The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-05 00:00:00

eittlthlS Atist

LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 5, 1845.

Fo- what are the hish to be thankful ? For insults,
calumnies, and disappointed hopes. There is an excep-
tion-26,0001. to the College of Maynooth. This, say
their enemies, ought to satisfy all their cravings and
make them the most grateful and obedient people in
existence. But even this grant is not to be made with-
out a display most offensive to the nation and disgrace-
ful to humanity. A Tory Government proposes a heal-
ing measure. Any other Government might have tried
the experiment, but the experiment would have failed. The
Tories were blamed, and we blamed them among others, for
their harsh proceedings towards the Irish nation—for
withholding their just rights—for treating them as
slaves—for calumniating their religion, and making
them aliens and outcasts in the first empire of civilised
Europe, which they had ennobled by their deeds. A
Tory Government has admitted the grievous error—it
wishes to make atonement, and begins with a grant
about one•half in amount of what is given to the Pres-
byterians of the North. But the amount is nothing in
the question ; the principle is everything ; and in what
a miserable plight does principle appear. In the esti-
mates for the present year are the following grants :—For
the Professors of Oxford and Cambridge—the richest
Universities in the world-2,0061. ; Universities in Scot...
land, 7,3801. ; University of London, 4,5401. ; Public
Education in Great Britain, 75,000/. ; British Museum-.
100,277/. ; and other items of the same amount for ob-,
jects of education to Catholics as well as Protestants?;
but when a Tory Government proposes a grant, not a'•:
new grant, to Maynooth--simply an increase of 17,000/.1.
for the education of some 2,000 priests to administer thet
consolation of religion to 7,000,000 of our fellow-sub-
jects—many Protestants who had been petitioning the
same Tory Governent for years to obtain a boon for
themselves, in the shape of a remission of church-rates,
exclaim in the most violent language against the measure,
as if it were a crime of unspeakable enormity. The
Irish Catholics remember, though others forget, the
circumstance, that the Protestants of the north of
Ireland, who are as good Christians, and hate establish-
ments as much as the Dissenters of Yorkshire and Lan-
cashire, are silent as death on the subject. Their
principles cause no compunction of conscience
in this instance; they are thankful for what
they receive, and let principles look to themselves. The
Church of Scotland, which receives a bounty of 10,000/.
a year, is equally silent, and both these classes of reli-
gionists would consider it a grievous insult if they were
denounced by any body of Christians as less consistent,
less holy, and less alive to the great principles of the
Reformed faith, than the Wesleyans, and Anabaptists,
and Independents. These are facts, and cannot be dis-
puted. They cannot escape the notice of Irish Catholics;
and when they look to the ample provision made
for the Catholic:worship in every colony belonging to the
British empire, have they any grounds to be thankful
for such a miserable pittance as this Maynooth grant,
accompanied, as it is, with every possible insult from
numerous bodies of Englishmen ? They are calum-
niated in Parliament and out of Parliament. The very
Government journals, or journals that assume the name,
brand them with infamy. English liberal journals, that
once advocated their cause, have turned against them
when there is a chance of success; and only two London
papers adhere to their principles, and prefer honourable
conduct to every consideration. For what then are the
Catholics of Ireland to be thankful ? The proposed
grant which has caused such violent denunciations
against Popery, and:almost everything Irish, is the most
insignificant trifle imaginable when compared with
their just demands. The Protestant Establishment
of course cannot be touched. Were a mea-
sure brought forward for destroying that mon-
ster grievance in a Catholic community, possibly the
Dissenters would be quiet; but would Sir ROBERT Dicers
and his party, or the Church of England, show the same
forbearance? The present commotion convinces the Catho-
lies that they have no hopes from the great body of Eng-
lishmen, and that they must work out their own freedom.
This is the real ground of the dissatisfaction. On re-
ceiving the first intelligence of the favourable change
evinced in the minds of Sir ROBERT PEEL and Sir JAMES
GRAHAM they expressed unbounded gratitude, and anti-
cipated that this was only a beginning of justice, bat the
vile attacks upon their religion, and the unconquerable
enmity displayed towards them by Englishmen, have
blasted their hopes, and almost driven thew to de-
spair. They wish to see their beloved SOVEREIGN
among them, but they cannot repress their in-
dignation, and will not welcome her in chains. They
have the spirit of freemen, end, if they acted otherwise,
they would not deserve the name. Neither Scots..::en
nor Englishmen would have submitted to such oppres-
sion as the Irish have suffered for one year without
bloodshed, and the Irish have now submitted patiently
for half a century, praying, and petitioning, and begging,
for their rights in vain. When a paltry offer is
made by their old enemies, their old friends
rebel against it, and, because they resent the in-
sult, they are called ungrateful, and denounced
as men that deserve no favour. Can we
blame them for crying out for repeal? They show a
spirit which every impartial Englishman admires.
The universal shout raised for liberty in America
found a response in this country which' sealed
the independence of the vigorous young colony, and
Ireland may rest assured that, notwithstanding the
present lowerings in the political and religious horizon.
Englishmen will yet be true to their character, and
side with the oppressed.

It was once a proverb of approved truth that " ex-
amples teach where precepts fail." This proverb has
outlived its reputation among us. Every day furnishes
fresh and signal evidences of the fruitless influence of
examples—in all their elements of the most impressive
character—to read any lesson of wisdom to the preju-
dices of bigotry. But the case briefly put by Mr.
RUTHERFORD, on Thursday night, in his wise, tempe-
rate, and philosophical speech, on moving for leave to
bring in a " Bill to regulate the admission to lay or
secular chairs in the Universities of Scotland," deve-
lopes this perverse insensibility to experience in a way
that one should fain hope must prove irresistible from
its truthfulness. It is really wonderful to note the
timidity of modern statesmen about putting themselves
at the head of, and thereby guiding and controlling,
great movements of public opinion, instead of vainly
attempting to erect dams against them, constructed with
the crumbling masonry of obsolete prejudices; or apa-
thetically looking on, inactive spectators of the for-
midable current which sets right in upon their imaginary
seat of refuge, and, if not diverted by timely and active
exertions to divert its course into some new channel,
must sweep them in its headlong impulse to destruction.
The very Ministers who in their own persons have so
often encountered this peril, and have seen their less for-
tunate predecessors in office actually overwhelmed
through their want of alacrity in meeting it, seem
already to have forgotten both the magnitude of the
hazard and the miracle of their former escapes from it.
They deferred the repeal of the Test and Corporation
Acts till the just indignation of the Dissenting body of
all denominations throughout the United Kingdom con-
vulsed the Established Church to its very foundations; and
they postponed the relief of the Roman Catholic disa-
bilities until that delay of justice had almost produced a
severance of the empire. In the same manner they
seem inclined to treat the general feeling of Scotland
upon that system of subscription tests which it has been
actually attempted to enforce against one of the pro-
foundest professors of natural philosophy whom our ago
has produced, 'to the extent of expelling him from
the chair he fills in that capacity. To the de-
mands of such a feeling, so reasonable, so just,
in itself, there can be little doubt but that ultimately
the present Government, strong though it be, must suc-
cumb. The mischief is that they will probably refuse
to comply with it, until compliance will have lost not
only the grace, but the pretence of favour; and the most
serious mischiefs of disunion and decay shall have, in