The Sun.
London, England, 1832-03-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS'.

On looking back at the debate which took
place in the House of Lords on Monday night,
respecting Irish tithes, or rather Irish politics in
genera!, we are amused at some of its
.peculia-
rities. Being ourselves neither Whigs nor
Tories, nor of any other organised party or fac-
tion in the State, we can observe the war of words
between the champions of either force with more
temper, if not with more accuracy, than those
whose eyes are bloodshot in the anger and anxiety
of party zeal. Not but that we find it sometimes
hard enough to keep our temper at the palpable
selfishness and arrogant assumption of some
men, who, Fetending to great skill in the science
of Government, deny the necessity of tempering
power with discretion, and who find in the word
energy not only an excuse, but a panegyric in
favour of the heartless blunders which power is
often capable of committing. " Brute force" is
a very favourite expression, as applied to the
mass ; but there may be such, a thing as " brute
force" in the hands and in the heart of an Ad-

ministration, and we cannot help thinking that
we sometimes see indications of a tendency
to that mode of Government on the part
of those who charge Ministers with modera-
tion as if -they were guilty of a crime.
With this class of politicians power is every
thing, opinion nothing, and humanity worse than
nothing. But it is possible either that they may
not foresee the consequences of their own coun-
cil, or that they may not be sincere in urging it
upon their opponents as a course which they
ought to pursue. The speech of the Duke of
Wellington was a most extraordinary display.
His Grace attributed the disturbed state of Ire-
land, and the resistance to the payment of tithe,
not to the gradual increase of a long-cherished
discontent—not to the deep-rooted antipathy of
the people to a hostile and obnoxious faith—not
to the exactions of proctors, nor to any of the
obvious causes which grow out of the evils of
the system itself, but tothe encouragement which
Ministers had given to agitation. This encou-
ragement they had given in various ways, which
he enumerates, but especially in the patent
of precedence which they conferred upon
Mr. O'Connell at a time when he had ceased
to be an agitator. But who was it, my Lord
Due, that put Mr. O'Connell into Par-
liament ? Was there no encouragement to agi-
tation in that step ? And when was it that he was
put into Parliament ? Not when he had ceased
to agitate, but while he was triumphing as an
agitator. And why was he put into Parlia-
ment Because he had succeeded in agitating
the whole country from north to south. It is
well to talk of giving encouragement to agitation
by the grant of a mere professional privilege,
when the privilege of sitting in Parliament and
exercising the functions of a Legislator was
granted to him before, upon the express ground
that the Government was unable to put down
the agitation which he had called into action.
It is not in the spirit rf Whiggism that we re-
tort this charge upon the Noble Duke—for we
repeat that we care not one farthing for either
party, except so far as the measure or conduct
of the moment may recommend them to the
consideration of honest men. But surely it is
too had that one set of politicians should de-
nounce another set for having done what their
accusers had anticipated by example. We will
not follow the Doke of Wellington through the
other points of his speech, which were ably an-
swered on the spot by different speakers, though
the allusion to his broken windows, as one
of the high crimes and misdemeanours for
which Ministers ought to be impeached, will
show to what an extent he was disposed to make
them accountable. Another remarkable feature
in the same discussion was the speech of Lord
Eldon on the same side. If our readers have
not already perused it with attention, we would
advise them to read it over again. Its chief cha-
racteristic is the vehemence of its tone—a vehe-
mence not confined to mere sentiment, or com-
mon-place apostrophe, but rising repeatedly into
adjuration. We would not say of so venerable

a Peer that he did anything hie a trooper—but
Demosthenes himself never made so liberal a
use of the strongest of all rhetorical figures, and
everybody knows how he could swear. His
Lordship, however, deposed to an imaginative
fact, which must have astonished all who either
heard or read it ; he deposed that if the Reform
Bill should pass, there would not be a Member
of the House of Hanover on the throne in ten
years ! If his Lordship were as good a politician
as he is a lawyer, this announcement would
have a tearful effect ; but it is well known that
in the former capacity there are few minds
more enslaved by narrow and inveterate preju-
dices upon all subjects connected with the pro-
gress and improvement of society. If his Lord-
ship's political opinions had the force of law in
this country, improvement would have come to
a dead stop many years ago ; but the same advance
which has consigned many of his favourite
abuses to extinction; renders harmless those ve-
hement predictions whose very strength is absur-
dity. It is not at this time of day, nor in this
stage of the Reform Bill, that the King and
people of England are likely to look doubtfully
upon one another because au individual educated
in high Tory principles is beset with extravagant
and unreasonable fears, and chooses to identify
with the ruin of his own party the fate of insti-
tutions which existed before that party had a
name.- As .the violence of the. debate was con-
fined to the Lords in Opposition we do not think
it necessary to refer to the speeches of Ministers.
They genii* afford.,.no-sucl: examples of &b.",
surdity and illusion as their opponents have, left
upon record.—Morning Herald.
The motion made by Lord Chandos on Tues-
day last would no longer be of any importance
as a subject of discussion, were it not certain
that the same attempt which has in the present
instance received so signal. a defeat from the
House of Commons will be defeated elsewhere.
The true objection to an enlargement of the re-
presentative privileges of the metropolis, is that
in which has originated the resistance to all the
more valuable portions of the Bill ; namely, the
accession to popular power, and corresponding
decline of that of the oligarchy, which must re-
sult from any real and essential Reform. When
Lord Chandos talked of his own desire for " an
extension of the elective _franchise," some laughter
was excited on the ministerial benches by what
appeared so strange a declaration. But in this
the opponents of the Noble Marquis were un-
just. There was nothing monstrous in the wish
of Lord Chandos to have a more extended
franchise, provided only, that his Lordship
might be allowed to dictate the sort of per-
sons whom he would invest with it. The
Noble Lord, we take for granted, would not
care how many tenants-at-Will, for example,
upon his own estates, or those of other large
lauded proprietors, were to be enrolled as
voters for their respective counties, nor how Jibe-
__sal an admixture of dependence and servility