The Sun.
London, England, 1846-05-23 00:00:00

SECOND EDITION.

timillai Oitait
LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 23, 1846.

The House of Commons were last night occupied for a
considerable time in the discussion of the notable poi nt
raised by Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN, viz., that the appointment of
the Committee of Selection in the present session Tres in-
formal and void, and that consequently they had no allth 0-
rity to require his attendance, or any of the Committee, and
that he was justified in his refusal to comply with their re-
quest. As may easily be imagined, the motion was negatil -ed
by a very large majority, the numbers being 108 to 36; a nd
of the small number who voted in the minority
many were influenced by a pity for the fate sf
the refractory Member, and an anxiety to Le enable( I
to restore him to liberty which it was feared his obstinacy
would prevent him from obtaining by any other means.
They, therefore, readily caught at a point however trivia/
and unimportant in itself, in order that, by giving him the
benefit of a doubt, they might be enabled to give effect to
their kind and benevolent feelings. How much, soever, we 1'
may respect this feeling, we think it would be much below
the dignity of the Legislature had they suffered it to prevail.
It would exhibit the House in a very humiliating light indeed
if they permitted it to :go forth to the world that
they had conducted their own affairs in so
slovenly and negligent a manner, that their authority

might be set at nought, their orders despised, and the solemn
decision of the House itself disobeyed ; and that when the
offender was at length brought to punishment, after every
possible opportunity having been afforded to him of recon-
sidering the line of conduct he had determined on, he should
escape from the consequences of his folly by showing the
error of their proceedings. It would indeed have been an un-
worthy means of escaping from the difficulty, if any such
really existed, to enter into such a compromise as
that suggested by Mr. WAKLEY, to say, we have
both been in fault, we'll now discharge you from custody,
let bygones be bygones—let us shake hands and be friends
for the future. The House were either right or wrong in the
course they adopted ; if right, and that they were anxious to
save the Hon. Member from suffering the natural conse-
quences of his own obstinacy, the far more dignified course
for them to pursue would be to say, we consider you have
been sufficiently punished in the three weeks' incarceration
you have already undergone, and we now discharge you,
having sufficiently vindicated our authority; and we trust
that the lesson may not be thrown away, but that for the
future you will act in a wiser and more becoming manner;
on the other hand, if they were wrong, and that the Hon.
Member had been unjustly punished, it would not be becom-
ing on either side that they should sneak out of their acts
and cover their injustice by such a paltry compromise. No;
they should acknowledge their fault, and as far as in them
lay take steps to repair the injustice of which they had been
guilty. We cannot, however, conceive that there was any
error in the proceedings The arguments of Mr. EsTcoußr,
Sir G. GREY, and Mr. STRCTT, distinctly proved that the
Committee were duly and properly appointed by the standing
order of the House, and that it was not competent to the House
itself to alter the constitution of that Committee until they had
in the first instance repealed that standing order. It is ma-
nifest, therefore, that if there was any irregularity, it was
that which took place in the session of 1845, when the
Rouse came to a resolution that such a Committee should be
appointed, and thereby exceeded their powers, as it had been
already constituted by the standing order, and the very
persons indicated who, by virtue of their situations as chair-
men of the Standing Orders' Committee and of the
several Sub-Committees, should constitute the Com-
mittee of Selection ; besides, had the original ap-
pointment been bad in itself, the Committee were
sanctioned and recognised by the House, who
had remitted to it the transaction of business, and by their
own resolution required them to choose the persons to serve
on the various railway Committees; but the broad and
dignified ground was that takeel by Sir GEORGE GREY, who
contended that the authority exercised by the Committee
was not material
_to the real question; that Mr. SMITH
O'BRIEN was not confined for violating any order of any
Committee of the House, but simply because he had
refused to obey an order made by the House that he
should attend a railway Committee which had been
appointed by the House. Ii there had been no
Committee of Selection in existence, the House had
made an order which one of its Members refused to obey.
That was clearly a contempt, and it was in fact for that of-
fence, and not for disobeying the orders of the Committee of
Selection, that Mr. O'BRIEN was confined. This is the true
point in which to consider the question, and as such we
stated it in our columns yesterday, some time before the
able speech of Sir GEORGE GREY was delivered. ,We can-
not now conceive why Mr. O'BRIEN should longer refrain
from making his submission to the House; he stood formerly
on the broad question of principle, that he as an Irish Member
could not, and ought not, to be required to take a part in any
proceeding in which Ireland was not in some manner in-
terested. For the sake of that principle, he avowed himself
ready to undergo any penalty the House might choose to in-
flict ; and by bringing forward another, and totally different
ground on .which he might obtain his freedom, he has vir-
tually abandoned his former position. He bas`not abided by
that which lie avowed to be his ample and sufficient justifi-
cation. We do hope that he will not now permit a mere
dogged obstinacy to prevent his bowing to the authority of that
House, which he himself, as one of its members, is as much
interested as any one in maintaining. We perceive that the
Committee on which he was appointed to act' will terminate
their sittings on Monday, and we think that there may then
be an opportunity for the House, without any sacrifice of
dignity, to release the Honourable Member from that custody
in which he was detained during the entire labours of the
Committee in which he refused to bear a part.

