The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-21 00:00:00

honour thus conferred on him, and certai "13 i.xiosed ~
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himself most gallantly in its behalf. •t felt as- li,• if
_,
sured of triumph, and congratulated the ee. emenon - ' tic
;he hustings, by whOse means the meeti _ ..litf.Whi - ' ''.
called, that " they found themselves supporte.
,b
they ,t, yeomanry, the tenantry, the gentry, and he woufer-ser,' the labourer too —(' No, no,' and great uproar)—in dee
nouncing what could be called by no other name than
the revolutionary proceedings of the League.—(Cheers
and groans.) He rejoiced : it was one of the happiest
days of his life to see the yeomanry of the county of So-
merset coming forward and, like men, prepared to take
their stand, if needs' be, foot to foot and breast to breast,
against the enemies of theirproperty, their peace, and their
prosperity." Sir A. Hood evidently feels that the hope of •
the landowners rests upon their purse, rather than upon
any principles they can put forth, or any arguments they
can employ against free trade. Hence he invoked large
pecuniary contributions—contributions which must be
" much larger than those the Anti-Corn-law League can
obtain." How these contributions are to be employed
he said not. It is evident, however, that the worthy
Baronet has an eye to the old Tory practices at elections,
by which the monopolist-upholding majority in the
House of Commons may be kept up.
STANDARD.—Every one in this country is weary
of the lumbering debate.that has now for five nights
occupied the House of Cominons, and that for all that
appears may occupy it for five nights more, for there
is plainly no conceivable necessary termination to the
delivery of speeches by men who are 'not ashamed to
produce in cold blood, and to reproduce, and to pro-
duce again fallacies one thousand times refuted—truth
is in both senses the end of all legitimate discustion ;
but when men deliberately leave truth on one side, it is
obvious that in any sense discussion need not have any
encl—a dreary prospect for us, and for all like us, com-
pelled to read Parliamentary debates. We are not by
any means disposed to provoke once more the question
which we hear at every corner—" is there to be no end to
these Irish debates ?"—but in order that the People may
see all the mischief, we would remind them that these de-
bates, which are simply a nuisance in England, are a deadly
pestilence to the unhappy country which is the subject
of them, just vs the monotonous clatter of the copper-
smith, which merely annoys a healthy neighbour on one
side, will kill the patient on the other if he is recovering
from a fever, by depriving him of the rest upon which his
only hope of life depends. It is, in fact, impossible to
overrate the evil of the present transfer of " the Con-
cilialion Hall" to Westminster, or the guilt of those by
whom it h .s been made. It is, indeed, to underrate
the evil, td speak of it merely as a mere transfer of the
" Conciliation Hall," for incendiary speeches deli-
vered - in the Houses of Parliament are ten-fold
more pernicious than the same speeches would be
delivered in Dublin, because the Irish peasant receives
such speeches (and they are all carried to him) as the
admissions of those whom he has been taught to con-
sider as adversaries, or as at least the testimonies of im-
partial witnesses. If there is in the proceedings of the
Oppositien any one circumstance more disgusting than
another, it is the new character with which, for their
purpose, they invest the Roman Catholic population
of Ireland—a character of universal treason—a
character not only different from, but exactly opposite
to, that in which they represented the same party
twenty or thirty years ago. We entreat those
who can remember—as unfortunately we can—
the speeches of the 'Whigs twenty or thirty years
ago, to recollect. with what zeal, with what
fury, the disloyalty of Roman Catholics was re-
pelled as an impossible hypothesis in those speeches.
Few, now at an age of maturity, can forget that up to
1829 the Irish Roman Catholics were described by the
Whigs as not merely universally loyal, but as being the
only truly loyal part of the Irish population. All will
remember that an attempt to revive the falsehood was
made in 1835, when the Orange Committee was ap-
pointed ; and again on the occasion of her
Majesty's accession to the Crown, when Mr.
O'Connell spoiled the enterprise by his fulsome
professions, accompanied by his seditious practice.
