The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(From the Morning Chronicle.)
" If it was just that the principles of the Reform Bill
should be applied to England, it was no less just that they
should be applied to Ireland. If the Reform Bill conferred
only that which was their right upon the people of Eng-
land, why should the same rights he denied to Ireland ?
Could such rights be withheld without danger? If they
were withheld, would not that be a fair reason wherefore
the people of Ireland should demand a repeal of the Union,
seeing that the interests of England were looked upon in
that House in a different view from that in which they re-
garded the interests of Ireland; that in Englaud the opi-
nions of the people were attended to, whilst in Ireland the
voice cf the people was stifled ?" Such were the words of
Lord Stanley, on moving the second reading of the Irish
form Bill. And now, alter nine years have elapeed,
the same Lord Stanley comes forward, at the head of
the party which he then denounced, to demand the
virtual repeal of his own measure ; to wrest from Ireland
the right conceded to England; to furnish the argument
in favour of the repeal of the union deprecated in his eels
speech; to stifle the voice of the people of Ireland, and
provoke the danger which he them thought too formidable
to be encountered. It is idle to conceal from ourselves
that an important crisis has arrived. Upon the issue of
the debate which comas on this evening are staked, to an
extent which almost makes us tremble when we reflect on
the nicely balanced state of parties, the peace of Ireland
and the future destinies of the British empire. If Lord
Morpeth's Bill is rejected and Lord Stanley's obnoxious
measure passed into a law, the die is cast. Hencefor-
ward Ireland is hostile. The experiment of the Eman-
cipation Bill is virtually pronounced a failure, and a
retiirn made to the old system of governing Ireland in
defiance of the wishes, and feelings, and inte-
rests of her Catholic population. " From the
date of the Act of 1929," to quote once more
the words of the same Lord Stanley on the
same ceca, ion, " the position had been laid down that
all iel.gious distinctions lied been done away in Ireland.
If the House admitted the general principle of referm,
and if it had admi.ted that no distinction any longer
exi,ted between the Church of England and th eCatholics,
upon what ground could they turn rouud and say that they
would net extend the light of returning Memters to Par-
liareeet, because the Catholics must participate in that ex-
tension? If this e ere to be the case, then he would say,
that there was a Catholic question left Lehind, and to be
settled, and that a broad political distinction between the
e igions still existed." And now it is sought to revive
the, soli ical distinctior, to cut down tee consttuencies
of Ireland to a point which renders the name of popular
representation a mockery and why? avowedly because
the Catholics have participated in the extension. Yes,
Lord Morpeth's Bill has produced this effect. It has ob-
lwed its opponents to avow, what every one in the slight-
est degree acquainted:with the political world knew before,
that the teal motive of their hostility is the desire to wrest
political power from the hands in which it was placed by
the policy of the Emancipation and the Reform Acts.
As fir as the correction of abuser, the prevention
of fraud and perjury, are concerned, Lord Morpeth's Bill
is the better Bill. This even the Tories allow. But
there is a fatal objection to it. It proposer, frankly and
honestly, to confirm the principle of popular ret resenta- I
tion promised by the Reform Bill ; to place it on a clear,
intcll:gible, and unassailable basis ; and to crush for ever
the hopes of reviving the old system of Orange ascen-
dancy. Lord Statiley's Bill, on the other band, ateks to
revive that system and to remodel the practical working t f
the Irish Reform Bill, so as to decide the long battle fir
political power between the Orange aristocracy and the
Irish nation, finally and decisively in favour °ill the former.
What nonsense is it to wrangle about the petty deteils of
Registration Courts, and diepu'e on the strict legal con-
struction of ambiguous clauses, when every one sees that
this is the real question ? What matter whether the fres-
chise be defined at 51. or at 101. ? The thing to look to is
the practical result. The practical result contemplated
by Lord Stanley, when be introduced the Irish Reform
Bill in 1832 war, that it would enable the Liberal
party in Ireland to return, on an average, somewhere
about two-thirds of the representatives. The practical re-
sult contemplated by Lord Stanley and his Tory asso-
ciates by their Bill of 1841, is to enable the Orange patty
to return, on an average, the two-thirds, and to reduce the
Liberal party to one-third. The practical result contem-
plated by Lord Morpcth is to preserve the proportion
which has actually existed under the operation of the Re-
form Bill. The question lies in a nutshell. The Liberal
