The Sun.
London, England, 1828-05-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT or THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

At an Aggregate Meeting of the Catholics of Ire-
land on Tuesday, Mr. O'Connell observed, " We
may be said to have gained the key of the enemy's
position. We have now to consider the means to
secure that position, and how we shall be able to ,
scatter our enemies. In order to come to a right •
conclusion OR this subject, we should consider the
means by which we have been enabled to attain our
present station. If I were asked. how we had got
thus far forward, I would answer in one word, er
rather in three—first, by agitation—secondly, by
by agitation. (cheeri.) We
agitatiun—thirdly.,
have succeeded by keeping our questien emistantly
in the publie, attention—we have succeeded by kedg-
ing our enemies in constant anxiety and perpetually
on the watch—we have succeeded by combining all
•cla.ses, the Clergy, the 11,101;14y, and the Laity, in
one common body; and by our exertions fer fie
common principle. We have succeeded by not al-
lowing ourselves to be deluded by our friends or
our enemies--by following that course which has
brought us to our present height ; but which lets
wen; so Often tOlit bypretended friends, open
enemies, was injurious to the Catholic cause."
'There is great good sense in these observations of
Me. O'Connell. Patience may be an excellent pass!,
port for a good place in the next world, but it trill
seldom fail to procure the lowest place in this. As
long as men will be content to bear oppression pati-
ently, the oppressors will allow them abundance of
scope for the exercise of this Christian virtue.
The well-being of the world is promoted. by fear
rather than generosity ; and woe be to the nation,
or party, or individuals, who are at the niei•ey of
others, and who have no security for vett treatment,
in the danger of meddling with them. Wehave again
and again told the Catholics not to hawk their suf•
ferings, not to appeal to the kind feelings of this or
that class, but to avail themselves of all possible
means to make the situation of their opponents un-
comforti,ble. The patient ass receives, as the re-
ward of his patience, a blow from every one who
passel; while every one who descries a bulldog in his
way takes (Are not to come into too close contact
with him. As the Catholics have become power-
ful and able to annoy their opponents, they have
become more and more the objects of respect. It
is impossible not to feel contempt for these who are
patient under oppression, and impossible to feel con-
tempt for those respecting whom we are under ap-
prehension. Let the Catholics always bear in mind
that it is not for their sakes that their claims are Con-
ceded ; and that if it were possible to oppress them
'with safety, they would still he oppressed. It is
not compassion for them which has dictated the va-
rious relaxations of the Peiial Laws, but our fears
for our safety ; and if our safety were compatible
with their oppression, they would never cease to be
the victims of oppression. When people begin to
talk of yielding nothing to intimidation, we may be
,ure they are intimidated. No man boasts of not
being afraid, but the coward. History, when read
properly, furnishes ample confirmation of the truth
of Mr. O'Connell's positions. That of Ireland will
tell him when she obtained her privileges. Many
and many a moving publication, from the ponderous
quarto down to the pamphlet, appeared on the sub-
ject of the wrongs suffered by the seamen ; but the
light which all these publications failed to shed in
the proper quarter was instantaneously given by the
mutiny at the Nore. That crafty Antinomian,
Huntingdon, who saw a good way into human na-
ture, observes, in one of his writings, " I think every
poor man in England will hold with me in this par-
ticular, that the rich are agreed to keep that person
poor who is poor." If the Irish were poor enough
to allow themselves to be kept down, they would
be kept down for ever.—Morning Chronicle.

Those who are called statesmen must form a
strange estimate of the common sense and judgment
of mankind, when they suffer empires, over which
they are appointed to preside, to be influenced or put
in jeopardy, by the trifling disagreements AN hich may
arise upon the common everyday occurrences of life.
Yet that such is the case too frequent experience
informs ; and the world is continually doomed to
see the greatest of human concerns succumb to the
littleness of the human mind :—" A girl at the door
of the inn," says Mr..Burke,-" has changed the face
of nature and of nations." The British public, still
less .the powers of Europe, whose eyes are upon us,
were little prepared to expect that the Duke of Wel-
lington's Administration was so loosely put together
that a mere breath could dissipate some part at least
of its materials. Who could imagine, for instance,
that Sir Henry Wright Wilson, and that most rotten
of all rotten boroughs—the far-famed borough of
East Retford, were of consequence enough to
raise a schism in the Ministry of England, just
at the time when that Ministry, from its oc-
cupation in high concerns, had the best apology
upon earth for not caring one farthing more
about East Retford than if its representation
were merged in the Mayoralty of Garret? Yet so
it is, and such is the influence of lesser matters
over lesser minds, that " trifles light as air" can pro-
duce consequences sometimes, which greater inte-
rests fail to effect. That a schism has arisen in the
Ministry, and that too upon this paltry, school-boy
kind of ground, admits of no doubt. How that
schism may end is not yet discernible. The Whit-
suntide recess conies opportunely enough to give
the parties breathing time; and we trust, that a
short period of reflection will convince them all how
futile a source of disunion they have permitted to
arise ; and that they will not allow the page of his-
tory to be scandalized by a recital so full of nothing-
'less as this matter, as it now stand,, would present.
We wonder, by the bye, that the judgment of pos-
terity does not influence public men more than it
:appears to do. " What will history say ?" is a
question which many might with propriety ask him-
self on almost every occasion. And if the Members
of the Duke of Wellington's Administration ask.
themselves " What will history say?' should the
Borough of East Retford lead to its dissolution, the
answer will be, that history will record them as light •
ing with shadows, while the substance was lost
sight of and abandoneo.-3,Arning
Herald.
There is one circumstance connected with the
existing Ministerial differences, which involves a
principle whose violation must be fatal to any Ad-
ministration, and which, without any reference to
the case immediately in discussion, is not undeserv-
ing of notice.
When men speak of a united Mi-
nistry, they do not mean that each individual of the
Cabinet is of the same opinion on every subject
which the Cabinet may be called to consider. This
would be a miraculous, not a natural torte of things.
lii the mo:,t, harmonious Ministry thz t everi existed
onsttl
the' e must be as many shades of -opm
iol
sh of
'a not
des
one, but on every question, as there are
knowledge and of understanding in its members.
All that the most anxious for unanimity call require
l
is, that the view of each question which meets wit!,
the support of the majority of the Cabinet
lie cordially admitted by the rest. If there be
any exception to this rule, it must be with re-
spect to those questions which the Cabinet, when
in its elemental state, shall agree never to dis-
cuss with a view to such a settlement. We
most sincerely deprecate all such arrangements,
while, at the same time, we bow, not to the
arguments, so much as to the authority of those
who hold the opposite practice to be necessary in
the present divided state of public opinion on one
great question. But granting, for argument sake,
t hat on that question there must exist differences in
all Cabinets, it is not the less true that on all other
points, not specially reserved, whether of great im-
portance or of small, unanimity of action is essential
to the existence of a Ministry. When assemblies
deliberate, they may divide into as many parts as
there are individuals belonging to them, but when
they act they toast act as one. Discipline in this
sense is as essential among a party of high-hori,
civilians as in a band of soldiers. In a council c'
war the youngest member has a right to give hi,
advice, and to argue for its adoption, but whei:
the plan of attack or defence is once agreed on;
the oldest has no right to depart from it.