The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-12 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1844.

Tha principal business in the House of Lords was
the second reading of the Earl of Powis's Bill, to
repeal so much of the Act of 1836 as provided for the
ultimate union of the Sees of Bangor and St. Asa.ph
under one Bishop.
The Duke of WELLINGTON opposed the Bill, and
moved that it be read a second time that day six
months.

The Archbishop of CANTERBURY supported the
Government, as did the Bishop of LONDON.
The Bishop of Balloon and the Bishop of ST. DA..
rth's defended the Bill, which was also supported by
the Bishop of EXETER.
On a division the second reading of the:Noble Earl's
Bill was carried by a majority of 12, the numbers
being 49 against 37 ; the Government were thus in a
minority,
The House of Commons met at the usual hour.
The second reading of the Irish Registration Bill
Was fixed for the Ist of July.
Mr. BORTIIWICK then made his promised motion
for a Select Committee into the operation of the
Anatomy Act.
A short discussion ensued, and the Hon. Member's
potion was rejected by a majority of 39.
Mr. WARD then brought forward the . motion of
which he had given notice, respecting the state of
the Established Church in Ireland. lie made an able
speech, recapitulating the arguments that have fre-
quently been advanced against the anomalies
presented by the state of that Church.
Lord ELIOT followed Mr. WARD, opposing the
motion.

The rest of the evening was occupied by speeches
from Mr. SIIAW and Mr. REDINGTON, when the
debate, on, the motion of Colonel RAwDoN, was
adjourned,

The other orders of the day were then disposed of,
and the House adjourned at Twenty Minutes after
Twelve o'clock.

......- ---
t:lyi_. Mr. WARD brought forward the question of the
Th.c.7.--,:..dr rateftapt Church Temporalities of Ireland last
i!,:; Illigli“n4lie House of Commons. The Hon. Mem-
. be r'Sspeech on the occasion was temperate, and even
''.
_, wry, in its tone ; sound and forcible in argu-
-I,:=': Prierl, . y'f4ll 9f useful statistical facts. The f0110w-
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ing passage produced a decided effect on the House—
and no wonder, for it is an apt and cogent comment
on the zeal and efficiency of some of the Protestant
Church dignitaries, whom Irishmen are told to re-
gard with the reverence due to their sacerdotal func-
tions :—" lie had a placard sent him the other day,''
observed the Hon. Member for Sheffield, " the
genuineness of which could not be doubted. It was
the announcement of a sale of the property of the late
Archdeacon of Meath, and among the effects he found
forty thorough-bred horses and mares, from three
to seven years old, and also their justly cele-
brated and well-known sires, Sir Edward and Sir
Hugh. All these were the genuine effects of the
Venerable Archdeacon of Meath. Besides the
thorough-bred horses, there were thirteen capital
working horses, and five Spanish donkeys, three of
them in foal. Besides all these, he had the an-
nouncemement of a sale of dogs in Dublin. There
were thirty couples of beagles, the handsomest, and of
the best blood in Ireland ; and there were thirteen pairs
of greyhounds, well known in Meath." All these—
dogs, horses, and donkeys—were the property of the
apostolical Archdeacon of Meath—a distinguished
member of that Irish Ecclesiastical Establishment,
which Sir R. INGLIS deems it the worst sacrilege to
think of reforming, and which those two other bright
Baronets, Sir J. GRAHAM and Sir R. PEEL, are proud
to take under the shelter. of their wings ! And while
the Irish Protestant dignitaries, with little or no active
duty to fulfil, thus revel in luxury, what is the situa-
tion of the Catholic priesthood ? They are scantily
paid, hard-worked, and constantly sneered at as bigots
and ignoramuses by the:rival Churchmen ! Can we
wonder that Ireland is never otherwise than in a state
of exacerbation,!when she finds a broad line of distinc-
tion thus marked between the two antagonist esta-
blishments—the one lavishly paid for doing little or
nothing—a task which it accomplishes with singular
diligence—having few or no feelings in common with
the vast mass of the population over whom it pre-
sumes to exercise authority, yet nevertheless protected
by Government, as though the value of its public
services were inestimable; the other poorly remune-
rated for incessant labour; in full possession of
the confidence and affections of the majority of the
Irish people, acting as their guide, guardian, and
friend in all cases of emergency; yet notwithstanding
this, treated with frigid neglect by Government,
and with downright insult by their Tory adherents ?
Can we wonder, we repeat, that Ireland is exasperated,
when she sees the galling and invidious distinction
made between the Church which she distrusts and
dislikes, and that which she loves and cherishes ? In
England the Protestant Establishment rests its chief
claims to the support, and attachment and sympathy
of the people, on the fact—which it is never weary of
repeating—that it is the Church of the poor. In
Ireland, it: claims the support of the authorities on
no other pretext that we can perceive, than that it is
the Church of the rich—the Church of the
few—the Church whose principal duty is to do
nothing—a duty which we must honestly acknow-
ledge, it discharges with exemplary assiduity. Will
the time never arrive when this colossal nuisance
will be abated—when this ulcer eating its way to
the vitals of Ireland will be cut out—when this
proud, haughty badge of three hundred years of na
tional servitude will be destroyed, or at any rate be
compelled to lower the tone of its pretensions, to do
more work with less pay, and be rendered available,
where it is now nearly, if not quite, useless ? Un-
doubtedly the time will arrive when this desirable
consummation will be effected ; though some years,
we fear, must elapse, ere the Irish Protestant Esta-
blishment—which has been the direct cause of so
many wholesale tithe massacres—shall cease to be the
one prominent grievance of the Irish people.

