Star.
London, England, 1830-07-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP MR JOURNALS.

Truss.—The accounts from Ireland are distressing. The tr
pie in same parts of the south are described to be in such destitntion, j
that fears were entertained within these few days for the provision-
gloms at Clonmel ; and troops were called out to intimidate the
wretched multitude. Now we had been aware of the existence
considerable suffering in remote districts of Ireland, and for its
unabated continuance in such quarters there may have been
some excuse, because of the forlorn state of the country, from
the scanty number of resident inhabitants above the condi-
tion of paupers; but what shall we say to the unrelieved fa.
mine at Clonmel, the chief town of one of the wealthiest
counties in Ireland,—ltself a place of great and increasing ref.
fie, full of rich tradesmen, merchants, and retired persona of
independent means; in the midst of a country, moreover,
thickly planted with residences of noblemen and gentlemen, sports.
men, fashionable men, politicians, jobbers, wealthy graziers, with
their thousands of high-fed cattle, while their fellow Christians are
wholls, without food I,—what shall we say to this Tipperary Baby-
lon, for leaving the poorer brethren of its mercantile and landed po-
tentates no alternative but that of perishing by hunger, the sword,
or the gallows ? There are many worthy persons who seem not to
understand how a people can be so extensively miserable as the Irish,
when such vast cargoes of corn and cattle are incessantly exported
from its harbours. " Ireland not support her people I" they cry.—
" Why she feeds a fourth or fifth of the English nation, who, o
course, cannot be served until after the Trish themselves shall have
been satisfied." In that "of course" there is a good deal of • • -
and of ignorance. It is, to be sure, pretty accurate in the abstract,
that one nation sends only its superfluous articles to others, and
supplies its own wants first : but it is not true of Ireland, inasmuch
as the people of England can better afford to pay for Irish produce in
the British markets, with the charges of conveyance, insurance, &c.
added, than the poor of Ireland can afford to pay the prime cost o
those provisions. The export of provisions from Ireland, there-
fore, is no more a proof that there can be no distress in Ireland, than
the export of fine Bordeaux wine from France demonstrates that the
French peasantry must first have got their fill of the growths o
Lafitte or Chateau Margaux. The poor Irishman never thinks o
such a luxury as wheaten bread, any more than he would of venison.
Ile cannot even buy potatoes, and when he fails to raise them he
starves. Is it not among the most dreadful facts in history, that
the lords of the soil of Ireland should for ages have witnessed this
degraded condition of their serfs, without (we do not say a wish,
but) a serious and systematic effort at anyriod of the last two cen-
turies, to amend it ? We really do feel that Mr. Martin's Act, for
" punishing cruelty to animals," would be the species of retribution
most applicable to the conduct of a large proportion of Irish land-
lords towards their poorer tenants, if even their physical treatment
be kept in view. But we lose our time ; the offenders are too nume.
rota to be shamed into virtue, and as yet too powerful to be coin.
pelled. Nevertheless, it is not long before " time sad the hour"
shall bend them to humanity.
HILZALD.—A Ministerial Paper states that the Government ex-
pects to gain 93 votes by the change of Members which will take
place on the next general election. The same organ, however, does
not add whether these expectations are founded on its popularity or
its influence. Calculations are sometimes more minute than scat-
rate ; and we wonder that, for the sake of appearances, the Paper
in question did not throw the odd seven into the scale, and make the
whole a round hundred, instead of this over-laboured accuracy
Of 93. We are among the number of those who would wish to see
the Government popular with the country ; but then real popu-
larity is a matter which admits of no cavilling. The country at
large is not the public of Downing-street, Whitehall, or
Clubs. It is not the interested and fulsome adulation which
the parasites and expechints of Ministers offer to their official
Divinities which constitutes the popularity of a Govern-
ment, but the satisfaction which the great body of the
people feel at their measures. Is that satisfaction felt on account
of the measures of the present ministry ? We answer, No. Can a
mere new election alter that feeling ? Certainly not. Can a minis.