party in Ireland campsites the whole Catholic population,
no inconsiderable proportion of the large.t landed pre-
pri:tors and most influential Noble r en, a majority the
middle classes, a formidable minority among the Protes-
tants thernselves—in a word, at the very lowest computa-
tion, five-sixths of the Irish nation. The Orange party is
confined to the aristocracy and squire:li coy, who, in the un-
happy social relations of Ireland, have always constituted
a drat not and hostile caste, and to the inhabitants
of a few towns and districts in a single province. If the
same proportion existed between the Liberal and Tory
parties in England, old party spirit, inflamed by the recol.
lections of centuries, ran to the same height, it is not too
much to say that, under the existing franchise, the Libe-
rals would return three-fourths of the representatives. In
the boroughs of Scotland, where a somewhat similar divi-
sion of parties exists, the Liberals do at the present
moment, although political feeling is, as compared to
Ireland, dormant and inert, return twenty•two out of
twenty-three of its members. Ir; then, the Irish Reform
Bill is to be made to work so as to deprive the Libe-
ral party of the power. of; returning a majority of re-
presentatives, as long as they constitute a decisive major ity
of the nation ; and if this privilege is to be denied them
avowedly on the ground of its extending political power
to Catholics, and enabling seine forty or fifty Ca-
tholic Members to sit in the house of Commcns among
600 Protestants, what becomes of the prineip'e of the
Emancipation Act, what becomes of Lord Stanley's asser-
tion that religious distinctions had been done away with in
Ireland ? We will quote once more from Lord Stanley.
" If this," said the Noble Lord, in describing the constitu-
ency which he created by the Irish Re form Bill if this
is a dangerous constituency, it would be better to say at
once that Ireland ought to have no constituency at all."
We hold him to his word. Yes, if the principle covertly
asserted in Lord Stanley's present Bill is to be affirmed--
if the principle of the Emancipation Act, of the Reform
Act, and c f Lord Morpeth's Bill, is no longer to be the
guiding principle of our Irish policy, let Ireland be al once
disfranchised. In our conscience we believe it would be
the safer and wiser, as well as the more manly and ho-
nourable plan.
(From the Morning Post.)
On a late occasion we described Lord Morpeth's Bill
as embodying two leading principles—one is the reform
of the present vicious mode of establishing the right to be
put upon the register; the other, which is made essential
to the first, is the repeal of the Irish Reform Act, by tc-
tally changing the property qualification for the franchise.
We complained of the gross unreasonableness of this. We
described it as a legislative sophism, pluriunt interrogatio-
WWI, to which it is unjust to demand au answer ay or no.
The just mode of dealing
.with such a sophism is to take
the questions separately, and to say ay or no according to
the truth of each. From this we infer that if Lord Morpeth
were willing to deal honestly with the House—we mean
honestly as a politician_he would have two Bills
instead of one. First, a Bill to amend the acknow-
leged abuses of r gistratior, in the principle of which
Conservatives agree ; and secondly, a Bill to repeal
the Reform Act, which the Conservatives would undoubt-
edly oppose. But his Lordship, although he must be
morally certain that such a Bill as he has prepered has no
nicre chance of being carried than his Honourable and
Learned Friend Mr. O'Connell has of being made Em-
peror of Chita, will put the two principles t zetlaer, and
render it imperative upon every man who thinks the settle-
ment of the Constitution in 1832 ought not to be disturbed
.to say " no" to the second reaeing of the Bill.
The Globe has put forward a strange doctriee that,
as " the second reading is the time for affirrnieg one
of the propositions of the Bill, therefore the Con-
servatives are bound to vote fur the second reading."
We answer that the second reading is also the
time for giving a decided negative to one of the principles
of the Bill, and therefore the Conservatives are bound to
vote against the second reading. It is no fault of the Con-
servatives that a principle which they approve has been
mixed up with another utterly opposed to Conservative
principles. It is not consistent with either the morals or
the politics of Conservatives to consent to evil because
some good is mixed up with it. This philosophy of the
Conservatives would indeed seem foolish:seas at St. Omer's
or Clongowes, or Maynooth, the morality of which semi-
naries may possibly have reached Lord Morpeth at second-
hand. But Conservatives have not had this disadvantage,
and we do not apprehend that any cf them desire to prae-
ti-e the morality cf the Jesuits, "by way of a change."
Unless they do this they are bound to reject a Bill which
proposes to effect a great revolutionary evil, fur the sake
of remedying moral delinquency in the political practice
of the people.

