The Sun.
London, England, 1833-03-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS•

In our paper of Saturday we announced the re-
tirement of Mr. Portman from the representation of
the important borough of Marylebone. Two candi-
dates are already in the field—Sir Samuel Whalley
and the Hon. Charles Murray, and a third is ex-
pected in the person of Mr. T. P. Courtenay. It
has likewise been rumoured that it is the intention)
of the electors to put Sir Henry Parnell in nomina-
tion, but the Right Hon. Baronet has already left
town for the purpose of canvassing Tiverton, where
a vacancy arises through the refusal of the sitting
Member to defend the petition against his return.
Unquestionably, if Sir H. Parnell had offered him-
aelf, his claims to the confidence of any body of
electors are of such a nature that we should have
confidently anticipated his success; but as he enter-
tains other ttiewst, we must look to the pretensions
of the other three gentlemen who have been named.
Of Sir S. Whalley little need be said—his preten-
sions were fully discussed at the last election, and
the signal defeat which they then experienced has
sufficiently shown the estimate which is taken of
them by the electors of Marylebone, We can
hardly think that he will persevere in so hopeless an
attempt a second time. This contest then rill
lie between Mr. Murray and Mr. T. P. Courtenay.
We wish to speak of this last gentleman with the
respect which we sincerely feel for him. Since hi,
retirement from office under the Duke of Welling-
ton, at the breaking up of his Administration, his
conduct, as distinguished from that of his former
colleagues, entitles him to the approbation of honest
men; for, unlike them, he has never sacrificed his
former principles to party considerations ; and upon
all questions of commercial police, maintained by his
votes the liberal opinions which he and they had sup-
pot ted whilst in office. The division on the timber duties
in 1831 was a striking example of this, and reflected
great credit upon him; but Mr, Courtenay is an
avowed Tory and Anti-Refoamer. Not content with
yielding to the current or, public opinion, and silently
submitting to the Sentence of exclusion which the
borough of Torbesi passed upon him as soon as the
Reform Bid; gave to the inhabitants a free voice in
the choice of their representatives, he published a
bulky volume of adieus, full of the bitterest invec-
tive against the Reform Bill, and pouring forth
'especially all the phials of his wrath on that part of
it which conferred representation on the metropoli-
tan districts. Such a man, we need scarcely say,
has only to appear before the electors of perhaps the
most important of these districts to receive their
testimony of his utter unfitness to represent them.
The third candidate is Mr. Murray—to this gentle-
man we wish success, believing that in him the elec-
tors of Marylebone will find an able and conscien-
tious representative. In his address, which is very
ably drawn up, he states explicitly his views on most
of the great questions that occupy men's minds in
the present day. Mr. Murray is son of the Earl of
Dartmore, and was brought up by one of the best
men Scotland ever sent to Parliament—the late
Lord Archibald Hamilton, with whom he was, we
understand, a very great favourite. Mr. Murray,
therefore, is not a conformer now that reform is suc-
cessful, but one trained in the principles of reform
and good government under a safe guide. h is not,
therefore, without reason that in his address he dwells
on this circumstance, for we cannot have a better secu-
rity for the future conduct of a representative than the
knowledge that the principles which he professes at the
hustings are the principles of his life, and moreover
that they were entertained, when, so far from lead-
ing to favour, they were an obstacle to advancement
in the world. When he tells the electors of Mary-
!ebone—" You tray depend upon my dedicating all
my time, and all my faculties, to your interests and
Onne of the country; upon my punctual attention
to my Parliamentary and local duties, and to my
advocating, unswayed by any party spirit, thos.
mound principles which have been instilled in.o me
in my childhood, have grown up with my youth,
card have emboldened me to present myself to your
notice upon this occasion," we think that the
ought to attach due importance to this appeal to
his past lire. We have heard from competent au-
thorities a most favourable opinion of Mr. Murray's
!talents and information. He will be supported, we
have reason to believe, pretty generally by those
who voted for the late Member, Mr. Portman. UP..
der all these circumstance., we should suppose Mr.
