The Sun.
London, England, 1829-06-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUHLIC JOURNALS.

It
stren
port of
hat if'
cbuirosakuv:
gesniistd.u: We have pas
e..tfalo(lse:o:lGarrgtodo: Government. itt
skei
kneei
Mr.
h had come
rly a
period as his less noble adversary, no individual,
ever so slightly connected with the Administra-
tion, would have breathed a syllable in favour of
Mr. Bankes. Men Mr. Goulburn made his
perswial demonstration on the a.idc of the Curie
Castle candidate, he had not an idea of there
being another gentleman ready to take the field.
Since that circumstance became known, eve' v
possible effort, consistent with the personal
pledges given by individuals, has been made on
the part of Government, to maintain a neutrality
and prevent the infraction of it by those who are
under influence. The Secretary of the Chan-
cellor has, we are informed, withdrawn ft out Mr.
Bankes's Committee ; and the letters written by
that of Mr. Cavendish are franked by more than
one Under-Secretary of State. It seems to be
irsitt,e d
he levrosut cl)do d, that
im,.e Ca
hearty
co me
had the dioi
Go-
vernment, and Mr. Bankes would in that case
never have ventured to show hiniself.—Tinirs.
Our Irish letters will be found more than
commonly interesting to those who look beyond
the surface. It seems that doubts are enter-
tained respecting the issue of the contest fut
Clare, if its representation should be not coin
tested ; but that the excitement throughout that
and the neighboining counties is, if possible-4
more furious on behalf of Mr. O'Connell than

during the former struggle. We have all along
h
deprecated
of
which t thea
only
clause
tienl
itghe ib
lEe mpaunreptet i i
eras tflo,
deprive an individual,--however obnoxious in
certain quarters—of its benefits. Considering
that clause as it regarded Mr. O'Connell per,
sOnally, the character of it approached to mean.,
ness. We wholly acquit the Duke of Welfing,
ton of any the slightest participation in that.t4
feelings from which alone a condition so little:
congenial to the spirit of a " Relief Bill" could
have resulted. But the crisis was perilous—the
stake played for was tremendous: too stubborn
a resistance to " partial evil" might have ten-
dered inaccessible " the universal good ;" and a
powerful and manly mind was fain to accept this
one, amongst other compromises, as not the.
least vexatious purchase-money, of a bless.;
ing with which no amount of secondary ••,.4x
critices could for a moment compare. Looking,
however, at the consequences of this pervera3
and unworthy penalty (for such was its design),
inflicted on an individual Catholic whose crime

was his successful activity in wringing reparation
for intolerable injuries from the hands which had
committed them ;—looking, we say, at its poli-
tical and more extensive consequences, we can

imagine few public measures more unfortunate,
because more subversive of those objects which
constituted the sole value of emancipation. To
send back Mr. O'Connell to the freeholders of
Clare, with the chance of a new election, vitas to
raise again the exorcised spirit of enmity to the
Protestants to the State, and to Great Britaiiu

It was to recall into action the demagogue, the
agitator, the redoubted priest, to re-harness the
multitude to O'Connell's car, and to .present
him whom they had almost worshipped as =the
champion of Ireland, in the exasperated- form of
an oppressed and selected victim. If any thing
could aggravate the impolicy of such a course,
it would be the compelling O'Connell not merely
to rouse again the half-slumbering emotions of
a mercurial people, .by the.noessary. ceremony of
' an appeal to their privileges in favour of the idol
of their recollections, but to fight again a real
battle for the recover), of the seat in Parliament
from which he had been dismissed, by setting up of
threatening him with a rival candidate, and con-
verting a display of speeches into an array offirce
which must be nowinseparable from any actual con-
test. If this tmhappy combination could be further
aggravated, it would be by the appearance of one
of an emancipation Ministry.as the antagolist.
of Mr. O'Connell : an ominous and fatal key
this must prove to the motive, the genuine spirit,
and purpose of time clause by which that learned
gentleman had been excluded. If any thing
could crown the manifold aggravations of the
policy pursued towards Mr. 0 Connell in this
Instance, it would be the sending him to a new
election for Clare, with the freehold qualifica-
tions of the county so modified, under the official
construction of the Disfranchisement Bill, as to
render his present success problematical to nearly
the same degree, in which his defeat at the bar
of the House of Commons had previously been
made certain by a provision of the law of
" .emancipation; Mr. O'Connell's expulsion
from the House was an unworthiness, against
which even the manly portion of the regular
anti-Catholics exclaim. His exposure to a new
election contest is a serious danger to the public:
peace. His defeat, if he should suffer one, from
the remodelling of the franchise, prolongs inde-
finitely the agitation of Ireland, and therefore
'frustrates, indefinitely also, the natural bless-
ings of emancipation. But there appears to be
a revolution brought about in Ireland by
the working of the new franchise, which could
hardly have been contemplated by the boldest of
its advocates, and which we are (found to say
affects us with no small apprehension of evil..
The constituency of the kingdom, if we can
believe .what we read, is so reduced in numbers
as to become but the mockery. of an elective
power. When it is stated positively that the
two great counties of Antrim and Down—the
latter being the most densely peopled, the most
industrious, independent, intelligent, Protestant,
and important of the whole island—will muster
no more than 200 101. freeholders each, instead
of more than twice as many thousands of forty.:
shilling freeholders—we submit that there is
much reason for believing, either that the law has
been construed, or that it has been framed in a
temper as inconsistent with political wisdom as
dangerous to the national tranquillity. It was
the wish of every sober-minded man, that turbu-
lent and desperate poverty should be stripped of
a power which it could not rationally wield ; but
was scarcely within the meditation of such men
that intelligence and respectability should not be
vested with the power which they might fairly.
exercise. It will be a fearful ending of the crisis
through which we have struggled, if the same
gulf be henceforth interposed between rich and
poor as formerly separated the classes of Pro-
testant and Catholic--it will be to marshal and
provoke against each other the elements of Jaco-

6inistn and oligarchy, nicknaming it 4 purgation
of the " elective franchise."—lbid.

We have more than once noticed the objec-
onable Bill now in wpgKe,ss.through the Com-
ions, to enable the lord -of the. Manor of

Hampstead to enelose-theHeath, and are happy
to see it is vigoro—Usii,oppOsed, Sir Charles
Burrell, who cawretre IhiS'estitte‘ in Sussex
Y
for recreation, may thcitAt unheces.sary that the
Heath should be preset eti as «a place of rc

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