The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-16 00:00:00

TIIE SUN, LON DON, -W-E-DN ES DA Y EV

troops, spite of all mismanagement victorious,
but the country was not beaten. ft
was much more ready to go on than to stop. It
would not desert its great ally, otherwise it would
rather have fought alone than draw out its gun-
boats merely for a naval parade.
We freely acknowledge in this sense that we
may feel proud of our resources, though we have
hitherto squandered them but sadly. Notwith-
standing that stupid and reckless waste, yet here
we stand unwilling to believe that peace is really
concluded..: We want neither money, men, ships,
nor ammunition. We have more of all than at
the beginning of the War. We have put forth
our strength clumsily in the first instance, but
we meant to make every stroke tell next cam-
paign. England presents an imposing aspect
by the side of her ally. She gives in to
please him ; she has gone to war in com-
pany with a partner, and she will not press
it to the inconvenience of her partner. She re-
tires very reluctantly. She draws back, as it
were, ready for a spring. France retreats for
repose. France is weary ; England can scarcely
restrain her vigour. The Government, not the
country, has made the peace here. There, in all
probability, Imperial purposes and popular wishes
were coincident in their immediate object.

But the true end of the War has not been ob-
tained. That is the real reason why we so un-
willingly desist. We are a practical people, and
we see that the Peace is a sham. It has done
nothing for any of the Peoples of Europe ; it has
merely enabled despots to swing at their ease a
little longer. It is a Peace branded with the in-
famy of Austrian occupation of the Principalities,
and with Hungary and Italy ground beneath her
hated and savage rule. Worse than all, it has
left the arch-enemy with his fortresses in
the very bosom of civilised Europe.
We hold it to be the eternal disgrace
of the Paris Plenipotentiaries, that they did not
lay down as their first condition—No peace till
Russia withdraws from all that desires to re-unite
under the name of Poland. We question, though
some will smile, whether Russia and the German
despots dared have resisted ; certain we are that,
had France had half the courage of England,
and half the love of freedom, ALEXANDER 11.
mint have disgorged what it was the infamy of
Europe to concede to ALEXANDER I. in 1815.
Another year of war would have been ruin to
Russia, and Russia knew it. There was no need
to wrong her, but to right the Poles was the evi-
dent and the only efficient security on which the
Western Powers could rely. Poland, however,
remains the slave of Muscovite barbarians, and
Warsaw the continental Sebastopol. England is
ashamed of this. She curses, in her heart, the
COBURG and RUSSELL policy with which the War
began.

The success of Mr. SrooNEß's motion is not
one of those things in which an enlightened Eng-
lishman can find occasion for rejoicing. On the
contrary, we believe it will be viewed with deep
and painful regret by all whose patriotism and
love of honesty and justice are not led astray by
the blindest bigotry.

To the advocates of Voluntaryism in religion it
affords no triumph of principle—to the friends of
the Establishment it offers no grounds for con-
gratulation, but rather for apprehension ; while
to the liberal-minded politician it presents at best
but a prospect of having undone what, in the
interests of humanity and of the empire, had
.been happily achieved. Had this ultra-Protestant
triumph been a successful veto to an endowment
proposed for the first time in a country without
an establishment, or were there no special cir-
cumstances rendering the withdrawal of the
grant to. Maynooth alike unjust and impolitic,
the case would have been different, and our sym-
pathies would have gone in another direction.
But alongside this grant to Maynooth, which Mr.
SPOONER and party have so far successfully
assailed, we have an Establishment which is en-
dowed with the wealth of a national church, and
vet is the church of only a small section of the
nation. This fact alone removes the grant from
the rigour of abstract principle, and renders its
attempted withdrawal a matter of regret. But
this is not all ; the great majority of the nation
is poor, and supports the ministers of its own creed
with difficulty, while it regards the creed of the
minority with more than ordinary dislike. In addi-
tion to these facts, the state of Ireland at the pre-
sent time offers the strongest reasons why the grant
should not be discontinued. After a long period of
persecution and disaffection, the people of Ireland
are now, under the reign of just laws, becoming at-
tached to the British Crown, and present an aspect of
loyalty and contentment not to be surpassed even
in this country. Under such circumstances,
what could be expected from the withdrawal of
the grant but the renewal of those internal heart-
burniegs which have distracted Ireland for cen-
turies, and the return of that state of things
which we had fondly hoped was for ever gone by
' And this danger is to be risked, forsooth, because
the College of Maynooth is a Roman Catholic and
not a Protestant college. As if the Roman Catho-
lics of Ireland had not been as ready to spill
their blood and contribute their treasure in the
defence of their country as the Protestant popula-
tion, or the Roman Catholic priesthood in Ireland
were arrayed in open hostility, instead of offering
their best allegiance to the Crown. Or, as if
at this time of day, when religious toleration is
granted to all, Roman Ct'h dies were to be ex
eluded from a privilege to which, if the principle
of an endowment is admitted, they have an un-
questionable right. As, Mr. DEA.SY in his really
.admirable maiden speech, in which the policy and
justice of continuing the grant were as ably as
boldly enforced, remarked, " they," the House,
"sat there as the representatives of an empire
composed of Protestants, Catholics, Presbyterians,
and other sects, and they were not at liberty to
indulge their own opinions merely ; they were
there as the trustees of all classes and all creeds."
A rebuke, we will add, as apropos as well-merited,
and which it would have been well had it had its
proper effect.

The practical consequences of a withdrawal of
the grant; should Mr. SPOONER and his party sue-
caeieladteinon, theirtruill-advised attempt, we will not now
reconsider its as we do, that the House will
lodgment ; but there can be no
doubt it would lead not merely to a revision of
the Irish Establishment, about which we have
no concern, but to other results, which our bigots
do not take into consideration. The Irish Roman
Catholic Church would not be deprived of educated
ministers, nor the people of spiritual consolation—
but the Irish priesthood educated.abroad would bring
to their labours sympathies not English, and the
people, to a consideration of Imperial interests;
those feelings of discontent and disaffection which
persecution is sure to engender, and which the
priesthood will be offered every encouragement
external circumstances can offer to promote. And
tltis.at a period when the signs of the times SO
strongly indicate the necessity of as perfect a
fusion of the Empire into one homogeneous mass

as can possibly be attained. Hateful as bigotry

sin all its forms, it surely -never assumed one