M, will, in all probability, be Mr. P.'s sq,ccessor
We bad written thus far, when an account reached
uN, that, yielding to the feelings of Marylebone, the
Conservatives have changed their tactics, and substi-
tuted Mr. Hope, an equally bigoted Anti-Reformer,
but destitute of the talents or experience of their
former -champion, for Mr. Courtenay. Is it come to
this ? Have the Baron Von Zuylen and Lord Stuart
de Rothsay had sufficient ascendancy in the Carlton
Club, to persuade their colleagues that this young
scion of the Dutch merchant would be more accept-
able to the electors, on account of their predilec-
tions for the Dutch cause ? We suppose Mr. Diddle
will make an appropriate speech in his favour at the
nomination. Orange ribbons will, doubtless, be the
colours, and Orange Bnven the watchword of the
party.—Morning Chronicle.
The petitions to both Houses of Parliament,
urging the necessity of poor laws for Ireland, have,
we learn, the signatures of the wealthiest, most in-
telligent, and influential of the Irish gentry and mer-
chants. The first name, as we noticed on Satur-
day, is that of the Duke of Leinster. These peti-
tions will bring the matter to an issue. From what
we hear, the conviction has almost become universal,
that a poor law must he passed, and that with as
little delay as possible. We need hardly observe
that that information from Ireland is highly gratify-
ing to us. The people of England, however
much they may be satisfied of the necessity of
each a measure, naturally wish that the demand may
first come from the Irish themselves. We are quite
convinced that as soon as slavery ceases in a country
and the proprietors of land are no longer bound to
maintain their aged and infirm labourers, a provision
for the poor becomes indispensable, if it be wished to
maintain peace and order. Vagrancy and mendicity
are incompatible with all improvement. The Irish
are at present literally a nation of beggars. Whole
families of beggars are continually roaming about the
country. This must once for all be put an
end to. The Irishman must have a parish and
a home. The accounts of outrages given by
Mr. Stanley are most appalling. But we are
assured by those who know Ireland well that
there is scarcely one of the outrages alluded to by
Ministers that cannot be distinctly traced to conten-
tion for land, or rather for the means of existence,
which are dependent on the possession of a piece of
land. Why not, therefore, at once go to the root of
the evil ? We often boast of the advantages we
enjoy compared with the people of other countries.
But we have no hesitation in saying that there is
no one country in Europe in which the great
body of the people are so miserable as in Ire-
land. Compare, for instance, the condition of the
Austrian peasant with that of the Irish peasant.
In the hereditary State. of Austria, the peasant
is what in the North of England would be called a
statesman. Ile is proprietor of his house and
ground, subject to the payment of certain services,
and a fixed fee-farm rent, called in the country
Canon, and he cannot he dispossessed if he do not
allow his rent to be three years in arrear, or allow
his land to remain three years waste. In a work in
three octavo volumes, on the agriculture of Austria,
published at Vienna, a detailed account is given of
the relations of gentry and peasants in the different
states. _Nothing can equal the anxiety displayed by
the Government to render the condition of the pea-
santry comfortable. In tile hereditary states, as we
have already observed, the peasantry may be deemed
owners of the soil. But it is curious to hear the
language of the Austrian writer, when describing
the condition of the peasantry in Gallicia and Hun-
gary. He speaks of the circumstance of the peasant
not_!)elli the 10,her even of a house, as beyond
" In Gallicia (he says) the
before he. came under the mild
.e of Austria. But serk itude is
id even in Gallicia, With respect

to property in the soil, there is there great diversity
among the peasantry. The inhabitants of towns,
who have themselves built or purchased their
houses, are proprietors of them, and can sell
them. The peasants who possess houses of their
own can do the same thing. But the greater
part of the Gallician peasanty have no property either
in their houses or land, and both belong to the land-
lord. The peasantry cannot build houses, and can-
not purchase land or property, though the law allows
it. The peasantry are generally what is called
colonists, and the following regulation exists with
regard to them. The landlord cannot remove them
from their possessions without showing sufficient
