The Sun.
London, England, 1840-07-10 00:00:00

gation. However immoral may be their theories,
we can match them in the acts of their revilers.
If the precepts of the Jesuits have descended to the
Roman Catholics, their deeds have become the in-
heritance of their bitter oppcnents.
Nor are their precepts unmatchable in the writ-
, ings of the Ultras. The night before last the
Standard laid down the principle that statesmen
should do a " little wrong in order to do a great
right." The little wrong is acknowledged, the
great right is contingent ; it exists only by sup-
position ; it is the offspring of the imagination ;
and with a chance of attaining it the Standard
counsels the doing of a little wrong. It does evil
which is ceitain, that good may come, which is very
doubtful. In fact, the presumption is, as the course
of nature is homogeneous and uniform, that moral
evil is always the parent of evil, never of good. The
little wrong, if not speedily corrected, is sure to
become a great wrong. Those who adopt this
mode of reasoning, voluntarily depart from the '
landmarks of moral principle, and drift over a
boundless ocean, guided only by their own ima-
ginings.
The principles, which the Standard would violate
in little, are, at least, in conformity with the most
enlarged results of experience. Were they and the
results of experience at variance, they would be re-
jected or modified. If it should be proved by many
observations, that theft and murder were beneficial,
men would consider theft and murder to be duties.
When they now imagine them to be benefi-
cial, as in taking prizes, and slaying men in battle,
they perform them. The Tories, on the subject of
oaths in particular, and on many other subjects, when
it suits them, insist on a rigid observance of prin-
ciples; they will not admit of departing from them a
hair's-breadth, but when it suits their purpose they
give principle to the wind, and avow their readiness
to do a " little wrong." The indefinite, shift-
ing, and immeasurable character of political expe-
diency—the same class or sect of politicians, for
example, at one time lavishly wasting the national
resources to aggrandise Russia, and bring her into
Western Europe, and at another directing them to
repress her growth, which fills them with
alarm—makes it necessary that the people
should rigidly hold their rulers to the strict ob-
servance of the moral principles. When they are
discarded, what can politicians substitute for them,
hut short-sighted ignorance, blind selfishness, and
stupid, ruinous wilfulness
A Tory paper of yesterday contained a remark-
able illustration of the foolishness of the " do a
little wrong" policy. A writer in the Morning
Post said, in an article headed " The Irish
Gentry,"

