The Sun.
London, England, 1829-07-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We have observed for some weeks, with more
amusement than surprise, the manoeuvres of the
factious journals in this country whenever they
take occasion to animadvert upon the state of
Ireland. There is nothing more certain than
that one of the chief arguments for emancipation
was the general disposition among the Irish
people to regard the want of it as a grievous and
provoking wrong. The Duke of Wellington
declared that the bulk of the people of Ireland
were organized throughout the whole country as
one inseparable body, becoming every hour more
heated and exasperated against the law which de-
graded them, and against the Protestants, whose
presumed representatives, the Orangemen, wound-
ed them by unceasing menaces and insults.— -
" The Government," cried the Duke of Wel- .
lington, " cannot go on if this state of things
be perpetuated." The Orange faction could not
understand such language. They did not conjec-
ture what government it was, for the safety of
which, or rather for its wholesome and beneficial
influence, the Prime Minister expressed his appre-
hensions. In the blindness of their vain-glorious
arrogance, the Orange faction were persuaded
that the real and habitual principle of Irish
government—that is, the principle of political
monopoly and oppression, or in other words,
their own Orange Government,—would flourish
everlastingly if the penal laws were to endure ;-
at least they felt conscious that the repeal of
those laws would be incompatible with the con-
tinuance of such a party government, and they
turned a deaf ear to the Duke of Wellington
when his Grace alluded to his Majesty's Go-
vernment as that which could no longer go on.
What was _then the condition of the country ?
It was not disturbed by any local excesses, by
any individual outrages, by tumults, by nightly
assemblages, by parochial or county conflicts at
fairs. The hangman at that season, which to
the sagacious eye of the Duke of Wellington
seemed so fraught with peril,—the hangman's
office was a sinecure as complete as that of
Lord of the Bedchamber. The gaols were
empty, the Judges had only to felicitate the
grand jurors on the absence of all indication of
a contempt for property, or a thirst for blood,
amongst the peasants. A stranger travelling
through any district, however uncontrolled by
troops or constables, would have said that Ire-
land was the most tranquil island in Europe.
Yet the Duke of Wellington knew better
than to look only at the surface of things
he judged that this was a dangerous and
hollow silence. He saw that the force of
the nation was condensed, not para-
lizech—that the order and composure which
reigned every where were those of high disci-
pline and matured preparation ; but that respect
and obedience were yielded to other authorities
than those of law, and that the physical and me-
chanical repose was but one among many instru-
ments of the most extraordinary political pt4er
that ever threatened to demolish or undermine
the institutions of any Commonwealth upon re-
cord. This for Ireland was a state of prelimi-
nary spasm—a natural forerunner :to the more
stormy phenomena of convulsion. It was an
evidence of disease, not of enjoyment or content ;
land for the final tendencies of such a condition
which were leading the empire by daily advances
to utter imbecility and ruin, the Duke of Wel-
lington saw, what others had seen long' before,-
that the reception of Catholics into the Consti-
tution was a remedy at once the most prompt and
.effectual ; because it removed an obstruction to
time working of all other remedies, by giving thcse
Catholics who.. could influence their fellows a
sympathy with the State, instead of.aii antipathy
to it, and leading them to promote the public
peace and enforce the laws, instead of devising
means to disturb society, and to embarrass the
established Government. The Duke of Wel-
lington, we repeat, judged wisely when he consi-
dered the high-wrought regularity of the people
of Ireland in the demeanour of man to man as
an unnatural condition for a lively and barbarous
people. Their ordinary habits were those of
coarse impulse and excitement. Their an-
cient practices, which had never been ci
vilized or reformed by the conciliatory Ministry
of mild or impartial legislation, exhibited the
extremes of savage violence and vengeance to-
wards each other; but they implied not one par-
ticle of disaffection to the supreme power of tho
monarchy. The agitators of 1798 saw this,
and repressed for a time the appetite for common-
place confusion, that they might glut it on the
vitals
agitators of thestate
of
ls 2 itself. So So
downwards
more
shwei.e legitimate
convinced,
that so long as private strife should
.be suffered
to distract the feelings of the multitude, they
never could be trained to a unanimous and vi-
gorous co-operation for any great public object.
The end was attained. The mystic league was
dissolved. The posse comitatus of emancipation
was dismissed, and the peasantry; little imbued
with the permanent tastes.or habits of politicians,
have relapsed into the old characteristic predilec-
tion for holiday meeting—flags, feuds," patrons,' '
cudgellings, whiskey, broken heads among them-
selves, and battles with obnoxious policemen.
Is this, then, an honest ground of attack upon
the Catholic Bill ? But is it less than the most
daring impudence, for those who foretold that
emancipation would do no good, to quote ac-
counts of bloodshed, nay, of atrocious murder,
in the Irish newspapers, when the lives lost were
exclusively Papist lives, and the perpetrators of

