The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-14 00:00:00

NORMANBY.

ILord Jour; RUSSELL will on Thursday even-
ing address the House of Commons. Rising to
address that assembly for the first time in his life as the
Prime Minister of this country, and, under momen-
tous circumstances of peculiar novelty, to explain
the present intentions and to expound the future
views of his Government, the occasion is one which
both Parliament and the nation at large will neces-
sarily regard with feelings of the deepest interest.
We rejoice to think that this duty will not devolve
upon Lord ;roux RUSSELL unaccompanied with
incidents calculated to give him the strongest
encouragement faithfully and firmly to fulfil
the high mission which his SOVEREIGN has called
upon him to undertake. The Premier will find him-

self this evening already surrounded by a great majo.
rity of his colleagues, who, by their acceptance a

office, had to appeal to their several constituencies for
the honour of being returned to Parliament. This
of itself will be highly gratifying. It will show the
confidence which the country imposes in the high
character of his Lordship. Almost every hour brings
us the intelligence of the unanimous return of a
member of the new Government, and this too without
the extortion of any pledge from the different candi-
dates. The country has shown, by the recent elections,
it has not forgotten that Lord JOHN'S elevation to the
Premiership was no act of his own seeking, that it
sprang from the factious conduct of a party who vi-
rulently attacked a Minister because he preferred
conversion to the dictates of reason, confirmed by the
lessons of experience, to the continuance of power,
based upon the sustentation of monopoly. There is
no doubt of many of the Ministers having been
mainly indebted for their prompt and unopposed re-

election to the candid and handsome assurance given
by Sir R. PEEL, on announcing to the Commons his
retirement from office, and since reiterated in his
written replies to public bodies, that he would give his
cordial support to his successors for the removal of
all remaining impediments to the action of free trade.
Had not this language been held without reserva-
tion, we might have seen many a protectionist can-
didate started, delusively elated with the hope of suc-
cess. But Sir R. PEEL, by his seasonable declara-
tion of his future conduct, cut this ground from under
their feet. The monopolists have thus been driven
to the convenient subterfuge, that they have only de-
layed their trial of political strength with the coun-
try, on account of our near approach to a gene-
ral election, conformably with the law re-
gulating the duration of Parliaments. The
absence of all party spirit on the various hust-
ings augurs well for our progressive civilisation.
Lord Jousi Russraa., in the City of London, Sir
Grostaz Gut, at-Devonport, not to name others,
have been unsparing in their praises of the late Primo
Minister. The protectionists would do well to
imitate these laudable examples, to abandon their

factious inspirations, and, with these, the insane hope
of fostering class interests, to the prejudice of the
general welfare of the community.
It seems, however, they are determined not to re-
main idle, and that, instead of showing themselves
manfully on the hustings, they have regaled them-
selves with a white-bait dinner at Greenwich.

From the names that have been published of those
who attended, it was in every sense a political ban-
quet. No reporter was suffered to be present. Such
an arrangement implies nothing in its favour, but
everything against it. The English hate hidden
councils. Where a body of men feel strongly for a
particular cause, and are conscious of the rectitude of
their principles, nothing in this age would be more
desiderated than that a faithful account of their pro-
ceedings, and of the sentiments they entertain, should,
by the aid of the press, be borne upon its wings
throughout the country, whose voice must ultimately
decide in favour of the adoption or rejection of the
principles espoused. It would appear that Lord
STANLEY, in the course of a long speech, enlarged
upon the necessity of maintaining, in its full inte-
grity, the Established Church in England and Ireland,
and exclaimed, " Woe to the Minister who dares to
interfere with either !" We are not aware that an
intention can be imputed to the present Government
of attempting to weaken the Established Church.
On the contrary, both Mr. MACAULAY, at Edin-
burgh, and Colonel Fox, at the Tower Hamlets,
declared themselves, in reply to questions put to
them upon this subject, opposed to a total severance
between civil and ecclesiastical affairs. It is perfectly
compatible with the full maintenance of the principle,
by which our Church and State is at present go-
verned, that the reformation of considerable abuses,
which at present disfigure the connexion, should be
effected. Lord STANLEY himself, as a member of
Lord GREY'S Go-vernment; stood 'sponsor to the
necessity of this species of reform. The state
of the Irish Church demands at this day
extensive revision. Its excrescences must be
pared down to render it a healthy and useful institu-
tion. By legislating in this spirit, we shall more
surely rivet the affections of a large body of the
Irish, and, at the same time, by freekg the Church
frem all blemish, render it a happier instrument for
accomplishing its gracious purposes.