Ever since we have been acquainted with the modem
`,lstory of Ireland we have considered the " Penal Laws"
to have been far more injurious to the Protestant part of
the Irish community than to the Papist. The subjoined
note from an article in the Dublin Univers'ty Magazine,
m the famous, or infamous, George Robert Fitzgerald,
more commonly called " Fighting Fitzgerald," is strongly
corroborative of this opini.n
" The improvement in the manners, habits, and moral
conduct of the country gentlemen of Ireland may En.
attri-
uted not only to a better education, a greater diffusion
of knowledge, and the wholeorne restraint of public
o;.inion, but also to the great change that has taken
place in the character of the Irish clergy. Secure from
rivalry, and fearless of scrutiny, under the stringent opera-
tion of the penal laws, the Estabiisbed Church of Ireland
during the last century seemed so to have fallen into in-
Meru and useless habits as to have lost her missionary
character altogether—her superior clergy, little better
than grasping end intriguing politicians, her inferior were
but squires, with black coats, nito hunted and caroused,
and kept company, where their presence was not coueted
sty straint on ish,sphemous or licentious language.
And now what a change I We believe Christendom can-
furnish a more pious, pains-taking, dutiful set of men,
than the clergy of the Ecstoblished Church, not only keep.
ing aloof from all dissipavel society, but actively enforcing
the pure morality that flows from the truths they preach ;
they especially attend to the education of the youthful
poi tion of their flocks. The consequence is, that a more
religicus tone has come over the character of the Protes-
tant gentry. which is especially observable amongst the
fornales. They, as mothers end wives, have called forth
a taste for the proprieties:, the elegancies of life, and,
what is better, they foster a sense of religious accountabi-
lity, which should belong to the character of a gentleman
snd a landlord. In this nay we assume that the present pene-
ratica has wonderfully improved on that of the last half
century, and see fondly anticipate still happier results in
that xhich is to follow. Indeed ti.ink it can with con-
ti.ler:oe be EISSeI ted that the country gentlemen of Ireland
are not now behind tie it equals in Britain, either in morels
or manners. The Roman Catholic gentry are unqiestioo-
a!*, more moral and religi,:.us than were their progenitors;
and although there now exists unhappily a mutual repul-
siveness between them and their Protestant neighbours,
arisiag from p,liticel difLrence, made more bitter by reli-
gious intolerance, yet even this is better than the ungodly
community of former days, when the 'squires of bath per-
suasion; often merged their religious distinctions in the
united blasphemies of a Hell-fire Club."
This is a distinct admission by a Tory, that
the '' little wrong" of the penal laws, of which the
Standard was and is a bigoted and immoral advo-
cate, inflicted a grievous wrong both on the Pro-
testant clergy and Protestant gentry of Ireland,
whose exclusive interests they were made to pro-
mote. We have it on the united testimony of the
Post and Dublin University Magazine, that both
these classes have been improved and benefited by
the redress of that " little wrong" which they so
strenuously resisted. Competition has made them
assiduous, gentlemanly, and orderly, while securing
to them privileges and dominion by law, only made
them negligent, rude, passionate, and brutal. We
feel extremely grateful to the Post and the Maga-
zine for supplying the world with 'this irresistible
proof of the injury so long inflicted on Ireland by
Tory policy, and the benefit which has been con-
ferred on the Protestants there by acting on Whig
principles, which these very unscrupulous or very
stupid journals, nevertheless, habitually revile.
' Since the Tory Post and the Tory Magazine have
' suggested the inference, we may, without giving
offence, observe that the essence of justice, as of ex-
pediency, is, that it is beneficial to the acting agent.
The maxim we have quoted from the Standard,
thourh reviled when expounded by the Jesuits,
and amply refuted by the facts stated in the Post,
is unfortunately acted on to a great extent by the
Tories. As a body, they are the advocates of the
unjust Corn-laws. The best that can be said of
them is, that they are a " little wrong." They
keep food from the people, and they tax them to
put money into the pockets of the landowners. They
stop trade with corn-growing countries. This is
the avowed " little wrong" they do ; but the
Tories, true to their Jesuit creed, assert that they
achieve a great ri,u,aht,—that they ultimately increase
the supply of corn, and keep the nation indepen-
dent of foreigners. We know that this as-
sertion is destitute of truth, that the evil
is certain and admitted, and that in this case,
as in others, the "little wrong" has been
the parent of nothing but a succession of other
wrongs. Like the penal laws, the Corn-laws in-
flict at this moment great and irreparable injury on
the very classes they were made to protect. We
care not, however, at present, to dilate on this
consequence ; we only wish our readers to observe
that the Tories and High Churchmen who abuse
the Catholics for preaching immorality, openly
practise it, and never hesitate, as in the case of the
Corn-laws, and a score of others which might be
mentioned, were we not limited by space and time,
to do the most dishonest, the most corrupt, the
most wicked acts when they fancy that doing so
will add to their power or their wealth. We repeat
if the Roman Catholics have preserved the precepts
of the Jesuits, their deeds have become the inherit-
ance of the High Churchmen and the Tories. We re-
peat also, fortified as the assertion will now be by
these examples, that there is no safe guide for
statesmen but justice, and that the people ought to
'flake their legislators rigidly adhere to moral prin-
ciples. Honesty is not only the best, it is the
only Policy ; and every man who counsels a depar-
tre
anti a rogue.
fraoniitinpolitics, should be regarded as a
cheat

One of the main arguments used by the worthy
representative of Oxford bigotry, in his late
attempt upon the
pocket 3 of the people for Church
Extensors money, was the great saving that would he
occasioned by a copious out-pouring
of the national
cash for church-building purposes. This would
seem, at first sight, to be a somewhat paradoxical
proposition, hut Sir ROBERT INGIS is not easily
dismayed by things of that sort. The ing,enuity of
the Fright Hon. Baronet is truly marvellous. This
is his: argument—" It is quite clear," says he,
" that you 11113 t have either gaols or churches
nobody
will deny that. Neither will anybody deny
that churches are much better than gaols—all,
therefore, that you have to do, is to lay out plenty
of money in building churches, and you will save
ever; farthing of it, and a great deal more in gaols."
This profound argumentum ad crumenam, Sir
ROP3ERT drove home, and clenched by an appeal to
arithmetic,
which he no doubt deemed wholly irre-
sitibie, He showed incontestlbly that, in one •