(From the Meriting Herald.)
In relation to the engrossing subject of " Rail •Y "
those lines of communication which exercise so wvadstBan
influence on the social habits of the community in this
countey---we are not a little jealous of every Legislative
interference with their control and management, which is
not most distinctly avowed aad explained, and for which
an exigent necessity cannot be shown. On the ether
hand, that the public require some more effectual protec •
tion against the recklessness of drivers and engineers,
against the occasional denial of the most reasonable al.-
commodations, and against the wanton abuse of the mono-
polising powers which railway companies do assuredly
possess, of net only putting off all existing horse and
coach travelling on adjacent high roads, but of even
preventing any from coming on again, or being re-
established upon them,—that the public require, at
least to this ex:eat, protection more absolute than any
which railway companies, of their own motion, are
likely to afford therr, cannot,
we think, be doubted.
There is one case so materially affected by the mode in
which a Railway Company may exercise the power above
alluded to, of driving sff and extinguishing all other carry-
ing trade but its own between given points, that we hope,
in the Committee on Railways, Honourable Members wilt
be found who will devise sonic efficient restraints upon a
control, which we fear the great Railway Companies have
a disposition to exercise selfishly and oppressively. It is
either the fact, or the Diretters of those Companies affect
to treat it as such, that it is quite contrary to their wishes
to have " short stations," as they are called; that is to
say, stations et localities not very populous themselves, but
bit rmediate, say, between the metropolitan terminus and
some principal station 20 Er 30 miles down the line. The
practice of stopping at these short stations (we were our-
selves assured very recently by the Secretary f
o- one of the
great lines) " distresses the Iccornotive power by straining
the
small staff fo rh
of officers
the machinery, and occasions a most irksome: o
feeling
to
ys.tatio Nnso, have considering
a v very
.sm
to those passengers who are hound for longer trips,
part,th
eenthtierseejoshuortrite
or servants attached to them, and are almost destitute of
every accommodation for passengers, it is a little ungra-
cious to hear the companies complaining of the neces-
sity they are under" of maintaining them
" at all"—uuless