cause to the Judge of the district, and their children
succeed to them as a matter of course, if they are
industrious and orderly. On the other hand, the
peasant can only quit his possession with consent of
the landlord, and after presenting to him an avail-
able colonist to supply his place. In Hungary the
peasant has no property in the land—even the
ground on which he has built his house, at his own
cost,beiongs to the landlord. The peasant is merely the
owner of the fruits of his industry. For the ground
on which his house stands .he pays a small yearly
money rent, generally one florin for every building ;
and for the land he pays either a fixed money rent,
or he must deliver to the landlord the ninth or tenth
part of the crop and perform services. As the
landlord is always the owner of the soil, and the
peasant is merely a farmer for an indefinite period,
the' Hungarian peasantry were formerly very de-
pendent on the caprice of the landlords. But the
new laws have also provided in Hungary for the
peasantry. The landlord is only allowed to deprive
the peasant of his house and farm in certain defined
cases. And, in such cases, the house of the pea-
sant is valued, and the sum paid to him, and lie
receives also compensation for any improvements
he has made on the farm. One of the cases de-
fined by law as sufficient to justify resumption of
the house and land, is when the landlord himself
requires them for his own use. So long as this
rule exists in Hungary, and that with regard to the
colonists in Gallicia, so long will both countries be
in a backward state. It is, therefore, greatly to
be wished, that the landlords would grant to the
colonists and peasants the property of their farm-
houses and farms. Were they to place things on
the footing on which they have been for time im-
memorial in the Archduchy of Austria, they would
make their peasants happy, promote their prosperity,
and contribute powerfully to the welfare of the State."
Flow happy would an Irish peasant be, if the Govern-
ment of this country had placed him in the situa-
tion of the peasantry of Hungary and Gallicia,
deemed so deplorable by this Austrian writer. The
degree of misery of the Irish peasantry could not
even enter into the conception of any man on the
continent, It is high time that we should endea-
vour to free ourselves from the reproach of having
a nation of peasant-beggars, the most miserable of
all the nations of Europe. If you enter the house
of a German peasant, you every where see substan-
tial comforts; in Ireland, the cabin is worse than
the wig-wam of the savage.—Morning Chronicle.
The necessity of some provision for the poor of
Ireland, not dependent on the caprice of individual
charity, or on the compunction of those through
whose selfishness and cupidity the numbers of the
Irish poor have been so greatly multiplied, and their
sufferings so grievously enhanced,—that necessity
has been too often dwelt upon in this journal to
leave our readers in any doubt as to the earnestness
and consistency of the views we entertain in favour
of a poor law system for Ireland. To the vulgar,
and in may cases the insincere objection, that the
establishment of and Irish poor law would ental
upon Ireland all the abuses and abominations
which we experience from the working of the
poor laws here, it is quite enough to ask, why,
together e ith the prieciple, should we adopt the'
known abuses attending the execution of the
present law of settlement, or the dishonest
practice of helping to pay labourers out of the
total which has by law been set apart for paupers ?
The last mentioned perversion of the poor law ss-
iem is intolerable. It deceives the country as to the
real amount of money applied to the relief of pail.
peri•m, by lumping up with it many hundred thou-
sand pounds a-year which are actually disbursed
that farmers may be enabled to pay high rents
through an unnatural reduction of the expense of
cultivating their lands. It abridges the fair price of
the active labourer's toil,—of the man who, if left
to himself, would spurn the acceptance of relief from
the parsh ; and, like every other abuse and fraud
annexed to the modern management of the agricul-
tural system, is made subservient to the interests of
the landlords, who, in their capacity of magistrates,
have introduced and carried on this most pernicious
corruption of the poor law institution. We subjoin
an extract from the article of Fraser's Magazine al-
itHed to in our Saturday's journal, which, though it
goes only to the opening principles of the question,
contains too many novel and striking remarks to be
with propriety overlooked.
