The Sun.
London, England, 1829-02-09 00:00:00

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SPIRIT OF THE LONDON JOURNALS.

(FROM THE TIMES.)

We publish to-day what must undoubtedly be
thought at the present moment a remarkable and
interesting document, being an address from Mr.
O'Connell, as 'Representative _ for Clare, to the
M_,,inhers generally of the House of Commons; and
containing an elaborate legal argument on his right
to enter that Assembly, and to exercise all the pri-
vileges of a Member, without previously taking
thorqr oaths of which the Catholics complain. We
owe it to Mr. O'Connell to acknowledge, that this
address is written with temper and moderation, and
that his argument is conducted with the skill and
Ingenuity of an experienced lawyer. It would be
useless for us to offer even a sketch or scanty out-
line of the reasonings through which the Learned
Oentieman arrives at his important conclusion. A
hint or two only on that point will suffice, more
particularly as we mean to insert in to-morrow's
number, the whole of the adverse argument of Mr.
Sugden, that the whole question, so far as the pro-
visions of the statute law are concerned, may thus
be placed before our readers, and every one be
itt liberty to draw his own inference from the
opposing statements. Mr. O'Connell dwells
on two or three elementary maxims which
he conceives to bear with decisive influence on
his case ; as that penal statutes must be con-
strued strictly, and not extended by implication-;
that affirmative words in an Act ofParliamesrt never
take away a common law right; and that the right
of an elected representative of a county to sit and
vote in Parliament is a' common law right of the
highest nature. It appears that the 30th Charles
confirmed and strengthened by Ist William and
Mary, created the obligation to take the obnoxious
11f oa lrtei penesanaynd exercised sr b i i
ft i e
thes, for re
rights-
of
Acts upon all recusant members of the English
ofot.t.'itst o:
l':;:ecr'eliFtrifi7ellirtlstlirliament, were imposed by the
Parlioment down to the Scottish Union. The

adoption of these Acts into the 22d article of the
Union with Scothtud. rendered Members of the
British Parliament liable to the same obligations as
those of the English Parliament had been. Thus
things stood until the Union between Great Britain
and Ireland. Mr. O'Connell insists that no
article of the last•mentioned Union imposes the
same necessity as to the taking of oaths as the
that neither the time, nor the place, nor the
-manner of swearing, is pre;criLei in any part
22d article of the Scottish
•:11) let of union,--md it contains no
the
sexed to the re-
: or disability Union had done;
ility am • ,
pursti„
sanction of pens.., • - the suoject
fusal to swear. We
ppl::zige,intary .
to that of
much further. An act su
Union, 41st of Geo. 111., •declaresi-h.:t. • airy,.
sons disabled from, or incapable of, being elected,
or voting in the House of Commons of Ireland,"
should be equally so &dm that of the United King-
dom, Mr. O'Connell gets rid of this by saying,
that in such case the Irish House- of Commons,
with its Speaker and other incidents, must be re-
vived, because all Irish members had been com-
pelled to swear before an Irish Speaker, or to in-
cur the disabilites. We should apprehend, how-
ever, that if au act of Parliament enjoins that oaths
shall be taken, the usage of Parliament, which is
the law of Parliament, and therefore, according to
the views of courts of justice, the law'of • the land,
might determine the tithe and. Manner of' taking.
them. As we purpose to-morrow to give-the opi--
nion of so able and experienced a lawyer as Mr.
Sugden, we shall not intrude our own, except so
-far as our avowal that we agree with Mr. Sugden.
(FROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE.)
Among the yarious*.ays of serving a cause, there
aro none perhaps more efficacious than the confes-
sions of weakness which seem to be wrung from op-
ponents. The statements of a partisan are received
with distrust;- but people naturally receive with
confidence the admissions of an enemy. The back-
handed blow of a friend is much more to be dreaded
than the open thrust of a foe. We were, therefore,
not a little delighted to find that whilst some of the
Brunswick papers were indulging in noisy rhodo-
montades, John Bull, under the mask of devotion to
the cause, was doing more signal service to the Duko-
of Wellington than if he had openly deserted the.
Brunswick ranks.
" Why, we say, have his Grace and Mr. Peel bee;
driven into this ab surd and inconsistent course? . . .
This is the cause--the intimidation and division of the
Protestants of Ireland, the apathy and negligence of the
Protestants of England. It is recorded as one of the tyran-
nies of bondage, that folks -were required to make bricks
without straw, and we read that the task-masters who
ought to have furnished the material were the first to attri-
bute negligence and disaffection to those who had failed to
produce the manufacture. -It is impossible to produce ma-
jorities without votes ; and if the people .of the United
Kingdom hsve not felt it la be tfeir -duty to send to the
United Parliament representatives of. their sentiments, we
cannot see hoW4he Duke of Wellington- and Mr. Peel can
be blamed, because, as was stated by the night Hon. Gen-
tleman, four consecutive Houses of Commons had given a
vote in favour of the Roman Catholic claims."
This is the true justification of the Duke of Wel-
lington and Mr. Peel, it is impossible to make bricks
without straw, it is impossible to produce majori-
ties without votes. The King can only act by re-
sponsible Ministers; the Administration can only
govern through the instrumentality of Parliament.
The Duke of Wellington had no choice; things:had
come to that pass that it was necessary for him either
to attempt to strip the Catholics of the power
which they had acquired by the relaxation of the
penal laws, and to make them once more hewers of
wood and drawers of water, or to receive them into
the Constitution. The Protestant Noblemen and
gentlemen of Ireland called on him to restore to
them the influence of which injustice to the Catho-
lics had deprived them, and which was to be
achieved only through concession to the Catholic
claims. Such is the statement by John Bull of the
force of the circumstances to which the Duke of
Wellington and Mr. Peel were compelled to yield.
But not content with this piece of service, the writer
in John Bull artfully exposes, in a strain of cutting
irony, the absurd pretensions of the party, if we
venture to call it a party, now opposing itself to the
Administration :

