The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-17 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 1847.

On account of the late:arrival of our Express from
Liverpool, with the American News to the latest date
(Halifax, March 3), we are obliged to omit our usual
Parliamentary Summary.

A grievous impression appears to be prevalent that
Government can and cygM to do I.,Iv2nTTEING for the
s'-;ring raultitrdes of Ireland. The notion is alto-
gether absurd. Government has neither the power
nor the moral obligation to give shelter and suste-
nance to the famishing millions. Were it to under-
take anything so extravagantly beyond its capacities,
the whole empire would become insolvent. Were it
to take upon itself the task of feeding and clothing
and employing one-half of the population of Ireland,
the load would be immeasurably beyond its strength
—its back would be broken. The emergency is quite
analogous to the insurrection recorded in Roman
history, when the plebeians revolted against the patri-
cian citizens, and were only reconciled to their lot as
labourers by the cunning allegory of the Belly and
its Members. Were a different course to be pursued
by the Legislature than that of compelling the rela-
tive portions of the body corporate to support each
other, that body corporate would either be distorted
into an ailing deformity or would perish. The
reasoning is obvious. Without a symmetrical dispo-
don of the various parts of any production, whether
natural or artificial, health, and power, and comeliness,
and a good organization are impossible. Supposing the
Government yielded to the demands of a clamourous
and selfish minority, what would be the inevitable
consequence ? Why the whole vigour of the consti-
tution would be sapped in appeasing the wants of a
famishing piasantry and pampering the vices of an
indolent proprietary. Ireland would no longer be
the Ministerial difficulty—it would be the Ministerial
damnation. The object of the Irish representatives
and Peers, who remonstrated with Lord JOHN
RUSSELL upon the impolicy and impracticability of
his Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill, is to transform the
tenantry of Ireland into perpetual pensioners on the
Exchequer, or to obtain the consent of the Govern-
ment to a system of inaction, whereby the peZsantry
would be rapidly and conveniently thinned in num-
bers from the combined influences of famine and pesti-
lence. Criminal beyond all possibility of utterance
as are these endeavours, their criminality
is immeasurably surpassed by their foolish-
ness. Let the men who would thus strive
to debar 3,500,000 of their fellow-countrymen from
all chances of assistance upon the occasion of their
direst necessity, let these men remember that for
every able-bodied labourer that dies through their
neglect would perish a portion of the national vigour
—for every child, a germ of the future prosperity of the
kingdom—for every woman, a guarantee for the so-
briety or the domesticity of the industrial classes. Hence
it is that a systematic emigration is altogether inde-
fensible. Hence it is that the preservation of human
life is more desirable than the reclamation of a given
portion of land from the ocean, or the transformation
of moorland into arable land, or the clothing of rocks
with turf for pasturage. Hence, in fine, is it among.
the most solemn admonitions of Christianity that
the poverty-stricken should be cherished, that the
naked should be clothed, that the hungry should be
fed. In the language of the fine old Latin chaunt,
there is recompense as well as benignity in raising
the poor from the dunghill—de stercore erigens
pauperem.

During the adjourned discussion upon the poor
laws for Ireland, Lord JOHN MANNERS intimated that
by rendering Irish property answerable for Irish po.
verty, according to the Government system, the pro-
perty would be either "depressed or annihilated,"
and that therefore ha was disposed to offer the mea-

sure his earnest opposition. Shallow logic, Lord
JOHN ! What, must the poverty of the peasant be de-
nied all assistance from the property of the landlord,
because, forsooth, it would be injurious to the imme-
diate interests of the latter ? That is apply-
ing to the Irish proprietary the principle which
Lord BYRoN has christened " regal blasphemy"—
it is giving them the fee simple of their es-
tates by " right divine." Now we have seen the
medallion—let us look at the intaglio. The favourite
aphorism of COWPER, that " GOD made the
country and man made the town," is not one jot more
truthful than that the landlords are only the trustees
of the tenantry, inasmuch as the produce of the land
is the property of the people. In periods of pros-

perity the peasantry is nourished by the wages re

ceived for the cultivation of the soil, and the surplus
capital realised directly by the crops, or indirectly by
the crops through the rental, is ensured by the State to
the landlord, as a recompense for the faithful dis-

charge of his duties as a guardian of the poor, as a
promoter of local industry, and as a representative

and agent of the Government in a certain div]

lion of the empire. Whenever a proprietor fails
in the performance of the duties enjoined upon
him by this tacit compac:, his right of

possession has virtually evaporated. It is a sacred
part of this mutual agreement, that in moments when
the tenantry and peasantry are reduced to a state of

pauperism by the accidents of vegetation, that
they shall receive from the surplus coming
to the landlord a modicum sufficient to prevent
their death by inanition. And the poor-law is the in
strument by which this principle is enforced. Now,
in the present destitution of Ireland, Government has
generously relieved the proprietary from the first
onus of the duty of succouring the population. After
a certain time of preparation has elapsed the Legisla-
ture is called upon by the Ministry to stimulate the
memories of the Irish landlords to a recollection

of the conditions upon which alone they are entrusted
with the land—to compel them, in short, to fulfil one

of the foremost and most rational and most necessary
of those conditions. At this announcement the Irish

proprietary are indignant—they are altogether averse
to the system of giving relief to able• bodied labourers.
This remonstrance has not even the credit of being

enunciated ad captandum vulgus.

In a great trading community there is nothing of
more vital importance to the. public generally than
that due and fitting provisions should be made with
regard to the manner in which payment of debts may
be enforced, so that every facility should be given to
creditors to compel those who have the ability, but
not the will, to liquidate their responsibilities, while,
on the other hand, every assistance should be afforded,
and indulgence given, to the honest but unfortunate
debtor, who is willing to surrender all his property
for distribution amongst those who have just and
equitable claims upon him, and who has no' been
guilty of any fraud or unfair dealing in the manner
in which his debts were contracted. It is really asto-
nishing that matters should so long have been con-
ducted on false principles in England, essentially a
commercial nation ; and even to this day the entire
h eenetial
.ankrupt and insolvent code is susceptible of vast
unP rvellin
beneficial to which,all parties—as t iadapted,
,ewl
ould prove
equally
to the cre-
ditor as to the debtor. Much has already been
effected, but much remains still
of
late to be done. Every
step that has been takenyears
.has been
in the right direction, the errors and istakels. cc,if
former years have had remedies gradualral
and we may hope speedily to see the lawyofaplebiteo;