" The grand fundamental principle with the political
economists' is, that the people are too numerous, and that
it is an inherent vice or misfortune of the species to in-
crease beyond the means of subsistence. Their plans,
therefore, (or the amelioration of the condition of the
poor always begin with some scheme for keeping down
the numbers of the people ; for preventing their increase;
for limiting the growth of the population. The favourite
notion with them is, tl at the poor laws act as ' a pre-
mium on population ;' and that, consequently, the first
and most imperative duty upon the Legislature is to pro-
vide for their repeal. To the consideration of this great
preliminary question we have devoted the first three
papers of the present series, and we trust that we have
there shown the utter groundlessness and irrationality of
the whole scheme. Our path now lies onwards. If we
have at all succeeded in showing that the plans of these
gentry
ust are
oproc e
.eedaiiyr
in
ntihca and
el
devea us
development of
h the way is clear
principles and
autlplafonrs
of a more philosophical and practical nature.
" A surplus population, proceeding from natural and
necessary causes, we utterly deny : we deny its exise
retire in the present case; we question its possibility in
any other. But a surplus of labour in the market is
a fact which it would be useless and absurd to dis-
pute. The most important point to be considered is,
how that surplus was produced. It will not do, merely
because we find an excess of labourers at the present mo-
ment, to charge that excess upon God and nature, and to
treat it as an evil azainst which legislators ought to pro-
vide. The natural cupidity and selfishness of man, in-
,.eed, if left unchecked by the power of the law, will
soon produce this very surplus ; and in this way it may
be called a natural evil. But, then, it is obvious that it
is the selfishness and cupidity of man, and not the laws
of human increase, against which you have to provide.
If this is not done, if no protection is given to industry,
an apparent glut of hands will soon be brought about by
the power of capital. This may be effected in a variety
of ways. You may import workmen from other coun-
tries, because you can get them cheaper. This naturally
tends to take employment out of the hands of the resident
population, and to cause an apparent surplus of labourers.
Or you may press infants into your service, as requiring
smaller wages; and, by making children do the work of
men, you may throw the parents out of employment, and
thus, also, produce an excess in the market of labour.
Or you may encourage a competition with the labourers
of other and cheaper countries, and by that competition
you may drive wages down so low, as to oblige the work-
man to strive to do two days' work in one day, or the work
of two men with a single pair of hands. In this way.
also, you may throw multitudes of hands upon the market,
and produce the surplus of which you complain. By
either of these schemes, or by all of them, or by others
that might be named, it is quite easy to render a popula-
tion apparently too large, and to overstock the market of
labour ; and yet it is quite clear that neither God not
nature are responsible for the excess, but that that excess
is plainly atributabte to the schemes and operations of
men, and to them alone.
" Admitting, then, the fact of a surplus of labourers in
the market at the present moment, but denying altogether
that that surplus has been produced by merely natural
causes, or is chargeable upon the principle of human in
crease,' it becomes our duty to point out some of the lead.
log causes which have produced this state of things; and
thus at the same time to indicate the appropriate remedies
for the evil.
" We have already briefly adverted to two or three of
these causes, neither the existence nor the operation of
which can for a moment be doubted. Tory are—
" 1. The forcible attraction into this country of large

bodies of half-starved labourers from Ireland, who wit
only throw out of occupation an equal number of English
labourers, but also reduce, by their competition, the wages
of those who are still able to retain employment. We call
this a forcible attraction, because so long as an unequal
law exists,—a law which administers relief to the indigent
in one country, and denies it in another,—so long must
that part of the community which feels the pre%sure of in-
digenee, or fears its approach, flock out of that district
which denies relief, into that which affords it.
" 2. The change which the cupidity of manufacturers
is continually striving to effect, by substituting the
labour of children for the labour of men. New ma.
chinery is now constantly being invented, with the
especial view of employing children at 3s. or 4s. a week,
instead of men at 18s. or 20s. Thus, throughout
the manufacturing districts the most frightful change
is going on ;—mien and women, able and willing to
work, being discharged, and their children, even at
six and seven years of age, being constrained to give up the
employments and the sports of youth to labour in a factory
for 14 or 15 hours a-day, in order to support their own
parents ! We say constrained, for if the discharged work.
man goes to the parish overseers for relief, he is instantly
asked ' Have you any children ? If you have, you must
send them to the factories ; we shall give you no relief
here !