try expect to go on, even with the most subservient Parliament,
with the voice of the people against them ? Again and again we
would answer that it is impossible ; or, even were it possible, it
would be most injurious and unwise to attempt it. To talk,
then, of adding nineties, or'even hundreds, to their majorities, with
the voice of the people against them, what does it prove but either a
reckless indifference to public opinion, or that an implied appeal to
the people, in the shape of a general election, is, in fact, a rank
delusion ? There is a way, and a very easy one, by which
any Ministry, competent to their duties, might have both
the Parliament and the people with them ; and that is, by se-
dulously and honestly informing themselves of what the real
wants and situation of the country are, and by fairly meeting Its
wants and difficulties, instead of denying the existence of dangers
and embarrassments which they have not attempted to avert or
repair. In a free country public opinion is, and ought to be,
the true source of power. ()wing to the present vicious state
the representation, another source of power may be resorted to
foe a time • but it can only be for a time, and bespeaks for it-
self a reaction which no wise Goverment would think of un-
necessarily encountering. The difficulties and perplexities
the present Administration have been mainly of their own cre-
ating. They have originated in an ignorance of the real state o
things, and an unwillingness to be informed. Such a course cannot
be long persisted in. Knowledge will force itself upon them, in
spite of their disinclination to receive it ; and we augur better our
new Monarch than to believe that he will long continue any set of
men in office who will attempt to govern or rely upon servile majo.
rides in Parliament, unbacked by the honest feeling and general
voice of the country.
Canowlets.—lt is allowed on all hands that the ministry can-
not hope to conduct the business of the nation to advantage without
throwing out several Members, and receiving an accession of others
skilled in the business of the country, and able to defend the course
they may deem it adviseable to adopt. If the Duke of Wellington
thinks that he can long withstand the effect produced by a display
of inefficiency in parliament, be will soon discover his mistake. It
is not, Indeed, creditable to his discernment, that he did not, on the
first display of the incapacity of his subalterns, endeavour to remedy
the evil without loss of time, to prevent the public from associatim,
so generally, incapacity with his cabinet. When delay only
adds to difficulty, promptitude in resolution is a proof of wisdom.
If Mr. Huskisson and Lord Palmerston and 111 r. Grant possess the
unyielding character attributed to them, former Administrations
must have been singularly acquiescent ; for Mr. liuskisson, who is
more particularly charged with impracticableness, has, somehow or
other, contrived to have a pretty long tenure of office, and never was
supposed to be very anxious to be out of place. We can easily COD.
ceive, however, thit the same qualities which would render Mr.
iluskisson a more resolute defender In the House of Commons
the measures of the Cabinet than Mr. Goulbuin, might also ten-
der him somewhat more tenacious of his opinions in the Cabinet.—
. To some quartz, however, the Duke must have recourse. It
will not do to say that Mr. Huskisaon and his party hang
together; that the Whigs are best on the Opposition Benches. The
heron in the fable, while the fish were leaping, saw none exactly
to her mind, but the sun ceased to shine, and she could no
longer see any. It is no doubt more gratifying to self-love to have
a yielding than an anyielding Cabinet ; but the first point is to
have a Cabinet, of which the existence is not in constant danger.—
Is it true that if a Cabinet' numbered among Its members all the
distinguished men of the day, " and were only opposed by such a
race as now compose it, there would be the utmost diffirtilty in
teyeliliNhtecirahrhaoultyotirntegldad;r"igtoNcirraetichtsluvrP:oteantourets3talgt.odf
this. It strikes us that the House of Lords is essentially a beg.
garly assembly. The great Houses, and some others, can afford
to be independent ; but the great body of the Peers cannot
afford to keep a conscience. The House of Lords is power.
ful only when it unites with the crown in plundering the people.
It is strengthened by the accession of all the overgrown for
tunes of the country; but then it cannot throw out the pose
members ; and the vote of a peer with 100 L a year counts for as
much as the vote of the Duke of Northumberland or the Marquess
of Stafford. The very rich peers are few in number; the great
body, on the other hand, are poor and embarrassed, and when it is
considered that the incomes of the whole of the peerage, rich and
poor, from their private estates, are only between two and three mil-
lions a-year,—nay, that a very able writer, who had access to
official information' (Dr. Beck,) some years ago assigned to
the whole of the Aristocracy of the county, moneyed and
landed, calculated at 12,080 families, an income of 15,900,0001 we
can be at little loss to understand how immense the power over such
a body must be, possessed by the dispensers of a revenue of fifty
millions, with the power of appointing to numberless situations be-
sides in our Colonies scattered over the whole globe. The purchase
of the House of Peers Is, of course, necessary to every Govannsene
but purchased it must and always will be. Were the House to t
sum Pnzed exclusively of rich Noblemen, (such as many of these
the whig opposition,) the Government could no more go on, tt
it could go on with a House of Peers which did not return a,
proportion of the House of Commons.