The Sun.
London, England, 1835-06-15 00:00:00

credulous and uneasy multitude, for purposes which
those I:etrayers of the ignorant may not yet think it
fe to avow. It is, filially, the sort cf collateral
uarar.t.:e thus provided, that, let the poor of Ireland
I,e over so cruelly ground down by selfish and half-
reasoning rapacitT,and exposed in consequence to ever
: •ich teriible visitations of disease or hunger, the pro-
] rietary classes of the Iri.h shall still remain shielded

snd impregnable against the recoil of their own habi-
tual indifference towards human suffering upon their
own fortunes, and therefore be exempted from any need
to reform their system of domestic policy. Such arc
among the real grounds of the condemnation which
ought in our minds to be directed against the practice of
granting wholesale alms from the pockets of the people
of England for the temporary removal of Irish famine,
to often as that calamity shall occur. There weie
numberless instances about the year 1822 of the ow n-
rs of Irish estates upon the spot contributing in the
i:'ost niggardly and penurious manner—nay, refusing
to come forward with a single shilling, while the Eng-
lish nation was subscribing its hundreds of thousands.
although the parties in Ireland who thus berbarously
held back might he considered as among the most active
causes of the distress which prayed upon their misera-
ble peasantry by the cruel rackrents which they levied,
and which, even in the most productive years, left the
occupiers of the soil without a penny of surplus to lay
by for a season of scarcity. Of any grant, therefore
on the present occasion by Parliament, from those
taxes which press upon the empire generally, we trust
that the whole people of Great Britain will rise in loud
and unarimous reprobation. Such a misdirection of the
national resources woule be for the benefit of the Irish
landlord, rather than of the poor. It would be a premium
upon the perpetuity of the existing oppression. It would
be a bounty on the resistance to Poor Laws the one legi-
timate, powerful, the safe and infallible engine, for en-
forcing a reasonable reduction of rents, and for raising
gradually the condition of a prostrate race of men.
But as the preparation and enactment of a Poor Law
for Ireland, were it even to pass through Parliament
with slender opposition, which is more than we could
hope from the temper already shown by the landed
interest of that country, must be too slow in the
earlier stages of its action for an emergency so urgent
as that which has now arisen, it becomes the immediate
business of all those whom Providence has placed
above absolute want in the counties now suffering
under destitution to come down at once with the funds
necessary to alleviate it, and save themselves the dis-
grace, as well as England the unjust burden, which each
has suffered from the mode pursued under former exigen-
cies. We see, with more disgust than astonishment, that
Dr. M'Hale cannot deliver himself even upon a ques-
tion of relieving human want without committing the
grossest outrage upon truth and Christian charity.
This artful, ambitious, and spiteful priest, cannot state
plainly the affecting fact that the peasants of Achill
nre distressed for provisions and in extreme misers', but
must travel out of his way to abuse the Protestant
faith and its Ministers, because these missionaries of
the Reformed Church are sent through the remote
districts of that province, which Popery, combined
with other forms of oppression, has kept for ages un-
ites the yoke of helpless barbarism, to circulate the
gospel of Christ, and open its benign doctrines to
the ears and hearts of the poor. The worthy organ
of Maynooth College, in his fraternizing letter to
the organ of the Whig-O'Connell Ministry, write as
follows ;--
" In Achill, those who had no cattle to sell, and of that
class there is a vast number, are bringing to market their own
wretched raiment, in order to pawn them for potatoes, which
sate in that remote district at 7d. a stone, where there are
Lundreds; and if Is. could purchase a ton of potatoes, it was
proved on oath they could not command it.
" And yet, my lord, it is in that island the demon of fana-
ticism and religious rancour has fixed, as if -his last resting.
place, driven from the interior of the country, through the wise
forbearance of its inhabitants, who are resolved at last to laugh
at itinerant readers, and not lend themselves to schemes of
delusion, in order to protract the lingering dominion of a
falling establishment that was so long the bane of the country
takes up its citadel in the island of Achill, ere it utterly
disnppears from the land. The people are crying out for
bread; and money is sent from England by the credulous
dupes of imposture to enlighten their benighted souls."