How happens it, then, that the Roman Catholics—
so zealously loyal under privations, which, however
light, were represented to them as intolerably burthen-
some—have become universally the separatists and trai-
tors that their Whig-Radical friends now describe them,
within a few years of the removal of every vestige of
privation ? This would be indeed, as Mr. Grattan
said, " not merely unfounded, but monstrous." The
answer is, that it is not true that the great body of the
Roman Catholics are unquestionably now more loyal,
now more averse from separation than they were thirty
years ago. We can add the testimony of our own cor-
respondents to what is stated in the article which we
have borrowed from the Morning Herald, as to the
effect of the verdict against Mr. O'Connell—that
verdict, we are assured, has been received, not
with indifference, but with satisfaction by
nineteen-twentieths of the educated and intelligent
Roman Catholics, and even by the most ignorant of the
peasantry it has been received as a matter in which they
have little or no concern. Should evil result from it,
that evil will be the effect of the use which the Whigs
have sordidly and corruptly made of the topic in Par •
liament ; not of anything that has passed or is
passing in Ireland. It is quite as true now as it
was when Lord Plunket said it, in the passage quoted,
that " the separatists are neither numerous nor formi-
dable," though they may appear so to superficial ob-
servers, for a reason given by the same Noble and
Learned Lord in the same speech :--" It is most unfair
to visit on [ascribed to] the Roman Catholics the
'pinions and conduct of such public assemblies as pro-
fess to act for them. In all such places, we know that
unbounded applause attends the man who oc-
cupies the extreme positions of opinion ; and
that the extravagance of his expression of such
opinion will not be calculated to diminish it.
Now, what Lord Plunket said to defend the Roman
Catholics against one set of accusers, it may be allowed
to us to say for their protection against a much more
foul and malignant charge than was ever before pre-
ferred against them. We say that they are not traitors,
and that the calmness and even complacency with which
they see the fall of Mr. O'Connell, proves that that per-
son never possessed a tithe of the moral power ascribed
to him, and that he is no faithful expositor of Roman
Catholic feeling.
ADVERTISER.—Sir Robert Peel succeeded in muzzling
Lord Lyndhurst while the debate on Ireland was proceeding
in the Upper House ; but he has not succeeded in sealing the
lips of another equally dangerous colleague in the House of
Commons. Lord Stanley, who last session submitted with-
out a murmur to the silence which his master imposed on
him, has this session given indications that he will not con-
sent to play the mute any longer. He has, with becoming
spirit broke through the restraints to which the Premier
sought to subject him. "Richard's himself again." On
Friday evening the Noble Lord proved to the House, and to
Sir Robert Peel too, that he has not by the unbroken silence
he submitted to maintain last year, lost any of that hastiness
of temper, or impetuosity of character which he was wont to
display whenever lie took part in any of the discussions in
the Hpiuse. 'We are glad of this, while condemning the
matter-isf his speech. We are gratified to see that he
has had7the manliness to rebel against the wishes of his Mi-
nisterial master, and that he is determined not any longer to
compromise his own character by consenting to maintain, •at
the bidding of Sir Robert, a degrading silence. His speech of
Friday is, we trust, to be regarded as an earnest of the pro-
minent part he means to take in the discussions of the session
on which we have just entered. His Lordship's speech on
Friday was a strikingly faithful transcript of the mind of the
speaker. He was as fiery and vehement—as open and un-
guarded as ever. He compromised the Cabinet of which he
is a member by every fifth or sixth sentence he delivered.
His speech was the most damaging to Ministers which has
yet been delivered since the commencement of the debate.
It has done, and will do, the Government of Sir Robert Peel
more mischief than even the speech of Lord John
Russell. Some of his admissions were quite as in-
sulting and offensive as was the application of the
word " alien " to the blood, language, and religion
of the Irish, which Lord Lyndhurst was fiendish
or foolish enough to make, a few years ago. The Colonial
Secretary admitted, for example, that Ireland is ruled by
military law, and that a rebellion is prevented solely by an
exhibition of brute force. He virtually thanked God that
there were troops enough in Ireland to keep the people in
subjection. Is this, then, a matter for gratitude to Heaven ?