" 3. The effect of bringing into the English market the
goods manufactured at Lyons and other seats of continental
manufactures. The poor creatures employed in those
places are now working, as is well known, at 6d. or Id.
a-day. Obviously, therefore, those goods cannot be ri-
valled, at equal prices, in oar own markets, if our Eng-
lish weavers are to he paid 3s. or 4s. a-day. The master-
manufacturers, seeing this, immediately reduce the wages
of their workmen. The workmen being paid by the
piece, struggle to make up their losses by doing more
work. The poor man who knows not how to keep his
wife and children in any comfort on less than his accus-
tomed earnings, will, if prices be reduced one third, in-
stantly increase his day's labour accordingly, and will pro-
duce one-third more work than before. Here, then, we
find two men doing the work of three; and very soon the
natural effect is telt in a glut of the commodity ; a la, gt.
number of the hands ate thrown out of work, and a fresh
outcry is raised about surplus population.
" The first of these three points will fully occupy our
attention on the present occasion. The question of the
establishment of poor laws in Ireland, though it be one
on which men have now very generally made up their
minds, is yet not one which can be dismissed in a fete
sentences."—Tunes.

The subject of Irish poor laws has made rapid pro-
gress within the last few weeks. Whether the internal
state of Ireland be alone considered, or the dreadful
destitution of the Irish labouring classes be looked
at in relation to its effect upon the British labour
market, and consequently to its aggravating influence
upon the pressure of the poor rates amongst our-
selves, there is, perhaps, no single question which
demands more earnest inquiry, and more prompt ad-
justment, than this of a provision for such of the
poor of Ireland as are in no wise accessory to their
own unemployed and helpless state, and have no
means of relief from nakedness arid hunger but that
which may by law be afforded them out of the public
purse. We have often declared our own strong
feelings upon the sacred obligation of legislating
courageously for the rescue of the Irish peasantry
front their forlorn condition, were it merely a ques-
tion of indisputable justice between one Irishman
and anti, htr. A vicious and inhuman system, the
growth of ages, for which no class of exiting indi-
viduals—for which, in irs full extent, no one gene-
ration ought to bear the exclusive blame, has checked
he progress of social improvement in Ireland, and
has withered, among her poor inhabitants, all that
relish for the decencies of life which may be
esteemed the expression, the outward proof and mea-
sure of the civilized character. Of this, excessive
poverty is in a considerable degiee at once effect
and cause, oh hough, undoubtedly, other ill effects
proceed from it, as it is likewtse ascribable
to other pernicious causes. Incurable indi-
gence creates a sort of de-perdte resignation
to most concomitant and secondary evils. The
pinching want of to-day stifles all remote anxieties,
and the hope of gradually bettering his fortunes,
finds no room in the spirit of the crushed and
harassed wretch, who may have to beg the next
meal's potatoes, or lie down suppeiless on his bed
of straw. Such a population exhibits few or none
of those tastes and desires which lift mankind above
the lower animals. They are satisfied to take and
till the rand without any recompense for unremitting
toil beyond the bare privilege of existing. They
take their wives as they do their land, without
dreaming that th y incur the duty, arid ought to
possess the means, of feeding arid clothing both a
female and her progeny. Hence paupers are mul-
tiplied by beggar parents, and brutalized habits
descend from father to child, the extreme of poverty
perpetuating that of barbarism, arid the latter again
unconsciously ministering to the spread of destitu-
tion. Of this national system—•we will not call
the want of virtue, crime—hut of this system one
dreadful consequence has been the indifference of
the upper classes of Irishmen (speaking of them col-
lectively) to those characteristics of the condition
of their poorer neighbours which strike every
Englishman visiting the country as most reproachful
and deplorable. An Irish nobleman orgentlemati does
not see how disgraceful to himself, in the eyes of
all foreigners, that half-starved arid half-naked hu-
man beings should occupy his ground, arid call them-
selves his tenants, not a stone's throw from the man-
sion gates within which he revels in the abundance
of exotic luxury. The poor Irishman, however
keenly he may feel his privations, is ignorant of
his own defects ; but the rich one has become blind
to the miseries of his dependant, from the inveterate
habit of overlooking them. The unfortunate crea-
tures, with nothing to lose, are ripe for all occa-
sions of outrage end disturbance. They cannot half
comprehend the true and immediate sources of their
own degraded state, viz., the disproportion between
hands and employment ; and that between the mar-
ket, and the equitable, rent of land ; or, in other
words, between what they offer for it, and what
the landlord ought, in prudence and humanity, to
accept of. In the twilight of their understand-
ings they conjure up a thousand fantastic shapes
and sorts of enemies on whom to be revenged,
—clergy, proctors, policemen, Scotch anti Eng-
lish land-stewards in the service of gentlemen,
who employ such agents for the sake of agri-
cultural improvement. Upon these the unhappy
people make war, exasperwed by the constant pres-
sure of a mass of misery, of the real causes of which,
as we have said, they possess no clear conception,
and they are ready for all and every mischief that
may be proposed to them, Now it is equally evi•
dent that such a devastation of the best interests of
political society ought riot to be endured one mo-
ment after a remedy—even a partial one—can be
found for it ; arid that so long as some remedy shall
be withheld, the evil must go on accelerating and
extending, while the people multiply, arid the
demand for labour is in the same ratio diminished.
