The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-31 00:00:00

4e't
21111 f(

LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 31, 1345.

The two Houses of Parliament will resume busi-
ness, after the Easter recess, with, we trust, renewed
strength and redoubled alacrity. They have a plen-
tiful amount of work cut out for them, the greater
part being, in the language of trade, " for orders
that press." In consideration of the large proportion
of such special matters to the general mass of affairs
to be dealt with, we rather hope than believe that
the House of Commons in the first instance, and the
Lords in the second, may be induced to adopt some
more effective plan for the succession and dispatch of
pending measures and questions than, of late
years, has been followed by either. It is a
subject of general and just complaint that
the most weighty and important questions
usually receive a degree of discussion in the inverse
ratio of that importance and weight. After nights
and even weeks have been consumed on some worth-
less party squabble, or some merely personal differ-
ences between individuali who take a prominent posi-
tion on the Opposition and Ministerial benches—and
the devotion of an almost equal expenditure of the
public time to frivolous charges of grave delinquency
arising out of the inevitable excitement of debate—
the real matters of business are sure to be cushioned
altogether, for the next twelvemonth, or pitchforked
into the Statute-book by dozens in the shape of Acts
of Parliament that are, next year, tolerably certain
to be superseded by other "Acts to explain and amend"
them. About a month before the anticipated ad-
journment or prorogation of Parliament it is always
discovered, that there is business enough incepted to
occupy fur its proper investigation and completion
the whole of at least one entire Session. Ministers,
reduced to a state of extreme difficulty between their
anxiety to pass some Bills which they have carefully
framed in order to carry out their own views, and
the necessity for pushing forward to their ultimate
stages, without delay of any kind, those annual and
other money bills, indispensable to the transaction of
the public service—throw overboard the former class,
with as little compunction as a Brazilian slaver,
hotly chased, disperses all its human cargo to the
waves and the winds. But the same Ministers col-
lect, classify, drive on, goad, and bring up to their

destined point of third readings and royal assents
the whole of the latter class, with an impartiality of
purpose, and an inflexibility of vigilance, that would
do honour to a detachment of Cossacks, superintend-
ing, on behalf of the Emperor of RUSSIA, one of his
Imperial Majesty's " grand operations" of internal

policy—such as the transfer of the whole community

of the Russian Jews to the banks of the Don, or the
removal of one-third of the Polish nation into the
territory of Siberia. If a guide, or a guard, an
officer or a superintendent, drops or dies on
the road—no matter; the first convenient man
to be found is thrust into his place.
The commander charged with the duty knows full
well that the task he is to discharge is to hand over,
and get an acknowledgment for, at the end of his
long march, a certain number of human being, who
must be certified by the authorities receiving them to
have been brought under an escort composed of so
many officers, and such a troop or detachment. I❑
like manner, if the Chancellor of the Exchquer, or
the Home Secretary, or the First Lord of the Ad-
miralty, or the Attorney or Solicitor-General, or
the Vice-President of the Board of Trade, or the
Secretary to the Treasury, discover, in the middle
of June, some essential deficiency, some blunder,
or omission, or technical error, in a departmental
Bill of his introducing, he puts the unfortunate Bill
/wrsde combat without ceremony, by "moving to dis-
charge the order of the day upon it." The measure
thus knocked out of the ministerial rank and file Bills,
in their march upwards to the foot of the throne,
which they are to reach, say on the last day of the
session, is replaced by what is called a " short Bill?'
This is drilled and disciplined with surprising expedi-
tion through all the variou; grades of first, second,
and third readings, in both Houses, in the short
space of two or three evenings; and, after a short

delay for other company, comes up to be presented
to the SOVEREIGN, with a regiment of fifty
others, for her royal assent, with all the external
attributes of a Bill Oat had gone through the regular
period of probation. The results of this system are
found by long experience to be most injurious to the
public interests. It is difficult to say at what point
the evils of this crude and hurried legislation exhaust
themselves. They are felt long after their cause and
origin are forgotten, and it is usually the employ-
ment of a third of the time occupied by any session
to correct, and if possible to remedy the defects--.
the "short-comings," and the mistakes into which
the legislative sagacity of its predecessor has been be-
trayed by this slovenly precipitation.
Whether we regard the number or amount, or the
vast importance of the questions now pending in the
House of Commons, we must express our most
anxiuw solicitude that this long established but mis-
chievous precedent of " getting through (as it is
called) the sessional business," may be abandoned in

