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

je111,14

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 1846.

The Lords met last evening, and sat for a short time, but
transacted no business of importance.

The SPEAKER. took the chair at Four o'clock.
The SrEAKEs. informed the House that the securities for
the prosecution of the petition against the return for Brid-
port were unexceptionable.
Mr. HAW Es gave notice of his intention, on Monday next,
to move that all proceedings on the North-Kent Railway
Bill should be stayed, until the report was made of the
Royal Commission appointed to inquire into those lines of
railway the termini of which were proposed to be in the

City.
Several Railway Bills were read a second time, and
ordered to be committed.
Mr. HAWES, on the bringing up of the report from the
Committee on the petition for leave to introduce the Cale-
donian Extension Railway Bill, moved, " That the report be
referred back to that Committee, with an instruction to
them to entertain the petition of WILLIAM MAXWELL ALEX-
ANDER and others, sworn witnesses upon it.
After some discussion strangers were ordered to withdraw,
but no division took place, in consequence of the opposition to
the motion being withdrawn.
The motion was corsequently agreed to.
Mr. PLUMPTREE gave notice of his intention, after Easter,
to itrive for leave to bring in a Bill to repeal the Act for the
Endowment of the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth.
Sir R. PgEr., in answer to a question from Mr. J. COLLETT,
said he would state on Monday for what period he should
propose the House should adjourn for the Easter holidays.
Sir. J. GRAHAM moved the resumption of the adjourned
debate on the first reading of the Irish Life and Property
Bill.
Mr. O'CONNELL then moved as an amendment—" That
while the House deplores the existence of outrage in Ireland,
and is sincerely anxious for its repression, it is of opinion that
such outrage will be aggravated, not removed, by the arbi-
trary, unjust, and unconstitutional enactments of this Bill,
and that it is the duty of Parliament to adopt such measures
as will tend to eradicate the causes which produce these
crimes, instead of resorting to laws which will harass and
oppress the innocent, without restraining the guilty, and
which, being restrictive of public liberty, cannot- fail to
augment national discontent." He was happy to hear the
Right Honourable Baronet at the head of the Home
Department, on moving the first reading of the Bill
the other night, admit that the murders and
crimes that had been perpetrated in Ireland were not of a po-
litical, sectarian, or religious character. In Ireland, if any
coercion Bill was required, it was upon the landlords, and
not the peasantry. His motion was directed to remedies; he
:did nor de!q *Murders that had taken place. It was toe
54".-tir:trisat:critnes had been perpetrated in Ireland, anti.
. irhe e4htlkdairill would remedy the evils, no one would
IPTQgr /9,40 00094 iti 044 lakusif; but boliglipg 6h4

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'\ t would have a contrary effect, he should give it his most I
determined opposition. The Bill gave the Lord Lieu-
tenant of Ireland arbitrary power and unlimited authority.
If instead of proposing such a Bill as the present, they were
to make an alteration in the law of landlord and tenant in
Ireland, give to the people of that country a greater fran-
chise, and more representatives, and compensation to tenants
for improvements, allow an extension to the Ulster Tenant
Act, and impose an absentee tax, they would then do some
real good for Ireland.
Captain OSBORNE seconded the amendment. He believed
that the measure was not calculated to answer the objects it
had in view, but that it would increase the misery of the
people of Ireland.
The House was afterwards addressed by Mr. Sidney Her-
bert, Lord J. Russell, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Seymour, Mr. Butler,
and Mr. R. A. Fitzgerald.
On the motion of Mr. CAREW, the debate was adjourned.
The remaining orders of the day were then disposed of,
and the House adjourned at a Quarter past One o'clock.

