The Sun.
London, England, 1836-08-01 00:00:00

That there has been no hostile animus on the part of
the Lords to the privileges of the Commons is by this
circumstance mainly and triumphantly evident—that
their Lordships, with considerate delicacy, forbore in-
serting their projected grant for national education in
this very Tithe Bill, lest they might offend the feelings
of the Commons by originating an enactment that
savoured of taxation. Even so late as on the third
reading of this same Irish Tithe Bill, Lord
Lyndhurst renounced his intention of introducing
another clause of minor consequence, inasmuch as
it might be construed into an infringement of
the privileges of the Commons. If, therefore, the
privileges of the Commons have been invaded, the
1 intention of that invasion has been innocent. It might,
as is constantly the case under such circumstances,
be passed over sub silentio—it is often unobserved as
well as unnoticed. Privilege is a delicate subject after
all. It is not law ; it is not always custom ; but if it
be so clear a case of violation, however unintentional,
that the House of Commons could scarcely be held as
doing their duty to their successors were they silent,
and the Bill must consequently be thrown out, the
practice of Parliament affords a prompt and easy
remedy. Let the Standing Orders of the House be
suspended, and let a new Bill be introduced and passed
in eight-and-forty hours, Tories as well as Whigs
would combine in this arrangement. Any thing more
tolerable than blinking by an unsavoury sidewind the
settlement of a question on which the nation has set
its heart. That would indeed be pitiful. But the
truth is, there has been no violation of the pri-
vileges of the Commons at all. The Lords have
only exercised those powers with which the Constitution
has invested them, and which the practice of Parliament
has sanctioned. The whole rumour is an invention of
the enemy, trembling in the recesses of their official
bureaus, in all the degrading perplexities of weak
minds and craven spirits. They know very well, that
whether the Bill be lost or carried, their deplorable
rule in England is terminated for ever. The merits of
the Irish Tithe Bill are now so generally appreciated
—it is so universally recognized as the most just, com-
prehensive, well-digested, and statesmanlike measure
of reform that has yet been propounded, that no Mi-
nister dare, for the sake of a factious sentiment—no
more—incorporated in a clause (it might for all prac-
tical effects be Erin-go-bragh as well as the appropria-
tion principle), counsel the rejection of a Bill sanc-
tioned by the whole of the House of Lords and nine-
tenths of the House of Commons. There will, then,
he a division—there must be a division—ay I and a
division, too, on the merits of the question. It is de-
manded by the whole country from the southern coast
to Newcastle.
Oh ! word of fear,
Unpleasing to a Whiggish ear !"
Three counties in less than three weeks were not
sufficient to open the sealed eyes of my Lord Viscount
Melbourne. Still he harped on the support of the
country. Newcastle, we suspect, has couched him.
Why, the Conservative party may adopt now the
surname of the Macedonian conqueror, and style itself
Poliorectes, or the Taker of Cities! Can the Papist
party try their chance at a general election by a mare
favourable instance? Here is a northern town, with a
very large constituency, of extreme liberality in politics
even before the reform of Parliament—a town now
governed by a new Whig-Radical Corporation, with a
revenue at their disposal second only to that of Liver-
pool ; and it is carried by a Conservative without a
canvass, and in the teeth of a Government candidate
who had been two days in the field I If the muni-
cipal Reform will not serve the Whigs in Newcastle,
where in the name of funds and faction will it ?
But the game is up. They may go on holding their
Cabinet Councils, and guzzling, with what appetite
thy may, their Cabinet dinners ; they arc as surly
doomed as wassailers in some city of the pest with the
plague spot rising on their front. We announced the
malignant taint in their society when all looked fresh
and fair ; and now it has spread and cankcred is uni-
versally recognised and universally shunned. And
we, who have fought the battle of the English peo-
ple under all circumstances and at all seasons, were
accused, by short-sighted poltroons and eager-mouthed
traitors of deserting the great cause of civil and reli-
gious liberty because we opposed these men—because
we hoked askew at the toleration of a monk's cowl and
the freedom of a jacobin's cap—because, overtoppinp,
the mists and heats of party,
We saw, as from a tower, the end of all;"

nd, forsceit:p. the ignoble tyranny impending over this
ancient and illmtrious land, we summoned the En,-
lish nation to their old allegiance, gauged the depth
of the national heart, and struck the key-note of the
national sympathy, and called the people back to old
English feelings for the sake of preserving old English
fr,:edoin.— Times.

