The Sun.
London, England, 1842-06-27 00:00:00

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SUN OFFICE Three o' Cluck.

As the distress throughout the country is becoming
every day more alarming, without any prospect of relief
for the season, it is the imperative duty of Parliament,
before it separates, to make some provision for contin-
gencies during the vacation. Should the crops turn out
light, and the dullness of trade continue--4wo circum-
stances extremely probable—a fearful responsibility
would rest on that Government which could contemplate
such results without obtaining from the Legislature the
means of at least mitigating the evils. It is useless to say
that the SOVEREIGN and her Ministers, and Parliament,
can do little .or nothing for the relief of such a vast
starving population, and that they must trust to time
and Providence for the alleviation of their sufferings.
Parliament has interfered repeatedly under circum-
stances not half so afflicting as the present, or as the
future promises to be ; and when it is now placed beyond
doubt that the new Corn-law will effectually keep up
the prices of grain to nearly the old standard,. it
becomes the duty of Sir ROBERT PEEL to follow
the. example of his predecessors, and obtain from
Parliament the power to meet ally unseen emergency.
The Member for Aberdeen has given notice of a motion
on the subject for Thursday next, and will move that it
be expedient to vest in her MAJESTY, with the advice of
her Privy Council, power to reduce or discontinue,
should circumstances so require, the duties which regu-
late the importation of fireign corn. No proposition
could be better timed, or more reasonable, and we cannot
discover what objection can be • raised to it by any
party. If, fortunately, the state of trade should im-
prove,•and the country be blessed with a favourable har-
vest, the uuthority thus entrusted to the Crown would
not be brought into opqatiort, and, even under any cir-
cumstances, it would, be optional for the Minister to use
it or not as he might see meet. It is true, that without
such a provision he might advise the Crown to issue an
Order in Council to that effect, and trust to a Bill of In-
demnity ; but why allow a chance for such an unusual
and ;unconstitutional measure when the remedy is so
simple ? It would be some consolation, also,. to the poor
to learn that their sufferings occupied the earnest atten-
tion of their rulers, and that they were not denied the
last consolation of the wretched—the hope even of dis-
tant relief. We cannot think so baffle, of the gentlemen
of England as to believe that they will resist such a
measure for their own personal interests, or that they
will be reluctant to entrust Sir ROBERT PEEL with
power like that so often conferred un former Ministers
Whatever may be the result, howeier, we trust the re-
presentatives of the people will du their duty. Let.every
Member who feels for the distresses of his fellow-crea-
tures be in his place on . Thursday, and support a mea-
sure which can do no harm, and which will, at least, tend
to soothe the distresses of a starving population.

