The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
GLOBE.—We can- have no occasion to direct atten-
tion to particular passages of Lord John Russell's
speech. The whole of that speech will doubtless be
perused and appreciated universally by our readers.
perused and appreciated universally by our readers.
What is more unusual, we find " green spots" in Sir
James Graham's speech to dwell on with pleasure.
We find something like distinct announcements of
intended practical measures for the benefit of Ire-
land. We shall not allow any party feeling to prevent
us from expressing satisfaction at these announcements.
There is nothing of which we are more certain than
that the material condition of Ireland is the great .
problem. If it were possible to relieve that—we do
not say party disputes would be waged no longer—
we
do not say churches, corporations, and all that
sort of thing, would not still supply party topics,
and would not still serve as party demarcations ; but
we do say, that neither English nor Irish are now
in the sixteenth century—that neither English nor
Irish will do battle, under municipal banners, for points
of faith. The progress of the last three centuries would
indeed have been insignificant, if it were possible for any
such points to revive real active hostilities. These contro-
versies may agitate bonnets in Exeter Hall—men have no
such bee in theirs. We do not mean to say that men have
ceased to have any persuasions on these poilits. TheDu&in
Review announces with great gratulation, that Mr. O'Con-
nell communicates every week, and holds up his edifying
example to the young men of Ireland. But men have
ceased to entertain any notion of imposing their own
persuasions on others.. When we say men, we not mean
that sort of men who professionally; or extra-profession-
ally, speculate upon schemes of proselytism. We mean
men capable of leading opinion ; of really determining
public events. The men who lead Exeter Hall find
themselves left in the lurch by even their own party.
There is another point of view in which solid
measures for material improvement in Ireland have not
merely a material, but also a moral importance. It is,
we fear, in human nature, that the aspect and tones of
multitudinous misery excite in those less unhappily
situated, a sort of shrinking aversion, as frequently as
compassion. They strike on the eye and ear too pain-
fully : there is an irritable impatience in wretchedness
that repels sympathy. There is also in it an appre-
hended contagion: a contagion not merely apprehended,
but experienced by large classes of our population from
the inroads of Irish poverty and Irish habits. All
this goes far to explain whatever exists of that English
aversion which Irishmen complain of. What may con-
tribute also to explain that aloof feeling—is, that Irish
politicians, whose ambition addresses itself to masses
thus steeped in misery, naturally echo their exacerba-
tion—address them with habitual violence—with fre-
quent injustice—with continual postponement of truth
and reason to the feelings of masses who demand ex-
citement to divert from pain. All this is anti-pathetic
—long may it be so—to the tone of English opinion.
But the question is, whether all this is not natural
amongst a people conditioned like that of Ireland. A
people so conditioned is placed under moral and politi-
cal, as well as physical, disadvantages. And just in pro-
portion as it is possible to raise it from that condition,
will its moral and political weight be likewise
increased in the national councils. The aspect
which the Irish people exhibit at present is that
of uneasy masses, played upon, and moved any way,
by a few men. They can be moved any way, except
to sit still, if we may speak Hibernian-wise.
This restlessness loses respect, and fatigues attention.
It is not the attitude of a people whose individual citi-
zens feel strength and self-reliance. Such a people is
not to be moved at the will of others, nor moved for
purposes not its own. Neither is it to be turned from a
purpose, once deliberately espoused, nor diverted by
dilatory pretexts. Individual self-reliance, and strength
of character, are greatly wanting in the Irish people.
And it-,seeks,to Us vain be, deny;.mucli dependencie of • 4, ... 40
theakcjualities•on individual' onditiont.-tili thk-feeling:—r;f: W.: ' •
least ota''Condition not hopeless—a condition.of struggle ' • ' ...i. ;4'{ i,..
•
it may lie, but not despair.
GLOBE.—The aid which the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland
has contributed to the result, of the State Prosecution, is
strangely overlooked by the Tory press. We did not, of •
course, expect much in the way of commendation. Praise
would have provoked an examination of its several parte,
and a comparison with the charges of some of the English
Judges, on trials of a similar description to that by which
Mr. Chief Justice Pennefather has obtained present
distinction and future fame, would have tended
greatly to its disparagement. But we did not
anticipate that the party organs which are chuckling over the
verdict would, in the same breath, pronounce the strongest
censure which any art angement of words could express on such
a composition. Yet such :is the fact! Of the charge of the
Chief Justice, the Times—in the very sentence in which
satisfaction, rising into exultation, that " the verdict is gained,"
is expressed—finds itself compelled to pay homage to truth
and fair play, by admitting, with " regret," that " the elabo-
rate exposition of the Chief Justice, sound as it may have
been, savoured too touch of the advocate." The Standard
also—yes, the Standard—rewards the " advocate" of the
Bench with a doubtful compliment. The fact is, that the
Chief Justice —in his anxiety to leave nothing unsaid which
could contribute to the common purpose of those who coun-
selled arid those who conducted the prosecution—said too
much. The stern impartiality of the Judge became merged
in the zeal of the partisan. The scales of justice were held
by a functionary who, instead of concerning himself to
preserve the equilibrium of the balance, took care, by his
mode of holding it, that the advantage should be given to the
accusers. 'Fo use the language of the Times, his charge to
the jury was the speech of an advocate, going every
length for a conviction; not a careful exposition of
the law, and an impartial application of its enact-
ments to the case which the jury were impanelled
to decide upon as between the Crown and the traversers.
