The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-22 00:00:00

Lion. JUNIUS has already commemorated the discrimi-
nation visible in all popular conclusions; what held geed
in his tirne hold= good in ours—fh• pnhlic will recognis
who are the culpable Members in tee Loeer House, lulu
withdraw their confidence from them accordingly.
Whether it be..the Ministry, or the Protection party, or
the Opposition benches, or the Irish representatives, who
cause the present stagnation in affairs, the people will
see, and seeing, they will act. We ourselves have no in-
tention whatever to cast obloquy upon individuals with-
out the most thorough consideration of the matter ; we
do not pretend to fix evil motives upon any section of the
Legislature—we reprobate actions for the deplorable con-
sequences which they originate; we have no predelictions
for either men or measures, saving inasmuch as they
appear of a friendly or a hostile disposition towards the
welfare of the populace. Animated with these senti-
ments—and with these sentiments alone—it is with the
most inexpressible anxiety that we observe the conduct
pursued by our rulers in the House of Commons.
.ts far back as November last Government became
aware of the fact that its utmost energies would Le
necessary for the maintenance of prosperity in the
empire. Agitation—that great Architnedian fulcrum
—had obtained a spot upon which it might display its
fullest vigour, and move the heart and the reason of the
million. It did so. England and Ireland were sub-
jected to its influence, but in a different manner : a
great truth made its way with scarcely perceptible, but
prodigious strides—it permeated, as it were, the whole
mind of the nation. Then it was that the Prime
Minister of Great Britain proclaimed himself a convert
to that mighty truth and the champion of those glorious
principles; then it was his colleagues acquiesced in his
decision, his quondam antagonists merged themselves
into the number of his most resolute allies, his novel
and heterogeneous band was kneaded into a concrete
mass, and stamped with a signet of uncommon strength
the signet of popularity; then it was that a triumphant
division confirmed that truth and those principles as
henceforth fundamental parts of our Constitution. But
certain as that moral victory was, and is, in an
abstract sense, in a practical sense it was
anything but achieved. The death of mono-
poly was destined to be a hard and lingering
one; it was to rejoice in acute paroxysms and violent
contortions before its final expiration. These circutn-•
stances have transpired—Monopoly is dead—and the
mourners and executioners have withdrawn for a period
until an opportunity arrives for the funeral obsequies.
Such in matter-of-fact are the occurrences which have
marked the progress of opinion in England—a progress
more of jubilation than otherwise. With Ireland, on
the contrary, affairs have marched forward with mourn-
ing, and woe, and desolation. Her villages have been
beaten into the dust; her peasantry have been driven
like dogs into the ditches; her more easy-going citizens
have been expatriated in crowds by the panic; and, as
the whole world knows, pestilence, and famine, and help-
lessness, and murder have filled her whole population
with sorrow and consternation. And how has the Legis-
lature acted under these circumstances, how is it acting
at the present moment? Why every opportunity is seized
by those who should most sedulously watch over the in-
terests of Ireland, to procrastinate the application of reme-
dies to her diseased constitution. Misery and crime are
spreading with fearful celerity among her population ;
burglaries are committed in the open daylight, by mobs
scourged on by bodily distress ; the flames of incen-
diarism redden her skies, such as the one which
recently occurred at Annacotty, while another wretched
man at Cooga, is murdered in the highway, like
so many previous victims. Yet this is the precise time
when the representatives of that unfortunate island en-
deavour by every open opposition or petty subterfuge to
retard the interposition of the Legislature in her behalf.
Government dispatches 5001. towards the relief fund
forming at Clonmel, and the Irish Members by an ac-
tion almost simultaneous keep aloof from the Parliament
House, with a miserable hope (which, unhappily for all,
has been realised) that the Commons would not muster
in sufficient numbers to hold a sitting, and to expedite
as far as possible the government of the realm. We
have not language sufficiently powerful to express our
sorrow and our indignation.