The irrevcrend writer boasts that the inhabitants of
the interior of Connaught laugh at time preachers of
the Protestant faith, and reproaches the English Pro-
testants for sending money to aid the propagation of
the Gospel, " when the people are crying out for
bread." Unquestionably the moment of. extreme bodily
anguish is not the most favourable for addressing the
mind of man upon any topics not immediately con-
nected with his relief from suffering, nor has it been so
selected by the Protestant missionaries. It is of the
habit, the standing practice, of encouraging such
ministers of religion that the Maynooth priest
complains ; and we may depend upon it that if
. their success were a thing to be " laughed at," the
self-styled Archbishop of Tuam would have better kept
his temper in describing it. But why is the Bible
sent. from Protestant England to the remote parts of
Connaught, and by her own messengers ? For no rea-
son but because the Ministers of Popery rffitse their
congregations all access to that sacred book, and dread
its workings upon even their scanty intelligence, as the
death-blow to Popery and her dominion. But why,
again, is it that the spurious Archbishop M'Hale
connects this revengeful attack upon Protestantism
with a communication which professes to be upon a
totally separate subject—viz., the advent of a state of
famine ? Is it that he desires to withdraw public at-
tention from the natural means of dealing with the
miseries of the hungry poor ? Is it that he would
divert men- from asking, " Why do not the wealthier
Papists in his own neighbourhood, and under his
own spirited controul, send in their subscriptions for
the purchase and distribution of potatoes ? Why do
not you yourself, Dr. give largely from your
large diocesan income, whicn you have first extracted
from that very people ? -Why does not the agitator
O'Connell, who was last year paid nearly 16,000/. out
of the pinchings of their wrctchod families—why
does not he disgorge at least half of that which he ex-
torted from them as his wages for the creation of need-
less disturbance, and for the production of artificial mi-
sery, instead of meanly and impudently calling upon
England, which is the hourly object of his slander and
defamation, to take upon herself his duties with those
of his satellite priests, and to pay the price while she
repairs the consequences of crimes in which she has
pensation should be made to the person so deprived of his
property or lawful rights. By laz9ful rights we here mean
strictly such rights as have originated in, or have been
expressly sanctioned by, legislative enactments ; not at
all including all the privileges and usages which may
have crept into existence in certain cities and boroughs,
and which, in too many instances, are mere usurpations
upon the rights of the inhabitants. One of provisions
of the Bill above alluded to is that by which all ex-
clusive rights of trading vested in the member of cer-
tain guilds, &c. are to be forthwith abolished. Now
it cannot be forgotten that for the enjoyment of these
exclusive rights, expressly sanctioned and recognized
by law, large sums of money have in many instances
been paid, and that, on the faith of the continuance of
such rights, their possessors may at this moment have
expended a large capital, or have invested their whole
properties. What we would ask is, have such persons
no claim to some notice of such a sweeping change
being about to be effected, or at any rate to come com-
pensation for being thus deprived of their rested rights?
We are aware of the fallacious use of the terms vested
rights and vested interests ; but we think the rights
here alluded to come within their most strict and correct
meaning. On the meaning of vested rights we cannot,
we think, do better than quote the following passage
from Mr. G. C. Lewis's work on " The use and abuse
Of Political Terms." Mr. Lewis observes, " When a
Legislature passes a law not for any temporary pur-
poses, nor limited as to the time of its operation, and
which may therefore reasonably be expected to be per-
manent, and persons confiding in its permanency, em-
bark their capital, bestow their labour, or shape the
course of their life so that their only hope of success
is founded on the existence of the law, the rights which
they have acquired in the reliance upon
its continuance
are termed vested rights ; and persons in this situation
are considered as having a moral claim on the Legisla-
ture for the maintenance of the law, or at least for a
sufficient time to iithdraw their investments, and to
take the measures' necessary for guarding against the
loss consequent upon so large a change." * * *
.And afterwards added by the same author, " A
vestal g-igh(_ip,a7, :therefore;:•be de'scrihed as a righ