Sir HENRY HARDINGE and Sir HUCH GOUGH, as we
stated yesterday, are to be raised to the Peerage, and,
in accordance with the usual practice, they will be
further rewarded with pensions for their own lives and
the lives, probably, of the two next heirs. To these
honours and pensions the people of this country will
give their he arty concurrence, and they would also be gra-
tified if a mark of royal favour, and something also more
substantial, were conferred upon Sir H. SMITH, for his
admirable generalship displayed at Aliwal, and the
striking influence which the remarkable victory gained
at that place had upon the military operations that fol-

lowed. The battles of Moodkee and Ferozeshah were
as glorious in every respect as they could be un-
der such circumstances ; but the generals were
crippled for want of means : they had neither heavy
artillery nor a command of cavalry, nor a suffi
cient quantity of ammunition to follow up their
victories, and the consequence was, that not only the
Seikhs, bat the native population of India, began to
..uspect that no advantages had been gained, and that a
renewal of the contest might lead to the most serious
results. The batte of Aliwal, however, left no doubt
whatever that a decisive victory had been gained, and
gained too, in a way which established the vast
superiority of the English General, as well as the in-
domitable bravery of the troops under his command.
This could not fail to have a powerful moral effect upon
the armies, Anglo-Indian as well as Seikh, which fought
at Sabraon. To this distinguished officer, as well as to
those who served under him, honours and rewards are
due, and the public will, therefore, be glad to see from
the Gazette of Friday that promotions in consequence
have been granted to many of the commissioned officers;
3ut the people of England would like to see the system of

rewards for noble services carried much further, and the
humble soldier made to share in them, along with those
who led them on to victory. The devotion of the
men, natives as well as English, is admitted on all hands
to have been rarely or never equalled. In the battles of

the 21st and 22d of December, we are only astonished
ghat they were able to fight at all. They were fatigued
—worn out by long marches ; they were without

food, and almost faint from want of water ; they had a
formidable enemy to encounter, an enemy, whose fame
had extended over the whole of Hindostan, supported,
too, by batteries of heavy guns in a strong position;
they fuught at every disadvantage, yet, alike forgetting
their sufferings, and disdaining the bribes of the
enemy, they rushed to the contest, and achieved,
though with enormous loss, almost an unexpected vic-
tory. In these battles the stern firmness and daring
courage of the men did nearly the whole work, for
there was little room for the display of manoeuvres ; and

on them, therefore, the country would be glad to see

something more substantial conferred than votes of
thanks. The turn which affairs, too, have taken, attri-
butable in a great measure to the gallantry of the troops,
:enders some fair compensation of the kind more neces-
sary. The chief city of the Punjaub, unlike that of
Sinde, has escaped capture ; the treasures of gold and
silver, and ♦aluable jewels, of which such a large
amount was taken at Hyderabad, will remain with
the original possessors, and the victorious troops
are thus deprived of a rich booty, to which
they were entitled. We therefore trust that the
East India Company, as well as the Government, will
take these circumstances into consideration, and vote
such grants to the officers and privates as may be con-
sidered a just compensation and a fair reward for deeds
which have, to all appearances, brought a hazardous
war to a speedy and glorious conclusion, and saved the
Company millions of additional expenditure.

Mr. O'CONNELL last night moved an amendment upon
the first reading of the Protection of Life (Ireland) Bill,
and made a long speech in support of it. The amend-
deplores the existence of outrage in
Ireland, and urges the eradication of its causes, in the
place of the measure demanded by the Government.
this eradication he considers may be effected by
various measures, such as, first and chiefly, will

prevent the abuses of property, and especially
those connected with the clearance system; and
next, others that will confer equal rights,
franchises, and protection upon the Irish
with those which are enjoyed by the English, will give
a greater number of representatives to Ireland, an im-
proved corporation reform, as well as a more just distri-
bution of the Church temporalities, an alteration in the
grand jury laws, and an impartial administration of
justice. The first thing that strikes us is, that assum-
ing the efficacy of the remedies here suggested for the
social regeneration of that country, their sweeping cha-
racter, and the importance of each is such, that before
all or any of them can become the law of the land,
much more before their anticipated effects could be
realised, the horrible crimes conceded by Mr. O'CoNNELL
to be now deluging five of the Irish counties will con-
tinue unrepressed. It must be remembered that the
Government stands charged with the execution of the
law ; they announce to Parliament that the law is vio-
lently outraged, beyond their power of vindicating it,

