The Sun.
London, England, 1840-03-26 00:00:00

tern, he had said to that Noble Lord show me one case,
and the Noble Lord had not been able to do so,— I
(Loud cheers.) But suppose the Noble Lord had
shown one case, or three or four cases, was that any
reason for introducing into Ireland a system, under the
manifold evils of which England was at this mnment
suffering severely ?—(Loud cheers.) With resp:ct to
the revision, the Noble Lord was most anxious to give
Ireland the benefit of English institutions. Ile would
ask the Noble Lord if he would give them the benefit of
all the English institutions ? If the Noble Lord was asked
to give the 40s. freeholders the privilege of voting he
would answer peremptorily hi the negative.—(Cheers.)
If the Noble Lord were asked to give to Ireland the mu•
nicipal franchise as it existed in this country, or even in
Scotland, he would at once repudiate that suggestion.
But show the Noble Lord some measure which may lo!
used as a means of molestation to the people of Ireland,
show him some British institution which may be made a
means of putting down the franchise, and he forsooth will
then be most anxious to carry the spirit of the Union
into full effect.—( Loud cheers.) He then desires to see
a complete identity in all the institutions of the two
countries, and in the fulness of his bounty is most anxi-
ous to give to Ireland the benefit of British institutions
—(Loud and continued cheering.) But the appeal to the
Judges was not a British institution—(Cheers)—there
was nothing analogous to that in the English law—there
was no precedent for that,—(Cheers.) He remembered
that on the first night the Noble Lord introduced this I

Bill he had said that the question of revision should be
reserved until the Bill was introduced. He would ask
was the question of appeal reserved also? And admitting
the force of his first allegation respecting the revision,
' what became of his position respecting the necessity of
the double appeal ?—(Cheers.) He regretted the ab-
sence of the Member for Tamworth on the present oc-
casion, because the Hon. Member for Drogheda had ap-
pealed to what had passed on the occasion of granting
Catholic Emancipation. He.concurred in what had been
stated by the Hon. Member, that on that occasion a
compact had been entered into. The Member for
Tamworth had declared the course which was to
be adopted with regard to the 40s. freeholders ;
they were to be abolished, and a 101. franchise substi-
tuted ; then came the important question, to whom
should the decision be referred ?—to the Assistant
Barristers, on whom the Hon. Member for Yarmouth
had passed the highest encomium, and he had declared
that there should be no appeal against the register from
their decision. Lord Lyndhurst had likewise stated
that he objected to any appeal, on account of the great
expense. How was it the Learned Member for Exeter
had never adverted to these opinions ? A compact had
been entered into on that occasion, which it was now
sought to violate. Catholic Emancipation was final as
respected the 40s. freeholders. Granted.—( Hear.)
But it was also final respecting the double appeal.
At the time of the Reform Bill, having had the expe-
rience of nine elections, the Noble Lord, after due de-
liberation, had decided that there should be no appeal
against the vote. The question of revision was reserved,
but the other questions were not reserved ; and he
would ask the Noble Lord if, on that occasion, he re-
served the double appeal question ? This Bill was a
departure from the Catholic Emancipation Act, and if
that Act was relied on as final when they were called on
to extend the franchise, he would also now plead its
finality when the franchise was destroyed.—(Cheers.)
There was the appeal to the Judge of Assize. Let English-
men make the case their own. Pass from Tipperary to
Yorkshire, and suppose a freeholder brought to the Assizes
to defend his vote, forty, or fifty, or sixty miles, obliged to
wait nine or ten days in a country town at that season of
the year when his time was most valuable to him.—( Hear,
hear.) Must not the effect necessarily be to discourage
the attendance and promote the disfranchisement of voters
—(Cheers)--and was it not a poor security that the power
of giving costs was vested in the caprice of the Judge ?
( Hear, bear.) Would it be proper that after a Judge had
gone through the civil and criminal lists—perhaps after
pronouncing the awful sentence of the law, he should be
plunged into all the heat of political and party animosities ?
—( Cheers.) Gentlemen opposite said, " Don't attack
the Judges," but he (Mr. Shiel) said " Don't expose the
Judges to attack, don't give them duties which must ne-
cessarily expose them to imputation"—( Hear, hear)—and
there was a time when the Noble Lord opposite
was not so firmly convinced that in a bosom on
which the ermine rested party feelings could not enter.
He (Mr. Sheil) knew the Judges had their political feel-
ings, like other men, and he would not consent to vest the
franchise in their hands. He looked to the acts of the
Noble Lord—on political protestations he set not much
value. He saw in the conduct of the Noble Lord the
overt evidence of his intentions.—( Hear, hear.) He knew
that for the last year or two the leading topic in all the
Conservative papers had been the reduction of the consti-
tuencies which returned that body of Members on whose
support Gentlemen opposite were in the habit of saying
the Government rested. He knew that the Spottiswoode
subscription was eloquently defended by the Learned
Member for Exeter, who well knew the pressure upon an
unfortunate Member of the heavy expenses attending Elec-
tion Committees of that House. The attempt thus to re-
move the Irish Liberal Members had failed, and now the
axe was laid to the root of the franchise—to the registry.
Whatever may be the object of the Noble Lord (concluded
Mr. Shell), I know what the effects of this Bill will be.
—I know it will harass the voters and limit the constitu-
ency. I ask you when Ireland is in her present state
of political tranquillity, wherefore you should cast among
us this new firebrand ?—(Cheers.) Why attempt to vio-
late the integrity attic Irish Emancipation Act and Reform
Act ? But we cannot acquiesce in it. I tell you we have
become too like you to submit to injustice—and such part
as Englishmen would act if their rights were infringed,
such part I trust we shall be prepared to take.--( Cheers.)
Lord STANLEY then rose and was about to addres
the House, when