MORNING EDITION

in instances where it can be demonstrated that they abso-
lutely lose money by them. We happen to know a case
in which one of these short stations returns sufficiently over
2,0001. a year to make that sum about its net revenue, after
payment of all its staff and contingent expenses. Yet the
resident gentry in its neighbourhood, who ate compelled
to travel on the line from the almost total extinction of
every other public conveyance, are treated very frequently
to worn-out engines, intolerable delays, and all the
charming vicissitudes of broken axles, tenders off the
tram, steam not got up, fires blown out, &e. To remon-
strances made at head-quarters, the answer has been en
cavalier :—" The first-rate engines are wanted for the long
trains, with few or no stoppages ; and the Directors had
the question before them whether they would really keep
up much longer any of the short stations." To say no-
thing of the unreasonableness of this mode of treating
those who have thought themselves entitled to complain,
the capriciousness of the disparaging view taken by their
" high mightinesses," the Directors cf the " little go,"
or short-station passengers, is one of the most whim-
sical things in the world. If fur short distances the
Cotnparties charge very much more in proportion than for
long ones (for eight or nine miles two shillings, for twenty-
eight or thirty but five shillings)—one should have sup-
posed that the additional per centage of charge against the
short distance was sufficient canslderation to the sensitive
machinery for any " distress" they occasioned to it, and
to the still more sensitive Directors, for any " irksome-
ness" entailed on their long train passengers, by the
," dropping in " and " dropping out " of the short
trainers. But it is not so, practically speaking. The
porters, the guards, the engineers, and the stokers, all
after their several fashions, snub the short trainers. If
they arc getting into a first-class carriage, ten to one but
the door is closed upon the skirt of a coat or the flounce
of a gown. If into a second-class carriage, the most
prompt dexterity scarcely retrieves the fingers from the
crush of the door. On striving at their destination, the
second-class people are shelled out with no other invita-
tion or. attention, but injunctions to make haste, and their
luggage is flung out to the fortune of the road It may go
to meet its owner:, or its owners may go to meet it. ,That
is no ;Hair of the guard, tor r the porter. In the same in-
stant the engineer puts on the whistle, the stoker puts on
the steam, and the first-class short trainers find themselves
oblige] to take a fl:. ing leap rather than a deliberate step
out of the carriage on t t the landing. Happy the man
who is to travel eighty miies. He may calculate upon
the civdity of the guard going all lengths with his jous-
t:cif,. e to the man who takes a ticket for an eight
miles' trip. He is not looked upon as worth " his
steam 1" Nobody who is about to travel 40 miles in the
next hour can afford 20 per cent. of his civility or sym-
pathy to such a plodder. But since short-distance tree
have as ranch right probably, to have their wishes and con-
venience consulted as long-distance men; and since,
where 20 or 30 coaches ran to Harrow or Uxbridge,
Hounslow or Stanmore, Broxbourne or Kingston, scarcely
the ghost of ore can now be triaintained on four wheals
with two titiog (quadruped) skeletons to d:aw it; it will
be quite incumbent on the Committee t 3 protect the
shoat-station tram e le:s. To do this, Ist it be compulsory
on Railway Companies not to set up a short or interme-
diate station without a twelvemonths' previous notice, duly
pubiihed and advertised. This course would give some
chance to cuachmasters and others who may be already
running public carriages in the %icinity, to get out of their
engagements and the business with a less ruinous loss
of money and property than they are expose] to at
prevent, when a " di:cc ion" calls a new station into ex-
istence. Let the Companies be equally bound to a similar
notice in the event of their proposing t e discontinue an
already existing station of this kind, Why should the
public in its Ircinity, after being deprived of the conveni-
ence and benefit of the former modes of t-avellisg by
public horse and coach conveyance:, be left without even
a railway substitute for it (except at the expense and trou-
b!c of going miles out of the r way to take their passage
from some more distant station), at the whim or caprice
of rails, ay directi ? It is really a monstrous pot er this,
of putting up end taking away again intetossediate sta-
tions ; and we know that where it is not absolutely acte.l
upon., the threat of exercising it has been resortel to with
effect in order to suppress complaints, or escape from the
duty of redressing detects and gt icvances of arrangement
on the "Lincs."

(From the Globe.)
The &Luta of last night, on the order of the day
for the second reading of Lord Morpeth's Bill for de-
fining the franchise and amending the registration in
Ireland, was one of surpassing interest—not merely as
a conflict in which the competitors for place and
power were prepared to put forth their utmost
efforts to attain the object of their aspirations,
to be met with correspondent resistance by those
who possess tbe,e advantages—it was more. In
tact, and it is so regarded by the nation ; it was a con-
test involving issues of higher moment than a mere
struggle between political belligereetf. The peace of
an entire nation—the continuance of a country's adbe-
IHsion to British interests—possibly of continued con-
nexion with Britain, as an United Kingdom, are
perilled by the blind ambition of Lord Stanley in the
part he has been induced to take on this question.
Whether the Noble Lord is impelled by the headlong
impu:se of his own nature, or prompted by those who
would employ him as the appropriate a;ect for effecting..
their own designs (too long delayed, as they assert, by
tbe tardiness of their nominal leader), it is net worth
while to inquire. The production of his genius, and
the results it has already wrought in the country in
which his name was already associated with recollec-
tions of former attempted coercion and oppressior,
sufficiently attest his capabilities to destroy any party
which resigns itself to his counsels, and to throw into
tumult any country on which he may be allowed to try
his p,culiar system of legislation. The impetuous
Tory underlings have long shown their disapproval
of Sir Hobert Peel. Wearied with waiting fir that
consummation of their hopes, tl a advent of their party
to official power, they have given significant hints
of their wish for a bolder leader. Last night the new
aspirant to the Premiership in the Ministry to be
formed, showed himself in powerful contrast to the
leader he would depose. Throughout Lord Stanley's
speech in opposition to the Bill there was that desti-
tution of even the semblance of candour toward the
minciure it was his object to damage in the estima-
tion of the House and of the country—that thorough
abandonment of recollection of what had passed in for-
mer debates on similar taeasures—so convenient an ob-
liviousness of what he had himself uttered in those de-
bates, when the expressions he had used were quoted
against
him, in illustration of his flagrant inconsistency
—combined with such admirable heroism of as-
sertion, unsupported by the semblance of proof—as can.
leave no doubt of his eminent fitness for being Prime
Minister in any cabinet in which defiance of principle
is the essential qualification of membership, and the
alienation of Ireland from England the end to be at-
tained.

