The Sun.
London, England, 1827-03-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TUB PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is well for the honest portion of the world
that other tests for ascertaining the true charac-
ters of men are afforded us, besides their own
professions. Were it not so, the prize of frank-
nese and fair dealing would invariably be awarded
t ) the most consummate hypocrite, and the rogue
who excelled all his neighbours in effrontery,
would bear the reputation of being the honestest
fellow among them. Providence has supplied a
touchstone to our pretensions in our actions, and
ordains that by the latter we shall be judged.—
The only morals with which, generally speaking,
a newspaper has any concern, are those of indi-
viduals in public life: and we are old fashioned
enough to he of opinion, that the laws which
determine political morality are not one atom less
real, definite, and sacred, than those which the
whole Christian world recognizes as the guides
and governors of domestic manners. If a Minis-,
ter of State has furnished, by his conduct, eyi-'
deuce of an habitual and total disregard to his
professions, we put him down for a bad man, as
much, and as justly, as if we had known him to
be guilty, in his intercourse with private society,
of the most atrocious violations of truth, since-
rity, and honour. We are afraid that, in their
proceedings on the Catholic question, the Ca-
binet of Lord Liverpool have, one and all, exhi-
bited this grievous want of principle. The Ca-
binet professed to consist of two parties, one of
whom wished success to the cause of emancipa-
tion, the other wished it at the —. The de-
clared and ostensible condition between these
parties was, that neither should employ their in-
fluence as Ministers, to affect the fate of the
Catholic question. It is clear, therefore, that if
either party should be discovered in break-
ing that fundamental compact, on which
alone the opposite division of the Cabinet held
themselves justified in forming part of it, the
bounden duty of the latter was instantly to
resign, or to call upon their colleagues to do so;
otherwiee they, to whom the faith of those col-
leagues had been so broadly pledged, and so mani-
festly broken, became partakers of the fraud which
they acquiesced in, and traitors to the cause, on
their fidelity to which they had staked their credit
with the nation. Remarks like these have long
since been suggested to us by the course which Go-
vernment seemed to pursue in relation to the Irish
Catholics ; nor should we have been slow in giving
them utterance, but for the difficulty of bringing be-
fore the public a ease of which the particulars
should be so authenticated, and the bearing so in-
telligible, as to carry to the mind of every reader the
same conviction which pressed upon our own. A
correspondent, however, has aided our purpose, by
sending us a simple statement of the names and po-
litics of the ten last Irish Peers who have been
elected representatives of that illustrious body to the
Imperial Parliament. The Noble Lords stand as
follows :—Lords Belrnore, Caledon, Carbery, Car-
rick, Cort, Lorton, Mounteashel, Powerecow t,
Wicklow, and, though latest not least, Lord Farn-
ham, formerly the weII-known Orangeman Colonel
Barry. Now mind how the business has been ma-
naged. Of all these representative Peers of Ire-
land, with the exception of Lord Farnham, whose
reputation amounts to nothing more than Orange
celebrity, we challenge the whole empire to point
out one, whose claims on the score of talent, popu-
larity, personal dignity, or merit of any kind, were
such as to recommend or qualify him for the situa-
tion of an Irish representative Peer. Greater drones
than some, or more incorrigible fanatics than others,
among them, were not to be found in that ill-fated
island from which they have been launched into
Parliament. Our remark, of course, applies no fur-
ther than up to the moment when they;were returned.
There is one single attribute common to them all but
two : they are all, except Lords Caledon and Bel-
more, voters against Catholic Emancipation. Three
or four of the number have made themselves con-
spicuous by their exhibition of a uniform hatred
of their countrymen, from whose church they
differ. But it is known that much the
greater portion of the landed Aristocracy of Ire-
land, Peers as well as Commoners, are friends
to emancipation. The county members throughout the
kingdom are as four to one in favour of a liberal policy.—
How is it, then, that the election of Peers has not express-
ed the sentiments of the Aristocracy, or the Peerage? flow
comes it, that when the constituent body is acknowledged
to be strong in support of emancipation, the Noble Repre-
sentatives are, with scarcely au exception, of the opposing
spirit? Because the Government has ruled the elections—
because this neutral Government, pledged, sworn to neutra-
lity, has notoriously played partisan, and thrust that in-
:4lo;euce which it was stipulated should lie dormant, into the
very gap and breach of every conteet—infusing the gall
of the _English Woolsack—of the late English Treasury—
of the eleele-office--of the Court itself—into the cup of
strife, and tu:ning its contents. to bitterness. Now, this
does not merely convict the anti-Catholic moiety of the
Cabinet of a breach of faith to those to whom the faith was
given—little better was expected from them, and we pass
it over as a thing of course. Bat it likewise proves, be-
yond all controversy, that the professing friends of emanci-
pation in the Cabinet were neither watchful at their post,
nor vigorous in the discharge of their duty ; that they
liave passively, if not perfidiousty, endured the commiesion
of this long set ie.,* of deliberate frauds upon themselves and
their principles—and all for what? For the maintenance,
in an entire form, of a Cabinet, the substance of which was
broken into the most discordant atoims---for the confirm-
arkse of that monster, the decease of which has been regard-
ed b) them, and meanly so regarded, as a more terrible
catastro2he than the dissolution of the world itself—because
the Jernon of office possesses them, and the " breaking up
of the Cabinet" would be a consummation more Mira-
culous and inconceivable than the casting out a whole herd
of devils.—Times.
A Correspondent meets our censure upon the
present forbearance of those gentlemen who pro-
fess
to be opposed to the measures of Minieters,
by stating that there is " No Whig Paity."
If this be true, it is a fact to be lamented. It is
deoirable„ we might say indispensable, that there
should be at hand, and in readiness for immediate
action, em organized and disciplined body of men
in Parliament, so placed and so prepared, as to
be able to oleo instantaneous advantage of
whatever negligee-ice—whatever wantonness of
power—whatever inteapacity—whateyer violation
of duty—nay, whatever casualty inflicted from
without, may be exhibited or incurred at any time
by the existing functionaries of the realm. The
men iii office can never be so well drilled to an ex-
act and perfect discharge of their trust, as by an un-
remitting consciousness that there is an enemy in
front of them, watchful as well as competent to
pounce upon their blunders, and to hit blots. That
a band of politicians,of necessity so consolidated as
those who form an acting A dministration ,should be
effectually resisted in any of their projects,by the ir-
reoular skinnisliers ofa chance-medley Opposition,
serto collect one day under some transient excite-
ment, ae:d. disperse the next, is as little to be
looked foe as a successful assault by a troop of
Cossacks on a square of British Grenadier
Guards. The power of opposition, however, in
Parliament—the salutary power of a regular op-
position—has palpably dwstidled since the death
of Mr. Fox. Ihe popular cout.ie pursued by
Ministers in carrying on to extremity, ' and
finishing by a splendid victory, the war against
Bitonaparte and his empire, threw into the wake
of the Tory Administration such a force of na-
tional applause and. preference, and cast over
the Whigs a shade so dismal and discouraging,
that they have never successfully emerged, or re-
. les-,..a31e,1 their ancient lustre. This obseuration
and debilitating influence exeerreed
ea p 9 L, n the
Whig opposition, partly by genal and
Trl a cestekt degree, it may be added? by (=cum-