1845. The enorm-ms interests involved in new lines
of railroad in all their associations, and the stupendous
aggregate of the capital invested in those, even alone,
which arJ now before Parliament; the new proposi-

tion3 fur simplifying the law of parochial settlement;
fur regulating and yeforming (or deteriorating, as it

may be) the medical profession; the present condition and
aspect of our foreign relations, and especially those
which regard our territorial negoti=ations with the
United States; the scheme of Sir R. PEEL for
stopping the further growth of Scotland's prosperity
by putting down her small-note circulation; the
incidental necessity connected with this scheme
for again examining the actual condition and ten-
dencies of our own monetary system, as it exists
under; the Acts of 1819 and 1844 ; the progress
made in our steam armament, and in increasing
and extending the general efficiency of our
navy ; these, and a prodigious number of fiscal,
commercial—aye, and of social questions, are, each
and all of them, pressing for full and mature discus-
sion, under circumstances of almost unparalleled inte-

rest and exigency. The public mind is profoundly
occupied with them ; and the future welfare of the
country may he said to depend on their deliberate
but early examination and adjustment. They cannot,
with reason or decency, be further evaded or post-

poned, still less can they be permitted to run through
the forms of Parliament, in unexamined sections,
and to be, at the eleventh hour, swamped, or em-

bodied in statutes, en masse.

Meetings have been held in some parts of the coun-
try to oppose any additional grant of public money to
the College of Maynootb ; but no rational being can
discover on what feasible grounds this opposition is
founded.

Whether the question is viewed as one of
religion, or of pounds, shillings, and pence—whether
the measure is opposed by members of the Established
Church, or of Presbyterians or Dissenters—not one
solid argument can be adduced for refusing to pro-
vide suitable teachers to a fourth part of the inhabi-
tants of the United Kingdom. The grant has been
recognised and cordially acquiesced in for many years
by the whole nation, for we throw the paltry knot of
bigots that assemble annually at Exeter Hall out of
the calculation. The Irish Presbyterians receive
money out of the Consolidated Fund, so do the
Scotch Presbyterians—the Established Church of the
North, with ample funds, too, for its maintenance—.
the established religion in the numerous British colo-
nies—is, with one or two exceptions, maintaine i en-
tirely at the public expense. Catholic priests, as well
as Protestant ministers, are paid by the State, yet
when any favour is to be conferred on Ireland-r-when
the Government ventures to act on the principles of

humanity, justice, and charity.—men who are
I called Christians excite themselves to fury,
and utter execrations against those who
would obey the divine precept and do as
they would be done by. This is more than
folly—it is absolute wickedness. It displays human
nature in all its deformity, and exhibits erring man
setting himself up as a judge between GOD and his
creatures, and claiming infallibility on a momentous
question, which is viewed in a different light by fifty
sects in England, and on which the sages and priests,
and moralists, of at least a hundred nations of the
earth, disagree. A great country cannot be governed
by bigots. England is not to be at eternal war with
Ireland to humour religious prejudices, and when the
main question is conceded—when provision is made.
for Catholic instructors in all our colonial possessions,
and not a whisper is heard against the universal
.system, every impartial observer must be struck with
the inconsistency of granting favours—or rather jus-
tice to all—while we refuse them to our nearest and
best neighbours. The opponents of this measure may
be sincere in their opposition, but the admission is at
the expense of their wisdom and common sense. If
a horror of the Catholic religion justifies them in
causing one of the greatest of national calamities, the
disunion of two parts of the empire, that nature
lied joined together, if no grant is to be made
to Maynooth, because the Catholic religion
is damnable and idolatrous, and if, according
to their blasphemous phraseology, it will bring down
upon the land the Divine wrath, why do they confine
their religious indignation to only one small portion
of the question, and leave all the other points un-
touched ? Popery is making dreadful inroads on the
Protestant Church of England ; the Bishops of that
Church say the Established Church of Scotland is no
Church ; and the Dissenters, who contend that they
alone are in the right path, are treated as visionaries
and impostors. Yet, while we hear of meetings to
oppose a grant of public money to a Church from
which all the rest have sprung, and which so liberally
endowed so many national and religious establish-
ments—while the Town Council of Edinburgh, pro-
fessing to follow in the steps of Josses KNox, have
protested against Maynooth—not one word is heard
from the Calvinistic north, or from any of the anti-
Popery sects in England, against the Puseyism or
Popery, for they are synonymous terms, of the
Bishops of EXETER, and LONDON, and OXFORD, and
souse other ten or twenty Prelates, with the Arch-
bishop of CANTERBURY at their head. If the
Catholic religion is bad, why confine all their
indignation to the partial relief offered to the
persecuted and maligned Irish ? They are as
sincere in their worship of the Great Creator
as Presbyterians or Puseyites, they are infinitely
more steady in their faith, they are snore obedient to
their pastors, when reviled they revile not again, and
they are at this moment submitting to deprivations
and sufferings, which their very oppressors—the Pro-
testants and Presbyterians—rid themselves of by rebel-
lion and torrents of blood. If there is any virtue in
this principle of opposition to one species of religion,
by is it so limited ? If the Divine Word, as they say,
commands thesn to resist Popery, they are traitors to
that word, by contribating, year after year, without
either compunction or complaint, to the maintenance
of Popery in Canada, Australia, Gibraltar, Malta,
the lonian Islands, and India. It is imp-ssible to
escape from the dilemma. But there is another most
important part which these persecutors utterly for-
get. They know, or ought to know, that the Chris-
tian religion was nurtured by persecution ; that the
Founder of our faith was the great victim ; that his
Apostles were compelled to fight with wild beasts as
gladiators; that many of them suffered the most igno-
minious and painful deaths ; that the Colliseum at
Rome, and the other great arenas of Pagan sports, were
made wet with the blood of the martyrs, yet the
Christians remained steadfast to the faith,
and increased in strength and numbers till they be-
came a great multitude. This is only a picture of
the state of Ireland. Every mode of persecution was
tried, Christian teachers were hunted like wild
beasts, they died on the gallows as malefactors, the
wretched people were deprived of every municipal
right, robbed of their property and treated as no
nation ever was treated, yet they have grown and
multiplied, and their very sufferings, like those of the
Christians in the dark ages, have only made them
more fixed in their resolution, and rendered their reli-
gion more sacred in their eyes. " Refrain from these
men," said a wise Pharisee to the persecutors of the
Apostles, "and let them alone; for if this counsel or
this work be of men, it will come to nought; but if
it be of God, you cannot overthrow it." The history
of Ireland is a remarkable fulfilment of these pro-
phetic words. The modern persecutors fight against
destiny in vain. The Catholic Church is increasing
every day in Ireland, and its tenets are making rapid
progress in the Protestant establishments of Oxford
and Cambridge ; she is recognised by our Bishops as
the Mother Church, and one of the stanchest Pro-