We are nut about to follow the Learned Chief Justice
through the flounderings of his speech, which, in the judg-
ment of the Standard, perplexed, rather than assisted,
the minds of the jury in arriving at a decision. His
Lordship was thus (in the opinion cf that journal)
instrumental in obtaining for them the undesirable ex-
tension of their deliberations, and the consequent de-
tention from their families, until Monday, instead of
returning to their homes, as they hoped to have done, on
Saturday night. Our purpose is, rather, to cull some of the
more choice specimens of judicial impartiality and decorum
from that extraordinary speech. From these an opinion
may be formed of the whole composition. Added
to the proofs already furnished during the progress
of a State Prosecution in Ireland in the middle
of the nineteeth century, they will excite wonder
in many—perhaps some may weep. Alluding to the ad•
dresses of some of the counsel for the traversers, the Chief Jus-
tice remarked, at the commencement of his address to the jury,
that " they ( the jury) had heard a great deal of assertion and
declamation." On a part of Mr. O'Connell's speech, delivered
in his own defence, the comment was, that "he (O'Connell)
had lavished some personal abuse upon Lord Beaumont." Of
Mr. Tierney (another of the traversers), the Judge remarked,
that " he had had a little pet meeting of his own ;" while of
some repeal meeting spoken of by one of the witnesses, the Aitti-
cism was applied, "he (the judge, in his summing up) sii) posed
it was a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. "f his,
raised a laugh throughout the Court ; and, being a laugh at his
own joke, the Chief Justice did not interfere to suppress it.
Of the temper which the Chief Justice brought to the
undertaking of summing up the evidence, an instance
is afforded by the conduct for which he deemed in
necessary, on the Saturday morning, to apologize to
the Learned Counsel (Mr. Fitzgibbon) he had on the pre-
vious day most improperly assailed. One great defect is per-
ceptible in this address to the jury, which must forcibly strike
the mind of every one who reads it—the length to which the
remarks by which the criminatory evidence was enforced, while
the extenuatory and explanatory portions of the evidence were
either wholly omitted, or slurred over as unworthy of consi-
deration !
STANDARD.—Sir Charles Napier and his gallant army
are to be envied. They last night received the unanimous
thanks of the House of Lords, and the all but unanimous thanks
of the House of Commons, for the conquest of Sinde. This is
a tribute, happily for our country, often before claimed
upon just grounds by British generals and British troops,
but we doubt whether it was ever more justly
merited, and we are sure that the honour was never
so highly enhanced by the manner in which it was conferred.
In the House of Lords the ex-Governor- General of India; in the
House of Commons the leader of the opposition seconded the
motion, but this is not all—laudari a laudato is the nellesi
object of ambition—but how can the prodigal commendatioa
of the greatest of soldiers be appreciated? The speech of the
Premier in proposing the vote of thanks in the House of Com-
mons, wanted indeed that weight of high military authority,
which no speech but the Duke of Wellington's could possess, but
it was a noble panegyric worthy of its object, and of the speaker.
Providence places the administration of the affairs of such
a country in the hands of statesmen who, when the.
public interests are concerned, regard nothing but=
the ability to serve and the merit of the honour-
ed instruments whom they employ, and who flint
from them with disdain all lesser considerations, when Vet
great consideration of the public good is in question. The
Napier family are Whigs, or something more, but this circum-
stance avails nothing with Sir R. Peel when the public service
calls for the exercise of genius and valour—or when the
able and gallant public servant is to be rewarded by the gra-
titude of his Sovereign and fellow-subjects. It is riot a Govern-
ment like Sir Robert Peel's that would supersede Beresford by
Whitelecke. A feeble opposition to the vote of thanks was
raised by Lord Howick, supported by the precedent of "the
untoward battle of Navarino ;" but there is no analogy what-
ever between the cases. The mildest explanation of the battle
of Navarino ascribes it to an accident, but an accident.whinrt
due care would have obviated, and which, evwht: how-
ever occurred, ought not to have led to a battle, which,.
detrimental to the
it might terminate, must rove d Th It
honour or to the best interests of 'near, . ega antry uf
our sailors saved us from the disgrace of defeat ; but in other
respects English honour was deeply wounded, by the attack upon
our ally ; and English interests were fatally compromised !
in the destruction of the Turkish navy. In the case of.'
Stride there was no accident, the war was forced on by the:
treachery of our enemy, and the result was equally glorious moil
beneficial. As to the rule, that thanks are not due except
upon a declared war, it would preclude a nation from an ex-
pression of gratitude to those who might protect it from the
most terrible of dangers—an explosion of unsuspected and un-
provoked treachery,