As to Cle Prisoners' Counsel Bill, altlionjh it is no
small advance in the reform of our criminal jurispru-
dence, that persons accused of felony should be allowed
to make their full defence by Counsel, vet we agree
with those AI-embers of the Legislature who regard the
concession as very incomplete, unless the last word be
permitted to the prisoner. We think so, for this plain
reason, that every accused person should be allowed
the opportunity of explaining, if be can, everything
of which he is accused, and every circumstance upon
which a guilty construction is put. This he cannot do
unless he has the last word. It is then for the Judge
to weigh the evidence and the statements on both sides,
and for the Jury to say whether the case for the prose
cution is so well made out as not to be shaken by the
prisoner's answer to the whole and every part of the
charge.—Morning Herald.

It always affords us pleasure, when our duty to the
public and ourselves allows us, to extend our approba-
tion to the measures of the existing Government, re-
membering, as we do, that the cause of Reform owes
very much to the exertions of those who compose it.
We, however, cannot shut our eyes to its errors, and
are sorry to be obliged to confess that they are becom-
ing daily more numerous. We shall turn away from
Lord Melbourne's last speech upon the English Tithe
Bill, which contained some very pernicious passages,
and such as never should have escaped from the bps
of a Reforming Minister, and come at once to a
subject connected with the Irish Government, which
has provoked the severe animadversion of our respected
and generally well-informed weekly contemporary the
Examiner. We allude to the appointment by Lord IVlul-
grave, of Tories, if not Orangemen, to situations in the
new Irish constabulary. Really we begin to think that
some dire fatality hangs over the destiny of the Whigs,
which impels them, in obedience to a principle of cow-
ardice or something akin to it, to pursue a system of
degrading and culpable conciliation. In Ireland, more
than any other part of the empire, because of the ex-
traordinary virulence of Orange Toryism, the bad
effects of this despicable system has been most appa-
rent. Lord Anglesey thought to conciliate the Irish
Tory faction by promoting the leaders of that party
whenever an opportunity offered, and only succeeded,
by doing so, in rendering it more troublesome in its
opposition, and more audacious in its attacks upon his
Government ; while he gave liberal men reason to sus-
pect that he was either a very foolish or a very insin-
cere statesman, to neither of which imputations we think
he was justly liable. Lord Wellesley, a liberal man in
the main, but whose bias rather inclined to Toryism,
adopted a similar course, until an attempt was made to
break his head, in the Dublin playhouse, by flinging a
bottle at it. This naturally aroused his indignation, and
demonstrated to him the utter futility of endeavouring
to conciliate such opponents. Lord Mulgrave com-
menced a very different career, and while he adminis-
tered the affairs of the Irish Government with perfect
impartiality towards all, he avoided the error of at-
tempting to conciliate confirmed and implacable ene-
mies by convincing them that he was • afraid of them.
We need not say that this straightforward course was
attended with the best consequences, as it gave confi-
dence to the friends of Government, and discouraged
its opponents. Unfortunately this plan has once more
been superseded by the old practice of conciliation—
and we have, therefore, Lord Mularave nominating to
influential situations in the Irish constabulary persons
whom, to say the least ofit, never should have been ad-
mitted into that force. We have perused with regret,
and something like disappointment, the feeble defence
set up by the Morning Chronicle, as a sort of pal-
liation of Lord Mulgrave's conduct, for having ap-
pointed an Orangeman, of the name of Little, to a
place in the constabulary. It is to be deplored