The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-09 00:00:00

I 2Plint

LONDON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1847.

The Irish Members are pursuing the Fabian policy
in a very effectual manner. On Monday evening the
Member for Limerick contrived to waste the entire
evening by his amendment, that the order for the day
for the second reading of the Bill for the prevention
of crime and outrage in Ireland should be postponed,
and the other orders of the day read. On Tuesday
the motion for a Committee to inquire into the means
by which the Act of Union was carried, the
effects of that measure, and the probable con-
sequences of the legislative union between both
countries, occupied the attention of the House
for the snare evening. Other questions will
have priority for this evening. Lord GEOROE
BENTLNCK is entitled to precedence for his motion for
an inquiry into the present condition and prospects of
the East and West Indian possessions and the .Mau-
ritius, and if his Lordship should be disposed to
waive his claim, in consideration of the great impor-
tance of carrying the very moderate measure de
'landed by the Irish Government, for the preserva-
tion of life and property in that unhappy land, we
can :scarcely hope that the Member for Youghal,
whose monster motion for the production of
papers stands next on the list, would ex-
ercise a .similar forbearance. If, however, by any
possibility the Bill should come before the House,
we have then Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN'S amendment, on
-which, most probably, the same speakers will again
repeat the same matter which, on Monday, was
addressed to the House on Mr. J. O'CONNELL'S
amendment, and the debate will be protracted for
many ensuing evenings, so as to prevent the passing
of the Bill before the Christmas holidays, and thus
to defeat the intentions of the Ministry by with-
holding for a few weeks the additional powers de-
manded by the Lord-Lieutenant, by means of which
his Excellency hopes to be enabled to effect the tran-
quillization of the
Compliment disturbed districts.
the Irish Members on their
discretion in the course
they are pursuing. They
may be conseientiouslyo
PP°sed
to anything that will
in the slightest degreeinterfere with the Irish people,
or interpose an obstacle in
the
of the public peace, but they wayma may b
of the disturbers
be
well assured
whether there
that the present question is not merely
coercion,
shall or shall not be a law savouring of
am to the amount of restriction that shallbe but
sanc-
tioned in such s law. There are very many linihers who are disposed to censure the moderation
of the present Bill, and who would readily assent
to -much more stringent enactments, if demanded
by the Government. The most violent opponent of
the Bill now before the House does not attempt to
deny that it is a much slighter interference with the
liberty of the subject than any Bill of a similar cha-
racter brought forward at any former period. Ihe
Member for Tralee, on Tuesday, spoke of the coer-
cion Bills as becoming,
Small by degrees, and beautifully less,'
till they were reduced almost to a nonentity," and
yet (at least within the last week), he resists it with
the -utmost energy, not merely by fair argument and
dim mission, which would be perfectly legitimate, but
by "interposing delays, and converting the forms of