The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-25 00:00:00

SP/14T of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

PROM THE EVENING PAPERS OP YESTERDAY.

GLOBE.—Mr. O'Connell's recent conduct has
been such as to disappoint and grieve his best friends,
and to gratify his worst enemies. We allude not
here to his speeches at the repeal meetings; although
these have of late savoured more strongly of sedition,
and been more freely impregnated with the elements
of mischief, than any of his former harangues. These
imprudent addresses to the prejudices and passions
of an easily-excited populace have not been allowed
to pass without censure by us. We should have been
justly regarded as "approvers" of his offences had we
refrained from rebuke and condemnation. Admit-
ting, as we do, the strong provocation which the pro-
ceedings of the Government have supplied, and the
gratification which Mr. O'Connell's personal feelings
may receive from the indulgence of vituperation
against those whom he designates his "persecutors"
--we cannot admit that this motive can excuse,
much less justify, those unmistakeable appeals
to the ignorant passions of the rabble with
which his recent speeches at Limerick and
Waterford were interlarded. There is neither
dignity nor patriotism in such harangues. They
would ruin a good cause, and brand with infamy in-
delible a bad one. The repeal project is dying by
inches under the blighting influence of Mr. O'Con-
nell's inflammatory orations. This would be mat-
ter for congratulation—affected by whatever means
which did not include an infraction of constitu-
tional rights. But, unhappily, the substantial
wrongs—those prolific sources of suffering and dis-
content among the Irish people, are permitted to
continue. Successive chimerical schemes for effecting
organic changes in the government are broached.
Thus the attention of the people is distracted from
their real interests, by endeavours to persuade them
that nothing but those changes in the constitution of
government can improve their physical and social con-
dition. The effect of these agitations upon the pub-
lic mind in this country is necessarily injurious to the
best interests of Ireland. Those who are now espe-
cially disposed, as they have ever been, to employ
their power, and to exert their influence, to improve
the condition of the Irish people, are discouraged.
They Bee their endeavours scorned—ridiculed--coun-
teracted—by an influence which has held that people
as by a spell ; and they suspend their endeavours until
the spell shall be broken, and the delusion destroyed.
Every indication of an approach to this better state
of things will be hailed with pleasure by all who desire
to see Irel Ind in possession of tranquillity. Whether
the desirable change be brought about by an improved
course of conduct in Mr. O'Connell—whose power
over the Irish people, if wisely directed, might now
be, as it has formerly been, the instrument of achiev-
ing for them vast benefits ; or, persisting in a course
of factious violence, he unveil his real character ; stand
forth the confessed demagogue in a patriots guise ; and
thus disgust, and detach from his project, those well-
meaning men who were induced for a time to connect
themselves with his schemes, in the hope that they
would result in practical advantage to their country.
By whichsover of these means the end be attained, is
erimparatively of little moment. 'We should feel re-
gret if the latter be the means. We would rather
that the great leader, who conducted the Irish people
from the ignoble and unrighteous bondage in which
they were held by penal statutes enacted against their
creed, should continue as their recognised benefactor,
employing his acknowledged talents and indomitable
mat in their cause. But if Mr. O'Connell abandon
that position—if, through mistake, or design, he set
himself against, and employ his influence to prevent,
the attainment of substantial improvements--real and
extensive recognitions and concessions which the
Government has made to the Roman Catholic religion,
the clergy and members of which Church were re-
cently proscribed by law—if this be Mr. O'Connell's
conduct, and he persist in pursuing such a course, then
do we say, let the alternative be joyfully accepted ;
let Mr. O'Connell's obviously diminished influence
over his countrymen be the precursor of his total
abandonment by them. He will then he the author
of his own fall from power. Better that they
should desert him, than thst they should remain
with him, to be the sharers of his deserved ruin,
the victims of his recklessness of head or heart.
The resistance which Mr. O'Connell has made to
the Catholic Bequests Act, and to the formation of a
Board constituted under its provisions for carrying
out the objects of its enactment, have led us to these
remarks. The agitation which Mr. O'Connell at-
terented to get up against it, has signally failed. His
deein'ciations of the heads of the Roman Catholic
hierarchy who have accepted seats at the Board,
and whose office in that Church are recognised
by the Cream, for the first time, in the Com-
mission by which the Board is constituted—the
reproaches heaped by Mr. O'Connell on two Ro-
man Catholic gentlemen of high rank and unble-
mished probity, for accepting seats at the Board—
these ill-judged and injurious attacks have estranged