AIN O'CONNELL begged to state that it was utterly
impossible that the debate could conclude that evening.—
( Cheers, and cries of "Go on, go on.") He would put it
to the Noble Lord, therefore, whether he would now per-
sist in going on.—(Cries of " Go on.")
Lord STANLEY must earnestly appeal to the House
to allow the debate to be concluded. He attended the
House that day under circumstances of great pain. He
had, in order to attend the debate that day—because he telt
that Gentlemen would be called together upon it float all
parts of the country, to whom it would L. extremely incon-
venient if it was not brought on—left the performance, he
was afraid, of perhaps the last duties to his nearest
and dearest relative. Under these circumstances he
trusted the House would permit the Rebate to close.—
(Hear, hear.) If, however, the Noble Lord opposite
(Lord J. Russell) would distinctly state to him that he
would have the kindness to grent precedence to the de-
bate to- morrow, he would for 24 hours postpone return-
ing into the country but he dare not postpone it longer.
Ho (Lord Stanley) had not the power of having prece-
dence, but if the Noble Lord would give it him, he should
not object to the adjournment of the debate, upon the
clear understanding that it should close to-morrow.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL said, that of course it was
not in his power to say whether the debate should or not
close that night; that was for the House to determine;
but if his opinion was asked, he should say that it was in,
possible for the debate to close properly that night. lie
should, however, be most anxious that it should go on to-
morrow the first thing, and he should be quite ready,
either on Friday or Monday, to give precedence to Gentle-
men whose motions were delayed in consequence of that
course being adopted.
Lord STANLEY could not refrain from thal.king the
Noble Lord for the courtesy with which he had acceded to
his request, and, under the circumstances, he would hot
press the conclusion of the debate that night, but would
reserve what he had to say till to-morrow.
The debate was then adjourned till to-morrow.
On the motion of Mr. R. STEUART, the following
Gentlemen were appointed as the Select Committee on
the Caledonian Canal :—Mr. Robert Steuart, Mr. Ed-
ward Ellice, Mr. Hattie, Mr. Thomas Mackenzie, Sir
George Clerk, Mr. llerries, Mr. Warburton, Lord V.s
count Sandon, Mr. Philip Miles, Mr. Divett, Mr. Alder-
man Thompson, Mr. Dennistoun, Mr. Dunbar, Mr. Hut-
ton, Mr. William Williams.

Mr. E A RING moved for a copy of any correTon-
dcnce which has taken place on the subject of our corn
mercial relations with Germany, from the period of the
establishment of the Prussian Commercial League to the
present time, between the Foreign Office and the Agents
of her Majesty's Government in the different States com-
prised in that Confederation.—Agreed to.
The other Orders of the Day were then diTosed of,
and the House adjourned at Twelve o'Clock.