We have not now time to cennect the English part
of this question with that which belongs to the inter-
nal condition of Ireland. It is plain that almost
every representative for towns and counties through-
out Great Britain has become by this time sensible
how deeply the condition of our native poor, and the
burden of those immense sums which are annually
aised for their benefit, have been produced and ag-
gravated by the tremendous influx of Irish emigrants
upon the labour-market here. That is the English
side of the question, and how it has been left un-
settled to this late period is more than we can ac-
count for. Nothing—nothing but some measure in
the character of a poor law for Ireland, aided by a
4eneral arid efficient plan of education, can by pos-
sibility restore things to their natural course, either
is relates to the improvement and tranquillity of the
Irish in their own country, or to the release of Eng-
attid from their visitations. Is it rational to iron-
thine that when the poor are provided for on one side
of the Channel arid riot on the other, they will re-
main where they find no help, and forbear to congre-
4ate on the spot where food arid clothing await
them ? It indicates an important stride in the ad-
vance of right feeling on the Irish side of the Chan-
usl that petitions for the introduction of poor laws
olio Ireland are now receiving signatures in Dublin,
and that some Irish names of the highest rank have
been affixed to them. The object proposed by the

petitioners in this instance is strictly, and perhaps
not imprudently, limited to a provision of the
means of existence for " the imbecile, the
disabled, and the destitute ; " under which
denominations may, of coarse, be comprised
those of helpless infancy, age, and sickness. We
are not sure that at first it would be wise to em-
brace a larger field of beneficence in an entirely
novel measure. If the condition of the unemployed
peasant and his family be neglected, he and they
will soon appertain to the class of " disabled" or
diseased, through hunger; so that, under such a
measure, the one grand purpose would infallibly be
accomplished of compelling the landed proprietors to
examine, for their own sakes, into the situation of
the neighbouring peasantry, and to irtvent their be-
coming paupers, chargeable on their respective pa-
rishes for support. As for difficulties in the first
arrangement of a poor-law system, there is no ques-
tion that the country must lay its account with
them, as well as judging by English experience in
their subsequent administration. All we insist on
is, that none of the difficulties or evils attendant On
a poor law for Ireland would be comparable to
those incurred through the want of it. No evil is
equivalent to the starvation of human beings,—and
no task so difficult as that of restoring them to life.
It is now quite clear, that the cause of humanity
and of enlightened policy is destined to achieve at
no distant day this signal and glorious triumph.
Since this was written we have seen an able and
useful article in Fraser's Magazine for the present
month on the subject, to some passages of which, at
the earliest day, we shall draw the attention of our
readers. In the mean time, if Irish Members of
Parliament combine to shuffle off the support of
their own poor upon the overloaded shoulders of
this country, let the representatives of England re-
collect that they too have votes, and are answerable for
the money of their constituents.—Times (Saturday).