It might appear, at first sight, to those who had not
previously examined and considered the matter with
all due care, that " it must be safer for a public man,
who is not very certain of his grounds, to state a case
hypothetically, than positively." It would seem
matter of course that, if he have a measure to propose
upon premises which, at the moment, he cannot ve-
rify, it must be better for him to state them as condi-
tions necessary to be granted, than to propound them
for facts already admitted and incapable of disproof.
But we are satisfied by the authority and example of
Sir R. Pam, that there may be many " untoward"
conditions of circumstances under which it shall be
more expedient for a Minister, in defiance
of defective information, and despite of his
own grave doubts, to proceed upon these
uncertain elements as if they were absolute
principles, in which he may venture to solicit
the concurrence of the Legislature with the views he
has founded upon them. If he assume antecedents to
have actually happened, which he knows to be indis-
pensable to the establishment of those views, the
chances are, that one-half of his hearers will believe,
implicitly, that which he has so assumed ; and that of
the other half who may dissent from, or dispute the
facts which are involved in such antecedents, but a
very few will be at the trouble to follow out the proof
of their fallacy; and that even as to these, there is al-
ways the apologetic plea to be addressed (a plea which
the custom of Parliament is sure to admit to a plau-
sible Premier)—" that he has been mistaken as to
' some facts ; or inaccurately instructed as to a few
details,' but that the House will feel with him these
cannot affect the general results he has arrived at."
It was, for example, a much more convenient course
for Sir ROBERT PEEL, in his speech of the 6th of
May, to declare the Order in Council of Mr. PITT,
in 1797, "a fatal blunder," than to set about the dan-
gerous task of showing why it had been so. In this
undertaking he would have made shipwreck of that
very unseaworthy craft in which he has embarked
upon a sort of privateering cruise, under false colours,
against those legitimate interests which the genius of
PITT at once understood, developed, and protected. In
like manner, when Sir Ronnar asked (almost emu-
lating the sardonic gravity of him who demanded
" What is truth ?") " What is a pound ? " he
answered his own question by some so unhesitating
propositions, that they were well calculated
to delude the majority of his hearers into
a notion that they must be facts because
they were positive averments. The Author of
" A. Letter to the Premier," [the second and enlarged
edition of which is now before us,] demolishes, as we
showed in a previous article, the whole hypothesis
upon which those propositions were fixed, and abso-
lutely disproved the statistics that the Premier
brought up to their support. Thus the definitions of
" a certain, definite quantity of the precious metals,"
"a quantity invariable as well as definite," were as

effectually routed as the imaginary " identity of the
value of our pound In coin," with that " unalterable,"
or "standard value," which it possessed in the last two
years of the reign of ELIZABETH. Sir ROBERT'S his-
torical "memoranda," of themselves, extinguished the
"certainty," or "definitiveness," of the quan-
tity of precious metals of our pound at
various periods of the monarchy. The " In-
quirer after Truth " conclusively proved that

since the reign of ELIZABETH our unalterable pound
sterling had undergone four several alterations : to
wit, in 1604, 1625, 1675, and 1815 ; that Sir
ROBERT has confounded the ideas of " standard," and

" measure " of value, by treating the terms as con-
vertible ones, and applying equally to quality as to
quantity—that moreover the relations of silver and
gold, instead of being properties capable of arbitrary
equation, or given conditions determinable by the

caprice of a Minister, " are altered by circumstances

over which our rulers have no control."

In this last line a great political as won as financial
truth is inculcated, which is, we suspect, much more
profound than any " dreamed of " in Sir ROBEIIT'S

currency " philosophy." It is indeed evident that
whilst he imagines himself to be putting an issue be-
tween himself and his opponents on some assumption
so extravagant that it could determine only in a re-
ductio ad absurdum, that very issue which he can re-
gard only as a theoretical abstraction, has occurred !
and that facts, of which he appears profoundly igno-
rant, have practically demonstrated his supposed
impossible absurdity. Let us cite from p. 22 of the
" Letter to the Premier," an instance strictly con-
firming our view of this matter :—" What then," asked
Sir ROBERT, on the 6th of May, alluding to the I3ir-

rningham strictures on his currency measures"--
" What, then, is the meaning of now asking that the
Bank should issue gold at the rate of .51. an ounce ? .
Depend upon it, that if you attempt to say, that one
ounce of gold shall not represent 31. 17s. 6d. in silver,
but Z.l.—silver and gold Will be more powerful than your
legislation, and you will find it utterly impossible to
alter the relative value of silver and gold.' you think,
Sir, that you have got y( ur antagonists on the hip, but