The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-02 00:00:00

t~l '~flTh

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 2, 1846.

THE NEW MINISTRY.

Nothing is yet known as to the formation of a new
Government beyond the fact that Lord JonN
RUSSELL is aCticely engaged in all the preliminary

arrangements.
Lord MINTO did not accompany Lord Jon to

Osborne House.

The QUEER returns to Buckingham Palace to-

day.

Parliament will, in all probability, be again ad-
journed from Friday to Monday week following, by
which time all the elections rendered necessary by the
acceptance of office will be completed.

It is impossible to estimate sufficiently the import-
ance of the views put forward with respect to the
futtire government of Ireland, by Sir R. PEEL, on
Monday evening, wizen announcing the resignation of
the Ministry, of which he had been at the head, in
consequence of a defeat sustained by them on an Irish
question. It has ever been admitted and repeated,
fugue ad nauseam, that Ireland has been the
great difficuly, the fertile source of trouble and
embarrassment to every succeeding Government ;
its state and condition has cast a deep stain on
various Administrations by which it was governed,
and has manifested, beyond the possibility of doubt,
the existence of some radical defect either in the
laws themselves or in the mode of their administra-
tion; the removal of which, and the consequent ad-
vancement of that country in the social
scale, must be most ardently desired by

every philanthropist, by every one anxious
for the continued happiness of Great Britain
and Ireland, the welfare and prosperity of every
portion whereof is more intimately connected with,
and dependent on, that of the residue than is gene-
rally supposed to be the case. Sir R. PEEL appears
)to have solved the difficulty in a great degree. If
the bold outline which he has traced should be filled
up in a liberal and enlightened spirit—if there be
established in Ireland a complete equality in
civil, political, and municipal institutions with
her sister kingdoms —if complete religious
equality be attained, the foundation will un-
doubtedly be laid for the amelioration and improve-
ment of all classes of society in that country. We
doubt not the good intentions of the new Ministry
with respect thereto. We are fully convinced that
their greatest anxiety will be to arrive at the happy
end, to attain a consummation so devoutly to be
wished for, and that for that purpose their
earliest attention will be devoted to the
means by which it may be effected. The
great defect of every attempt hitherto made has been
that it did not go to the root of the evil, that it
merely attempted a patching up, in place of a total
reconstruction and remodelling of the existing laws.
Some slight variations may still be rendered neces-
sary by the differences unhappily existing in the
manners and habits of the people, but, as Sir R.
PEEL remarked, if it be not possible, for the present, to
carry out this complete political and religious equality,
according to the letter of the terms, it can be done
so according to the spirit. Assimilate, then, as far
as possible, the laws relating to both nations as far
as it is practicable, and extend to Ireland all the
rights and privileges possessed by the inhabitants of
this country. Let not the people of Ireland sup-
pose that we regard them with distrust or sus-
picion ; that we consider it unsafe to extend
to them the blessings we ourselves enjoy, or
that a different rule of action should be
applied to their country to that which
is applied to England. Evince to them a perfect
impartiality in the administration of affairs, and in
the distribution of patronage, and let it not be sup-
posed that any man will be considered as disqualified,
or as less likely to be selected for the discharge of
important public duties, on account of the peculiar
religious opinions he may be supposed to entertain.
These will be the first steps, and thereby the confi-
dence of the Irish peasant will be obtained.
Hitherto he has had too many reasons
to suppose that he may look in vain to the law for
the redress of the injuries he may sustain,—that it is
an instrument for his oppression and not for his
security. Remove this feeling, and teach him that it
will be administered with perfect impartiality and
equality to every man within these realms, and he
will soon learn to appeal to it for protection, and no
longer to sympathise with or to shelter
the habitual lawbreaker or the midnight dis-
turber of the peace. Having thus prepared
the minds of the people for the reception, in a proper
spirit, of measures calculated to improve their social
condition, let slip no opportunity of eliciting and
drawing forth their latent energies ;—the relationship
between landlord and tenant must be improved, the
tenure of land must be placed upon a sounder and a
better footing. We do not quite agree with the ex-
Premier in supposing that it may be impossible
to apply an immediate remedy—that the benefit
may only be a remote one. We think that the Bill
brought in to allow a tenant compensation for the
improvements on his holding may be easily so ex-
tended as to apply as well to those already effected
as to those bereafter to be carried into execution. The
entire of the recommendations offered by Lord
DzvoN's Commission should be given effect to as
speedily as possible, and no time should be lost in
taking steps to reclaim the waste lands, and thus
to afford ample employment to every man able and
willing to work throughout the country, and to create
a prosperous and happy yeomanry, by making well-
disposed and industrious labourers and small farmers
the proprietors of portions of the lands so reclaimed,
suited in quantity to their respective conditions.
Should these recommendations be carried into execu-
tion, Ireland will no longer be the difficulty, but the
strength and support of the British nation.

