-
gulphed in the surge of popular commotion. Even as it
is, the waves were raging at his feet when he was supposed
to have fixed the present abortive tithe law as the limits
of popular rights, and it was only by shifting his posi-
tion, like another Canute, that he escaped being over-
whelmed by the mighty waters, which owned no su-
premacy but nature's eternal laws. Like Canute,
too, we believe Mr. 0-Connell merely affected to be-
lieve the tide of public feeling would subside at his dicta-
tion, in order to convince others, who would persuade him
that his power was paramount to all other causes and
principles of action, ofa fact of whichhe was himself perfectly
conscious. Whatever the motive, however, the lesson has
been taught in both ways, and it needs no second glance
at the state of Ireland to convince the most casual ob-
server, that the continuation of tithes under any shape or
denomination is an impossibility. Nor will genuine Pro-
testantism have anything to regret in this regard ; for, as a
clergyman of the established religion recently observed, no
matter what becomes of the revenues of the Church, the
Church itself must still flourish, its ministers will attend to
their flocks, and its bishops continue to ordain pastors.
With this sentiment we concur, and though we may not
have so many mitred political pamphleteers, we have no
doubt religion will not suffer by the change.—Morning
Advertiser.

We have already laid before the public the principal
grounds upon which the Irish Railway Commissioners have
arrived at the opinion that a judicious system of railroads
undertaken as a public or national work for the improvement
end benefit of Ireland would amply repay the necessary
expense of the undertaking. To this part of the report
again and again let us entreat the attention of the British
public. The enterprise proposed concerns Ireland directly
and immediately, but it affects the welfare of the entire
kingdom neither slightly nor remote'y ; and the views of
the Commissioners have not been formed, or their re-
commendations made, without the largest and most
comps heesive co ssiderations of the general interest.
That such a Commission was issued reflects the
greatest honour upon the Government ; that the
Commissioners conducted their inquiries with such
sagacity, caution, and unremitting assiduity, and have
given the results of their labours to the public, in a Re-
port drawn up in a manner so succinct, lutnineus, and
foreiele, containing so vast a body of such exact and va-
luable knowledge in so small a compass, end conveying
that knowledge with a clearness of arrangement so emi
nently favourable to its general diffusion, cannot fail to
prove a service of the first order. Whether the recom-
mendations of the Commissioners be acted upon or net,
that the work they have executed so admirably feral
be psoductive of excellent results is a point upon
which there can be ne question. Were we to
rtep no other fruit from this Commission than the
Incas of important information which it has been
grans of colleztiaz and disseminating relative to
the real condition of Ireland and the Irish people, never
were a few thousand pounds of the public money more ra-
tionally and usefully expended. We can point to one pal-
s•-g.. 3 of the Report, containing only seven pages (from p.
79 to p. 63, " On the present Condition of the Population
of Irolan,i"), which, drawn up by such authorities as these
Commissioners, and containing the results of their patient
investigations, uninfluenced by' any motive but that of dis-
covering the truth and f ethfully discharging the trust re-
posed in them, would nst be dear to the public, had there
been no further return for the small sum of 16,000/., whien
(air readers will hear with astonishment) has been the
entire cost of a commission of such vast labour and importance
beyond calculatioc. We know that the description of infor-
m ition which this Report comprises is such as a certain
party in the State, whose prospects of power are built upon
the depression and disparagement of Ireland, would gladly
withhold from the e. 3 es of Enelishmen. We know the
source of the miserable cavils, with which we have been so
irnrneasurahly disgusted, at the cost of an undertaking, the
expense of which ought not to have been spoken of, had it
been tea or twenty times as great as it has be.m. We wi I
venture to say that double the money that this invaluable
commission has cost the public has been expended by the
Tories in the same space of time in amassing and propagat-
ing those countless falsehoods and slanders respecting the
state of Ireland with which their organs arc so plenteously
supplied, and from which it is their grand object that this
country should take ail its views and notions as to that
part of the empire. It is not the 16,0001. that the Tories
rejret, but the tendency of that intelligence which, at so
sn.all exp.mdi ure, this Commission has proved the
i,•trument of puttin into circulation. The report of the
C.,anni-sioners corumnnicates the bitter knowledge thai
Ireland is a rapdly improving country, affording_ every
n 'ouralement to whatt.‘er projects an enlightened bene-
s o:enee might set on foot to promote its welfare. The re-
port discloses the painful truth that Ireland wants nothing
but a humane and rational consideration of her state and
interests to place her upon terms of perfect equality in
agricultural skill, in commercial actisity, in arts and ma-
rmftctures, in civilization, order, wealth, and comfort,
wlth the more favoured branches of the empire. The re-'
port opens views of the condition of the Irish people
which promise to prove formidable rivals to the de-
lineations of the Standard and the pictures of the
'macs. The report sets up facts resting upon authority
to which it is utterly impossible to demur, in unintentional,
but. therefore the more valuable and decisive, contradiction
to mere -tales, fictions, forgeries, and all the family of base
and baseless fabrications. The report will create an Eng-
lish interest in the state and prospects of Ireland, whereas
the grand end of Tory policy is to make Ireland despic-
able and detested. Nothing therefore surprises us less than
the symptoms of vexation and resentment which have already
manifested themselves against the first step of another great
measure for the benefit of the sister country. We trust we
may be right in regarding this pregnant document as only the
precursor of the magnificent enterprise which it holds out so
truly as worthy the ambition of the British public. We
trust the Tories will have to digest the execution by a
Liberal Government of the undertaking recommended
- by this able and indefatigable Commission. The
foundations of order have been laid by a few years of a
wise, because a just and confiding, Administration. To
strengthen and to widen the basis of a social change so
beneficial, should now be the object of the statesman ; and
most assuredly better means of accomplishing it are not to
- he devised or imagined, than to open some vast field of
public industry, and bring the habits of tranquillity that
, spring from steady and permanent employment into junc-
tion and co-operation with those orderly and peaceable ten-
dencies which have always so happily developed them-
'selves under the unaided influence of a just Government.
Enlightened and exalted has been the course which
it is the glory of that Government to have not only pur-
sue&but originated in Ireland. The moral revolution it
has wrought upon the people is a theme of admiration and
wonder throughout Europe. Where a wilderness bowled
a garden has begun to bloom. The mouths of its fiercest
enemies acknowledge the decline of turbulence and crime
nnder its pacifying and healing sway. Its popularity has
not been earned by criminal laxity, or false clemency,
or those slavish concessions to clamour which ever have
and ever must distinguish and disgrace a Tory Go-
vernment in Ireland. The popularity of the pre-
sent Administration springs from the true and the
healthy source, the universal consciousness that the
country has improved under its guidance ; that all
the public disorders have been mitigated ;
that
with all its attendant blessings, has been established upon
peace,
sure foundations. Great, however, as hare been the bene-
fits it has conferred, and glorious the triumphs it has
achieved, it has more services yet to render, more laurels
yet to win. The condition of the peasantry—the state of
the bulk of the population in all that concerns the physical
comforts and enjoyments which make life easy or desirable
—this state has yet to be relieved and elevated ; and until
this be done the existence of a Liberal Government will be
Vitro* security against popular convulsions upon which
any dependence can be placed. We known that the en-
terprise to which we point is one which cannot originate
with the Marquis of Normanby or the other Noble mdivi-

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