The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-19 00:00:00

ebrieningflt

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, :1850.

The adjourned debate on the Bill for the abolition

of the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, and the appoint-
ment of a fourth Secretary of State, was on Monday
night resumed and brought to a conclusion. The prin.
ciple of the measure, or rather the two principles
which were perfectly distinct from each other, were
affirmed by an overwhelming majority, such as har
rarely been witnessed on any disputed point of do.
mestic policy. No less than 365 Members atteflded

in their places to record their votes on these importan►
subjects, of whom only seventy voted against the second
reading, while 295 affirmed the propriety and expe-
diency of the changes, thus leaving a clear majority

of no less than 225 on the question.
We are by no means astonished at this result.
ever satisfactory and unanswerable reasons were as•

signed for any important alteration, it was for thp
changes contemplated by the present Bill. All the
causes which led to the maintenance of the office

o❑ the pas sing of the Act of Union had
ceased to exist. The state of our relations
with foreign powers do not require that
a person should be resident in Ireland, with ample
authority to adopt steps that might be required for
the protection of the soil and the security of the na-
tional defences. The minds of the Irish people are

happily more tranquil than they have been for a long
time past. There has been almost a cessation of po
litical agitation and of agrarian outrage, and the in-
tercommunication is so certain and expedi-
tious between the capitals, that there is no
pretext for saying that there is any advantage
to be derived from the presence of a local functionary ;

indeed the existence of such an officer retarded in place

of expediting the decisions on Irish affairs. Although
nominally entrusted with separate authority, he was
bound to receive instructions from the Home Depart

anent, and no matter of any itnportance was decided
on without a correspondence being carried on bo-

meen the Castle and Downing•ctree`. In place

of a direct communication with the Secretary
of State, and an immediate answer being returned,
as is the case on any matter relating to
remote districts in England or Scotland, the applies-

tion from a provincial town in Ireland was required
to be seat to the Under-Secretary for Ireland;
by him it was laid before the Lord-Lieutenant, who,
in place of giving an immediate decision, was obliged
to consult the real Chief Governor of Ireland, the
Home Secretary, and in case of any difference of
opinion or misunderstanding a voluminous corre-
spondence took place, while the applicants for
advice or assistance remained unnoticed and
unanswered. The country was, in fact, placed under
a divided authority, and endured all the inconve-

niences resulting from such a position.
The Irish Viceroy is no longer useful even for the
rather equivocal and undignified purpose of mediat-
ing between the Government and those who arranged
the representation of the country, and whose " most

sweet voices" were essential to the Minister of the
day. All that, however, is changed. As the Right
lion. Gentleman the Member for Dungarvan truly
remarked, " the power has been transferred
from the favoured and manageable few to
the multifarious and unmanageable many."
The dispensation of patronage, the distribution of the
"loaves and fishes," which it formerly required a
representative of the SOVEREIGN to arrange, is now
quietly settled through the intervention of the Minis-
terial whipper-in, and a word or smile from the
"patronage Secretary of the Treasury" is considered
a sufficient substitute for Viceregal festivities and
courtly amenities. The substance is now re.
garded in place of the shadow ; and Castle in-
fluence is scarcely sufficient to turn the scale at a
single election, or to decide the vote of a wavering
Member on any question of the most trivial im-
portance.
The only persons who might possibly have some
reason to regret the change are the shopkeepers and
lodging-house keepers of the city of Dublin. They
may possibly fancy that there is less activity for a
short time. But how will that be altered when our
Most Gracious QUEEN in person visits her western
dominions, to receive the affectionate homage, the
Cead mille failthe, which the loyalty and
dhaetve“ttihonlodge"of her Irish subjects offers for
acceptance. A single week which wit,
nessede
the presence of royalty on Cork-hill, or
in the Phoen
ix-park, were worth whole
year
yea of the tinsel pageantry,
the spurious gentility
that attended
the
" glittering superfluity," the
"gaudy nuisance," as the mock court has been eor-
rectlytermed.
But, even granting
that Dublin was in some de-
gree benefited by these changes,
sserted whence was the
wealth derived that was a
by the habituis of the Irish Court? Did D b
ied
the expended
n Lord-
Lieutenancy
d
ed
attract strangers of rank from England or
the continent ? Did it bring capital into the country,
to be applied in the reclamation of the waste lands,
or the development of the natural capabilities of the
island—capabilities which are so loudly extolled and
so utterly neglected ? Alas, no ! The most strenuous
advocates of the system could not venture to put for-
ward an assertion so totally unfounded in fact. What-
ever money may be expended in the Irish metro-
polis in consequence of the Viceregal festivities is
drawn from the provinces—from the poverty-stricken
districts where the landlord should expend his money
among his own tenants and on his own estate.
It is abstracted from the cultivation of the soil, that
the owner may " make a figure" at the Castle, and
promote the interest of his sons, " the:counsellor"
and "the doctor," or ask fur a Government living for
" the young parson," For the same causes
" distresses" for rent are put in, and
the miserable occupiers driven from their wretched
holdings, and, more than that, in or tines