The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-04-23 00:00:00

they should take their natural position, and openly
avow themselves to be the uncompromising foes of
Protestantism. Let them no longer seek to sap the
foundations of the Established Church, while profess-
ing to repair its dilapidations. Let them take their
stand with the brazen-faced Hume and the canting
Baines, their present most faithful allies : but let them
never again dare to insult the Protestant people of
England by claiming their suffrages as the friends of
the Church.

We repeat that Sir Frederick Trench has pointed
out the real danger arising from Lord Normanby's ad-
ministration—his active co-operation with the enemies
of Protestantism in Ireland. Can we expect any diffe-
rent line of policy from his successor, Lord Ebrington?
Has not the choice of the latter by the ministry proved
their hearty concurrence in Lord Normanby's efforts
to depress Protestantism and to exalt Popery ?

But to resume. Mr. Hume next addressed the
house in favour of the ministry. His speech on this,
as on every other occasion, was as destitute of argu-
ment as it was of eloquence. After the stupid and
malignant effusion of this regular bore, Lord Morpeth
rose to justify the Irish policy of the cabinet. It is but
fair to admit that the speech of Lord Morpeth was, by
an immeasurable degree, the ablest delivered, through-
out the debate, on the ministerial side of the house.
His habitual candour led him to avoid the mean
trickery and contemptible subterfuges resorted to by
most of his colleagues. He made the most he could
of a bad cause ; but he evidently laboured under a con-
sciousness that his efforts would be unavailing.
Sir James Graham replied to Lord Morpeth with his
uoual °mot. He ridiculed Lord John Russell's mo-
tion, asserting that it would be of no service whatever
to the ministry to obtain a " vote of confidence" from
the House of Commons. He said " a vote of confi-
dence," addressing ministers, " may prolong your
agonies, but cannot restore you to a healthy condition.
Your hours are numbered ; and, when you fall, you
will fall, not by any effort of your opponents, but by
differences with the party that has, hitherto, sustained
you in office." On the whole, Sir James Graham's
speech was one of the ablest he ever delivered ; its de-
tails were pertinent to the question, and its conclusions
were both just and forcible.
On Friday the debate was commenced by Mr. Dun•
combe, who, in moving his amendment, endeavoured
to justify the support which he give to the whig mi-
nistry. His effort was of the most futile character, as
was that of Sir Charles Style also, by whom he was
succeeded. Sir George Sinclair then rose and inflicted
upon ministers a castigation which they will not
speedily forget. The imaginary colloquies between the
ministers and the ultra-radicals which he introduced
were exceedingly humourous, and kept the house in a
perpetual roar of laughter.
Mr. Ingham followed in a rambling exculpatory
speech. This gentleman, we believe, in common with
Mr. Gibson, entered the House of Commons as a pro-
fessed conservative. These gentlemen, we are sorry to
add, are not the only defaulters from the conservative
side of the house. How they can reconcile it to their
.consciences thus to vote in opposition to their general
professions it is not for us to decide. Their constitu-
ents will, it is to be hoped, be more cautious in future
in selecting their representatives. We have too many
half-and-half conservatives in the House of Commons.
We want men of more sterling principle than to be
carried away by every whimsical crotchet which may
fall into their way. The present is not a time for a
temporising line of policy. We are fallen upon evil
days, and we require, as statesmen, men who possess
not only a sound judgment and a clear knowledge of
their duties, but men who will also act implicitly upon
the dictates of their conscience, and maintain their
consistency as well as their independence.
Mr. Hobhouse's speech was; to say the best, a silly
affair. It was speedily disposed of by Mr. Leader,
whose speech we have given at length. We have
alluded to this gentleman's " consistency " in another
article. Mr. Sergeant Jackson and Mr. Shiel followed.
The remarks of the former were chiefly directed to the
improper exercise of the prerogative of mercy by Lord
Normanby. Of Mr. Shiel's speech we have an admi-
rable sketch in the Morning Herald, from which we
extract the following epigrammatical description of his
oratory.—" The shrill, cracked voice of the speaker—
his baboon-like grimaces and motions, varied as these
