The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-05 00:00:00

PUBLIC OPINION.

The following remarks are from the Post:—
" What is to become of Irish agricultural prosperity
while the form of insanity called liberal views' is
in the ascendant among legislators and governors ?
A paragraph has appeared in most of the Irish
papers, and also in the letter of our own Dublin cor-
respondent, to the effect that the Custom-house
Commissioners in Ireland have received orders from
the Lords of the Treasury to allow all vessels to
take on their outward voyages as much foreign salted
beef and pork as will serve to victual the crews until
their return. We suppose it is meant that this foreign
meat may be taken out by these vessels free of duty,
for otherwise there needed no order to the Custom-
house on the subject. The Irish commentators upon
the intelligence make a loud complaint of the loss of
custom which this new regulation will occasion to
the sellers of Irish provisions, and think it very un-
accountable' that this source of emolument to them
should be abolished. Certainly it would be unac-
countable were not the 'liberal views' taken into
consideration, by which the governors of this pecu-
liarly happy nation are influenced. It is clear that
shipowners may victual their ships for foreign voyages
at a cheaper rate, by purchasing foreign provisions
free of duty, than by purchasing British or Irish
provisions. It is consistent with liberal views' that
what is cheapest is best, except, indeed, where the
professors of these views have their own services
brought into consideration."
The Herald observes on the subject of Irish poli-
tics :—" The spirit of tranquillity which Lord De
Grey's Government has so generally diffused through-
out Ireland has apparently penetrated even Mr. Da-
niel O'Connell's person and affected his conduct. Not
a dinner has that eminent diner-out got up for himself
during this recess ; not a sheet of letter-paper has he
spoilt this year at Derrynane in agitation or sedition ;
his private correspondence, intended for public peru-
sal, with " Dear Ray,' or Barrett the best beloved,
who suffered vicarious imprisonment for his chief, has
dropped; and as Mr. Daniel O'Connell seems for the
first time during his public life to have given a few
months to reflection--let us trust his violence is sub-
siding :as old age advances. We do not drop this
hope, because he' is now again troubling the land ;
he troubles it for the rant, which seems pour-
ing in with undiminished vigour ; let him continue
to extract the pence from his dupes in peace, if he
will only give up his itinerant and epistolary habits
of agitation. It was amusing enough to notice the
gravity with which the man bags the contributions,
and the skill with which he stimulates the charity
on which he lives. Take a scene from yesterday's
Herald—Mr. O'Connell sitting at the receipt of
custom, in the Corn Exchange, as usual during the
rint season, reads. to his auditory a letter from
the son of Sir Thomas Lethbridge, the heir to a
baronetage,' the language of which was discreditable
to a person of education, and suggests the insanity of
the writer. It concluded however with a subscrip-
tion of five guineas to the rint; whereupon said Mr.
O'Connell taking his eye-glass from his nose and
chuckling with delight—' The letter just read affords
materials for thinking; every man should read it,
statesmen in England should read it!' Materials
for eating and drinking too, good Daniel ; Mr.
Lethbridge might have written until doomsday
without this compliment, had he not enclosed a
cheque."
The Chronicle thus speaks of the recent Irish legal
appointments :—" The late legal appointments in Ire-
land are, perhaps, the least exceptionable doings of
the present Government. Mr. Blackburne, as Attor •
ney-General, had a right to his choice of any judicial
situation which might fall vacant; and it is a subject
of congratulation that he has taken one which his pro-
fessional abilities will enable him to fill in a respect-
able manner, while it removes him for ever from all
dangerous conflicts with the political rights or liber-
ties of the subject. As Master of the Rolls he will
exercise authorities in questions of property only ;
and, being a sound lawyer, and exempt in that position
from all party bias and resentment, his decisions will,
we doubt not, give general satisfaction. Mr. Smith,
'the new Attorney-General, is a gentleman of the
highest professional character ; and as he has never
been in Parliament, has nothing to renounce. The
road is clear before him, and it is not to be doubted
that he will choose that side, which even a Litton or a
Shaw would now choose, were they to begin again
—the side of moderation and common sense. The
Solicitor-General, Mr. Greene, belongs to the sup-
posed neutral character—a man of no politics; a class
of men always, and under every dynasty, special
favourites of the Tories."

The Times says :—" It is notorious that the quarrel-
ling party in France is the revolutionary party. The
Frenchmen who want a war, want a war of Propa-
gandism. And but for Louis Philippe, they might,
in 1830, when Kings were in a fright, and subjects
in a fever, have prosecuted such a thing with some
success. But that opportunity is past—the fever has
subsided—the fight has been modified into a salutary
caution. The snap of 1830 recalled too vividly to
the European Powers the bite of Napoleon ; and till
the memory of the French empire has ceased to be a
reality, it is in vain for France to hope for European
sympathy with her ambitious moods. In a war un-
willingly entered upon by a respectable Government
and in a just cause, France might doubtless find her
party not only among the disaffected conspirators,
but among the established Sovereign Powers of
Europe, though even this might prove, in some cases,
difficult. The emergency must be a startling one
which would reconcile the Prussian soldier to fight
in the same ranks with the Frenchman, with any
object and under any conditions ; but in a war of
conquest or revenge she will find herself at once and
unfailingly alone. She comes into Court with the
very worst character, and will be cast on the very
first symptom of perverse pugnacity."
The following is from the Advertiser :—" We have
already pointed out the dishonesty of those monopo-
lists of political power, who, like Lord Abinger, en-
deavour to make it appear that, in seeking for a due
participation in the aggregate of constitutional
rights, the no-property class seek for exclusive
power—power to make laws for binding those who
are the possessors of property. The no-property
class,' as Lord Abinger designates the labouring
classes, destitute of a given amount of tangible pro-
perty, desire no monopoly, but a mere equality of
right—an equality of right guaranteed to them by the
Constitution, but of which they were gradually de-
spoiled, as the aristocracy encroached upon the rights
and privileges at once of the Crown andof the people.
But the people are represented to be unfit for the
exercise of even that lower degree of political power,
which we have shown to be included in the Parlia-
mentary franchise ; and evils, almost indescribable
in their enormity and magnitude, are predicated as
the result of any such concession being made to them.
It is a strange thing to find that, as the people have
become educated and intelligent, which they undoubt-
edly have (however defective in these respects some of
them may still be), as compared with the sane classes
in remote periods of our constitutional history, the
objections to their political franchise should have been
devised and set up.. In former times, that is, before
the aristocracy assumed and exercised its dominant
power, such objections were unknown."