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the more respectable
of Mr. O'Connell's adherente* from him and his
cause. The attempts to intimidate the Roman Catholic
Archbishops Murray and Crolly, and the Roman
Catholic Bishop Denvir, have failed. They re-
fused to be influenced by his threats, or to be cajoled
by his persuasions. Mr. Blake and Sir P. Bellew
were equally firm in their disregard of the agitator.
They have accepted the trust created by the Act and
offered to them by the Government. Mr. O'Connell
has opened the eyes of the most worthy among his
countrymen to the real character of his opposition,
and the worth of his present political schemes. He ,
has caused a schism in his own camp. He has placed
a gulph between himself and those whose countenance
and aid are essential to sustain him under any future
'struggle with the Government.
STANDARD.—It is to-day our task—a very un-
usual task with us—to defend Mr. Daniel O'Connell,
and to defend him against the accusations of journals
with which he has been intimately and long con-
nected ; though, like other friends, and even like
parties more closely united than by the ties of friend-
ship, the parties have had their quarrels—we speak
of the Times, which for about twenty years served
" the monster mendicant," and of the Morning Chro-
nicle, eehich was his obsequious follower for a still
longer period. The two journals named this morn-
ing agree in charging their late employer and
patron with the commission of a capital mistake in
'taking the line which he has taken with regard to
the Charitable Bequests Act. Now, we contend
that there has been been no mistake in the matter ;
that in his late proceeding Mr. O'Connell has acted
as cunningly as he ever acted in his life. It was
not in his power to evade the difficulty in which he
was placed by the wisdom and justice of the Govern-
ment; but a moment's thought will show, that he
has adroitly made the best of the perplexing position,
from which it was impossible for him to escape. The
aaritable Bequests Act, as our readers are aware, is
a law enabling Roman Catholics to make endowment
by donation or devise to secure a provision for
their secular clergy, but guarding the death-
bed from improper solicitation, by requiring
that the endowment shall be executed and
enrolled three months before the death of the
donor or devisor, as the case might be ; and in
order that there may be no suspicion that the law is
unfairly executed, a commission for the management
of charitable bequests generally—Protestant and
Roman Catholic in common—is provided, and it is
enacted that five of ten members of the board shall be
Roman Catholics. Nothing surely can be imagined
inore wise, just, and liberal than this law ; but because
it is wise, just, and liberal, Mr. O'Connell and his
friends are embarrassed by it. The truth is, that
they did not desire any Charitable Bequests Bill at
all, though the want of a distinct law upon the sub-
ject of endowments seemed an excellent grievance—
:l handsome addition to the hacknied falsehood that
the poorest people in the empire have to support two
churches. The Roman Catholic clergy—the only
efficient Roman Catholic party—do not desire
endowments, any more than they desire a
State provision, because they are much better oft
with the help of that elaborate system of taxation
which they have wrought up to an exquisite perfec-
tion. While a priest can represent himself to be
absolutely dependent upon the gratitude, generosity,
and Christian charity of the pert ignorant creatures
at his mercy, he may excis hem at the rate
of 3001. or 4001. a-year, the present average in-
come of Irish priests ; but these gentlemen are
sufficiently well aware of the native shrewdness
of the most ignorant of their countrymen to know
that if the proprietor of a comfortable cottage,
with a settled income sufficient for his wants, say 801.
. or 1001. a year for a single man, were to call upon
them for a penny, he would call upon them in vain.
The secular Roman Catholic clergy are therefore
exceedingly averse to any endowment of them-
. selves ; and if any endowment is forced upon
their Church, they would willingly push it away
to the regulars, who sometimes are, by sheer
poverty, compelled to trespass on the market
for masses. The Charitable Bequests Act, however,
makes no provision for the endowment of the
" regular orders," for this good reason, that the law
has already provided for the extinction of these
orders. Here, then, begins Mr. O'Connell's diffi-
culty. The priests universally hate and dread the
operation of the law, but they cannot avow the true
reasons of their hatred and fear of a law so manifestly
wise, just, and liberal. The lower class know
n
othing of the law, and hear nothing of it, except from
tree i r priests, and the priests and the lower orders are
Mr. O'Connelra paymasters, and consequently his mas-
ters in all other respects. The intelligent
and well-
disp)sed Roman Catholics h e.ve reason lertTkdn
the intolerable with
a measure which must ultimately go far e
tyranny of the aives of Mn
h:ay
tovoths,
•
' and which even at present protects them from
.
„frequent robberies, by death-bed solicitations, to
which they are exposed. The intelligent and well-
disposed -Kalman Catholics, we repeat it, have
reason to be satisfied with the law, and are, in fact,