The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-21 00:00:00

iirtirti 72bition

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAT.
- -- -

GLOBE.—The increased grant to Maynooth Col-
lege was the subject of two notices of motions last even-
ing in the House of Commons. Sir Robert Peel gave
notice that he should, on the 3d of May, move that the
House take into consideration the proposed grant to May-
nooth. Mr. Ward gave notice that he should, on a fu-
ture day, propose that all further money grants for the
purpose of religion, be made out of the funds appro-
priated to the maintenance of the Protestant Episcopal
Church. It will be at once seen that these two notices
involve the entire controversy to which the proposed in-
creased grant to Maynooth necessarily gives rise. First,
the expediency of the proposed increase. Secondly, the
funds out of which the increased grant to Maynooth
shall be supplied. The former applies itself to the pro-
priety of endowing Popery at all ; the latter raises the
question, whether the very ample revenues of the
Church of the minority ought not to provide the funds
for this increased amount to the ecclesiastical school
of the majority ? It is already known that the
Premier intends to make this increased annual sum
to Maynooth a permanent payment. It will there-
fore be no longer the theme of annual debate in the
House of Commons, or of strife out of doors. The
question, if settled now, will be settled once for all—
this, at least, is the intention of the Government._.
Sir Robert Peel--bas- -affoireff ample time for dell:
beration. Whether the Right Hon. Baronet was desirous
of feeling his way before he encountered the formi-
dable opposition, both within and without the walls of
Parliament, which he is aware is preparing to meet his
`proposal, and therefore fixed a distant day, to afford him
time for oonciliating the malcontents on his own side
of the House ; or whether, relying upon his subservient
majority, he looks down from the height of his power
upon the contemptible things which venture to lift up
their puny voices ogainst his will—whom he leaves to
complain, or to be silent, as they may be disposed—
it may not be easy to decide. The six weeks
will be employed in preparing for a resistance
to this measure more formidable than any which the
Government has had to deal with since its accession to
office. We have some claim on the confidence of Minis-
ters, so far as pre-monitions of such movements are con-
cerned. We cautioned and warned them against the
storm which was preparing for their factory-children
education scheme in 1842. The tokens of that well-
arranged and simultaneous agitation, provoked by an
uncalled-for attempt by the Government to cripple, if
not to destroy, the Sunday and week-day schools of the
Wesleyana, and other bodies of Dissenters from the Es-
tablished Church, resulted in that cordial union of the
sectaries before:which the power of the Government was
weakness. Have Sir Robert Peel and Sir J. Graham
so soon lost the impressions made on them by the
scenes which the House of Commons exhibited, night
after night, in April and May, 1842 ? The table and
floor of the House literally covered with petitions—the
agitation out of doors increasing as the Government
evinced a disposition to recede—until, at length,
unable to subdue the storm it had excited, and fear-
ful of encountering its energy, the obnoxious measure
was withdrawn. The same spirit has been again suc-
cessfully invoked. The same indomitable opposition is
in preparation. The , stern determination which
pervaded the different bodies of sectaries in
1842 and which they embodied in the many
thousands of numerously-signed petitions with which
they importuned the House of Commons to reject
the measure—is rapidly taking possession of those
stern hereditary adherents to Protestantism, and firm
opponents of Popery in its creeds and practices. We
write advisedly. We state with confidence that there
will be an opposition as firm, as numerous, as well
concocted and arranged, as energetically expressed
in hosts of petitions as numerously signed, and
as earnestly enforced, to this attempt to endow
the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth out of
the national revenue, as any measure which has ema-
nated from the expediency-guided Cabinet of Sir Robert
Peel ; or would have been called forth had such
a measure been proposed by a Whig Administration,
and Sir Robert Peel had been prompted, by the
hope of office, to denounce it—as he would then
have denounced it—as a measure fraught with danger
to the Protestant institutions of the land. The members
of the Established Church in both countries will, to a
very large extent, swell this torrent of discontent with
the Premier's proposed endowment of Popery. To the na-
tional jealousy of the real or imaginary aggressive policy
of the Roman Catholic religion which pervades the great
s tants England
will andbe Scotland,
added.
Sir IZ.
class majority
of
Peel's policy in Opposition was to preserve and foment
othfethelripseho
pPleroote f
these feelings. He employed them to gain the object of
his ambition. Can he complain if they do not now sub-
side? Having effected the purpose for which be in-
voked their aid, ho now finds it convenient, for its
changed position, that they should be at peace! But
having sown to the wind, he will reap the whirlwind.