The Sun.
London, England, 1834-06-16 00:00:00

,‘
the conservatives are prepared to grant a commu-
P tation ; and with regard to the appropriation of
surplus revenue, we assume that the reason
assigned by Lord Althorp for rejecting Mr. Ward's
motion—namely, the recognition of the same object
contained in the appointment of a commission of
inquiry—will insure a large majority in favour of
any clause which merely asserts the right of Parlia--
ment to direct that appropriation at itB pleasure.
So in what relates to the dissenters, it is difficult to
express the extreme and natural impatience of that
nUtherous body to ascertain the intentions of Mini-
sters. Nothing has yet been completed of all that
they have a right to look for. Mr. Brougham's bill
for the registration of births and marriages is yet in
an early stage ; and on the point of admission to
degrees in our Universities, or on the grant of a
charter for conferring such distinctions on a uni-
versity established by themselves, no assurance or
declaration of sentiment has yet proceeded from any
official personage of a nature to alleviate the dis-
contents of the non-conformist body, although upon
this point we hope and trust that Ministers will use
every drat in their power to satisfy all just expec-
tations. Even the projected boon of the church-
rate measure falls to the earth still-born, like Lord
John Russell's Marriage Act. Now, we state
plainly these facts, on which there exists out of
doors so much painful, we might say dangerous,
feeling, from no other wish than to turn to them
the attention of his Majesty's Ministers, as subjects
worthy of their most grave and earnest considera-
The necessity for such counsel will be more

tion.

apparent, if we refer to the temper which has been
recently manifested by the Opposition majority in
the House of Lords, and to the violent and mis-
chievous, though spurious impulse, which has been
given to the anti-reform spirit by the bigotted yells
of the gowned multitude at Oxford. The Con-
servatives boast that Oxford speaks the voice of
all England,—that " the • spirit of the age" has
made itself heard through the fierce acclama-
tions by which the Duke of Cumberland, for
example, was hailed at the theatre and in the
Senate-house. Terrible delusion ! fatal credu-
lity ! as they who are insane enough to act upon
it will too inevitably find. Yet act upon it, it
is said, they will ; nay, deeply as they have pledged
themselves, they can do no otherwise. And it is
not in the vain hope of warning them that we
speak, but to prepare Lord Grey and the Govern-
ment, and their supporters, for the part which it
must then become their solemn duty to perform.
There is not one of these bills for church reform,
nor one of the objects at which they aim, that will
not be frustrated by the Upper House of Parlia-

ment. The Conservatives fancy that they can go-
vern England, because they have the support of
the nonage and dotage of Oxford. That Univer-
sity is the seat of isolated barbarism amidst an ocean
of wholesome knowledge and of useful action. It is
generations behind the rest of the kingdom, and
fitter to sympathize with the monks of the Escurial
than with a free and reflecting people. Yet the
oligarch faction will take Oxford for their guide :
but in spite of all the concessions, all the manage-
ment of Ministers, the crisis will come ; it cannot
be staved off by any compromise ; the collision

must come, and come before the close of the pre-
sent session, unless the whole business of the
session, save only the tyrannical and useless
Poor Law Bill and the tax bills, be altogether
thrown aside ; the elements of the conflict
are in full and pregnant energy ; and the- care
of the government and of the nation must be, not
to restrain what is incompressible, to avert what is
unavoidable, but to see it out, and elicit good from
evil. We wait anxiously and with fear to see whether
the ministers have courage enough to meet the
crisis. Would to God that they had not expended
so much of their energy and time in carrying
through the house a measure which will render
their administration for ever odious. Their dogged
perseverance with respect to the Poor Bill is per-
fectly inconceivable. Why so eager to create an
unconstitutional power which, according to Lord
Althorp, is to do absolutely nothing ? for, according
to him, no alteration is intended in the essential
parts of the present system. But if the new cre-
ated power is to effect what certainly the commis-
sioners intended, and what the language of the bill
itself permits, if not enjoins, why so eager to do

that which must set the poor against the rich
throughout the kingdom, and must lead to general
discontent, perhaps to general tumult and insurrec-
tion ? Oh ! what folly, what blindness, to dedicate
all their time and labour to such a bill, when they
might have employed themselves in forwarding
measures which would have insured, not only their
own popularity, but general tranquillity.—Times.
We trust that the accounts which we published
of distress, amounting to partial famine, and a fail-
ure of the potatoe crop, in Ireland, are in some mea-
sure exaggerated. Indeed, the latter—the failure
of the potatoe crop—must be so, as it is much too
early in the year for such an event to be even cal-
culated upon. That the unusual drought of the
season may have checked the growth, and dimi-
nished the produce of early new potatoes, we can
readily understand ; but as great part of the main
autumnal crop is often not planted till the first or
second week in June (viz., the period of the year at
which we are now arrived), it is rather too much to
suppose that the general crop can as yet have given
any very striking indications either of failure or
success. But the most striking and anomalous
circumstance connected with all this is, that to
which we have frequently adverted, viz., that
Ireland should be at one and the same time
threatened with famine, and be a large corn-export-
ing country. Yet such, hoivever, is at all times more
or less the case; and while great part of the popula-
tion is dependant upon potatoes for their subsistence,
the real staff of life, which they themselves rear and

harvest, is sent to England to pay the extravagant
rents of untaxed absentee proprietors. Except that of
the serfs of Poland, there is scarcely any instance
of the produce of the soil not being partaken of by
those by the sweat of whose brows it is brought to
maturity ; nor can such be the case in any country
except in one where false and mistaken notions of
government guide the rulers. Ireland, though united
to England, lives, especially as far as the great mass
of its population is concerned, under different laws,
which in the one case, binds the owners and occu-
piers of the soil to provide for all who are resident
or have the remotest claim upon it ; while, in the
others, the cupidity of the absent landlord is al-
lowed to sweep away the produce to obtain a better
return at a higher market. While such a state of
things continues it is in vain not to expect that great
part of the population of Ireland will be always on
the verge of famine, and that such fearful visitations
must occasionally in reality occur. But, let the
two countries become one and the same in their
actual situation,—be governed by the same laws,—
and, above all, give the Irish population a system of
well-regulated poor laws ; and, while she would not
cease to be, in ordinary seasons, a corn-exporting
country, her landowners would be compelled to look
at home first, and humanity and common sense
would be no longer outraged by the singular and
revolting spectacle of want, famine, and disease ex-
isting in the midst of plenty.—Morning Herald.
It is reported that the discrepancies in the
speeches of the different members of the cabinet in
their respective places in parliament has produced a
declaration, signed by a large number of the hereto-
fore adherents of the government, that an explicit
statement of the policy of the new administration
collectively, as respects the church, is an indispen-
sable condition to their continued support. A
noble marquis, a member of the cabinet, is also said
to have declared that his " personal honour" re-
quirei such a declaration, and that the recent and
emphatic assurance of his Majesty to the Episcopal
Bench made such a proceeding an imperative duty
upon the part of the constitutional advisers of the
crown.—Morning Post.

" Shall I eat this loin of mutton saddle-
wise ?" said patleman." " No," said one of his
guests, " cut i oridlewise, for then I may chance to
get a bit in my mouth."—Mirror.