The Sun.
London, England, 1829-04-22 00:00:00

SUMMARY OF POLITICS.

The Catholic Relief Bill has at length passed
both Houses of Parliament, and on Monday
last received the Royal assent by commission.
This great measure has thus at length passed
into a law; it now forms pal t of the British
Constitution. This exception to the maxims
of general freedom is now therefore done away ;
this blemish is effaced, and the Catholic of Ire-
land is free. Narrow and invidious restrictions
no longer impede his course—the gates of pro-
motion and honour, long shut, are now thrown
open to his generous and aspiring ambition—he
may now rise to the highest honour, civil
as well as military—no clogs obstruct his pro-
gress upward—he may ascend to his natural
level—he may now figure as a free citizen in a
free community—he may now contend on equal
terms with his Protestant rivals for the prizes Of
the political lottery. He has before him an
open field and free competition ; he now really
participates in the blessings and privileges of the
British Constitution, and he has an interest in
supporting it : and this is the only security
on which we can rely for the stability of our own
or any other system of government. No Consti-
tution which gives freedom and protection to its
subjects—which dispenses equal justice to them
—which is felt by them as a practical blessing—
is in any danger of being overturned; and we
always considered the oaths imposed by our laws,
either on Catholics or Protestants, as an ex-
tremely puerile and vain contrivance, and as
affording no security whatever. But why should
we seek security if we give no provocation ?
Who will ever be the enemy of a Constitution
from which he derives help and protection?
Who will ever be so mad as to squander away
such a benefit ? It is only when rulers oppress
that they provoke hostility, and require securities
against the just vengeance which they draw on
themselves. But a free Constitution is its own
security ; and to exact an oath from those who
are cherished under its protecting wings, that
they will not rise up in irrational animosity and
destroy it, is just about as wise as if we were to
cause the inhabitants of this enlightened country
to swear that they will not rise up, and, in some
mad fit, pull their own houses, which protect
them from the wind and weather, down about
their ears. It will be observed, that Lord Eldon,
and his select band of Protestant supporters,
stood firm to the last ; yet he used no argument
—he merely expressed his fears of dreadful con-
sequences from the measure. New, we would
just ask, if there ever was any one measure,
which introduced any important change, that
was not the subject of equally gloomy forebod-
ings ? The Union of Scotland with England
was reprobated by all the zealous patriots of the
day, as the sure prelude to the ruin of the coun-
try ; and every plan of improvement that has
since been proposed, has been regularly de-
nounced as replete with misery and ruin. It
is a well known fact, when it was proposed
to erect toll-bars on the roads around Lon-
don, that an alarm got up, that, by facilitat-
ing the access of the country to the metro-
polis, such supplies of produce would pour in
from the neighbouring and distant country, as
would totally reduce the price, and ruin the pro-
prietors of the lands near the metropolis, who
were in the habit of supplying its wants. Ab-
surd as we may consider this alarm, a petition on
this ground was actually presented to Parliament
against the improvement : and we may also re-
mark, when the trade of Ireland was most justly
emancipated from the ruinous shackles under
which it had long miserably groaned, that the
English merchants, anxious to retain their un-
just monopoly, were in a state of despair. In
what •lively colours did they paint the approach-
ing ruin of the British trade, by this impolitic
admission of Irish competitors ? The Govern-
ment, however, would not listen to this cry for
monopoly ; they gave freedom to the trade of
Ireland—and so far from ruining the trade of
Britain, it was never so flourishing as after this
act of tardy justice was done to Ireland. The
truth is, that it is easy for the imagination to
conjure up from any measure an array of pos-
sible calamities—it is easy, on very slender data,
to construct a hypothesis of evil ; but it would
be just as easy to raise an opposite hypothesis.
In short, when we let loose our imagination'on
futurity, into what absurd chimeras may we not
run—once throw off the chains that bind us to
what is reasonable, and we run wild into the
boundless regions of folly and delusion. There
is no process of common sense, in strict reason-
ing, by which we can deduce danger from the
present measure ; but from various sure data we
may reasonably deduce certain good. The good,
in short, is great, certain, and immediate—the
evil distant, contingent, and visionary ; and, with
this consolatory belief; we take our final leave of
this much agitated question.

In the Committee upon the Bill now in Par-
liament, for making the approaches to the New London
Bridge, a strong otapsition has been made on the part of
some of the inhabitants of Fish-street-hill. The Corpora-
tion feel their dignity greatly moved by the conduct of one
of the Aldermen, who readily undertook to plead the causa
of the opponents of the Bill before the Committee, not-
withstanding his rank in that body.
NOTTINGHIAM.—Wt, are happy to say that
no lives have been lost by the fall of the rock at Notting-
ham. A considerable portion still remains in jeopardy,
and some of the buildings on the edge of the cliff are being
Filled down. The fall was not more than 150 feet from
the foundation of St. Mary's Church.