Ought it to be a subject of self-gratulation to any Govern-
ment, that an entire nation are so maddened by the measures
of that Government, that to prevent rebellion their country
must be converted into one vast garrison ? We unconsciously
ask ourselves, when we hear such language, in what country
do we live ? In Russia or in Great Britain ? Are we under
a despotism, or do we possess a free constitution ? The lan-
guage of Lord Stanley might suit the meridian of St. Peters-
burgh, but it is language which the greatest enemies of Mi-
nisters could never have expected to hear in London.
Does the Noble Lord imagine that this is the way
to conciliate the Irish ? Does he suppose that the
use of such language is calculated to tranquillise
Ireland? The people of Ireland know, because they have
felt it, that since the accession of the Tories to power, they
have been living under a military despotism ; but is it wise,
is it generous, is it safe to strike the iron still deeper into
their souls, by openly proclaiming and in effect glorying in
the fact? Is it not enough that Ireland is oppressed, de-
graded, insulted, by the men now in office, without having
superadded to all her indignities and wrongs, the crowning
insult of boasting in Parliament that, by means of an over-
whelming military force, the party in power can continue to
trample her people in the dust? The speech of Lord Stanley
will produce a feeling of indignation in Ireland, which may
be attended with results which no one can contemplate with-
out fear and trembling. Nothing which the plausible and
cautious Premier may hereafter say, will neutralise the effects
of that most insulting speech. It will rankle in the bosom
of every Irishman who loves his country ; and it Will
strengthen and extend the feeling which exists in favour of a
severance from Great Britain. Talk of Mr. O'Connell and
" monster meetings" endangering the peace of Ireland ! Why,
this single speech of the Hotspur of the Ministry will do
more to peril the peace of Ireland than all the repeal meet
ings ever held, and all the repeal speeches ever made, in that
country.
HERALD.—We rejoice to find that the agricultural party
are at length proceeding to take vigorous measures to coun-
teract the Anti-Corn-law League. A meeting took place at
the Duke of Richmond's on Saturday, for the purpose of
forming a Metropolitan Society for the Protection of British
Agriculture, when his Grace was appointed President, and
the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos Vice-President of the
Society. There were present at this influential meeting :
The Duke of Richmond, the Duke of Buckingham and
Chandos, the Duke of Leeds, Lord Beaumont, Earl of
Yarborough, Viscount Ingestre, Lord Rendleshain, Earl of
March, Lord Worsley, Viscount Campden, Lord Newport,
Lord Ossulston, Sir C. Burrell, Sir C. Knightley, Sir J.
Trollope, Sir. J. Chetwode, Hon. F. Scott, Messrs. T.
Duffeld, Stafford O'Brien, E. S. Cay.ley, E. Wodehsuse,
R. A. Christopher, E. W. Mundy, C. Turner, A. Lavinion, R.
Eaton, R. Gordon, C. N. Newdegate, W. Long, C2lr_'el
Sibthorp, W. Beresford, C. Wyndham, G. Darby, If'erusg:
C. R. Colville, J. P. Plumptre, Q. Dick, H. S. Waqwnio
R. Palmer,. W. Brampston, R. B.
Halford, d. Goring, W. B. Ferrand, A. E.
P. Affix, and other
Russell, W. L. W. Chute,
W.Miles, J.
j'were agreed to, for
Members of Parliament. Resolutionse Hale, E.
Yorke, li.
protection of the agriculture namely, the object ihninvgi edwon-1,
appointed to confer with those gentle-
menthe purpose of carrying into effect t
and a deputation was h
gre a
tool* hit
meeting for the same purpose at
Tavern. This is the right course to pursue,
Where Freemasons' .
t• bl l that
is a so ute y necessarysome
Where unity is strength, i
who have advertised a in.
ti al association should be formed, with which the various
Leecal. bodies, whose meetings we have so frequently of late
adverted to, may communicate.

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