No proposition can be more clearly demonstrated
to our mind than that the task which Mr. Wilson
Patten has undertaken must fail, because the feel-
ings and opinions of the community at large are
working in an opposite direction. Our contempo.
rary, the Standard, never backward in the vindica-
tion of humanity, has denounced, with a brilliant
and moral indignation, the notion that " ten hours
a day are not enough to labour infants in an at-
mosphere heated from 80 to 110 degrees." We
join heartily in the denouncement of such an as-
sumption ; but we cannot suppose, with our con•
temporary, that Mr. Patten, when he gave notice
of his motion for the appointment of a Parliamentary
Commission, did so with his eyes open to the real
tendency of the proceeding. Had he been aware
of what he was about, when he asked for the ap-
pointment of a Commission; had he been aware that
the effect of his motion, if cartied, would be to
postpone, if not to defeat, the adoption of the Ten
Flouts' Bill, for which the nation is at this moment
calling out with one voice, it is scarcely possible to
conceive that he would have had the rashness, the
vanity, or the madness, to attempt what all the elo-
quence of Burke could not accomplish—the over-
throw of a good cause, supported by the advocacy
of a whole people. No : the Honourable Member
must have been duped by interested persons,
who would not hesitate to sacrfice him to
any attempt, however desperate, which promised
to favour their speculations. If so, it is time that
he should open his eyes, and consider in good earnest
what it is that he is about to persuade the Legislature
to sanction, when he requires the appointment of a
Commission, after such evidence as has been already
produced. The appointment of a Commission, be
it observed, is the appointment of a new and a dif-
ferent tribunal ro try the cause over again. Now,
why should it be tried over again ? Was not a
Secret Committee of the Hou-e of Commons a
compe•eat tribunal ? Was not the evidence el cued
in that Committee of a nature to produce convic-
tion ? We appeal to the effect. Never was a
stronger, a more universal impression, made upon
the mind of any country than has been made
by the evidence to which we allude. No one
can maintain for an instant that the evidence
requires to be strengthened. Then what does
it require ? and why are we to change our pro-
cess of investigation from a Committee to a
Commission ? Is it in the hope that one
tribunal may be more easily managed than an-
other? That a Commission may be more easily ma-
naged—that is, deceived, we can prove by a refe-
rence to evidence already before the public; but it
will be for the public, or for the House of Com-
mons, in the first instance, to decide whether the
proof of such a fact does argue rather against the
change than in favour of it. Suppose the Com-
mission appointed. Can their personal inspection
of the mills, for any specified number of visits, afford
such conclusive evidence of their real state as the
testimony of witnesses who have passed their lives
within them ? The following extract, from the re-
port of the Committee, will throw some light on
this part of the subject :
" Evidence of Eliza Marshall, of Leeds, page 150, May
26, 1832 :
" S ate whether when your mill (Nlr. Wirburton's)
has been shown, or when people have come to look at it,
there has not been a deal of preparat:on before it has been
seen by a stranger ?—Yes, there has.
" Have any other mills been prepared for people coming
to them, to your knowledge?—We live in Leeds, at the
Bank, nearly opposite Holdforth's silk, mill : there was a
Parliament Gentleman going on the Saturday, and the
children kept on till twelve o'clock on the Friday night,
and then they had an hour given them on the morning of
Saturday to go and dress themselves."
The evidence of Stephen Binns, of Leeds, in
page 193, is to the same effect, as also that of Mr.
John Hannam, page 287, and Mr. Alexander Dean,
page 381. If we had room we would give inser-
tion to their different statements, to show how the
vigilance of a Commission may be defeated the mo-
ment it is known to be on the look-out. In short,
nothing can he more obvious than that the game
which the concoctors of this plan (amongst whom
we do not reckon Mr. Patten) have in view is to
defeat the Ten Hours' Bill, by contriving to put a
new face on the matter. For this purpose they find
it necessary to get up a new machinery—at least, a
different one from that of the Committee, the work-
ing and production of which has been so little to
their satisfaction. Should Mr. Patten persist in his
motion, after having been warned of the ground
upon which he treads, we shall only say that those
must be friends who can pity him, and those must
be fools who can envy him the figure he is likely to
make.—Morning Herald.