. .
whatever butchery has occurred sere%Orangemen
or policemen, and no others? The Borris-o-
kane transaction is still to be inquired into ; but
the fact that Catholics there were the sufferers
calls for no inquiry to confirm it. - Nor are wo
now disposed to join the vulgar outcry against the
violence and cruelty of policemen. Since the army
was "withdrawn from the out stations, and the
greater number ofdetachments called in to the head•
quarters of their corps, the maintenance of the
King's peace at fairs, and other meetings, has
been committed to the constabulary power. This,
as now managed, is a severe and trying service.
InStead of having an officer and a score of dis•
ciplined soldiers to resort to, whose very appear-
ance was enough to intimidate all rioters, and
therefore to prevent all bloodshed, the serjeant
of police is unw commanded to show himself
with four or five of his men, in the midst of
assemblages of more than twice as many thou-
sands. The early part of the day passes over,
in many cases, without mischief ; but when old
recollections of local hostilities begin to be
quickened by the use and abuse of whiskey, and
when opposite families or factions have recourse
to stones and bludgeons, the police are forced to
act upon their orders, to take aggressors into
custody, and to part the enraged. Then it is
that the hardship of these men's situation shows
itself ; their office is odious, and provokes uni-
versal resentment, while the feebleness of their
numbers inspires the multitude with contempt.
Both parties of combatants join to assault the
peace-makers; these, again, are compelled to

fire in their own defence, and lives are lost ; and
the police are execrated on one side, while the
people are called insurgents by the other. If
a
receipt were wanting to render the administra-
tion of justice both hateful and despicable to an
impetuous race of men, it would be this of in-
trusting a large authority to petty functionaries,
and to command the enforcement of that autho-
rity by a miserable handful of armed men, who
are never feared until they have actually had re-
course to violence, and being one and all known
to the Nas,atitry, are ever after marks for
4reacheinus and bloody revenge. A magistrate
invariably to be on the snot where the
04.
Irish where
people meet 4:;.: large Undies,
the police power is on service ; otherwise the
Government itself may lose ground with its snh-
jects, through the unfitness of its lowest agents
for a duty which the highest ought not to dis-
dain or neglect. But with all these allowances,
we affirm that even already emancipation has be-
gun its task. Distrust of the State exists no
longer amongst the people. The law of religi-
ous liberty has not, indeed, at the end of three
months, effected the civilization of a country,
which bad institutions had for centuries retained
in perhaps a worse barbarism- than that wherein
they found it. But though hea& may he broken,
or peasants shot, and the unfortunate policemen
in revenge be murdered, the people of Ireland
are, what they were two years ago, minis their
hatred of the Government. It is too true, we
fear, from all accounts, that the Orangq faction
are endeavouring diligently to inflict such wrongs
upon the Catholics as may produce retaliation,
and so give pretence for anti-Catholic English-
men to urge an interference of the British Go-
vernment by arms. If it be so, we would PP-
treat the Government to interfere no further
than by disarming the Orange yeomanry, dis-
missing the Orange Magistrates recommending,
the country gentlemen everywhere to live
upon their estates and conciliate their tenants,
and become the ministers of peace and justice
throughout their native land. These are tha
natural and lawful links between the State itself
and the lower orders of the people. The Catho-
lic gentleman, as well as Protestant, ought to co-
operate heartily for this great end, since they
have henceforth an equal interest in its fulfil-
ft,en t.— Times.