and demand increased means for effectuating the same.
If life is sacrificed both by night and by day, and this
through the confederation of midnight assassins, the
ordinary functions of the law being established
to be insufficient to suppress these outrages,
what Parliament can hesitate to arm Go-
vernment with means adequate for the purpose ?
Lord J. RUSSELL will not incur the responsibility of
withholding the necessary appliances. Some of the
provisions may be too stringent, but the fearful evils to
be grappled with demand no ordinary remedies. These
are matters of detail, and are such as, we think, however
adhered to or modified in Committee, the Government
will feel it to be their duty to accept as Parliament may
decide. It should not be forgotten, however, that if this
stringency be too much paired down, so that the
iequel should prove the measure to be almost in-
operative, much responsibility will be incurred by
those who suffer their legislative timidity to defeat the
highest ends of philanthrophy. Such a result would be
even worse than what we have at present to deal with ;
for the midnight assassins, when they learn that Parlia-
ment has legislated against them, yet ineffectually, will
imbibe a greater contempt for the authority of the
law, and promptly spread their machinations, till
they involve the length and breadth of the land
in the meshes of their fearful organisation. At
the same time, we most fully agree with Lord
JOHN RUSSELL, that Government cannot too speedily
render Parliament practically alive to their sincerity in
removing any just cause of complaint the Irish may
have against us, by producing as well measures of a
healing and conciliatory spirit as those of coercion. In
particular, we hold that the Bill announced by the Earl
of ST. GERMANS, to be prepared for bettering the rela-
tionship of landlord and tenant, should be amongst the
earliest of those to be laid on the table of either
House of Parliament. This is a subject that

has now been long under consideration. The
clearance system is emphatically declared by
Mr. O'CONNELL to be the mainspring of the Irish
crimes ; he stated that, in Tipperary alone, more than
one hundred and fifty thousand persons have been
evicted from their holdings within the last five years.
If such be the case, the state of that county is, indeed,
little to be wondered at. Sir JIOSIES GRAHAM has
said, that if the landlords persevere in this con-
duct, the Legislature must interpose. Why, then,
has such procrastination been suffered, that pro-
bably not till after Easter will even the first
reading be given to any Bill affecting this
subject ? The great struggle in Ireland is for land:
exorbitant rents are demanded, proportioned to the
keenness of the competition and the extent of debt with
which the greater part of the landed property is encum-
bered, by reason of the improvident spirit that has for
years characterised the higher, not less than the lower
orders of that country. The consequence is that the
tenant cannot cultivate and enjoy a fair and profitable

remuneration for his labour. Hence the produce which
he has, with; his limited means, reared is
exported to our markets, overflowing with
capital, and Ireland is left without the incal-
culable advantages of home consumption. What
regard can the Irish peasant have in favour of our
legislation, when one moment he finds himself standing
in the midst of the overflowing bounties of the soil,
which he has helped to develope, and the next sees
them carried to other shores, whilst he is left, with his
offspring, to exist on what amounts to little short of
starvation? If the agrarian system is, as we ourselves
believe, the prolific source of crime, no time can be so
opportune as the present for entering upon wholesome
legislation 914 this bawl of Irish alAraitie4 Rhea

large a sum has been voted for the furtherance of works
of public utility, by which, in connexion with the forma-
tion of railroads, a considerable opining will be afforded
for the employment of the redundant population, till
the source of the evil we have pointed out is reached by
salutary legislation.