(Flom the Courier.)

We say it with unaffected sincerity, and casting
utterly aside any feeling of partisanship which might un-
duly ir.fluence opinion, that the speech of Lord StAn-
ley last evening, on opening his case against the Bill of
Lord Morpeth, was, perhaps, as an exhibition of the
highest and most finished powers of ratiocination, re-
lieved with happy illustrations, in which fallacy and
contemplated deception were brought to the grindstone
of sarcasm and ridicule, and embellished with the chaste
and severe graces of a fervid eloquence, the most per-
fect specimen of statesmanlike oratory which, even
within the walls of Parliament, has resounded
for years. In reading it, mind, truth, temper,
earnestness, and the most elevated conceptions, will be
found to pervade its every line. Without pretending
the presumption of illustrating further those topics
upon which that speech must flash apprehension and
conviction wherever perused, we may be permitted to
resume some of the more salient points of the debate,
and to state the general results of the impression they
will produce.

MONEY MARKET and CITY NEWS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF TISTERDAY.
CIIRONICLE.—The Money Market presents little oppor-
tunity for remark. Business on the Stock Exchange has been
very limited, almost, indeed, at a stand still to
the probable
to-day. The chief
occupation of the jobbers has been in
discussingon the debate of
strength of the Ministry and their oPP°and it is possible
to-night on the Irish Registration Bell:
expected to be developed,
balanced state of parties which is now enough that speculation has beenw
acjording as the division
and the results which may take p
- laeside or the other.
may terminate in favour of the 0 checked by the nearly
(h) n Chambers
The proceedings of the Frene
with nearly so much intensity
the hopes or fears of speculators
Guizot's accession to office, and the
as during the earlier days oefTreaty of Commerce between this
country and France sitiltion,
the
be reacd on until actually signed
commercial interests of France, that we cannot
however, is so eminently advanta-
raielpdosreteadledeo.mpiltesteioxi:
geous to the comrnnie
desire of Statesmen now in power in that coun-
try healthy aspect The breaking up of
doubt the itinto early effect. The foreign exchanges have
ascaLledl.ao removed the obstructions which the ice on
the
lately
y-
a -blocking up of the roads by snow created against
the canals and
internal transport of goods. The spring season seems
the have begun, affording good grounds for expecting that
our to
will increase,
ur exports will increase, and that an influx of the precious
ometals will follow, to strengthen the position of the Bank, and
allow some relaxation of the cramped state of the currency.
frost has

HERALD.—The home Stock Market was heavy to-day,
and the quotations gave way slightly. An impression begins
to prevail in the City that an early dissolution of Parliament
may be expected, and the anticipation of such an event gene-
rally acts in the way of rather depressing prices and specula-
tion, as large money sales usually take place by holders intend-
ing to be candidates for seats for election expenses. ' It would
hardly seem however likely that. so strange and extreme a
measure should be resolved Upon at the ofcommencemenrtecLo
ar
Session, with tke supplies unvoted, the budget unprepared,
in the
a
any one act of legislation promised and pointed out
speech from the Throne accomplished as yet.t
meeting of Proprietors of the South iresternto _
d in a state so flou-
rishinglt is noticed as a singular circumstance tnhaaii,w‘avyhecreomaspaantytohne
Saturday last, that concern was rep
entotthcaetr
taainrely-
specially brilliant, at the rate of 305.. perp more capital by the issue
solutibn also was passed for calling
as to justify the declarationOefsaeadisvhiadreen,dy,
making 910,0001. Would it
of 44,000 scrip shares of 5
fitnseswaiiilst expenditure exceeds income,
I.
each,like and straightforward to have.
rawhat are called profits to the capital
isiaoitdhtahveerebecaeini
be
eotrieo
pbusi
and so to have carried
~
stock or working fund:

.
HER MAJESTY'S NAVY.--By a statement is-
sued from the Admiralty on the 13th instant, it appears
that there will be required to be voted, in order to defray
2,6941. 11=.
rtiTat.s
2d.f
tthilee
yeexacresesodoefdthmet nr
cahv a 31.171 expend itthuer es
übme yoofn2d,
ai.d fer the year ending March, 1841, the sum of 161,500?