It would seem that the modern Columbus,
who was sent on a Voyage of Discovery to the
Terra Incognita of Clare, has not reported fa-
vourably to head-quarters, as it is positively as-
serted that Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald will not stand;
indeed as much might have been conjectured
from the failure of the last Meeting at Ennis ;
however, to prevent the labour of the Explorator
being quite lost, a diverSion is attempted by af-
fecting to get up an opponent to Mr. O'Connell
in the person of Mr. O'Gorman, brother to the
Irish Catholic Secretary. This little ruse de
terre will, of course, end in nothing, but it
shows that the contriver of it is bent upon doing
something to save his credit.
Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo:
that is, if he cannot bring the Brunswickers to
the scratch, he will play the Devil among the
Papists.—Morning Chronicle.
We copy from the Dublin Morning
Re-
gister pf Friday last an account of the proceed-
logs of the Society for the Improvement of Ire-
land, held on the preceding day. At the meet-
ings of that Socle:v the poor Colonies of Hol.
land is a subject frequently canvassed ; and Mr.
Leader, on this occasion, entitling to certain Re-
ports of these Colonies, of which the Society had
been put in possession, observed, is One fact ap-
peared on the face of the Reports of these So-
cieties, that in 1821 there was a pauper population
of 753,000, and in 1828 there was not a single
mendicant in Holland." We know not how far
Mr, Leader is himself aware, but the re.adtars of
the report of this speech would hardly suppose,
from his speech, that the 753,000 pauper popu,
lation is the pauper population, not of Holland,
lent of the whole kingdom of the Netherlands,
and that the number of paupers has not mate-
sully, if at all, diminished. It is very natural
for An Irishman, when be hears that there are no
menctiants in a country, to suppose that there
Are no paupers, because with him every pauper is
A mendicant ; but a Dutchman distinguishes be-
tween pauper and nunitlicant. In Holland the
mendicant is punished, hut the pauper is re-
lieved. The Dublin Evening post, referring
to an article in the Chronicle, some dc,ky.a ago,
introducing to our readers information iibs
tained, by Major Moody, .respecting the pauper
Colonies of Holland, has these observations:—
" The preceding article is not given so much with
a view of corroborating our opinion, as to the prac-
ticability of the measure proposed, as for Ow pPr.,
pose of showing that we are not singular in the
judgment we adopted. We are not, we repeat it,
against poor Colonies—we are not against the culti•
vatipu of Waste Lands, as some of our Dublin con-
temporaries absurdly insinuated ; we are in favour,
on the contrary, of every measure which can be tie,
vised to ameliorate the condition of the peasantry,
or lighten the burthen of an neemployed popula-
-604. We believe that the Waste Lands of Ireland
would afford sufficient employment for the labouring
people ; all that we doubted was, that the means at
the disposal of the Benevolent Society pf Ireland
*vete not commensurate to the end designed. At
the same time, we should like to see a trial on a
small scale; and we hope that thc society may be
enabled to purchase the adequate ground. But we
ace no reason whatever to change oar opinion, that
nothing even in the way of Home Colonies can be
achieved for Ireland, without the adoption of some
system of Poor-rates, making the provision for the
poor compulsory upon the comparauvely rich."
We agree in opinion with our Irish contem-
porary, that the exertions of the Benevolent So-
ciety, unconnected with a measure which shall
compel the rich to second them, will fall short,
very far short, of its object. The point to be
Aimed at, is the increase of the agricultural pro-
4ue4t of Irelatid by an improved cultivatis)n, but
a Madre diminution of the share of that produce
paid to the landlord. While the ruinous coin-
petition for laud, by a population depending
upon land as an only means of existence., eon-
dimes, the landlord, and these between him and
the actual cultivator, take nearly all, leaving the
latter in penury and rags. We have always eon,
onded, that till the support of the destitute is
thrown on the land—which would force an im-
proved cultivation, except the landlords chose to
abandon their lands to the poor—the peasant
will never be allowed to make any savings, with-
out which any thing like improvement is impos-
sible. The connection between a provision for
the poor, and an improved cultivation of the
soil, has suggested itself to intelligent Irishmen
long ere now. In Bush's Hibernia Curiosa,
published in Dublin in 170, the writer observes,
" Happy would it be for the lowest class of
people (whom oppression and want of employment
too often and unjustly subject to the imputation of
being idle), if the method of parochial provision in
England were introduced into this country, especially
;the southern parts of it, where the pocr really are
infamously neglected. And the case of the lower
class of farmers, indeed, which is the greater number,
is littlebetter than a state of slavery, while the Priest

