The Sun.
London, England, 1833-10-08 00:00:00

war did not originate in the former class of
livings. A fter being provoked by tithe-proctors,
through individual hardship, it extended by
sympathy to those parishes where tithe-proctors
had no vocation, and where hardship from tithe
exaction was, in the proper sense, unknown. But
had the whole country been under the Compo-
sition Act, there is the strongest reason for
believing that the rancour which has been excited
against the Irish Clergy would not have risen
to any fatal height, nor Ireland been thrown
into a fresh series of convulsions through such
instrumentality, or on such pretexts, as have of
late disturbed her. To Mr. Goulburn, therefore,
and his auxiliary riders upon the administration
of his nominal chief, the country has been in-
debted for the failure of that Viceroyalty to
realize a great portion of the good anticipated from
it. The scene, however, has since materially
changed. Lord Wellesley's hands are actually and
henceforth unfettered. The Goulburns and
Gregories exist no more, but as fossil remains
of the by-gone Tory world. So far from a
liberal Lord Lieutenant being now held back by
an Orange Cabinet in this country, or an Orange
Secretary in Ireland, he durst not relapse into
" ascendancy" or persecution if he would. Lord
Anglesea, an honest politician, if ever there was
one, had, we trust, no complaint to make against
Lord Grey's Cabinet. His march, as Irish
Viceroy, was in the same direction as that of
Lord Wellesley had been, though by less thorny
and obstructed paths ; and his responsibility,
therefore, heavier, but not more so, than that of
the Marquis Wellesley now is, since he now
equally incurs the obligations and enjoys the ad-
vantages of a free and unfettered agent. To this
circumstance of one liberal Lord Lieutenant
succeeding another in Ireland, under the same
Cabinet here, may be owing some portion of
the alleged indifference with which the Irish
public seems to have regarded the entrance of
Lord Wellesley upon his duties. There is no
apparent change in the principle of the Govern-
ment, and therefore no general subject of curiosity
or anxiety in the mind of the nation. Where
the only difference is between Lord A. and Lord
8., there must be something more than com-
monly calculated to strike public attention in
the personal fortune or character of the successor,
before he can create what is commonly called a
"sensation." In neither of these respects does
any novelty attach to the Marquis Wellesley :
his fortune is objected to by the tradesmen of
Dublin, as not encouraging to their passion for a
splendid Court, and the habits of seclusion which
common report assigns to him are not favour-
able to general popularity. If, however, the
noble Lord shall so discharge Ills public duties as to
tranquillize the kingdom, and to increase the con-
fidence of the peaceful and industrious in the
efficacy of the laws for the protection of life and
person, he may safely dispense with that species
of homage which is founded on a conformity to
the lighter tastes of mankind, and which con-
tributes little or nothing to the political or his-
torical estimation of a statesman. One remark
only we shall add on this occasion,—viz., that if
Lord Wellesley hopes to realize any permanent
good for the country which he is called upon to
govern, lie will by every means within his power
promote and enforce an extensive inquiry into
the relations between rich and poor in Ireland ;
for there, as we have often said, there exists, and
there will be discovered, the broad, and deep,
and enduring groundwork of Irish antipathy to
the Government—a Government which does not
provide for the poor man's wants—and to the
law, which does little to shield the weak from
oppression.—Times.
The associations for resisting the collection of
the assessed taxes are unquestionably all that the
Ministerial writers describe them. They are
confederacies which tend directly to the subver-
sion of all law, and to the destruction of all
government. Their proper and natural effect is
to introduce general anarchy, and to decompose
society into its original elements. All this is
undeniably true, as the Ministerial Journals tell
us every day. It is manifestly true also that it
is the duty of Ministers to employ all the power
that the law has placed in their hands to suppress
combinations, of which such are the inevitable
consequences, should their existence be tolerated
for any considerable period. Nor can any truth
be more evident than another of those which
our Ministerial contemporaries are labouring
strenuously to enforce at the present moment,
viz., that it is the duty of all honest men and
good subjects to discourage all such pernicious
and fatal combinations by every means in their
power. All these are propositions in which we
cordially concur with the Ministerial journals.
But there are other truths belonging to the sub-
ject, which ought not to be forgotten ; and,
as the public will certainly never be re-
' minded of these by our Ministerial contem-
poraries, we think it our duty to take care
that they be not permitted to slip entirely
out of recollection. If it be true that com-
binations to resist the law are dangerous and
destructive combinations, it is a truth not less
clear, and scarcely less important, that no such
combinations exist in Great Britain of which the
present Ministers of the Crown and their parti-
sans are not the real authors. And another
truth not less clear, and scarcely less important,
is, that the present Ministers of the Crown can-
not perform their duty as Ministers, by wielding
the power of the law against the wicked and
turbulent individuals who conspire to resist and
overthrow it, without incurring as men all the
odium and contempt that is justly due to the
basest hypocrisy, treachery, and fraud. Very
few words will suffice to explain and demonstrate
these two very important propositions. Mini-
sters, it cannot be denied, maintained themselves
in place for a my considerable period, and
forced upon a reluctant Legislature a measure
of organical change in the Constitution of the
country, by fomenting the growth and courting
the alliance of confederacies which wielded
no other weapon, and had no other weapon
to wield, than the threat of resistance to the
law. With respect to the ultimate conse-
quences of this alteration of the Constitution,
different opinions are entertained ; but the
only consequence it has yet produced, the
only consequence which Ministers took care
to secure infallibly, is that of giving the present
Ministers a firmer grasp, and an extended lease
of political power. Ministers are thus fairly
chargeable with having wilfully, advisedly, and
deliberately sown the seeds and matured the
growth, among the people of Great Britain, of
new dispositions and habits alien to their former
character ; and, of whatever offences these new
dispositions and habits are the source, of such
offences the Ministers who have so acted are
indisputably the authors. Are the present com-
binations to resist the payment of the assessed
taxes the natural offshoots, or are they not of the
combinations professing a similar purpose, with
assiduous which Ministers maintained an and
complimentary correspondence, and which the