teitants and most upright of men, the late Dr. A.
NOLD, thus speaks of her and her bigoted traducers :
—"I know that my principles would lead to the
establishment of the Catholic religion in three-fourths
of Ireland; but I think that a Catholic is
a member of CHRIST'S Church just as much as I am,
and I could well endure one form of that Church in
Ireland and another in England. We are suffering
here from that accursed division among Christians
of which, I think, the Arch-Fiend must be the
author. The good Protestants and bad Christians
have talked nonsense—and snore than nonsense—so
long about Popery and the Beast, and Antichrist,
that the simple, just, and Christian measure of esta-
blishing the Roman Catholic Church in three-fifths
of Ireland seems removed by common consent." And
he adds, in another place—" The Christian people of
Ireland have a right to the full benefit of their
Church property, which now they cannot have, be.
cause Protestant clergymen they will not listen to.
I think, then, it ought to furnish them with Catholic
clergymen. I have one great principle which I never
lose sight of—to insist strongly on the difference be-
tween Christian and anti-Christian, and to sink into
nothing the difference between Christian and Chris-
tian." We may here state that an admirable book
has just been published on this subject, entitled
" Past and Present Policy of England towards Ire-
land." We have rarely met with such irrefragable
arguments for the speedy settlement of these dan-
gerous civil broils, so much good sense, and so
much Christian charity from any writer ;
and coming from a Churchman and a Con-
servative, their value at the present moment is
doubly enhanced. The approaching contest with
America, and it cannot be long delayed, adds one
reason more for the final settlement of Ireland. Let
England yield in time to the dictates of justice and
mercy, and not be forced, as hitherto, to make relnc-

taut concessions, which give no satisfaction to the re-
ceiver and lowers the national dignity of the giver,
for, says the able writer, " if any menacing cloud
begins to blacken the horizon, if any storm appears
brewing on the side of America, or France, Ireland
rejoices. She has not forgotten the memorable words
of GRATTAN, That the weakness of England is the
strength of Ireland;' and experience has shown, that
when England's fears are thoroughly awakened,
there is no concession that may not be extorted from
her in some moment of difficulty and danger."

• The accounts from Switzerland, of the 24th inst.,
are not favourable. The country is in a very excited
state, both from the spirit displayed by the free corps
ant the attitude taken by the neighbouring powers.
The Tiasle Gazette states that Switzerland is threatened
either with a civil war or a foreign intervention, and
all the battalions of the canton of Lucerne were sum-
moned to arms on the 23d. Orders, also, had been
given for reinforcing the Austrian troops in the Tyrol
in the event of a civil war breaking out. The following
is the intelligence from Argau, dated March 23
" Important events seem to be impending. Last week
the free corps were convoked in all the districts where
there were any. They have been organised into com-
panies, and have received orders to keep ready to march
on the first signal given them. The officers have been
app ,inted. Yesterday orders were given by the Com-
mittee to the Chiefs of the Communes to provide
vehicles for the conveyance of the free corps to
a rendezvous, and, perhaps, for the conveyance of the
wounded. The free corps have thirty-eight pieces
of ordnance at theit disposal. It is affirmed that they
are commanded .by a Lieutenant-Colonel, styled in-
spector of the cantonal militia. Despite, however, the
effort made by influential persons to increase the effec-
tive force of the free corps in our canton, their numbers
will not amount to above twelve hundred men. The in-
cursion into the canton of Lucerne is fixed for the 26th
or 27th of this month. Eight hundred men from Lu-
cerne were yesterday expected at Sursee."