One of the most fertile causes of the unhappy state
of Ireland, leading to bloodshed and outrage of every
description, has been the dissensions unhappily arising
out of religions differences. The taunting exhibition
of flags and banners, the playing of party tunes, the
triumphal processions commemorative of an event
which has been regarded as the forerunner and cause
of all the misery and suffering, the misgovernment
and oppression, by which our Roman Catholic brethren
in that kingdom had so long been afflicted, from
which the penal code, so long a disgrace to our sta-
tute-book, with all the long train of humiliations at-
tendant thereon, was supposed to have had its
origin, must necessarily excite the most bitter
feelings, the deepest indignation on the part of the
great majority of the people. In the olden time,
when the rule by which our sister Ireland was go
verned was, Divide et impera—in the palmy days
of Protestant ascendancy, when the mass of the po-
pulation suffered under a deep and burning sense of
the injustice to which they were subjected—
when the great body of the magistracy
were selected from the most violent parti-
zans, and the profession of Orange principles
was looked on as a necessary qualification for the
aspirant to a seat on the bench of justice, those
offensive periodical exhibitions were sanctioned and
fostered by the authorities ; the outrages committed
by the Orange party were connived at, or so le-
niently dealt with, as to impress them with a sense
of perfect impunity, ao matter how atrocious their
conduct might be, or how great the insults or pro-
vocation they might offer to the persons or the
religion of the vast majority of their countrymen.
Wherever the parties were at all equally balanced,
the excited and indignant people got up counter-
processions, and a conflict was sure to be the result of
the meeting between the opposing parties ; from
thence sprung strife and feelings of the most embit-

tered hostility between those who were neighbours,
and ought to have been friends, and no opportunity
was lost of giving vent and expression to those feel-
ings, until scarcely a fair or market could be held in
the neighbourhood without being disgraced by one of
the faction fights, in which too frequently lives were
sacrificed, and riot and bloodshed affixed a stain
on the locality and the characters of its inhabi-
tants. The matter was perhaps still worse in
those districts in which the Roman Catholic parties,
were too weak to venture on an open resistance, they
watched the processions with moody looks and
lowering brows, and curses not loud, but deep, and
intensely bitter, attended its progress. They asso-
ciated together in secret and illegal societies; they
sought not redress from the law, in the administration
of which they had no confidence ; but fearful and
harrowing outrages effected on the persons or proper-
ties of those whom they looked upon as their perse-
cutors and oppressors, bore terrible evidence that they
indulged themselves fully in the wild justice of re-
venge. Each party became doubly exasperated, and
looked on the other as its natural enemy, on whom it
would be criminal to let slip any opportunity of
retaliation, and thus a kind of civil war sprung up
which had its source in those silly and unmeaning
exhibitions.

Subsequently, when our brethren were admitted
to the enjoyment of civil rights, and the penal code
was swept away from our statute-book, or at least its
provisions became obsolete, although many insulting
and vexatious laws still were suffered to remain until
this present year, the greateit exertions were made
by the Liberal Government to put an end to these
processions, to terminate all party exhibitions, the
" teterrima causa belli." The Orange Association was
included amongst the secret societies which were de
clared to be illegal, and its leaders and principal
members seceded therefrom, and declared the disso-
lution of the society. Unfortunately all did not obey
the direction and follow the dictates of those leaders,
but the body was new modelled, and new rules and
regulations were adopted for its governance, by which
it was kept without the pale of the law. The Parties'
Procession Act, too, and the active and stringent
measures adopted by the Government, had their effect
in mitigating the evil, and, to a certain extent, stop
ping the proceedings, but " the snake was scotched,
not killed ;" and it is with the deepest regret we have
observed that, notwithstanding the express and urgent
entreaties of the more prudent and respectable mem-
bers of the body, it has been determined that the pro-
cessions this year shall take place, and this very day
has been selected for the purpose. We trust much
to the firmness and discretion of the new Government.
We doubt not that all will be done to lessen the dis-
astrous consequences of the meetings, and to bring
to ample and condign punishment all persons by whom
the majesty of the law may be offended and the
peace of the country disturbed. We ;I'so trust
much to the effect of the good advice
which has been given by Mr. O'CONNELL
and the leaders of the Roman Catholic party to the
people. They can now well afford to treat with silent
contempt and to laugh at such silly exhibitions.
They have a Government determined to deal out im-
partial j ustice to all, without distinction of religion ; they
have the most honoured professors of their own creed
receiving the most flattering marks of the confidence
of the Crown, selected for the most honourable posi-
tions
on the bench of justice, the confidential advisers
of the Government, many of them members of the
Ministry; they have had the evident gratification of
hearing from the most influential leaders of all par-
ties that the principle on which Ireland is hencefor-
ward to be governed is a perfect equality with
England in her civil, municipal,- and political
institutions. Looking at it in this point of
view, the procession may be considered as a funeral
pageant—the celebration of the obsequies of deceased
ascendancy. The man who would think it worth his
while to offer an opposition, by provoking a hostile
encounter, in which blood might be spilled, must be
looked on as being guilty of equal folly and wicked-
ness with the provoking party. We cannot close our
observations without noticing and paying the tribute
of our admiration to the able and eloquent observa-
tions of Mr. Justice CRAMPTON, on this subject, when
opening the commission at Armagh, on Wednesday
last. We trust that they will be attentively read and
fully considered, and that they may induce many to
pause ere they consent to take a part in such an ob-
jectionable and improper proceeding.

