The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-20 00:00:00

truth seems to be that the acute mind of Mr. SIIEIL
was sensible of the feebleness of such an argument;
and therefore rushed into vaticinations and warnings
connecting the experience of the past with the proba-
bilities of the futnre ; SWIFT'S agitation of Ireland,
about WOOD'S half-pence, with Mr. O'CoNNELL's
agitation, should you put into his hands such a
weapon as the opposition that would blaze up
throughout Ireland to the introduction of a pro-
perty-tax.
But all this is rather ad hominem than ad rem.
Mr. WILLIAMS'S subsequent amendment, declaring
that all persons in the receipt of the public
money in Ireland, should be liable to the same in-
come-tax as that paid by the people of England,
does not at all go to the extent of the broader prin-
ciple of Mr. ROEBUCK'S proposition. If the latter be
good for anything, it cannot be satisfied by limiting
its application to an income-tax, instead of one on
property, and its levy to the recipients of official in-
come. If the amendment of Mr. WILLIAMS fell to the
ground from its own imperfections of scope, better suc-
cess must be allowed to have attended the arguments of
Lord BERNARD, Mr. BELLEW, and Sir 11. W. BAR-
RON, inasmuch as they voted in the majority against
the Learned Member for Bath's proposition, than they
merited. They were speeches whose only remarkable
quality consisted in the intensity of their selfish
unreasonableness. We shall not pursue this
matter through the observations of the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Sergeant MURFIIT,
Lord PALMERSTON and others who followed on the
same side. The principle of equitable division of
the burden between the two countries, which was the
strength of Mr. ROEBUCK'S address, was never once
grappled with. Mr. GouLnuaN's Exchequer statistics
were responded to by Mr. HUME, in a speech which
closed with this fair and dispassionate remark :—"lf
the people of Ireland demanded equal rights and equal
privileges with their fellow-subjects, let them first be
able to stand up and say they paid equally towards
the expenditure of the country." The opinions of
Mr. HUMS, strange to say, found fast backers in
Col. SIBTRORP, Mr. BLscKsioris, and others of his
" ancient foes." But the finest thing of the evening was
decidedly the acting of Sir R. PEEL. He has studied the
very idiosyncracy of " SAM Sucx." The great
modern master of " soft-sawder" could not have ac-
quitted himself more creditably than Sir ROBERT, in
his honeyed compliments and elaborate, though some-
what tardy, praise (for ho admitted to the Member
for Montrose 40 years' of most eminent public service)
of Mr. HOME. But what was Sir ROBERT'S conclu-
sive and "sufficing reason" for exempting Ireland
from this tax ? That there did not already " exist in
that country a machinery for collecting it," and that to
create a new one would be so operose and expensive an
undertaking as to make it not worth while to impose
the tax there. In the first place, Mr. HOME had pre-
viously shown that there does exist in Ireland the
whole staff for the collection of poor-rate, which could
be made instantly available for property-tax. In the
second, how could Sir ROBERT preserve his gravity
when he suggested the difficulty of organising a new
one I But why a new one at all ? We will venture
to promise him that the people of England, Scotland,
and Wales, could be persuaded to deprive themselves
of the tender attentions of his income-tax commis-
sioners, their clerks, boards, and collectors, without
one murmur; and he would undertake to bring, at
twenty-four hours' notice, 50,000 of the payers
of this tax down to Blackwell, to greet the exporta •
tion of this whole army of officials, with bags, books,
and baggage, schedules, ledgers, papers, and distress
warrants for " Ireland," by the GREAT BRITAIN.

We have accounts from Madrid to the 12th inst.
In the discussion on the Clergy Dotation Bill on that
day the Finance Minister, in order to allay the
public alarm as to the Church property already sold,
announced that the Government were fully resolved
to maintain the inviolability of the property that had
already passed out of the hands of the clergy, and
that they would suffer no encroachment on acquired
rights. It appears, however, that, owing to the folly
of the priests, the purchasers of this property were
seriously alarmed, and had called a public meeting on
the subject.
The Three per Cents. closed at 32k for cash, and
33f at 60 days ; the Five per Cents. at 24k for cash,
and 25f at 60 days; the Coupons at 26} at 60 days ;
the Vales at 10 19-6 at 60 days ; and the Debt with-
out Interest, at 7f at 60 days.

We regret to learn from the Paris papers that the
excitement caused by the Jesuits in Switzerland is
still on the increase, and that serious disturbances
may be anticipated before the question is settled.
The canton of Lucerne has resolved that the educa-
tion of the people shall be placed under the control
of the Jesuits; and against this resolution not only
many of the inhabitants of that canton, but the Go-
vernments of Berne, Zurich, and now the provisional
Government of the Pays de Vaud, have protested
against the introduction of this system of education
into the Federation, and seem disposed to resist it by
force. On this important subject, the Great Council
of Vaud had been engaged for three days,
at an extraordinary meeting held at Lausanne
The object of the meeting was to come to a vote
on the instructions to be given to the Deputies to be
sent to the General Diet—one party contending that
the Diet should not concur in any resolution for the
expulsion of the Jesuits, while the other was for more
violent measures, and were supported by 32,000 per-
sons, who had signed a petition against the Jesuits.
After lengthened discussions the Grand Council, by a
majority of 104 to 63, resolved that a polite but press-
ing request be addressed to the state of Lucerne, that
it should not act upon its resolution relative to the
introduction of the' order of Jesuits into its canton.
It founds this request on the grave troubles which
that decree has occasioned in Switzerland, on the fact
that the order of Jesuits are essentially hostile to Pro-
testantism, and especially on the fact that the canton
of Lucerne, as directing canton, should be still more
circumspect as regarded the other cantons. Since
that event the whole of the Council had abdicated,
and at a general meeting of the people at Lausanne, a
provisional Government, composed of nine members,
and having for its president M. DRUM', Councillor of
State, had been appointed. These events, which had
for their motive the fact of the Grand Council not
having paid sufficient attention to the petition sent in
by 32,000 persons, for the expulsion of the Jesuits,
took place on the 14th and 15th. In the meantime,