Lou' Tenterden Have a grand dinner to a select
party at the Clarendon Hotel, on Monday evening.
,
EDINBURGH, MARCH 23.—A meeting of theleading men of this city of an parties was held yesterday, to take
into consideration the recent publication of Dr. Alison, "On
the Management of the Poor in Scotland." This work has ex-
cited great interest and great symPatl'Y' The attendance was
most respectable. Among others there were present the Lord
Provost, Lord Gillies
Sir John .%1‘
Warren-
der, Bart., Sir 'l'. 1). Lauder, Bart., Sir A. Hay, Bart., Sir
C. D. Fergusson, Bart Sir C. Menteath, Bart., Sir J.
M‘Neill, (i.e.
—l3 , Sir C. Bell. Sir J. Spittal, Rev. Dr. Brun-
Lord Cuninghame, Sir George
ton, Rev. Dr. Muir, George Forbes, Esq., &e. Some eyeel-
lettt speeches were made on the occasion by Sir G. Warrender,
Muir, and others, and resolutions were adopted for raising
funds, and making better provision for the poor, and a Neill, Lord Cuninghame, Professor Wa:lace, Dr.
Com-
mittee appointed for that purpose. The following well-earned
tribute was paid to Dr. Alison :—" That this meeting cannot
close their present proceedings without offering to Dr. Alison
their sincere and cordial thanks for the able, humane, and
perspicuous manner in which he has recently brought
the subject of the inadequate provision for the poor
in Scotland before the public. In his long career
whole people of
of active benevolence, especially as a kind, courageous, and
skilful physician, ever ready to visit the indigent sick in their
crowded and wretched abodes, and amidst fever and contagion,
this meeting recognise in Dr. Alison a person eminently qua-
lified to inform the public mind as to the real condition of the
poorer classes, and that however unpalatable for a time may be
purpose of giving
the statements which he has made, they are sure that the
his exertions."
TT- been
Scotland will ultimately feel grateful to him for
' -E DAGUERREG TYPE.—A patent has
taken out in th's country to enable the inventor of this truly
novel instrumen' to secure a.l the advantages so just), due to
'tm, and agents have been nominated, resident here, for the
the almost daily improvements made upon the Continent. It
is further in the British public the earl est intimation of
contemplation, so soon as the weather will permit
the full
to take
powers of the Daguerreotype to have their due effect,
views of London and other parts of Great Britain, and
many Noblemen and others have already expressed a wish to
possess representations of their mansions, and the choicest views
upon their estates, which this beautiful instrument will do
with the greatest fidelity. Such views will be periodically and
gratuitously exhibited at Messrs. ,Claivet and Houghton, 69,
High Holborn, where at present are to be seen several very
smprising drawings, made expressly by artists in France, Italy,
and Germany.

APPEAL OF THE PROTESTANT
DISSENTING MINISTERS OF THE THREE
DENOMINATIONS.

Resolutions passed at a Special Meeting, held at the
Congregational Library, Finsbury, of the General Body
of Protestant Dssenting Ministers, of the Three Denomi-
nations, in and about the cities of London and Westmin•
ster, on the 6th of March :
THE PRESENT DOTY OF PROTESTANT DISSENTERS.
" Resolved—That we have witnessed with much regret
the general and strenuous efforts recently made by the
friends of the Church of England to perpetuate to the ut-
most every existing form of grievance front which we are
concerned to be exempt; that KG have watched with deep
apprehension the late attempt to augment the ascendancy
of the Established Clergy, by claiming for them an official
power with regard to education most hostile to religious
freedom, and inconsistent with the more matured wisdom
and equity of the British Constitution ; that we view with
the same feeling of alarm the ardour now evinced to extend
the system of the endowed Church by means of further p -
tronage from the State ; and that while we lament this
ungenerous policy and these aggressive movements, we
have especially to deplore that some distinguished advo-
cates of Civil and Religious Liberty—to whose past scr
vices we owe a debt of gratitude, the sense of which can
never be effaced—should have pursued a course, upon a
late occasion in the House of Commons, so little to have
been expected from them, as affecting the wrongs to which
Dissenters are exposed from the power of the State Church,
and the claims of the just, free, and scriptural principle on
which our churches are founded; that this last occurrence
is to us the more painful, since it cannot fail to be regarded
as another sign of indisposition on the part of her Majesty's
Ministers to proceed with those measures for the relief of
Dissenters, to which they are pledged alike by their known
principles and public acts; that from all these circum-
stances the conclusion is unavoidable, that if Dissenters
are to realize any diminution of the pressure of injustice,
and if even their present liberties arc to be retained, it is
imperative that B. ey should learn to place much less re-
liance on the supposed moderation of enemies, or on the
good intentions cf friends, and a much greater dependence
on a wise, steady, and determined use of their own resources.