and subordinate landlords, in ease and affluence, live
in haughty contempt of their poverty and oppresion,
of which the first proprietors are but.-too seldom,
indeed, for the interest of this kingdom, spectators.
The natural consequences of this scene of things
among the inhabitants, is visible even upon the
lands of this country in general, which, though by
nature, a very considerable part of them, rich and
fertile, yet they almost universally wear the face of
poverty, for want of good cultivation, which the
miserable occupiers really are not able to give it,
and very few of them know how, if they were; and
this indeed must be the case while the lands are
canted (set to the highest bidder, not openly, but by
private proposals which throws every advantage into
the hands of the landlord) in small parcels of 201. or
301. a year, at third, fuurth, and fifth hand from the
first proprietor. From the most attentive and mi-
nute inquiries at many Places, I am confident that the
produce of this kingdom, either of corn or cattle, is
not above two-thirds at most of what, by good cul-
tivation, it might yield. Yet the gentlemen, I be-
lieve, make as. much or more of their Man
estates

any in the three kingdoms, while the lands for equal
goodness produce the least, The consequences of
this, with respect to the diltrerent classes are obvious,
—the landlords, first and subordinate, get all that is
made of the land, and the tenants, for their labour,
get nove;•ty awl vowcrs,”
'the landlords get all that is made on the
land, and the tenants, for their labour,getpoverty
and potatoes ! The same causes produce the
same effects still, and will continue to produce
them. We defy Mr. Leader, and all the philan-
thropists of Ireland, to effect any alterations in
the proportional shares of produce received by
the landlords and occupying tenants, so long as
the poor and necessitous must possess land as
the Condition of thpir eNistenee, and will be con,
tent with potatoes and salt. There is no use
in declaiming against oppression in the abstract,
and Irish landlords as oppressors in particular.
if the present race of landlords in Ireland were
to be swept off by an Egyptian plague (the
worhl has suffered greater calamities), and the
soil of Ireland wm to he shared anew among
gentry from England, the circumstances of Ire-
land remaining the same, the new landlords
would be as bad
.as the present in the course of
a single generation. Jf Government, impelled
by the gentry of England, do not interpose in
behalf of ihp poor of Ireland, that country will
remain, as it has done, a prey to poverty and
misrule.—lbid.

In adverting to the proceedings which took
place the other flay in the Vestry-room of St.
Martin-in-the-Fields, relative to the imposing
new rates for the relief of the poor, &c., we ex-
pressed our approbation of the course pursued
by Mr. Fenn in taking specific objections to the
Overseers' accounts, and requiring the vouchers
in order to ascertain how much of the taxation
raised for the maint4nariee of the poor was really
applied to its legitimate object, or diverted to
other purposes. A Mr. Dalgleis!), and other
supporters of the " established system" of
parish taxanion, which is certainly Hot that of
economy, were exceedingly indignant at what
they were pleased to call a most irrelevant mode
of proceeding, though it would be difficult to

discover whai cooldThe more relevant than to

inquire whether any, and how much, of the old
rate, or tax, had been mis-spelit before a new one
was imposed. It was denied, at the same time,
that the officers who put in the accounts were
bound by law to produce the vouchers. A Mr.
Wilde answered this by saying that the law re-
quired a full, just, and true account, and that
the account could not be so described unless it
were accompanied by the vouchers. In this
view of the suhject we stated our per-
fect concurrence, and observed that the Act
of Parliament, which required a perfect
and just account, impliedly, at least, required
that the vouchers should be produced, without
which there could be no real account whatever
—no account which an auditor, who did his
duty, should conscientiously pronounce to he cor-
rect. We are glad to find that Mr. Fenn has
since followed up this matter, .and applied to
the Magistrates at Bow-street to enfbrce the
penalty provided by law against the parish offi-
cers, for neglecting to furnish a just, true, and
Serfect account. This application was made on
aturday, as our Police Report stated ; but the
parish authorities, who are endued with wonder-
ful alacrity when a parish feast is in question,
move very slow on some other occasions, and
in the present instance they did not move at all.
In fact, for some reason or other, which did not