"Let them (i.e. the people of this united realm) show them-
selves—let them respond to the call of the venerable Lord
Eldon—venerable by his age and his services, but we are
happy to say, as young as twenty in spirit and activity ;
let them respond to the call of the Newcastles, the Win-
chilseas, the Falmouths, and the Chandoses ! let us see
bow the case really stands ; let us tell the Duke of Wel-
lington whether he has before him a slight line of skir-
mishers, or the embodied force of the nation; let us ac-
quaint Mr. Peel whether the jury is unanimous, or whe-
ther one man of stronger voice and stomach-dictates to
to
eleven others. The duty of a Government is to give fair
play to opinions, to repress bullying, to encourage the timid,
to
arerilavemaotur a a
fairre estimateb be
our of
guides,punothing
will sentiment—if
everviol be
violence
and
rightly decided ; but, on the other hand, if those who
are in the right are timid, or lazy, or venal, the Minister
who is to decide from expressed opinion is no more to leo
blamed for the result of the contest than the returning-
officer who casts up the votes at the end of a poll."
This is very well timed. The bare statement of
the names speaks volumes. Come, ye people of
England, Ireland, and Scotland, raise your voices
against all the men of any note as politicians in either
House---Ministerial and Opposition—and throw
yourselves into the arms of those tried and profound
Statesmen, Newcastle, Winchelsea, Falmouth, and
Chandos, headed by Lord Eldon, a man eminent, no
doubt, as an English lawyer, and formidable as a
magogue, but not even possessed of the first ele-
t,tits of politics. Duringtthe-Whole Parliatiiehlary
c.ireer of Lord Eldon, we defy any man to say 'he
ever heard one sentence fall from his Lordship which
betrayed the slightest acquaintance with any of the
great interests of the nation—one sentence in the de-
bate on any great question which indicated an ap-
proximation even to the views of a Statesman. He
is a mere English lawyer—the greater, perhaps, that
he is nothing but a lawyer ; for the English law
being a perfect chaos into which a ray of principle
never enters, a huge store-house of anomalies, the
minds best adapted for mastering it are those which
have the least power of generalising. You must

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