CHURCH RATES.
" That in our judgment the comparative strength of
parties in the Legislature on the subject of Church Rates
is no sufficient reason for allowing that question to fall into
abeyance ; that if the property which might be realised
by an improved administration of certain ecclesiastical re-
venues is not to be applied for the abolition of such rates,
as approved by the House of Commons, and recommended
by her Majesty's Commissioners, Dissenters should be
freed from the necessity of making any direct or indirect
payment towards the repairs or worship of the parochial
edifices ; and with whatever feeling the burden of which
we complain in this respect may seem to be regarded by
any Government, and with whatever pertinacity and aspe-
rity it may be pressed upon us by our opponents, we can
never cease to employ every constitutional means to obtain,
in common with all classes of Dissenters in Ireland, a com
plete release from so unjust, unnecessary, and vexatious, an
impost ; and, in so doing, to raise the policy of the British
Parliament, in this particular, to the level of that which,
more than two centuries since, in the Edict of Nantes,
conferred exemption on the Protestants of France from
the payment of any such tribute, granting them at the
same time free admission, simply as subjects of the French
monarchy, to every school and college in their common
country.

ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS.
" That the grievance of Church Rates is peculiarly op-
pressive, inasmuch as it is impossible to plead the invali-
dity of any such exaction without instituting a process of
law in one of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and thus submit-
ting to the judgment of an authority which, as appealed to
by a Dissenter, must be, in a great measure, a party de.
ciding in its own cause, having the power, moreover, to
adjudge, distrain, and imprison, without the intervention
of a jury, and being, for the most part, as declared by her
Majesty's Commissioners, so ignorant and incompetent as
to be incapable of securing the ends of justice.; that we
have, in consequence, long regarded the proceedings of
those Courts as a reproach to the intelligence and moral
feeling of the country; and despairing of any effectual se.
paration between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of
those tribunals, we consider the abolition of them all as
demanded on every ground of expediency and justice—.no
form of tyranny being so much to be dreaded as that
which makes the members of one religious communion
amenable to the coercive tribunals of another, of which
we have instructive proof when we see that religious scru-
ples, if connected with any degree of technical irregularity
or indiscretion, arc found sufficient to insure a most re-
lentless imprisonmeat, such as, in the case of a sufferer
in Wales, has been the means of shortening life; and, in
Chelmsford Gaol, is displaying itself at this moment,
without a blush, in the infliction of judgment without
mercy.

NATIONAL EDUCATION.
" That the number of petitions presented of late to both
Houses of Parliament, declaring the Established Clergy
to be the persons in whom the superintendence of any sys-
tem of National Education should be mainly vested, exhi-
bit an attempt to revive a long obsolete branch of priestly
power, betraying a spirit as arrogant as it is unjust, and
that should be resisted to the utmost, not only by the Pro-
testant Dissenter, but by every friend to general liberty;
that, as a matter of expediency, we should regard the
placing of a system of that nature in such hands as tending
rather to perpetuate than to remove the popular ignorance,
discontent, and irreligion, and as adapted to strengthen
every prejudice unfavourable to our intelligence, virtue,
and greatness as people ; that, on the ground of justice,
we are no less convinced that if any portion of the public
money be granted for such purposes, it should be for the
advancement of that secular education concerning which
all are agreed, and not for education in religion, on which
we are so much divided, and which, in such cases, will be
best provided for in being left to the judgment of the
persons locally interested in school management; and that
we accordingly hail with peculiar satisfaction the fixed re-
solution evinced by her Majesty's Ministers to proceed
upon these pinciples in the application of the late grant
for this object.

