The Sun.
London, England, 1832-06-19 00:00:00

very sensitive if the smallest obstruction be offered to his
speeches. It might be decent in him, therefore, not to
interrupt the in so unbecoming a manner. With another
man it might be deemed insulting, but he claims the happy
privilege of neither givitig or receiving insult.—(Cheers
and laughter.) I, Sir, however Warm I may have been
in opposition, never attempted to damage private charac-
ter.—(Hcar, hear, hear.) I should be ashamed to say,
—even in the utmost heat of debate,—that any
man living amongst a people, cared not if they
were starved in this World, and d—d in the world to
con St.—(oh, oh.) If I used these words in the heat of
debate, I should have taken the earliest opportunity of re-
tracting and apologising for them. If I had written
them, I should have felt myself degraded ; but if I had
calmly and deliberately printed them, I should look with
no enviable feeling on him who hesitated to hold me up,
and brand me as a convicted libeller to the country.—
(Cheers.) Observe the language he has continually used;
mark how he has borne himself towards me, a stranger in
the country.—( Hear.) In all the delicacy of conciliation,
he never once called me an Englishman, but always ap-
plied to me the opprobrious epishet, as he meant it, and
his audience understood it—of a Sixon.—(Hear,; hear,
hear.) This is a specimen of the Learned Gentleman's
conciliation. The Right Honourable Member then pro-
ceeded to observe, that the Lea, ned Member's speech was
a mere piece of vituperative declamation, and seemed to
have been made only for the purpose of delaying the Corn-
tnittee, and producing irritation in Ireland. This might
suit his views ; his objects might be not national but per-
sonal objects.—(Cheers.) He might desire to retain the
opportunity of makine violent speeches to produce dis-
inclination to the Bill in Ireland, so that the people
might be taught to receive as an insult that which
they would have otherwise hailed as a benefit. Even
the Honourable and Learned Member himself had
once declared it to he a magnificent measure—
(Hear, hear, hear, and laughter)—as being the work of
the friends of Ireland.—(Hear, hear, hear.) Some
detail 4, it was true, might require to be corrected, but still
the benefit seas to be—great rotten boroughs were to be
destroyed, and so were those close corporations which the
H *. and Learned Member now was anxious to defend.—
(Hear, hear.) In reply to the Hon. Member, he stated
that whatever might be the politics of the Attorney-Gene-
ral for Ireland, they were not extreme, and that no man
could have conducted himself with more perfect impar-
tiality in his office, or done better service to the present
Government. The Attorney-General had nothing to do
with the change in the system of registration. That
change had been suggested to him by several Irish Mem-
bers, and amongst the first by Sir Henry Parnell. As to
the other alterations in the Bill, that of the period of the
leasehold from twenty years to fourteen bad been made at
the suggestion of Irish Members, and the omission of the
501. rent qualification had been made at the solicitation of
the Hon. and Learned Member himself, who waited on
his Noble Friend, as the organ of certain Irish Members.
The Hon. and Learned Member had argued very power-
fully in favour of the omission, and he (Mr. S.) was con-
vinced; but hardly had this been effected, when the Ho-
nourable and Learned Member turned round—complained
of it as an,,act of injustice, and actually had entered
his name for an amendment to restore the 501. rent qua-
lification. He was ready to be convinced by reasoning,
but he could not blindly follow the Hon. and Learned
r Member in all his shifts and turns and doubles. The
Learned Member had published a number of letters to the
Reformers of Great Britain, arraigning the Irish Bill as
unjust; he would be ready to answer all his charges at
the fitting time. As to the system of registration in Ire-
land, he admitted it was not perfect, but much had been
done, and more in Committee would be done to improve
it, Let it then have a fair trial. Let the English system,
which was only an experiment, and which was considered
imitable to Ireland, also have a trial—and then be should
have no objection that that system which was found to
work best should be adopted for both countries.—(Cheers.)
