The Sun.
London, England, 1833-02-07 00:00:00

eloquent and able a debater to weary the attention of
his hearers—and studiously, lie would say with curious
ingenuity, avoided employing a single argument directly
bearing on the question of a repeal of the Union.— ,
( Hear.) Then on yesterday also the Learned Gentleman
had given notice of not less than fourteen motions in refe-
rence to the grievances of Ireland, but not a word was to
be found on the order-hook touching a repeal of the Union.
--(Hear.) What was the fair inference from this deliberate
silence of the Learned Gentleman ? lie woeld untnincingly
answer, none other than that the Learned Gentleman
had suffered judgment to go against him by default, he
having shrunk, nay, skulked away from his own mea-
sures.—(Loud cries of " Heir.") If ever there was an
occasion which naturally led to a discussion of the repeal
question, the amendment of the Learned Gentleman last
night was that occasion ; and yet, if ever there was a
speech, as he had stated, which carefully avoided all re-
ference to the topic, it was the Learned Gentleman's able
and eloquent speech of yesterday ; therefore, it was not
from any fear of their inability to refute such arguments
as the Learned Gentleman might adduce in favour of his
project, nor from any want of faith in their own areu-
, ment, that Ministers had not long since expressed their
deliberately-formed opinions on this question. Tell them,
indeed, to wait till they had examined the petitions of the
Irish people, as if they had not already, in common with
every gentleman who took any interest in the affairs of
the country, carefully examined the subject in all its hear-
ings, and arrived at calm and sound conclusions. Why,
be himself, the least of his party, was ready comparatively,
little prepared as he was, to meet the Learned Member
for Dublin that very moment on the subject, to discuss it
inch by inch with him, and unless he greatly deceived
himself, to satisfy the House that, so far from a repeal of
the Union being a remedy for the political ills and
,cial grievances of Ireland, it would bitterly, per-
haps incurably, aggravate both.—(Loud cheers.) But,
after all, what did the Learned Gentleman and his party
mean by their watchword of " Repeal of the Legisla-
tive Union between England and Ireland?" If they
meant or really wished a complete separation_(" No"
from Mr. O'Connell), or a kind of Hibernian republic—
(" No" and " Hear")—he must say their c mduct was
comprehensible and consistent.—(Hear, hear.) But if,
as they asserted—and he did not mean for a moment to
question the sincerity of their declarations—they hoped to
see realized their project of a separate legislature under the
same Monarch, lie could only say the proposition—mark,
two independent legislatures—for if not independent they
were a mockery of the term—and one executive—was ut-
terly inconsistent with the first principles of the science of
Government.—( Hear, bear.) He presumed that when
the Learned Metrib. r for Dublin said lie meant not a sepa-
ration from the rule and government of the King of Eng-
lind, he did not in his repeal contemplate in Ireland a state
of things, relative to the British connexion, like that
which was obtained in Hanover. The King of England
was also King of Hanover ; so might he, according to the
Learned Member's project, he also King of Ireland.
Was that his exact meaning?—the same person no-
minally King, but the actual Government in an inde-
pendent legislature?—(" No," and " Hear.") Well then,
as that was not the meaning which the Learned Gentleman
attached to the term " repeal," it was but fair to suppose
that he meant an identity of executive between that which
should be in force in England, with its independent do-
mestic legislature, and, in Ireland, with its also indepen-
dent domestic legislature.—(Hear.) The House need
not be reminded that, though the King of England was
also King of Hanover, there was no identity of interest
end executive influence in the two countries. So far from
it, England night be at peace—at least neuter—with re-
spect to a state against which Hanover, as a member of the
German Diet, should have to march its contingency of
troops for the purposes of war.—(Hear. hear.) When,
therefore, the Learned Gentleman stated that he was
anxious to preserve the Sovereignty of the King of Eng-
land in Ireland, lie must be understood as also anxious to
preserve the sameness of the executive government in the
two countries—(Heat)—for otherwise his identity of mo-
narchy would be only such an identity as that just referred
to in Hanover.—(Hear, hear.) Well, then, they began
to see their way—that is, to attach some definite meaning
to the term " Repeal of the Union." The Learned Gen-
tleman meant simply two legislatures under one executive.
—(Heir, hear.) Let them, therefore, confine their ob-
servations to this dt finition. He would ask any Hon.