were occasionally with an affectation of solemnity in
the attitudes ;—these organic and physical peculiarities
harmonised well, undoubtedly, with the miserable verbal
conceits—with the elaborate assortment of fantastic
epithets—with the miserable jingle—which constituted
the floriture of his speech, as the baldest of sentiment-
alisms, and the most vulgar of common-places com-
posed its groundwork. The afflatus under which Mr.
Shiel affects no labour, is no true outpouring of the
spirit of eloquence. All is false, meretricious, affected.
The earnestness is feigned ; the pathos maudlin. Mr.
Sheil is a mere actor—and an actor, moreover, of the
lowest possible caste. He is a vulgar, melodramatic
spouter of matter, in itself worthless, or repulsive—
matter which could attract momentary attraction only in
virtue of the grotesque forms into which he works it up.
He dresses his thoughts in tinsel phraseology. There
is no lack of spangles. There is a profuse display of
paste and of mosaic gold. Yet Mr. Shiel—although
he has spent his life in the practice of intellectual con-
tortions of all kinds—never gave birth to a thought
possessing the slightest value ; although he has wasted
years in acquiring the arts of verbal jugglery, he never
uttered a sentence that can be justly described as fine.
He is a wretched, tawdry phrasemonger, devoid of
every requisite to the constitution of a great orator.
Voice, delivery, style, matter—all curiously and irre-
deemably bad after their respective kinds—render him
an actor fit for the meridian of Sadler's Wells, and fit
there only to figure in the inferior pieces. That such a
miserable spouter should be accepted by a portion of
the public as a great orator is, undoubtedly one of the
puzzles, which no philosophy is very well able to ex-
pound.
Mr. Sheil stands in the same relation to a true
orator, as the goats and monkeys who, at this moment,
imitate humanity so abominably at some of our theatres,
do to the natural occupants of the mimic scene." This ap-
pears to us a faithful sketch of the crack orator of the mi-
nisterial side of the house, whose speech on Friday last
was literally " torn to fragments" by Lord Stanley. We
require no higher testimony to the force and eloquence
of the noble lord's reply, than the effect which it pro-
duced upon Daniel O'Connell. The great agitator
was lashed into a state of positive fury, and when he
began to speak he was actually foaming with rage.
So violent was the language which he uttered under
the influence of his excited feelings, that the Speaker
had to call him to order several times. He concluded
his address with the following notable threat :
" English gentlemen ! rally round a tory ministry, if
you please, and mock at the warning which the advo-
cate of Ireland gives you ; but I tell you, though you
may be tyrants, we never will be slaves." " Advocate
of Ireland" indeed ! Why, no man living has done
more, by his ceaseless and mischievous agitation, to
depress and to impoverish his countrymen, than Daniel
O'Connell. Is it not owing to the incendiary pro-
ceedings of this man that Ireland has been deprived
of the incalculable benefits arising from the application
of English capital in developing the resources of the
country ? Who would think of embarking any money
on an Irish speculation, however profitable in itself, or
beneficial to the population, as long as life and property
are held on so uncertain a tenure in that unfortunate
country ? And to what are we to attribute this uncer-
tainty? Is it not to the firebrand who dares to threaten
the gentlemen of England that " the process" of his
peace-destroying " agitation shall not be abandoned" ?
Talk indeed of the people of Ireland never being slaves!
Are they not already the most abject, miserable, and
hopeless slaves in the world ? Are they not held in
bondage by the tyranny of the Popish priesthood—a
tyranny extending over body and soul—paralysing all
the better impulses of their nature, and rendering them
more sottish and degraded than the serfs of Russia ?
Talk of slaves indeed ! Let us only see the peasantry
of Ireland emancipated from the galling thraldom in
which they are held by the priesthood, and then we
may indulge in the hope that Ireland may yet become
what she has been so often called in fiendish derision
by O'Connell—

" Great, glorious, and free,
First flower of the earth, first gem of the sea."

Liberate the " hereditary bondsmen" from the iron
despotism, under which they are ground to the dust by
O'Connell and his spiritual coadjutors, and then peace
and prosperity may once more dawn upon the "green;
vales of t,rin." Nothing short of such a " Roman 04-