The Right Hon. Gentleman then contended that the
Learned Gentleman, in his calculations of the average
number of voters in each county, had argued on a fallacy
which a child might detect ; he had argued as if the
whole constituency in each county had been polled
out. He must maintain, that there would be a great
increase in the constituency of the counties of towns,
and in the boroughs, and remarked, that it was rather
extraordinary that the Learned Gentleman should have
adopted such a course of proceeding with respect to the
101. leaseholder for sixty years, when it appeared that this
qualification would increase the number of Catholic voters
in Armagh and Down. The Learned Gentleman had ap-
plauded the Tories for their consistency in ruling Ireland
by keeping down one party with the assistance of the
other, while be upbraided the Government for not attach-
ing itself to either party to put down the other. The
Government, however, neither would be led to oppress the
Catholics, as of old, nor would they place themselves,
bound hand and foot into the hands of the Learned Gen-
tleman as he desired. As to the Learned Gentleman's first
motion, he would content himself with opposing it. The
Learned Gentleman himself attached so little importance
to it, that he ended by a wrong motion, but one which
suited his speech quite as well as that which he in-
tended.—(Hear, hear.) He could not, he said, avoid
contrasting the conduct of the Scotch Members with
that of the Learned Gentleman. If injustice had
been done anywhere, it was to Scotland ; but what
did the Scotch Members do ? They said they were
entitled to more, but still they accepted the Bill
arid acknowledged it was a great benefit. But the
Learned Member said, you have given us something,
but you have not given us all that we went ;
and until you do, there shall be no peace in Ireland—l
will thwart you in your measure, and throw every impedi-
ment in your way.—(Cheers.) This might be in accor-
dance with the Learned Member's views. He wished to
dissolve the Union, but their views were different, and he
did not mean to use language which could have the
slightest tendency to set at variance the two parts of the
empire. The Right Hon. Gentleman opposed the motion.
Mr. HUME contended that the Learned Member for
Kerry had nothing to do but abuse the Government and
agitate, and use physical force as far as it was possible.—
(Hear, and laughter.) The period had come when, all
legal means having been tried, it required the people to
unite, and by physical power to overawe improper resis-
tance.—(Oh ! and laughter.) Was it not to the appre-
hension of physical force the Right Honourable Baronet
had yielded his ()Pinions on the Catholic Question ?
Was it not by agitation that question was carried ?
(Hear, hear.) No great rights were ever yet obtained,
except by the country manifesting its discontent, and
showing its force.—( Hear, hear.) He maintained
that Ireland was not sufficiently represented, nor was the
constituency large enough, in proportion to its popula-
tion. He reminded the Noble Lord that the Irish 'Mem-
bers had supported him in the English Reform Bill, and
called upon him to do Ireland justice. He contended that
all the recent measures of Government, and especially this
Reform Bill, had for object the preservation of the over-
grown church establishment in Ireland ; and it seemed
little less than an insult to Scotland to refuse a Member to
her five Universities, and to give one to the College of
Dublin. This fact alone was enough to show him that
party was to be supported, instead of es'ablishing a just
equality of civil rights. Many of the counties of Ireland
would be placed by this Bill on the old Scotch scale, with
less then 300 electors each. The Honourable 'tlemher
for Kerry had often been called an agitator, but those were
the true agitators of Ireland who excited the people by
measures of injustice at the moment when they pretended
to give them a degree of Reform equal to that of England.
Let the Reform in Ireland be equal to that given in Eng-
land ; no man would complain, and agitation would tie at
an end. He (Mr. Hume) could not concur in the
eulogium passed upon the present Attorney- General
for Ireland, and expressed his strong disappi o-
bation of the course Ministers were pursuing of
promoting their political enemies, in hopes that
they would become their friends. What he re-
quired was, that England, Scotland, and Ireland, should
tie placed on the same footing as regarded Reform, in
order that the popular voice might be plainly and fairly
heard.

Sir R. PEEL referred to what the Hon. Member for
Middlesex bad said on the subject of physical force, and
said, that by his gesticulation at the time, he bad meant
not to express his surprise (for such doctrines were not at
all new from the Hon. Member), but his indignation at
the sort of tyranny to which he would subject the Govern-
ment of the country. He (Sir R. Peel) insisted that it
was not irregular in the House to refer to speeches, letters,
or declarations out of it, although it might suit the Hon.
Member for Middlesex, who sometimes deliverd oily
speeches of conciliation in his place, to be called to account
for his exciting harangues on the busting& at Brentforti.
The Hon. Member, however, this night bad had the auda-
city to talk of controlling the deliberations of
Parliament by physical force.—(Cheers). If such
doctrines were to be maintained, there must be an end of
all Government; and for one, be (Sir R. Peel) would
.ay, that he had never yielded to physical force, and that
to the last be would resist its application. The
appeal was now to be to physical force in favour of a Sh
ncle as opposed to a 10/. franchise; but even if the
pointa
by e,
e conceded, might not the same forcible argument
ber used
the friends of the 21. franchise, or by the advocates
i s
of a right of voting without any qualification ? When be
conceded the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, he had not yielded
to physical force ; and when the Hun. Gentleman