Parliamentary paper, No. 179, just issued by order of
the House of Commons, affords us a most harrowing
category of the recent homicides in Ireland. Most of
these atrocious deeds have been chronicled in The Sun
as they were perpetrated, together with their most im-
portant details, such as the causes of the different out-
rages, the suspicions as to the assassins, and the atrocities
which accompanied the assaults. Nevertheless, it cannot
but be productive of good in the formation of the most
effectual and appropriate remedies for the prevention of
such heinous guiltiness, if we cast a comprehensive,
though cursory, glance over the aggregate of such ini-
quities when presented to us in a simple and classified
cluster, such as this official document. The benefit to
our deductions by a retrospective survey of this
nature must be twofold. Firstly, it will evi-
dence more forcibly than heretofore the hideous
depravities, the general insubordination, and the
dangerous audacity which stimulate the most law-
less of the Irish population to the performance of mur-
ders the most ruthless and the most dastardly, and which
consequently places the lives of the more peaceable
members of the community in imminent peril; by which
means the necessity for some immediate and efficacious
interference on the part of the Government will become
more apparent than ever. Secondly, it will tend to en-
lighten us as to the social grievances from which these
efforts at assassination spring ; by which knowledge a
clue may be discovered which may conduct us to the
very root of the evil. Acting upon this principle, the
Legislature would instantly stay the progress of a
great moral disease ; it would not potter over the social
condition of millions by endeavouring simply to destroy
the effects, while the causes were entirely overlooked.
The heads of the dire hydra would no longer be lopped
off to spring forth anew ; its heart would be assailed :
the further development of murder would be prevented
by striking at the point in which that arch-sin
is germinated, and from which every successive
instance of its perpetration radiates. Our
object, therefore, is to assure ourselves
that a prodigious evil really does require eradication

in Ireland. Surely, if we are not convinced of
this grievous " fact" already, a moment's examination
of the Parliamentary document to which we have re-
ferred will fill our minds with that most lamentable con-
viction. The paper consists of " Extracts made by
Colonel M‘GREGOR from the police reports, stating the
particulars of the principal homicides in Ireland in
the years 1845 and 1846, and forwarded to the

Home-office by him:' From these extraordinary
extracts upwards of thirty of the most diabolical
assassinatioxs, or attempts at assassination, may be
selected ; bludgeoning, shooting, strangling, drowning,
on the high road, in the daylight, and at midnight.
Sometimes the murderers are single, sometimes in
bands ; sometimes they have been discovered, some-
times they have escaped ; but the cause of almost every

outrage has been surmised. One unfortunate gentleman
is shot dead while returning with his children from
church on a Sunday morning; another person is struck
down suddenly with a musket-ball while seated with
his family at supper ; a venerable lady, nearly blind
with extreme age, is seized by a party of ruffians, a

pistol is snapped in her face, and she is beaten over the
head ; the corpse of another individual is dragged from
a ditch ; some are found by hedge-sides with their
brains crushed out of their skulls, while others are
riddled through and through with bullets. Is it pos-
sible, after these terrific disclosures, to doubt the
exigent state of Ireland, and the absolute duty imposed
upon Parliament for some immediate interposition ? Is
there not crime enough to arouse the most sluggish Go-
vernment to exertion ? Does not humanity, does not
religion, does not human policy itself, call out for a
powerful preventative ? Our next object is to discern, if
possible, the reasons by which the marauders have been
actuated, as by so doing we shall perceive the incite-
ments there are to the commission of these whole-
sale murders, and, by inference, the means by
which those incitements may be destroyed, or,
at the least, negatived. To these deductions
the Parliamentary paper before us affords a ready ac-
cess ; and after a careful inspection of its particulars
we are induced to ascribe the generality of the homi-
cides to one or other, or occasionally a combination, of
the following causes :—Animosity excited by the pro-
coodiaga .f magistrates, police-officers, or other agents
of the executive—revenge against those who have given
evidence in courts of law by which peasants
have been convicted of any offence—hatred
inspired towards those landlords who have
ejected one or more individuals from their pro-
perty, or otherwise dealt harshly with their tenantry—
or, finally, from a feeling of jealousy on the part of a
tenant who has been ejected from his tenement, and for
the idle gratification of which jealousy the subsequent
occupant is assaulted. There are, undoubtedly, stray
cases to which no satisfactory reason can be ascribed, or
in which the assailant has been impelled to the
act by a complex or individual interest. But to the
mass of the homicides already reported in The Sun,
and recorded in this official document, one or other of
the four causes just enumerated are applicable. We
say this after a most careful consideration of the matter.
The murders in Ireland are attributable either to a feel-
ing of dislike as to the mode in which justice is ad-
ministered, or to some circumstance in which the interests
of landlord and tenant are placed in antagonism. Disease
and destitution tend, no doubt, to heighten the malady,
and to render its recurrence more frequent. Hence,
the removal of sickness and penury mast necessarily ac-
company any scheme that may be propounded by our
Legislators for the removal of this frightful evil. The
Government must be rendered more accordant to the
popular mind ; the question of landlord and tenant
must be thoroughly analysed. We ' could cull
many terrific proofs of what we have de-
clared from the pages of this " report ;"
this, however, would be a needless repetition of crimes,
with the particulars of which the public are already fami-
liar. The plan which should be adopted towards Ireland
should be animated by a faith in the resources and real
integrity of the nation ; a hope for her ultimate regene
ration, and a charity towards her people.

