The Sun.
London, England, 1824-11-18 00:00:00

among the people. The Irish have long been
allowed to possess the genius—or the organof
disputatiousness, especially in Theology. They
have given some very -formidable dogmatists to
the foreign schools and colleges—without in-
cluding the two figures hibernoises mentioned by
Git Bias--" guise disputoient d bouche ecumUnte.
At first view this new source of public or popu-
lar excitement, would seem to threaten mis-
chiefs, and where the subject and the disputants
are so inflammatory and inflammable, there is
some danger. But, on the other hand, should
the controversy be carried on with zeal, but
without animosity, it may do much good, by sti-
mulating the dormant mass of mind in Ireland to
activity and intellectual self-reliance..

[rnt TIMES.]
Between the West India Proprietors and their
antagonists, our Ministers at home do not appear
to stand in the most comfortable condition. The
planters, through whom an immense revenue is
raised, are threatening his Majesty's Govern-
ment on one side with a total ruin and extinction
of the colonies if any interference should be en-
couraged between master and slave ; while, on
the other side, the abolitionists, who think little
about revenue, and care not much, perhaps, for
sugar colonies, are incessantly urging Ministers
to carry their interposition to a point which the
others insist would be destructive of all discipline,
security, and property in the West Indies. The sys-
tem of Ministers has been (discreetly,as it seems to
us) to mediate between these parties; but with what
success they have enforced their own principle is
rather doubtful, if we are to judge by the fer-
mentation which still continues in most of the'
islands, where the circulars of Lord Bathurst have
heen construed, by whites and blacks, as direct
advances towards negro emancipation, and have
been as wildly perverted by the slave, as they
are hotly canvassed and indignantly deprecated
by his owner. In Trinidad, the remonstrances
against the new arrangements of the Crown
event so far as to demand of Sir Ralph Wood-
ford a suspension of the King'S orders until
a further exchange of communications should
take place with England—a request which it
was impossible for any Governor in hiS senses to
accede to. Sir Ralph, however, did transmit to
the Colonial Secretary the catalogue of com-
plaints which were furnished to hint by the Colo-
nists, and has latterly issued a Proclamation, de-
tailing such constructions and explanatory sup-
plements as he was authorised by Lord Bathurst
to subjoin to the original letter. On these we
have only to remark, that they are for the most
part conceived in a spirit of becoming modera-
tion and humanity, with a leaning (if any)' in fa-
vour of the unfortunate Negro. To an ob-
jection by the Colonists, that the abolition of the
whip must be atteuded with considerable clan-
ger, it is replied, that the whip shall be
disused no otherwise than as a constant and
immediate stimulus to labour, but not in
all cases as a means of necessary and deliberate
chastisement. A second objection having been
made upon this point—viz. that an exemption
from corporal punishment in all Instances will
place the► female slave on a better fooling than
that of the free woman of colour, Lord Bathurst
has authorised Sir Ralph Woodford to publish
the merciful and manly assurance, that C overn-
meat consider such a fact to be ground sufficient
for extending the relief to the free woman—not

for withdrawing it from the slave. It is provided
by the new supplementary regulations, that no
work of any kind, except where the absolute
safety of property may be concerned, shalt he
required of the Negro on Sunday ; and that on
Saturday he shall not hire himself to any person,
not to his own master more than others, for any
description of labour—a prudent safeguard, as
most people will be of opinion, against collusive
evasions of the law. 'There appears, We may
add, throughout this re-considered expression of
the views of Ministers, a degree of temper aid
good feeling from which we have no desire to
withhold our praise. The present document
may of course be regarded as applying in prin-
ciple, with due allowance to localities, to the
other islands, and is therefore to be held as pos-
sessing the more importance.