Mr. O'CONNELL has just issued, in a letter to the
Repeal Association, a concise and temperate state-
ment of the policy which he deems necessary, not
merely for the realisation of happiness to Ireland, but
for ensuring stability to the British Ministry. At
any period such an announcement from such a quar-
ter, would have been listened to with deference; but at
the present moment, when a Cabinet emphatically
styled the strong Government has fallen to
pieces upon that most difficult of all our political
questions, the legislation of Ireland, the voice of
DANIEL O'CONNELL acquires a peculiar emphasis
and an impressive vigour. It is not the factious
clamour of a demagogue, or the insolent demands
of a revolutionary charletan, which are audible in
this remonstrance with English rulers, and
this appeal to English justice, uttered by
the Honourable and Learned Member fur
Cork—it is rather the candid and plain-spoken
opinions of a man whose judgment is ripened 133
many years of experience, and whose imagination is
now only agitated by the turmoils of his own
patriotism. We must declare that Mr. O'CONNELL
assumes to us a nobler and more dignified position
when writing such a document as this, than
when seated on the summit of Tara, or cheered
by the auditors of Conciliation Hall. Never to our
thinking has the " Liberator" appeared to greater
advantage than he does at the present moment, and
never possibly has his declarations acquired for them-
selves such influence and authority. Forty-six years
have now elapsed since the legislative union
of the two countries, and precisely at this
juncture a proverbially powerful administration
is destroyed in consequence of the distracted and
problematic condition in which the Irish Govern-
ment has fallen. Here, therefore, is a striking, and,
we may term it, an unanswerable evidence, that Ire-
land is not treated as justice or policy require. Here
is a testimony that the utmost caution is demanded
in the official treatment of that fruitful
but unfortunate island. Ruin, and desolation, and the
foulest enormities have been running riot amongst its
inhabitants : according to Lord DEVON'S Commis-
sion, 2,300,000 of those people have been in a state
of absolute destitution during the principal portion of
a single year; the average nutriment of the labour-
ing Irish is derived from potatoes and cold water;
whole villages are ejected from their tenements at the
arbitrary will of their landlords, and driven like ver-
min into .the byways and ditches; murders of the
blackest dye and of the
.naost devilish inhumanity are
of frequent recurrence in whatever provinces are with-
out the tenant-right. Is not this a horrible situation for
a civilised country in this civilised generation, especially
under the free and benignant constitution of Great
Britain? Is it not horrible? Does it not demand
in a voice that cannot easily be hushed some effort
at amelioration ? Men are driven to insanity by an
accumulation of misfortunes, they become, as it were,
dearth with misery—may not a whole people be so
likewise ? When individuals are thus goaded on by
lincessant woes, and disappointments, and privations,
their anguish not unfrequently terminates in suicide
when a whole nation is pressed down by the like
sorrows, its agony ultimately finds vent in acts of in-
subordination and rebellion. It becomes, therefore,
the imperative and sacred duty of a Government to
observe, at least, the first symptoms
under misfortunes in aremove the
people, caus e
of suffering from among the population. Ireland is in
e ana to
re ofm
that critical position ; and Mr. O'CoNNELL,the avowed
champion of the Irish multitude, steps forward to pro-
nouLice this solemn warning—" I (who detest any.
thing recolutionary, and abhor violent changes, and
would not fak,P the best amelioration of public insti-
tutions At the expeni,-;" of a single drop of blood)
tell you tittzt the people of Ireland cannot
much longer en,:iure their present misery !"
That is an awful consideration ; but from
our hearts we believe it to b 2 literally cor-
rect. The Hon. Memberfor Cork does not, I:owever,
restrict himself to the mere enunciation of a warning,
He proceeds further, and pronounces it as his opinion
that there is now " an opportunity of considering the
Irish question as upon neutral groan& ; there is a
glorious opportunity of deciding if the repeale-es be
right in believing that no substantial relief can be
given to Ireland by the British I#rlaica?.;:lt ; or that
they are as wrong to the demonstration which wonii,i
suit from practical) otice being afforded by that Jr: