The Sun.
London, England, 1846-09-17 00:00:00

faantilux

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1846.

We are afraid too much truth is unhappily com-
pressed into an observation, uttered on Monday after-
noon in Conciliation-hall, namely, that the millions
of Ireland " had suffered more than any other people
on the face of the earth, and had actually diminished
in population owing to their sufferings !" Privation
seems, indeed, to be the natural heritage of the Irish
peasantry. Engaged upon the most laborious employ-
ments—housed in the most dilapidated hovels—fed upon
the scantiest sustenance, such as diluted meal por-
ridge, or a platter of dry potatoes, they are inces-
santly at the mercy of all the vicissitudes of the wea-
ther, of all the fluctuations in the temperament of
their landlirds, of all those sudden distempers
which result from insufficient nourishment,
and inadequate shelter. Even when their occu-
pations are of the most satisfactory—or, rather, of the
least unsatisfactory—character their existence is still
one of remarkable indigence, of unceasing toil, and
continues throughout most lamentably precarious.
To search for domestic comforts in the cabin of an
Irish peasant would be about as rational an em-
ployment as to hunt after emeralds in an ordinary
dunghill. Many of our English peasantry are un-
questionably and unfortunately subjected to almost
comparable grievances ; the agricultural labourers of
Dorsetshire for example, are a miserable and con-
spicuous evidence of this fact. But throughout every
individual county of England we could, nevertheles,,
instances, of a quite contrary description
:_laeasants hilt', contented, industrious, living in
on wholesome provisions,
flileilant cottages, feeding
aurrounded by thriving families. Throughout the
vviplk bngth andjleadtli of Ireland it would be dif-
,

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ficult to adduce half-a-dozen examples of a similar
character. In the aggregate the peasantry of that
island are immeasurably inferior in point of domestic
comfort to the peasantry of any other coun ry of equal
dimensions. Travellers have attested this ; Lord
DEVON'S Commission has avouched it with the most
solemn and oppressive distinctness. The fact requires
no demonstration ; it is admitted by persons enter-
taining every variety of political and ecclesiastical
opinion. The wretchedness of the Irish peasantry is
so universally acknowledged that it is employed
now- a-days as the illustration of the most direful speci-
mens of individual destitution. Knowing, therefore,
the habitual and prevalent poverty of these unhappy
beings, we can entertain some adequate conception of
the utter and grinding want of which such a visitation
as that of the destruction of the potato crop must be
productive. We must recognise that not merely
must the labourer himself be deprived of the little
food, which had previously nourished himself and
those dependent upon him for their subsistence—but
that he necessarily loses the employment which had
originally brought him a few shillings per week,
namely, the digging of the potato-fields, the caKing
of their produce, and other incidental labours. Be-
-ides being thus denied his annual stock of vegetables
and his weekly pittance, the pig, ordinarily fattened
for the payment of his rent, becomes tJo costly an
appurtenance to his household ; and th.! Irishman
thus plunged into immediate difficultic:s, with a pros.
pect of a still more irreparable embarrassment.
Such calculations of the miseries at present rife is
Ireland are corroborated by every successive packet.
The famished labourers are congregating together
upon the hills in a state of !And closely bordering on
desperation. The different boards of guardians are
giving evidence, by an unwonted alacrity in their
movements, that something of a preventative character
must be done, and that immediately, or otherwise the
patience of the sufferers will be altogether vanquished
by the pangs of hunger, and disturbances increase
the miseries of the various districts. Petitions are
already flocking in upon Lord BESBOROUGH, implor-
ing his Lordship to avail himself of the prerogative'
and powers committed to his discretion in behalf of
the afflicted multitude. At Killarney a large meeting
was convened under the direction of the Earl of KEN-
MAR E, at which meeting a considerable number of local
magistrates and gentlemen were present. So urgent
did the necessities of the population of the adjacent
barony of Magonihy appear, that those individuals
were hurriedly assembled together for the purpose of
inquiring what measures of alleviation were most
advisable. Not the least emphatic evidence of the
wide extension of the potato murrain and of the ab-
solute necessity thereby entailed upon the Legisla-
ture of an active endeavour to supply the deficiency,
is that simple, but significant resolution, passed in
a meeting of gentlemen and ratepayers in the town
of Kells, county of Meath. Here it is, and surely
it requires no comment or elaboration :

" Resolved—That the Act 10th Victoria. chap. 107.
having contPrnplated only an apprehended failure of t,
portion of the potato crop of the pretent season in In-
land,' does not afford an adequate or suitable renied3
for the loss of the whole crop."

Such are the opinions of the more intelligent and
affluent inhabitants of Ireland with respect to the
exigencies of the present emergency. The next dan-
€►er to be apprehended is that the starving peasants
should themselves he impressed with a similar con-
viction. Greater calamities would inevitably result
therefrom. The Irish sufferers would immediatel\
regard the Government and local authorities as equally
apathetic, and insubordination would be the imme-
diate consequence. This, we maintain, must be
seriously apprehended, unless some strenuous exer-
tions be made by the landlords. Often as we have
repeated this before, we shall never tire of insisting
upon those exigencies upon the acknowledgment of
which the happiness and the lives of so many thou-
sands are dependent.
Two remarkable occurrences have already demon-
strated that the Irish labourers are being trifled with
over-much, and that their meekness and forbearance,
under their existing accumulation of sorrows, areyield-
ing at last to the dictates of famine and indignation.
On Friday afternoon, according to the Cork Reporter,
several agricultural workmen entered their office as a
d.-putation from Ballyfeared, with an advertisement
declaring that the miseries experienced in the baron 3
of Kinnalea were so direful, and that the sufferers
were so entirely overlooked by those upon whom
their preservation from death devolved, that unless
provisions were contributed within a stipulated
period, " forcible means would be had recourse to to
procure it !" The other circumstances occurred at
the demonstration of about three hundred starving
labourers, held on Wednesday last, immediately
before the castle cf Eyrecourt, near Ballinasloe. The
manner of these three hundred peasants is wonder-
fully striking. They are starving, and yet they are
passive : they remonstrate with their landlord upon
their forlorn and destitute condition, and they tell
him that, notwithstanding their anxiety to pre-
serve all reasonable order and sobriety, they
cannot and will not perish while they are surrounded
by plenty, and that it is madness to expect them to
act otherwi,e. These illustrations of the want of
employ ment and provisions in Ireland cannot be toe
incessantly or too forcibly pressed upon public atten-
tion. The devastation has been rapid and general—
its correction should in like manner be rapid and
general. The antidote should be as powerful as the
poison, or the pernicious effects of the latter cannot
be counteracted.

The Duke of BEAUFORT is determined N obtain
a share of that disgrace which has of late ached
to some other members of his order. He \n-
pears desirous of emulating their Graces of NEIL
CASTLE and BUCKINGHAM, the Marquis of EXETER,'
and other Noble Lords, who during the last session
of Parliament afforded the strongest evidence of the
violation of the constitutional doctrine, that Peers
should not interfere in the elections of the repre-
sentatives of the people. On Monday we re-published
an article from the Gloucester Journal, which states
that notices to quit have been served on several of
his Grace's tenants, who (although as yet they have
committed no offence) may possibly have the manli-
ness to think for themselves, and not submit to be
dictated to by the Duke, or his underlings, and to
be driven to the hustings like a flock of unreasoning
animals, to record their votes in favour of any
nominee, whom it may please their landlord to
honour with his approbation. The lash is to be kept
suspended over them ready to fall if they should pre-
sume to act according to the dictates of honour and
conscience. The freedom and purity of election is
to be exemplified in Monmouthshire, family ties are
to be disregarded, fraternal affection set at naught,
all the bonds of relationship to be severed and dis-
united at the fell dictates of party spirit and party
vengeance. The present case is even worse than any
of those of a similar character by which it was pre-
ceded. If the Duke of NEWCASTLE sacrificed a son,
the heir apparent to his title and possessions, and
arrayed himself in open hostility against the inhe-
ritor of his honours, he might at least plead that at
that time the great, the important measures of free
trade had not received the legislative sanc-
tion, that his act, objectionable as it was
in every respect, might yet be productive
of some benefit to the cause which he was
at all hazards prepared to support. It was not that
he loved his son less, but that he loved protection
more. Such a plea, however, cannot be set up on
behalf of the Duke of BEAUFORT. The cause of pro-
tection has departed. It is happily numbered amongst
the things that have been. There is no longer
a hope for the re-enactment of corn-laws to tax a
nation's food for the supposed benefit of a class. The
most sanguine monopolist can hardly hope for a re-
newal of the objectionable impost. The expulsion of
Lord GRAN VILLE SOMERSET from the representation
of Monmouthshire therefore can only be regarded as
an act of cold-blooded vengeance, a punishment to be
inflicted, because his Lordship, a man of sense and
experience, a Cabinet Minister, entrusted with an
important position in the Government of the country,
and deeply responsible to the nation at large for
the manner in which he should dischar.ge the
duties committed to his hands, yielded a, reluctant
consent to measures which he felt w(ire imperatively
demanded by the intelligence of the people, and any
continued opposition to which must. be utterly use-
less and impracticable, and becar
.se he aided and
assisted his sagacious and disinterizsted leader in pass-
ing through the Legislature `„he necessary enact-
ments. It is hardly surpray4,s--

once he had determined on such a course, should
hesitate about the means for carrying his wishes into
execution. The man who could presume to dictate
to a brother far more experienced than himself in
political affairs—who could hope to exaet from'_ such
a man a blind obedience t o his lordly will and plea-
sure, would hardly be disposed to respect the opinions
and the desires of his tenantry. Manliness of cha•
ratter has ever been considered the characteristic of
English yeomen, tend any attempt to coerce by
unfair means th 4 honest expression of opinion,
to reduce to a state of villeinage and serfdom an in-
dependent tenantry will, most undoubtedly, provoke
the opposition it is intended to suppress. We can
scarcely suppose that his Grace would venture to
carry into effect the threats he has uttered, that
the notkes to quit which it is stated have been already
servee, in anticipation of, and preparation for, the
gemral election which must shortly take place, will
ever be acted on. We must emphatically warn his
grace, as we have repeatedly warned the Irish land-
lords, " that property has its duties as well as its
rights ;" and that any attempt to exceed the fair and
legitimate exercise of those rights, is sure to he
visited with a full and ample measure of retributive
justice. The walls of the Senate House have rung
with the indignant eloquence of those who have re-
probated and exposed the vile system of clear-
ing estates, no matter what might be the ex-
citing cause. The public press throughout
the nation has, with scarcely an exception, advocated
the cause of the expelled tenantry, and has directed
the public opinion of the country to a just feeling of in-
dignation against their heartless oppressors. The entire
landlord and tenant code, which appeared to have been
tramed with a sole view to the benefit of the first-
named class, has in the sister country been subjected
-o revision, and close attention to its details and valu-
able and extensive alterations and reforms have been
suggested for the purpose of annulling the objection-
able parts, and at last placing the occupiers and culti-
vators of the soil in the enjoyment of their just rights
and privileges. The Ulster tenant right has become
known to the nation at large, the popular
voice has demanded its extension throughout
he remainder of Ireland, and there is little doubt but
that if British landlords abuse their power and
nrivileges, that they will, in lake manner, he
subjected to control, and that they will be
deprived of rights the exercise of which can
no longer be safely entrusted to them. We
should be sorry that any indiscreet or intemperate
tonduct should demand a change in the social rela-
tions between landlord and tenant in England. We
ire satisfied that the cultivation of kindly feelings,
,f mutual regard and confidence is of the utmost
value to both parties. The landlord who treats his
tenantry well, who comforts and assists them, and
discharges properly the duties of his situation, will
deservedly attain great influence. Many of the occu-
piers will from love yield that which they would
never give from a baser motive; but there is a limit
which must not be passed, a boundary line which
must not be crossed. We sincerely hope that such a
t-espass =ay not be attempted ; but, should it un-
fortunately be the case, it will be the duty of honest
journalists to denounce the transgressors, to submit
their conduct to the ordeal of public opinion, and, if
necessary, to call upon the nation, by the peaceful but
irresistible force of argument and reason, to demand
the abolition of the objectionable and abused powers.

Accounts from Rome state that the POPE is devot-
ing his attention to the settlement of the diplomatic
relations of the Court of Rome with the Ottoman
Porte, with a view to promote the trade of Italy with
al,. Levant. Count ESCALON, the Roman Uonsul at
Marseilles, has been ord..red to proceed to Constanti-
nople on this mission. France will afford him every
t',eility to bring his negotiation to a successful termi-
nation.

The inhabitants of Ancona have presented to
Nlonsignore Rossi, the delegate of the province,
an address, which had been voted by acclamation,
demanding—first, the permission to erect a monument
to Pius IX. ; second, a convocation of new provincial
councils, which would efficiently represent the wishes
and wants of the provinces, and endowed with the
power of proposing the necessary measures for the
welfare of the people. The news of this popular de-
monstration soon spread through the different lega-
tions, and caused a great sensation.

It would appear that the valley of the Appenthal is
not to be added to France, notwithstanding the
dleged agreement for its sale by the Canton of Vaud.
In the sitting of the Swiss Diet at Zurich, on the
10th September, the President declared that the re-
port current among the public that Appenthal was to
he added to France, was void of foundation. The
valley is one league and a half in length, and one
league in breadth, with two or three hundred inhabi-
tants, and is of great importance in a military point
of view. The deputy of the Canton de Vaud stated
that the inhabitants considered themselves as Swiss,
and proved by documents that the valley formed part
of the confederation. He said that the conduct of
France was not very honourable, and demanded that
the matter should be laid before the Vorort, as it was
important for it to be made public that the confedera-
tion did not intend renouncing any of its rights. The
proposition was unanimously adopted.

The following proclamation, dated Sans Souci,
Sept. 4, has been issued by the King of PRUSSIA on
the subject of the late disturbances at Cologne :—" I
have learnt with much sorrow, by the reports of the
authorities, and through the address of the Burgo-
master and of the Municipal Council of Cologne, of
the 14th instant, that a considerable number of the
inhabitants not only opposed the measures taken by
he police for the tranquillity of the town, and offered
,esistance to the troops called out to enforce order,
hut that they also assailed them with stones. Be-
,istance to the authorities is everywhere a sprious
offence, especially in a town which may justly be
called one of the ramparts of Germany.
The interference of the troops is therefore
wrongfully termed insignificant in the address. I
am eof opinion that, on the contrary, the riot
ought to have been put down by force of arms, and
that it is greatly to be regretted that one man was
killed, and others dangerously wounded, as stated in
the reports. My troops showed a general coolness
and praiseworthy moderation, so much so, that I ex-
pressed my satisfaction to them on their conduct,
through the Commander-in-Chief. If, as it is stated
in the address, without however being proved, peaceful
citizens were ill-treated by the soldiers in parts of the
town distant from the scene of tumult, or if they
have committed any other excesses, the offenders shall
be punished according to the rigour of martial law.
I acknowledge the services of the citizens in endea-
vouring to maintain order ; but I blame the more the
organization of a civic guard, without the express
sanction of the authorities, as it might be thought
that the civil and military authorities, after
having resorted to force, entrusted the mainte-
nance of order to the citizens, whilst it is my express
desire to avoid even the appearance of such weakness.
If the municipal authorities complain of not having
been informed of the measures taken for the evening
of the 4th, principally of an imposing military force
(as it is stated) on the market-place, I declare that
after what took place on the evening before that the
appearance on duty of those two hundred men was
not an extraordinary measure, and that it was excus-
able, as on the one side it was a precaution against
further excesses; and on the other side, that the
burgomaster was informed of the fact. Neverthe-
less, according to the wish expressed, I have ordered
that, in future, when extraordinary measures are
deemed requisite, time permitting, the municipal
authorities shall be informed, so as in their turn to
inform the citizens, and to demand their concurrence.
I have reason to hope that the good sense of the citi-
zens and of the authorities will prevent the occur-
rence of such events in future."

The attention of the Diet at Frankfort is almost
exclusively occupied by the consideration of the
affairs of the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.

Madrid papers of the 9th have been received.
The Comereio states that Mr. BULWER has ad-
dressed a second note to Senor ISTURITZ of a very
energetic character, on the subject of the .MoNTFEN-
MEE alliance. The Heraldo admits the fact of a se-
cond note having been sent, but declares that it was
but a repetition of the former note, " pointing out
anew the grave complications to which the projected
union might give rise." The Spanish Government