We have before us a report of a trial in the Queen's
Bench, Dublin, on Monday last, singularly illustrative
of the way in which justice, or rather law, is adminis-
tered in Ireland, and of the necessity that, exists fur a
speedy amendment of the infamons law of libel. The
trial in question is entitled " The QUEEN v. CHARLES
G. DUFFY, the proprietor of the Btlfast Vindicator,"
for an alleged libel which appeared in that Journal ,re-
lative to the trial and conviction of a Catholic, named
HUGHES, of the murder of a Mr. POWELL. HUGHES
was twice tried and acquitted for this murder. The
Jury on both occasions consisted of Protestants and
Catholics—the former in the proportion of two to one
of the latter. His acquittal did not satisfy the law offi-
cers of the Crown. He was put a third time on his
trial, and an Orange Jury pscked fur the purpose of
finding him guilty. He was found guilty, as a matter
of course, and hanged. Nearly at the same time
four Orangemen wire tried liar the murder of
.a Ca-
tholic. The evidence of their guilt was as clear as the
sun at noonday ; but here, again, the law officers of the
Crown packed an Orange jury, denied to the friends of
the murdered man the right of challenge, and obtained
for the prisoners an instant verdict of acquittal ! Nuw,
if ever there were cases calling for the strong reprehen-
sion of the public press, they were these which we have
just cited. They were enough to rouse the indignation
of all honest men: They revealed to the Catholics of
Ireland, that the times of Lord NORBURY were revived,
when there was one law for them and another for their
oppressors. Commenting upon them, the Editor of the
Vindicator published the following article, made the sub-
ject of a prosecution by the Irish Government
"Francis Hughes has been tried for the murder of Mr. Powell,
for the third time, and a conviction at length obtained
against him. On his guilt, or innocence it is not our
province to pronounce ; but we, do affirm, without fear-
ing that any conscientious man in the empire will
differ from us, that he has not had a fair and im-
partial trial, such as the law of England intends that every
prisoner shall receive. lie has not been tried ind,fferently, as
a person under the protection of the lase, for whom the Judge is
counsel, and the execuive an unprejudiced arbitrator ; but he
has bent tried as an Irish Catholic, whose guilt ordinarily ap-
peers to he assumed, and whose conviction seems to be desired.
This case of Hughes, and the monstrouis injustice which it in-
volves, may be full understiiod where the system under which
we live in Ulster is not known ; we must contrast it with that
of the prisoner's for the murder of AP Arnie. Both are fresh on
the public mind, and it is imposstb'e that any two cases could
better illustrate a system t, an th?), do -the one against which we
now testify. In the case of M'Ardle, four Orangemen were tried
for, the murder of a Catholic; the Jury in the box, at the time
the case commenced, consisted ti eleven Protestants and one
Catholic. The agent for the nest akin to the murdered man
objected toseveral of the jurors, but the Crown counsel insisted
upon retaining them all without exception. In Armagh a
Catholic was to be tried for the murder of a Protestant, and
when the case commenced a Jury was also in the box which had
tried two or three cases already ; it consisted of ten Protestants
and two Catholics, and it was proposed to the Crown to follow
the practice that had been pursued in Down, and retain the
Jury already sworn ; but the Crown Counsel decided.), refused
to adopt the system in the ease of the Catholic which they had
adopted in the case of the Protestant.
What is the meaning of this scoundrel system? What can
it mean but one sir other of these two things, either the ins,,lent
and atrocious libel that Catholics are unworthy of being trusted
on their oaths, or the infernal principle that it is not desirable
to do them justice? We cannot mince the matter ; it comes
positively to this—we care not which horn of the dilemma is
chosen, but one of them is inevitable."
In England no honest man could bo found to affirm
that the syst©m here exposed is not a " scoundrel system"
—a system to which no body of men ought to submit.
But the Irish Orangemen and the Irish law-officers of
the Crown are of a different opinion. Chief Justice
PENNEFATHER, who presided at the trial of the Vindi-
cator on Monday, took care to lay down the law in such
a way as not only to secure a verdict for the Attorney-
General, but to establish the doctrine that the public
Press enjoyed no right whatever of calling in question
the public conduct of public men. We quote au ex-
tract from his Lordship's charge, as reported in the.
Dublin Evening Mail:—

" Gentlemen, with the truth or falsehood of those charges
you or I have nothing to do here. This may scem somewhat
- - -

strange in your eyes, but it is the law, and it is common sense.
If a man be guilty of any crime or misconduct, by which he can
be made answerable to the law, there are the proper tribunals
to bring him before, where he will be tried and made answer-
able if he be guilty; and where he will be acquitted if he be
not but no man has a right, because he is the proprietor of a
printing press and types, to set himself up as a tribunal to pro-
nounce upon th, guilt of his fellow. subjeci.. the Queen's
Attorney-General, or her Crown Solicitors, have n-Asconducted
themselves, there are, as I have already stated, the prover tri-
bunals to bring them before, where they will be made answer-
able; but. I would be glad to know by what authority the author
of this libel has set himself up to pronounce a verdict against
them. It was open to Air. Duffy or any other member
of the community, to petition the House of Commons, if he had
any means of substantiating the gross charges which he has put
forward in this publicstion. He might have got redress if he
had looked for it in the legitimate way. There is no man in