Though we are not disposed to sympathise in that
frivolous alertness which has latterly prompted the
Paris journals to analyse the intentions of public
dinner parties—and which alertness has particularly
manifested itself among those newspapers in some
very acrimonious animadversions upon the Waterloo
Banquet and the entertainment given at the Reform
Club to his Highness IBRAHIM Pacua—we are
prompted, nevertheless, to advert to a remarkable
dinner which has recently occurred within the boun-
daries of the metropolis. Towards the conclusion of
last week the LORD MAYOR of London, departing
from the usual etiquette of his predecessors, received,
as guests to a magnificent collation, a vast number of
those among our contemporaries who have, in any
especial manner, distinguished themselves either in
science or literature. In rendering this tribute of
gratitude and encouragement to the labours of intel-
lect, we conceive that his Lordship has imparted to
his mayoralty a character which must ever render it
conspicuous in the civic annals. He has testified by
this act of spontaneous hospitality the intimate con-
nexion which subsists between the counting-house and
the studio, the laboratory and the dock-yard ; he has
by an especial act, as Chief Magistrate of the capital of
England, evinced his appreciation of the truth which
was uttered upon this occasion by the Marquis of
NORTHAMPTON, namely, "the extreme importance
of science and literature in a commercial and trading
country." So intimately are these interests associated,
that, without their co-operation with each other, both
must long since have languished and become utterly
extinguished. Without the experiments undertaken
by JAMES WATT in mechanics, pneumatics, and other
branches of natural philosophy, where would have
been those facilities of communication which promote
the industry, the comfort; and the civilisation of the
human family ? Without the aid of literary weapons
—first adventured by the catechisms on political
economy by Colonel PEYRONET THOMPSON and the
nervous rhymes of EBENEZER ELLIOTT, and after-
( wards diffused throughout the length and breadth of
the land by the periodical tracts of the League
—where at this moment would be the prospects
of a free-trade policy in England ? Or,
going back to a more remote and primitive
example, what would be the condition of agriculture
but for the ingenuity of TUBAL CAIN ? Or wherein
could navigation have acquired any stability, savinp;
in the discovery of the magnetic power, and the in-
vention deduciole therefrom in the mariner's corn-
pass; or, still further, in the prosecution of a yet lof-
tier study, the science of astronomy ? It w`reuld be
preposterous, in short, to enter upon any detailed or
systematic exposition of the mutual ties which tend

to fraternise commerce and literature, science and
manual industry. The marvellous connecting bands
which associate these great systems of action with each
other form the very nerves of that vast and
complicated machine—Society. Never, indeed, were
these facts more conspicuously attested than in this
wonderful epoch when the rarest treasures of each
are being incessantly exchanged for their greater
development. Nor were these treasures ever
lavished in any country with such extraordi-
lnaanrdy, afonrd
ibnenetfibcisentislapnrdodigbaal%i,ety
baesen o
inprd
' Euncged.
the most astonishing mechanisms of manufacture,
in this island steam power first revealed its
giant form, and in this island the blessings of an un-
restricted trade have been first conferred upon the
population on a gigantic scale. Hence it is to us a
peculiar and exceeding source of gratification to
observe the respect thus testified to philoso-
phy and authorcraft by the highest func-
tionary in the greatest city in the empire. As
science and literature are so subsidiary to the ina!rests
of the commercial community, it is,but just that the
latter should be subsidiary to the' representatives of
the former in the expression of its gratitude.
As it does not appear to tally with the
arrangements of the Legislature and the Peerage
to encourage science and literature by elevating their
most illustrious worshippers to the aristocracy, surely
it is a gratifying incident to observe the tribute paid
to such men by the LORD MAYOR of London in