The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-23 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1845.

The House of Lords met at Five o'clock.
The report of the Irish Land Commission on the sub-
ject of the occupation of land was laid on the table.
On tho motion for the third reading of the Railway.
Clauses Consolidation Bill,
Lord BROUGHAM, in tke course of a long speech,
stated his objections to the present course of railway
legislation. He denounced the constitution of the Rail-
way Committee of the Board as absurd and mischievous,
and considered that the measure under discussion was
calculated to increase the mania for railer ay speculation
—a mania which it was their duty to check, and which,

if not checked, would produce a monetary panic more
awful than the panic of 1825. He then eulogised the
system adopted by the Government of France will re-
gard to railways, and thought it might be advantageous'y
pursued in this country. He condemned the Bill as cal -
culated to add to the enormous powers already possessed
by railway companies, of depriving landowners of their
property without their consent, and thus protesting
against the railway system, he felt he was doing his duty.
The Earl of DALHOUSIE replied that the speech of his
Noble and Learned Friend had relation to everything
but the business now before the House. His Honoura-
ble and Learned Friend devoted three-quarters of an
hour to censure the Railway Board, and a quarter of an
hour to a lecture upon the evils of railway speculation.
Rally, he never saw a smaller pennyworth of bread to
so huge a quantity of sack. The Noble Earl then pro-
ceeded to vindicate the course pursued by the Board of
Trade, and defend its members from the imputation
which had been cast on them. In conclusion, he begged
their Lordships to suspend their judgment as to t he con-
duct of the Board until the conclusion of the Session.
Lord ASHBURTON thought that many of the provi-
sions of the measure ought to be extended to existing

railways.
The Duke of BEAuFoaT considered that the existence
of the Railway Committee of the Board of Trade had in
many instances encouraged gambling speculations.
The Earl of WINCHILSEA. approved of the conduct of
the Board.

Lord CAMPBELL supported the Bill, but agreed in opi-
nion with Lord ASHBURTON, that some legislative mea-
sure for the regulation of existing railway companies
was necessary.
Lord BROUGHAM, in reply, contended that the proceed-
ings of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade
should be conducted in public.
The Bill was then read a third time and passed, as
were the Lands Clauses Consolidation Bill, and the
Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Bill, after which
their Lordships adjourned.
The House of Commons met at a quarter before Four.
Mr. BAINY, took the oaths and his seat for Greenock.
The Hun. Member was introduced by Mr. HumE and
Mr. BRIGHT.
Various private Bills were forwarded a stage, and

several petitions were presented.
Mr. HOME gave notice that, on Tuesday week, he
would bring forward his motion on the subject of re-
warding the services of Sir H. POTTINGER.
Mr. NYSE gave notice for Tuesday next of his motion
on the subject of Dublin University.
Mr. S. CRAWFORD gave notice that in the Committee
on the Maynooth Bill he should move that the expenses
of endowment be taken from the revenue arising from
Irish Crown lands.
Various returns were ordered ; and after the CHAN-
CELLOR of the EXCHEQUER had stated, in reply to Mr.
BICARDO, that the auction duty was intended to cease
from the time the resolution had been reported, the
House adjourned at half-past five o'clock.

Looking, as we are inclined to do, on the much-vexed 1
question of the Maynooth endowment as virtually at an
end—with all its angry elements of political and re-
ligious discord allayed, at least, though not extin-
guished—we are anxious to persuade all parties who have
participated in its recent agitation to gatherfrom it other
fruits than the mere ashes of polemical controversy. It
is incumbent upon them to remember that a country
like Ireland was never destined by PROVIDENCE to be a
mere battle-field, in which two races of men were to con-
tend, through centuries,
.for the political and religious
supremacy of the one over the other. If the Legislative
Union of 1800 had not settled all precedent questions of
conquest or occupation; the dominion of force or the
rights of hereditary succession; it would yet have been
impossible to roll back the tide of events to that distant
period—six hundred years ago—at which an English
force, by the united sanction of the Pope and invitation
of a native Prince, established their first footing in that
fine country. From the close of the twelfth to the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century an infinite series of
international and intersicial connexions, interests, esta-
blishments, settlements, has been successively created.
To this interchange and intermixture of civil and do-
mestic institutions there have been superadded, in the
same protracted interval, all the artificial means of go-
vernment and polity, by which, in every age, the incor-
poration of notions, originally distinct and independent,
has been effected. Since the period of the Legislative
Union this fusion of the English and Irish races and
governments has been so complete and universal, and so
much developed throughout the whole system, that it is
now in vain to challenge, as proper to either country
exclusively, this or that element of the imperial consti-
tution. And we contend that this is so, notwithstanding

the still visible traces of former violence, mismanage-
ment, neglect, and inequality in the process. We should
be the last parties to dispute that Ireland has been
grievously misgoverned, and cruelly oppressed, since her
incorporation as an integer of the British empire. But
it must be conceded, on the other hand, that there have
been many, and very recent, periods in the history of
that connexion, in which both the English and the Im-
perial Parliaments have manifested an earnest and gene-
rous design to fulfil, honestly and boldly, the duties of
protection, in the first instance, and of equal union in
the second. To admit that this wise and enlightened
policy has, by no means, been the rule observed in the
administration which England has exercised over Ire-
land, but rather the exeepion, re-appearing at uncertain
and too-widely separated periods, proves nothing against
the fact of her virtual incorporation. All the atrocities
charged upon the governments of English Vice-
roys and Commissioners, under the Plantagenets
the Tudors, and the Stuarts—under the iron
discipline of CROMWELL and the military rapacity o f
King WlLLlAM—cannot efface the fact of the advances
made by her in civilisation and commerce prior to the
accession cf the House of Hanover. How largely Eng-
lish capital invigorated and expanded the agriculture,
the manufactures, and trade of Ireland under the
reigns of the four GEORGES (notwithstanding the disas-
trous outbreaks of the years 1798 and 1803) are mat-

ters of history which CannGt be disputed. The con-
cession of the Roman Catholic claims in 1829, and the
general policy of conciliation pursued towards Ireland,
and the paternal regard manifested for the Irish in the
personal deportment of the Sovereign, under WILLIAM
the FOURTH and VICTORIA, have done much to erase the
most distressing recollections of earlier epochs of mis-
government. Until the " repeal" cry was raised, no
man in either country seriously entertained any views
of political improvement that would apply, exclusively,
to the one without affecting the other. The interests
of the poorer classes in Ireland were identified with the
benefical relations which subsisted between the growers
and the consumers of agricultural produce ; the sup-
pliers and the employers of every species of industrial
labour. The higher classes found a common road to
eminence, success, and distinction in those professions,
and in all those branches of the public service in which
civil disqualifications on account of religious opinions—
(common, be it observed, to the English and Scotch, as
well as the Irish)—did not interpose specific obstacles to
their advancement. To the relief of these disqualifica-