The preliminary skirmishing that took place in the House
of Peers on Monday and Tuesday, upon the introduction of
the Corn and Customs' Bills respectively, gives us a faint
outline of the conflict upon which their Lordships will have
to enter early in the ensuing week. As far as these glim-
merings can guide us, we do not feel much apprehension
respecting the ultimate decision to be come to upon the
Ministerial measures. On both of these occasions the Duke
of RICHMOND, as was to be anticipated, rushed to the
onslaught. On one of them only—the presentation of the
Customs' Bill—did Lord ASHBURTON offer any remarks.
The above-named Noble Lords were the only speakers of any
weight who intimated their continued opposition to the
commercial policy of the Government. Lord ASHBURTON'S
speech in Hants, delivered some time since, upon the new
measures, which were then shadowed forth as likely to
emanate from the Ministry, was freely commented upon at
that period. The impression it left upon our minds was only
to strengthen the opinions we had previously entertained in
favour of the principle of free trade in grain, and of the ad-
visability of relaxing our duties upon a variety of foreign
products. We are far from participating in his Lordship's
fears, slightly sketched as they were on Tuesday night,
respecting our colonies. His views strike us as being
meagre and selfish, quite unworthy the adoption of this great
and free country. We believe that when this branch of the
subject comes under full discussion Lord ASHBURTON will
find his match in the luminous and powerful mind of Earl
GREY. Parties are said to be generally the best judges of
their own interests, and it is worthy of recollection that, so
far as the Canadas are concerned, the latest accounts show
that those important colonists do not share in the appre-
hensions of Lord ASHBURTON.

We rejoice to have already observed some abatement of
the violence of the Duke of RXCLJMOND. Early in the ses-
sion his Grace threatened to encounter the Government
measures with every obstacle of which the forms of Parlia-
ment would admit. Nevertheless the first reading of the
Corn Bill has been permitted to pass under the flourish of
a simple protest. We rejoice, moreover, to have his Grace's
assurance that, on his part, the dignity of debate will not be
compromised by any further indulgence in personality
against the Ministry; and particularly against the Chief of
the Cabinet. Abstinence from this line of argument, and
confining themselves solely to the real merits of the Bills
before them, will best serve to secure the continuance of the
respect with which a great portion of the people are inclined
to regard the hereditary branch of the Legislature. We
have our misgivings that, however laudable may be the ex-
ample hereafter set by his Grace in this respect, it will not
be emulated by his new political ally, Lord STANLEY. To
place this nobleman under a similar restraint will be like call-
ing upon him to play in Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet
omitted by particular desire.

As a rhetorical display, we can readily imagine that his
Lordship's coming speech will gratify his audience
to the full. Lord STANLEY is, as it were, by instinct, an
accomplished orator. In all the essential characteristics of a
statesman he is lamentably deficient. He has weakened, in-
stead of strengthening, every Cabinet of which he has been
a member. Lord JOIIN RUSSELL once told the House of
Commons, that of all his colleagues the services he could dis-
pense with, with the least regret, were those of Lord STANLEY.
The last measure of significance which Lord STANLEY, when
in opposition, took under his own special protection, was one
for the registration of voters in Ireland. The majorities,
though narrow, by which it was supported, unhappily tended
to hasten the fall of Lord MELBOURNE'S Government. The
measure was, however, manfully resisted by Lord JOHN
RussELL, as its operation would manifestly have been to stint
the limited franchise of the oppressed and suffering Irish ;
and Lord STANLEY had shortly afterwards the unenviable
satisfaction of filling, till within the last few months, an im-
portant post in the succeeding Cabinet, which not only never
revived the pet offspring of his mind, but actually admitted
in Parliament, through Sir Jamas GRAHAM, that the statis-
tical inquiries, officially instituted in their Governmental ca-
pacity, fully bore out the view taken of the measure by Lord
itura Russim. This is but one of many instances that
establishes the incompetency of Lord STANLEY to be a fit
guide or counsellor upon any great measure of national
import.

It is clear from what has recently fallen from the Duke of
RICHMOND that the protectionists will stoutly labour to
argue that an appeal ought to havebeen made to the country
in November last, and ought to be made now, before the
measures they object to be permitted to become the law of
the land. They will ground their argument by asserting
that the country returned a Conservative majority to Par-
liament for the especial purpose of resisting the principles of
free trade. This assertion is easily rebutted; it is a gra-
tuitous assumption. Lord MELBOURNE went to the country
because the House of Commons, convoked under his own
auspices in 1837, had declared his Government not entitled
to their confidence. Sir R. PEEL, in moving the vote of
want of confidence, recommended it (rightly or wrongly)
upon the grounds, that year after year there had been a
falling revenue, the expenditure largely exceeding the in-
come of the country ; that our foreign relations were, in dif-
ferent parts of the globe, in an unsatisfactory state; that,
fur a long period the Ministers had been unable to carry
through certain measures which they had declared to Le
essential to the welfare of the nation ; and that, therefore,
Parliament ought not to allow them to aced with those vast
interests which, for good or fur evil, were involved in the
budget they had brought forward, when their Strength as a
Government was completely exhausted. The House of
Commons adopted this view. The country was !ailed upon
to decide whether representativestheir,iaffirmative. It is futile
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