Member who heard him whether, without referring to the
facts, which experience furnished, he thought such a
state of things a priori possible as two legislatures—two
independent legislatures, and one executive ? He ad-
mitted that by the theory of the Constitution there might
be a double machinery, each being independent of its du-
plicate. There might, for example, be a King's Bench in
Dublin, independent of, and co-existent with, and—quoati
Ireland—co-equal with the King's Bench in London ;
but all this was plainly but a portion of the same execu-
tive jurisdiction.—(Hear.) Not so, however, any ma-
chinery which partook of the character of an indepen-
dent, co- existent, and co-equal legislature. Be the theory
of the Constitution what it might, in practice two such
independent legislatures with one executive would be a poli-
tical anomaly ; or rather, he would say, a political inipos-
sibility.—(Hear, hear.) Let them consider the practical
influence of an independent legislature upon the acts of the
executive power. By the theory of the Constitution, the
Crown was unfettered in its choice of Ministers ; the de-
claring war and the concluding peace was part of its ex-
clusive functions, and yet they knew that in practice the
Legislature exercised a very extensive influence on all these
matters. Though the King was free by the theory of die
Constitution to choose his own servants, it was well
known that practically he could not retain any Ministry
to which Parliament was hostile. In the same way,
though the negotiations of Ambassadors were constitu-
tionally slid to be exclusively under the King's control,
yet they knew how much the foreign policy of the State
was, in point of fact, determined by the voice of Parlia-
tnent.—(Hear.) Now, on the supposition implied by
the Learned Member for Dublin's project of a repeal of
the Union, he should like to know how they could, in
these instances, insure that unanimity of action between
the Legislature and the Ext-cutive which was essen-
tial to the very existence of the Government ? The
supposition, be it remembered, implied two independent
and co-existent Legislatures. Suppose that the English
House of Commons was favourable to a war, while the
Irish House of Commons declared that we should remain
at peace with some Court, at which our Ambassador had in
vain sought redress for some national grievances—(he
presumed that the Learned Gentleman did not mean that
the King of England should appoint one Ambassador to
represent him in—say France,—and the King of Ireland
another—(Hear, and a laugh)—or suppose that the Irish
Legislature determined upon impeaching the conjoint im-
perial Ambassador, while the English, on the contrary,
voted him their thanks for his diplomatic conduct on the
same occasion ; how was it possible, he would ask, that
they could go on for ten years, or for five years, or he
might say, for one year, under the same imperial Execu-
tive?—(Hear.) Was not the supposition monstrous—in
the teeth of the evidence of all history ? Did not Ireland
herself furnish a painfully instructive lesson of direct ap-
plication ? In 1782, she obtained, for the first time, time
semblance of an independent Legislature ; let the deplora-
ble 'events which, 18 years atter, led to the amalgamating
the two separate and independent Parliaments, speak for
themselves, as to the possible existence of such an anomaly.
Nut even the roost glaring corruption which was used
towards the Irish Parliaments, nor the fact that her
people were kept down by a strong military force,
could prevent the events of the 18 years subsequent to
the declaration of independence, which no man could
advert to without horror.—( Hear.) He did not mean to
sty that it required 18 years to demonstrate the ills of two
independent Legislatures acknowledging a common head or
executive functionary. In 1788 George 111. was ren-
dered, by illness, incapable of exercising the royal functions.
By the Constitution, the choice of temporaryladministrants
of those royal function, devolved upon Parliatnent. In
England, the Parliament accordingly chose the Prince of
Wales Regent, with very extensive restrictions ; while the
Parliament of Ireland chose hint Regent tvithout any re-
strictions whatever.—(Hear, hear.) It was true they
both chose the same person, but it was equally true that
the common choice was but an accident, and that
the independent Legislature of Ireland could not only have
chosen a Regent without any restrictions, contrary to the
terms of the choice of their English brethren, but any
other person they might prefer for the office.—( Hear,
hear.) And what was more, the consequences of this
difference in the condition in which the Prince of Wales
was invested with the executive functions might have gone
on till the death of George 111., should his illness have
lasted his natural life; that is, for thirty two years,
Ireland, to al! intents and purposes, would have one Re-
gent, with its independent Legislature, and England another,
and all this, too, without departing an iota from the letter
of the Constitution. Those facts spoke for themselves; he
referred to them because, he took it, they would bring the
monstrosity of a double Legislature with a single executive
home to the conviction of the Learned Gentleman and his
party. For his own part, he required no such evidence to
convince him of a fact which all history confirmed—viz.,
that it was morally, politically, and, he might add, physi-
cally impossible for two independent legislatures to co-exist
under one executive.—(Hear, her r.) The more minutely
history was examined the more would the conviction of
this important truth be strengthened, and the more would
all appearances to the contrary be deceptive. They coul J