The Madrid Gazette of the 27th ult. contains a -royal
decree, by which the kingdom is divided into electoral dis-
tricts, agreeably to the provisions of the new Act for the
election of representatives. A general belief prevailed that
the Cortes would be forthwith dissolved, and that a general
election would soon take place. It was said that General
RONCALI had been appointed Governor of Cuba, in the room
of General ,O'DoNNELL, who was to be Minister of War.
According to accounts from the provinces, the manifesto of
the new Cabinet was received with much apathy, and tran-
quillity prevailed.
On the 27th the Three per Cents. closed at 32% for cash.,
and 32 9-16 for the 30th of April. The Five per Cents. were
not quoted.

We have accounts from Lisbon to the 30th of Mv.rch.
On the 20th the Minister of the Interior brought into
the: Chamber of Deputies a Bill for appointing tb.e KING
CONSORT, in the event of the demise of the QUEEN,
Regent during the minority of the heir appe.rent. This
'dill is in contravention of the 90th article of the Charter,
and met with strong opposition from a few Members, but
was ultimately adopted by a large majority. A special
Commission had been appointed for the purpose of re-
- rising the tariff of import duties, and sugggesting such
: 'iterations in it as may be thought expedient. M. Fox-
rEca. MAGALHANS, formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs.
I as been named President.

In the French Chamber of Deputies the debate on the
commercial treaty with Belgium was brought to a clor-„,
on the 4th, when all the articles were adoppted b, a
majority of 209 to 36. The principal feature interest
in
relative to
.Are the British
11(r. use of Commons ; and we regret to find that he ap-
tm-ba:thgeredaistccuosmsimonerwciaaslamspeeaescuhreosf
nMow.
nearly the
system
the same result.
comprehensive and mighty changes pro-
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ler
27t
a)sdvtmeoriybr
ehesisgtthhi still much
duties,
iuecsh,
wa ht t_iacchhi
vteo,
pass d by Sir Ronnr,:r PEEL; but, while he admits that
ths3 are adapted. for England. he can zee in them little
or xi othing for France to imitate. A. brief outline of his
rent arks will be read with interest. "I cannot," said he,
"1 a ave the tribune without saying a word or two on the
qu action alluded to on the previous day by the Minister of
C( a-nmerce. In the reform proposed by Sir R. PEEL there are
to re distinct questions social reform, which is to bear
on i the domestic constitution of England, and a manufac-
tu ring reform, which regards her relations with other
P( ) vers. In England the manufacturing popula'ion is
far more considerable than the agricultural one, and this
dis proportion goes on constantly increasing. The con-
diti ion of the English working classes is exceedingly
sevo re, as they with difficulty suffice for their daily
war its. This condition is, besides, exceedingly variable,
pre carious, and subject to considerable oscillations. The
severity of this condition, and the perils to which it is
inc essautly exposed, have for a length of time aura toed
the attention of the English statesmen, and partictelarly
of Sir R. PEEL. It is the strong dt.,ir. which hie foclq
to %meliorate the condition of the working classes that
has,i,4duced th© Right Hou.Baroue I to undertake the,