The Sun.
London, England, 1835-07-28 00:00:00

The Duke of Newcastle seemed anxious last night
to show that he is no party to the understanding on
Saturday at Apsley House. According to his Grace,
the Commission to inquire into Municipal Corpora-
tions was illegal ; and as the stream from a tainted
source cannot be pure, the same character of illegality
attaches to all the evidence obtained under the Com-
mission, and- as their-Lordships' hands are pure, they
ought not to touch anything that is impure.—His
Grace's remedy, therefore, is that they should con-
sider the Commission and evidence as non-existent,
and that they should agree to an address to the
King, praying his Majesty that he would be
most graciously pleased to authorize his Attorney..
General to introduce a Bill into the other House
of Parliament to constitute a regular Commission
to inquire into Corporation abuses. Whatever
may be the wishes of some of their Lordships, they
at all events discreetly avoided countenancing his
Grace in his gracious scheme. Lord Brougham told
him that he confounded two things, the power to in-
quire and the power 'to extort information. There
were precedents innumerable for Commissions of In-
quiry ; but he was •by no means disposed to say that
the Crown had the power to compel persons against
their will to answer, or that persons who refused to
answer would be committing an illegality. But be-
cause it may not be illegal to refuse 'to do a certain
act, it does not follow that it is illegal to. do it, though
the distinction is beyond the comprehension of his
Grace. We see every day men refusing to obey the
clearest dictates of morality, though the refusal is not
illegal. His Grace knows that a man may do what lie
likes with his own, though it would be well if he squared
his likings with the dictates of humanity, and did not, in
his zeal for his own rights, forget that others ought not
to be punished for obeying the dictates of their con-
science. In proceeding by Commission, rather than by
Act of Parliament; the Government chose the more
imperfect mode ; but the reason of this is no secret.
The factious Opposition, who, though entreated with
so much earnestness by Earl Grey, chose to set the
spirit of the age at defiance, made no secret of their
determination to throw out any Bill which might be
sent up from the Commons to their Lordships' House.
The same factious opposition encouraged the Corpo-
rations throughout the country to refuse information
to the Commissioners. Nay, one of their Lordships
(Lord Lyndhurst), after the anti-reformers had become
conformers, ventured, in the debate on the address, to
attack the Commission. For the sake of their own
reputation, the Tories ought to draw as little attention
as possible to their conduct with reference to the Com-
mission. So much for his Grace of Newcastle, and
his opposition to the Municipal Corporation Bill !
Morning Chronicle.
Although there may have been some clauses of the
Municipal Reform Bill for England which on one side
trenched unjustifiably upon ancient and established
political rights, and on the other let in a too unmea-
sured mass of democracy into the administration of our
local interests, the Bill may be considered, upon the
whole, as no very faulty substitute for the abominable
system of self-election and. jobbing corruption which .
had spread extensively through many of the towns of
England, and had screened the most inexcusable culprits
from all responsibility to the law. Moreover, so far as
regards this country, the principles of the Bill in ques-
tion are no more than a return to the old municipal
constitution of the realm, which, for the most part, in-
disputably lodged the power of local taxation, and of
fiscal management, in the hands of the substantial in-
habitants. We here abstain from every reference to
the manner in which the prospective rights of freemen
have been dealt with by the framers of a Bill professing
to meditate none -but ,municipal (and not political)
objects. But if the English Corporation Bill be de-
fensible, on grounds of general and natural policy, as
committing the guardianship of municipal rights to
Englishmen who have no unfriendly interest or pas-
sion towards the State of which they are the subjects,
it appears to us that some of our contemporaries go ton
-far--m-anticipating-sthat the Bill of . Corporate Reform
for Ireland will pass through Parliament with equal
facility, or if it should, that its effects will be equally
conducive to the well-being of Great Britain. The
household interest of England is at least a national in-
terest. It may not be specifically favourable to the
Church, nor to the Court, nor to the Aristocracy (we
do not say it is not), but at least it has England for its
object ; it is an English power. When, on- the
contrary, we come to consider the avowed na-
ture and purposes of the Irish Corporation Bill,
how can we conscientiously describe that measure ?
Is it a measure for the promotion of British interests,
or for the security or stability of this great empire ?
Let us see. The alleged grievance for which the Irish
Municipal Reform Bill has been the proposed remedy,
is the superiority of Protestant power in Corporations,
and the comparative exclusion or depression of the Pa-
pists, The point aimed at by the new measure is, the
removal of those barriers which have hitherto protec-
ted the ascendant influence of Protestantism in Cor-
porations—and under the guise of admitting Papists,
the transfer of that preponderating influence to their
hands. Now is that a scheme in which England
ought to co-operate ? If anv man asks -us to argue
the question whether Irish Piotestants or Irish Papists
are most imbued with English feeling, and policy, and
maxims of Government, and principles of religious
faith, and historical sympathies, and national charac-
teristics, are most attached to English greatness, most
devoted to English connexion, and most anxious for
the preservation of Ireland to the British Crown, we
will not argue with such a disputant, nor abstain from
calling him an ignorant or uncandid- • trifler.
IVlen who never looked below the surface of Irish
subjects, and some who would not confess how deep
were their meditations, have for years been in the habit
of considering the adverse claims of Protestant and
Papist in Ireland under a religious aspect alone. They
have thought, or professed to think, it wondrous hard,
that because this or that body of Christians held this
or that religious doctrine, they should be politically
dealt with according to measures different from those
which were meted out to other Irishmen. Grievous
has -been this blind and stubborn, or hypocritical,
error. No wise Statesman ever dreamed of taking in
the merely religious doctrines of a Papist as an
element in Irish Legislation. It often was, and
always ought to have been, the political character,
political position, and political desires and movement of
the Popish body, to which British law-makers turned
their minds in framing statutes for Ireland. They
ought, while devising a policy for that kingdom, to
have considered Protestantism not merely in its theolo-
gical sense as a separation from the religious principles
of Rome, but as the sure index and standard of poli-
tical and national union with Great Britain. The de-
graded condition of the people was a sure and inex-
haustible pabulum to the spiritual usurpation of the
Romish Priesthood. It is a stupid misconstruction of
history to .ascribe the comparative increase, or at least
the non-decrease, of Popery in Ireland, either to. the
diligence of the Priests in the discharge of their func-
tions, or to the gross negligence of the Protestant
clergy, though each ought to be acknowledged, or to
both combined. The proper seat of Popery is among
the lowest orders of the people. It has spread,
because those who professed it, and whose abject po-
verty, wretchedness, and degradation, disqualified them
for ever releasing .themselves from its trammels-.--be-
cause they have married more improvidently, and mul-
tiplied more rapidly than the• more intelligent and civi-
lized Protestants, either in Ireland or elsewhere, would
dare to
,do—that Popery, which, speaking in round
numbers, is confined to -that barbarous and reck-
less rabble, appears. to have gained on the .Re-
formed Church in Ireland. It is boasted that the
Papists' have gained ground in the North. We:believe
the fact to be so. The Papist peasants-take land at
higher rents, and wives with less regard to the.means
of providing for a family, than the Protestants. They
are satisfied to exist upon the refuse of the soil, not on
a third of its fair produce, like an English er Irish Pro-
testant occupier
; hence they have encroached in many
districts upon the Protestant tenantry,
will'
they have in
every part of Ireland where a potato wivegetate, for,
the other cause which we have mentioned above,—
namely, the savage recklessness about futurity which
is natural to beings Jeared in-destitution, whose priests
encourage them to premature marriages, because on
them depends a large portion of the annual fees. We