The Sun.
London, England, 1848-04-20 00:00:00

"
\it Ult

LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1848.

Nothing could have been more unanimous than
the approbation expressed yesterday evening in the
house of Lords upon the intention and probable
operation of the Crown and Government Security
Bill. After the Lord Chancellor had explained the
tendency of the. proposed measure, on moving that

the Bill should be read a second time—after showing
that the simple effects of the innovations would be to
transform into felonies the offences which had been
formerly treated as high treason, and to extend the
law so altered to the population of Ireland, several
of the most distinguished members of the Upper
House pronounced themselves decidedly in favour of
the views entertained by the Government. Lord
STANLEY restricted his objections principally to the
precipitation with which the law of treason was
being subjected to alteration, but, assuredly,
the Noble Leader of the Opposition n ust
exonerate- the Administration in a great ,mea-
ste uretrom this censure, when the advancement of
h
session
and the extraordinary movements through-
out the United Kinedom are borne in recollection.
That some I,4,d;ment is absolutely necessary for the
prevention of sedition and the quelling of in-subordi-
nation is ohs,:
••(Ali, and it is equally. 'obvious that the
principal exigency in this ti • Ihr is the instanta-
neousn shige,7olliiirl'ienicooonspicuous offender of
application
some stringent and pauntdtishment. No-
thing but severity, promptitude
restore to the minds of a considerable ignominy
can
the population of these islands, and ew
portion of
especially
a of
which
Ireland, that wholesome respect for the
was justly characterised last night by the Duke
of WELLINIVON as one of the most
u?ke
im-
portant safeguards of the Constitution. Without
some effectual enforcement of this principle of obe-
dience, the country must continue to be disturbed at
the behest of every unprincipled demagogue, of every
demagogue who would prefer the notoriety of vice
to the honourable obscurity of virtue. In Ireland
especially the greed of renown is so consuming, that
it destroys all those sentiments of humanity, and ex-
tinguishes all those lights of reason, which are in-
herent in the bosom of every Christian. What to
them are the sanctity of religion, the effusion of
blood, the majesty of the constitution, or the dictates
of prudence, when beyond them lies the coveted
prise of popularity? No matter whether that popularity
be spurious or evanescent—popularity it still is for
the moment, and as such is to be ambitioned and be-
loved._ Nothing prevents them from struggling to-
wards the the attainment of this grand object of their
Nothing! Decency is outraged, com-
mon Sense
evbeury sed'charity derided, intelligence con.•
temned, expression that is most base and
opprobrious employed in the furtherance of this
odious and reprehensible
project. Laws human and
divine are treated with contumelious indifference by
these promoters of anarchyand orators of rebellion.
punishments Against them the olden are found to be I
almost entirely inefficacious.
consequently be-
comes the bounden duty ote
Legislature
application
insolent spirit
of sedition by
Ito repress the growing gnroovweling d the
?t
the more
vulgar inflictions upon those who are principally
cul-
pable. The existence of this imperative nit
ec y
ess
was successively acknowledged by three of the first
legal authorities in the empire—Lord Baoratrasf,
Lord DENMAN, and Lord CAMPBELL.
To the arguments by which Lord CAMPBELL
enforced the urgency of this great necessity
too much attention could scarcely be awarded
under the circumstance, ; and the support re-
ceived by the Government trout the Noble and
Learned L6rd in this instance is the more worthy
of consideration-fioni the circumstance of his having
already reprabated— in- language of so much de-
tennitattion• the, 'Bill, 'introduced by Lord ELDON
in 1796. The disapprobation pronounced in this
instance by Lord CAMPBELL was explained by him
jot slight as having arisen from the fact of Lord