I transpire, they did not " show" at the Police
Office, tool the mater was adjourned to Tues-
day (this day). Jo the mean time we have
looked into the Act under which the application
is made, which is the 17th Geo. 11., cap. 39,
and, in our opinion, it fully bears out the inter-
pretation put upon it by Mr. Fenn and Mr. Wilde,
as to the nature of tlip accounts- required to be
furnished by the parish officers. It is a remedial
act, and, therefore, according to the established
principle ofconstruction, is to be construed liberally
that ia, it is not, like a mere penal Statute, to be
taken according to the strict letter, but is to be
understood in that way which i 5 best calculated
to carry its object more effectively into execution.
Wow what is its object ? That we learn very
plainly, indeed, from the preamble, which
states, " Whereas, by reason of some defects in
aft Apt of parliament made in the 43d year of
Queen Elizabeth, entitled, An Act for the
Relief of the Poor,' the money raised for that
purpose is liable to be misapplied, and there is
often great difficulty and delay in raising the
same : Per remedy whereof, be it enacted, &c.
that from and after the 24th day of June, 1744,
the Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor
shell, yearly, and every year, within fourteen
days after other Overseers shall be nominated
and appointed to slimed them, deliver in to
such sticaeeding Overseers a just, true, and
perfect account, in writing, fairly entered in a
book or books to be kept for that purpose, anti
tined by the said Churchwardens and Over-
seers, lie;-chy directed to account as aforesaid,
under their hands, of
,aij sums of money by them
received, or rated and assessed, 4n4 not re-
pe;ved ; and also of all goods, chattels,
stock, and materials, that shall be in their
hands, or in the hands of any of the poor,
in or4er to be wrought ; and of all moneys
paid by such cburchwardens and Overseers-0
accounting, and of all other things concerning
their said office." The Act then guea on to say
that, " after having delivered over all sums of
money, and other things in their hands, the ac-
count shall be :verified uy oath, and the book in
which it is entered shalt be in ccine public place
in the parish, open to inspection of 'all who are
aESI2;;SO, or are liable to be assessed, on payment
of sixpence; rsl4 that the officers shall, on de-
mand of such persons, f0r0i.7.11 copy or copies
of the same, or any part thereof, as the rate of
sixpence for every three hundred words, and so
in proportion. In the second section it is
enacted that, in default of the previous provi-
sions being complied with, either by refusal or
neglect, it shall be lawful for any two or snore
Justices of Peace to commit the parish officers

so offending to the common gaol until they shall
have given such account, or shall have done
such other things as the firtt section of the Act
enjoins. The 14th section moreover provides
that whenever parish officers refuse or neglect to
obey the orders and directions of the Act, in
cases where no penalty is before provided, every
such officer or officers shall, upon oath made
within two calendar months after the of-
fence committed, before any two or more
Justices of the Peace, forfeit for the use
of the poor of the parish a sum not ex-
ceeding five pounds, nor less than twenty shil-
lings, to be levied by distress and sale of the of-
fender's goods." Thus this Act was expressly
passed to remedy defects in the 43d of Elizabeth,
which defects led to the misapplication of the
money raised for the support of the- poor. To
prevent that misapplication in future, the church-
wardens and overseers are required yearly to fur-
nish a "just, true, and perfect account." But if
an account is furnished without the vouchers,
how can it be called a true, just, and perfect ac-
count, or how can it operate to check the mis-
application of the money ? for those who are to
allow the accounts should not only see that the
money is laid out honestly, but that it is also
laid out providontly. This remedial law would
riot operate at all as a remedy to the mischief
complained of, unless whatever is requisite to
prove the account a true and perfect one be fur-
nished along with the account itself. Besides
the Act says that the churchwardens and over-
seers shall deliver over all sums of money, goods,
chattels,
,and other things as shall be in their
hands, and, therefore, we contend, all documents
relative to their office, which the parishioners
have a right to inspect as far as they are con-
nected with the accounts.—Morning Herald.