The case of the unfortunate Danish claimants is to be
again brought forward in the house of Commons on
the 30th by Mr. HAWES. We trust that his appeal to
the justice of the Government will be met in a spirit
of honesty, and that at length means will be provided to
liquidate the claims of those unfortunate persons, many
of whom have been reduced to the lowest depths
of poverty by the dishonesty, mean, pettifogging
quibbling of various successive Governments. The
Sovereign of ENGLAND IS bound by Magna
Charta neither to sell, nor to delay, nor to deny
justice—and our present Gracious SOVEREIGN has, as
far as she herself is concerned, done all in her power
to expedite justice being done to these claimants. In
answer to an address presented to her MAJESTY on the
10th June, 1841, by the House of Commons, praying
" that her MAJESTY would be graciously pleased to ad-
vance to the claimants the amount as ascertained by the
Commissioners to be due, and assuring her MAJESTY
that the House would make good the same." her
MAJESTY, on the 21st June following, was pleased to
return the following answer:—

" It must at all times be my most earnest desire to attend
to the wishes of the House of Commons, and I shall be ready
to give effect to them in this instance, whenever the means
shall have been provided by Parliament."

Her MAJESTY therefore has done her part, but surely
Magna Charta itself is little better than " a mockery, a
delusion, and a snare," when a mere " red tape" beauro-
cracy, upon the plea that there are no special funds
provided to liquidate those claims—a plea as false as it
it is paltry—can thus violate with impunity one

I.f its most important provisions, and render of no avail
the willingness to do justice of the SOVEREIGN, and the
decision in favour of those demanding it of repeated
majorities of the House of Commons. These claims, it
will be remembered, arise out of the seizure and confis-
cation of British property by the Danish Government in
1807, and were originally divided into three classes : the

first being for loss of debts owing by Danish to British

subjects, sequestered and confiscated ; the second, for the
loss of goods seized on shore; and the third, for that ofships
and cargoes taken within the Baltic. To the two first
of these classes full compensation has been allowed by

the Government. From the third class it has hitherto
been withheld. The House of Commons, in the two

successive sessions of 1838 and 1839, adjudged,
by large majorities, that the claimants of the third
class were equally entitled to compensation with
the other two classee. It was thereupon referred by
the Treasury to certain Commissioners to adjudicate and
report upon the individual cases ; and, after a strict in
vestigation of documentary and other evidence, 116
claims, to an amount in the whole of 225,0001., were, in
1840, reported as established. No steps being taken by

the Government of that day towards the payment of the
sums thus awarded, it was moved, on behalf of the
claimants, on the 9th of June, 1841, that " the
House should resolve itself into a Committee cf
the whole House, to consider of an address to her
MAJEsrY," which motion, though opposed by the

Government, was eventually carried without a division.
The next day the address to which we have before
alluded was agreed to by the House of Commons, and on
the 21st of June the QUEEN'S answer was returned.
From that time to the present no attempt has been made
by either the late or the present Governmt nt to give effect
to the declared assent of her MAJESTY. Opposed as
they are to each other on almost every other matter, both
Whig and Tory officials have been hitherto united in this

denial of justice, and it is only by the union of beau-
reaucrats of all parties in opposition to the frequently-
declared sense of the independent Members of both
sides of the House that justice to these claimants
listi been so long delayed. Let us hope, however that a
better spirit is now in the ascendant, and that Sir
ROBERT PEEL will do on this, as he has done on several
recent occasions, sink the official In the at atesman, and
ceaso to do injustice to these unfortunate claimants.

The accounts from Madrid are to the 14th instant.
Dispatches from General JOSE CONCHA, dated the 11th
inst., had been received. He reports that he met the
insurgent force under General IRIARTE, at Banoza,
about four leagues from Astorga, on that day, that he
engaged them, and totally defeated them, taking 165
prisoners, whom he sent to Lugo. The Governor of
Vigo had reported to the Government that tranquillity
had been completely reestablished throughout the pro-
vince. The Gazette of the 14th contains the appoint-
ment of Don AUGUSTIN AR3IANDARIZ to be Royal
Commissioner of the Lank of ISABELLA IL It also
contains a deem: reducing the number of stockbrokers
in Madrid to• eighteen.

The Madrid Bolsa was closed on Easter Monda:

We have received the Paris papers of Sunday. The
Illonileur contains the addresses presented by the Chain-
bers of Peers and Deputies, on Saturday, to the KING of
the FRENCH, on his late providential escape from the
assassin's aim, and his MAJESTY'S answers. Duke
PASQITIER before introducing the Peers thus addressed
the KING :

"Sire,—l wait, not to make a speech to the King, but to
present to him the Chamber of Peers, until all th• members
shall have entered, and it will be necessary for me to wait a
long time, for they are very numerous. The sentiments of
which their presence here offers you the expression are those
of all France."
_. .

His MAJESTY replied:—
" I appreciate the delicacy of the reserve which you impose
on yourself; I am no less sensibly affected by the conduct of