The Sun.
London, England, 1835-03-05 00:00:00

country. We have never yet heard—we wait anxiously
to learn—upon what species of pretext this memo-
rable appointment has been made. How can it be
excused to Parliament ? The sic volo of his Grace

of Wellington will not do for such a step as this. It
is much too important an affair to be passed off in
the shape of a compliment. The people of England,
we are quite certain, will never consent to have this
great and intelligent empire represented at one of the
most important Courts in Europe by such a personi-
fication of rhodomontade as the Marquis of London-
derry. We have closely observed this Nobleman's
conduct during the last twentv-five years, abroad
and at home, and we solemnly protest that we
do not know an individual throughout the long
list of our feeble aristocracy more utterly
unfit in every sense of the word for the office to
which he has been named, than this rejected pen-
sionary. Will any body point out a single act of his
whole life which entitles him to say that he has de-
served well of his country ? He has been sentenced
by a man of unquestionable probity—the late Lord
Liverpool—as unworthy of a retired allowance from
the Treasury ; and yet he is now to be exalted above
the heads of all our diplomatists, as the only man fit
to be intrusted with the management of the greatest
interests which, perhaps, ever yet were 'committed to
the hands of a Minister. To the conduct of these
great questions the Noble Lord will undoubtedly bring
unbounded arrogance, unconquerable indolence, igno-
rance, apathy, and caprice without limits. What a crea-
ture to enter into intellectual conflict with such an an-
tagonist as Nesselrode !We can-well understand that
the absence of Lord Londonderry frotn the House of
Peers, for the present session at least, might be pecu-
liarly expedient for the new Cabinet. His Lordship
must be thoroughly sensible—if his vanity permit him
to comprehend his situation at all—that his senatorial
displays are far from being profitable to any cause
which he advocates, and that his exile has, in fact,
become extremely desirable. We must agree with the
Duke in thinking, that there is certainly no man in
the country whose departure from our shores—even
were that departure fur ever—would cost fewer tears
than that of Lord Londonderry. Let him go by all
means ; we would almost consent to his pension if we
were sure lie would never set his foot upon our soil
again. Let him go—but not to Petersbugh as our
representative—nor to Vienna, where his name is too
well remembered ; send him to Otaheite, where the
only talents which he possesses can be duly appre-
ciated—where at least his conduct can give no scan-
dal.—Morning Chronicle.

Among the notices of motions to ba acted on some
short time hence in the House of Commons, is one
by Lord John Russell, importing to be for the intro-
duction of a measure, or the adoption of a pledge, in
respect of the temporalities of the Irish Church. This
notice of the Noble Lord appears to have grown out
of a wish to anticipate the Government in any pro-
ceeding which it might originate upon that critical
and interesting subject. But under the circum-
stances of the case, we would put it to his Lord-
ship, whether he is preparing to act equitably by
the nation (we say nothing of the Ministers), or
quite consistently with his own former conduct ?
What does Lord John Russell know about the
temporalities of the Church of Ireland ? Is he
one atom better acquainted with that question than
he was ten months ago, when Mr. Ward pushed
his Lordship and his colleagues to the wall, by press-
ing upon them the avowal of his opinion that the
episcopal establishments of Ireland "exceeded the
" spiritual wants of the population, and ought to
" be reduced, it being the right of the state to regulate
" the distribution of church property ?" What was
the answer then returned by the Whig Ministers
to those who urged them to the formal acknowledg-
ment of Mr. Ward's proposition ? Was it not that it
was useless to bind Parliament to an abstract principle,

which it might adopt at any time it pleased ; and that
it was premature to assume the fact asserted of the ex-
cess of the church revenues without a previous investi-
gation ? That commissioners moreover had been named,
expressly to examine into the financial affairs of the
established church of Ireland, and its relations to

the people ; and that until the report of such commis
sioners should be received, the Government must be
quite in the dark, and unable to legislate safely on any
question connected with the ohjects of the inquiry
which had thus been instituted ? In this view of
the question Lord J. Russell himself concurred.
Let us ask, then,—has any report been yet re-
ceived from the Commissioners so appointed? We
believe not ; and if so, how can the Government of the
present day, or the Whigs who form the Opposition,
be one atom better provided with materials for legis-
lating upon the temporalities of the Irish Church than
they were during the last Session, when the latter
party—to wit, Lord John Russell and his colleagues
—declared it would be impossible to act until after the
report of the Commissioners ? What equity, what
pretence of consistency or public honour, is there in
forcing forward from the Opposition side of the House
measures which, as Ministers, they had already depre-
cated and condemned ? When the report shall have
been completed and presented, and the Ministers shall
subsequently have refused to take any steps for the
better appropriation of Irish ecclesiastical income, then,
but not before, it may be fair and becoming for Lord
John Russell and his friends to proceed, and to inter-
weave with a bill for the regulation of Irish temporali-
ties, certain clauses or expressions of which the effect
would be in seine men's eyes still more valuable,—
that is to say, the departure of the Conservative Mi-
nisters from office. Party-passion is deaf to advice,
however friendly and reasonable, or such a procedure
as we have here described, could never have been con-
ceived by a calm-tempered man like Lord John Rus-
sel. But time brings thought ; and though the
faction is as yet rabid, it will listen to us by-and-by,
when it has recovered its wits, and inevitably lost its re-
putation. We have already stated it as our conviction, and
one which we find with regret that Sir R. Peel has not
brought his mind to concur in, that after the payment
of the parochial clergy of Ireland, the surplus, should
there turn out to be a surplus, ought to be applied to
the promotion of the Protestant religion in some dif-
ferent shape, of which the most obvious and impor-
tant would be in our judgment the spreading of reli-
gious and moral education throughout the country.
But that is a wide subject. It will be perceived from a
conversation in the House of Lords last Tuesday, that
the Duke of Wellington disavows on the part of the Go-
vernment all present intention of proposing to Parliament
the payment of the Catholic Priesthood. This is to
us a matter of extreme disappointment. We cannot
believe, and do not, that his Grace feels any the
slightest personal reluctance to such a dispositisn of a
moderate portion of the revenue. He may think he sees
difficulties in the way ; that some unreasoning bigots
might call it a giving countenance and assistance to
Popery, at the expense, and to the danger, of the Re-
formed Church ; while others again, in a peddling
spirit, might exclaim against such a demand upon the
public money. But they are both miserably a': fault.
The Priesthood, nor Popery, would not be created by
a provision from the public funds : they both exist
already. They exist in a form tile most menacing and
injurious to the Reformed religion, by arming the
minds of the whole Irish population with deadly hos-
tility against it. Any measure, therefore, which should
reconcile the Popish Clergy to the State, and establish
them on some better footing than that of connivers at
disturbance, must prove a direct benefit to all the inte-
rests of Protestantism, ecclesiastical and civil, and be
so far a substantial guarantee to the Church, instead of
a risk or degradation. Much might be added as to
the necessary improvement of the moral habits and
personal ascendancy of the priesthood over their flocks,
arising from their consciousness of an independence
which they do not now enjoy, and from the introduc-
tion of a more respectably connected and better edu-
cated class of persons to fill the office of clergymen.
To the short-sighted economists, who might object
to such a policy on the score of expense, we shall
merely say that no price can be excessive at which to
purchase the elements and foundations of all national
prosperity, religious peace, mutual charity, compe-
tent and trustworthy instructors Of the poor (which
the Popish priesthood of the present day are not),
and the secure possession of individual life and
property. This measure of a provision for the
Catholic priesthood ought strictly to have been incor-