CHURCH EXTENSION.
" That the machinery just now put into motion for the
purpose of calling forth petitions in favour of Church-ex-
tension is a further display of the same spirit, and should
be resisted to the last on the same grounds—that the na-
tional property already in the possession of the Esta-
blished Churches of Great Britain and Ireland has brought
out the evils inseparable from such institutions, on so large
a scale as to have done much towards filling these nations
with the loud dissatisfaction which now prevails; that it
has given existence to a system which not only fails to com-
municate Christianity in respect to a large portion of the
space over which it is extended, but often substitutes the
most pernicious errors in its room ; always operating,
where instruction is most needed, as the strongest impedi-
ment to the charitable efforts of those who would fain sup-
ply its own lack of service ; that it has never ceased to
generate envyings and strifes among those who would have
dwelt together as brethren ; that it has so far allied the
farm of Christianity on which this favouritism is bestowed
with the means of luxury, and the pomp of ambition,
as to have made it the scoff of the infidel and the jest of
the profane; and, iii great part, the mere fashion of the
rich, and the disowned faith of the poor ; that it has given
cohesion and strength to a great political party, who seize
on this d.ipartment of our great system as their rallying
point and watchword, a party always opposed to measures
of popular improvement so long as opposition may avail,
the great stay of the civil Government when arbitrary,
and its most bitter antagonist when daring to be just ; that
it has proved a constant occasion of diverting the atten-
tion of statesmen from their proper civil duties to em-
barrassing questions concerning religion, such as have
not only filled cabinets and senates, but each of these
kingdoms, with agitations r.fi needless as they have been
perilous ; that it has prompted ambitious Churchmen, and
the more zealous of their supporters, to aspire, from time
to time, towards a degree of independence and power,
which, were it once attained, would put an end to that
freedom of opinion and balance of parties on which prac-
tical liberty so greatly depends, and reduce Dissenters to a
condition which must expose them to all those forms of
annoyance and persecution to which their forefathers were
so long subjected ; that while we arc far from meaning to
question the piety or usefulness of a large number of the
Established Clergy, or the incidental good that may have
resulted from Ecclesiastical Establishments, in delivering
this testimony concerning the general influence of the
English hierarchy, we express no more than our most de-
liberate and solemn judgment on the subject; that were
there much less ream for objection on pounds of this na-
ture, we should still feel bound to oppose as an act of so-
cial injustice any use of the public treasure, derived from
the resources of the United Empire, for the purpose of
making proselytes to the religion of a party, which, as com-
pared with the population of Great Britain and Ireland,
are a manifest minority ; and that even were the scale of
numbers on the other side, we should still describe any
such grant in the same terms, every measure of that nature
living founded on the principle of Church Establishments,
as acted upon when the nation adhered to one faith and
one worship, and being devoid of all moral adaptation to
the times in which we live.
THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE.

" That these corftentions and animosities, these unjust
proceedings, and this eithonour to the Saviour of the
World, all flow from one source—the employment of the
coercive power entrusted to the magistrate for purely civil
purposes, as means of conferring worldly distinction and
emolument upon the Church; that every such employment
of that power is, in itsdf, as we devoutly believe, contrary
to the will of the Divine Author of Christianity, and a
departure from that great law of ' a willing service,' so
clearly and solemnly enjoined in his word, which must ever
subject the spiritual fellowship of Christians to the
worldly interferences of statesmen, and occasion such con-
fusions of power, and such mischiefs, both ecclesiarical
and civil, as are above stated ; that necessity is thus laid
upon u 3 to oppose this great error in the history of the
Church and of the kingdoms of this world, and to do so
with all prayer, vigilance, and Christian effort, in the face
of all that prejudice, interest, or passion may array against
US, waiting until death, if such should ,be the will of our
blessed Lord, in the discharge of these solemn duties, and
in the confident anticipation of the time when this vestige
also of the great apostasy shall wholly disappear, and the
religion of the Sen of God resume its primitive freedom
and purity, be clothed again with the power of its better
days, and all nations be blessed in it as their safety, happi-
ness, and glory.
" That petitions be sent to both Houses of Parliament,
founded on these resolutions.
" JOHN HOPPUS, Dec. Philos., Chairman.
" P. A. COX, D. D., L. L. D., Secretary."

NEW NAVAL NOVEL, BY THE AUTHOR OF
"RA TTLIN THE R EEFER. "—We are requested to state that
Mr. Colburn, of Great Marlborough-street, has this day pub-
-1 i shed "Jack Ashore," by the Author of" Rattlin, the Reefer,"
" Outward Bound," &c. in 3 vols., post Bvo., with Portrait
of the Author, which can now be had at all the Libraries.
Mr. Colburn has also just published Mrs. Trollope's " Widow
Married," a sequel to " Widow Barnaby," in 3 vols., post Bvo.
with twenty-one humorous illustrations, by Buss, and " Lady
Jane Grey," an Historical Romance, by the Author of " Roy_
ston Gower," " Fair Rosamond," &c., 3 vols., post Bvo.