Pending the discussion upon the Bill for the sup-
pression of the Irish disturbances we have withheld
ow selves from any observations upon the measure
threatened by the Goveinment for the reform of
the Irish Church. We have placed this restraint
upon ourselves because we were unwilling -to aug-
ment the perplexities with which the one subject
was surrounded by a suggestion of the difficulties
which must soon be found to beset the other. 'We
could not echo the cant which was poured forth by
the Ministers and their friends, that concession
must accompany rigout—that indulgence must go
hand in hand with reproof. Both of the Bills may
be good; both may be bad. In either case each is
independently good or independently bad. He were
but a sorry reasoner who should announce that he
would not punish murder if he could not extinguish
tithes—that he would not coerce Whitefeet if he
could not abolish Bishops. 'We examine, then, Lord
Althorp's proposed scheme for the reform of
the Irish Church, not as a price which we must
needs pay for the adoption of a measure
of necessary severity, not as the preliminary
condition upon the accep'ance of which we
may save cattle from being houghed and witnesses
from being burned in their beds ; but as a substan-
tive plan of amelioration which must be sanctioned
or condemned upon its own merits or its own de-
fects. Thus examining it we solemnly protest
against the principle of the intended changes. That
principle, however darkly it may be disguised, how-
ever astutely it may be defended, is a principle which
legalizes spoliation. It directly and immediately
confiscates the property and degrades the dignity of

the Church. It makes Protestantism lest! wealthy I
and less powerful than she was before. It strikes
a weapon from the hand of truth, and places it in
the grasp of falsehood, without removing one of
those causes of quarrel which makes their strife so
deadly. If there were no truth in what we are
urging, the triumphant enemy of our religion and
our law would not have exulted so proudly at Lord
Altherp's statement. " The alteration," cried Mr.
O'Connell, and he has frequently repeated the cry,
" will effect little good ; but it will establish a large
principle." What prbiciple can Mr. O'Connell
applaud which Mr. Stanley should not condemn ?
We are not going, however, to rest our rept', bt-
tion of the scheme upon the praises which the most
dangerous man in the kingdom has bestowed upon
it. Let us scrutinize one by one the innovations
we are called upon to admit, and inquire how far
each is consistent with the expediency or with
jo-tice. Ten Bishoprics arc to be abolished. We
believe the Sovereign is bound by an oath to the
support of the Protestant Church, as by law esta-
blished, in its doctrine, discipline, and government.
We do not know by what nice subtlety of speech
the Premier will convince his It.ral master that the
government of the Chu ch, as distinguished from
the discipline of the Church, can signify anything
but that external constitution with which he is now
called upon to interfere. To the curious in oaths
it may be a matter of speculation to determine how
far an engagement to support the government of
the Church is fulfilled in the extinction of nearly
half the offices to which that government is confi-
ded. We have no desire to take up the time of our
readers with a casuistry which the new lieht in which
we move has made very unfashionable. But we can-
not leave this part of our subject without remarking
that the annihilation of ten Bishoprics, like the
" total extinction of tithes," is understood by the
ignorant multitudes who shout at the men-

Lion of it in a sense very different from that in
which Lord Althorp understands it. The Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer talks of the abolition of ten
Bishoprics, and means so to solder one diocese into
another, and so to add to these revenues what it sub-
tracted from those, as that of all the existing Sees
the whole duty shall be better done, and the whole
income still collected. The patriot of the bogs hears
of the abolition of ten Bishoprics, and means to
devote to the celebration of masses or the purchase
of pikes, the coronation of the Liberator or the pay
of his Volunteers, the 100,0001. which his Black
List has taught him to take for the stipend of a
Protes'ant Prelate. The enemies of Pro estantism
will not believe Lord Althorp when he declares that
he is her friend. If they believed him they would
see in his abolition of ten Bishoprics little more than
what we see in it ourselves—causeless innovation
and profitless outrage—the fickleness which endan-
gers the stability of the house only that it may
amend the arrangement of the parlours—the reck-
lessness which knocks down the traveller only that
it may shift the purse from his left pocket to his
right.—Morning Pest.

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