The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-01-22 00:00:00

FRIDAY. MORNING, JANUARY 22, 1836.

We understand that if the present ministers are al-
lowed to remain in office only a few days after the meet-.
ing of parliament, they will introduce a bill to reform, as
they call it,—that is, to open up to popish competition,
popular contention, and priestly tyranny, all the corpora-
tions of Ireland. This, we are assured, is to be the
grand bill of the session. Ministers are pledged to carry
it or resign. O'CONNELL demands it, and the wretcheit
whigs are in his power. They must-yield or die !
The importance of this measure will, we fear, not be
duly appreciated at first sight. The effects of -it would
be to throw nearly the whole of the municipal corpora-
tions of Ireland into the hands of the popish priests.-
The councillors and corporate officers returned would .in
a vast majority of places be not only Roman Catholics.
but the
.mere creatures of the priests. Ignorance, hru.
tality, and ruffianism would then be engrossingly in the
ascendant in Ireland; and we well know that, with furi-
ous bigots of this description, the slightest degree of suc-
cess encourages them to commit the most wanton acts of
despotic injustice.
The protestants of England must, therefore, for their
own, sakes, take this contemplated measure into their se-
rious consideration. If they consent to such a bill, or
should such a bill be forced upon their fellow7protestants,
they may depend upon it that a terrible and most san-
guinary religious war must and will be the consequence.
The protestants of Ireland, upwards of two millions
strong, will never consent to be ruled by the popish
party, no matter what their numbers may be; for no
justice, no liberality, no fairness of dealing, no love of
truth, no respect for engagments, even under the sanc-
tion of an oath, can be relied upon from them. Two
millions of brave protestants will never consent, be the
consequences what they may, to be ruled, and insulted
by the rule, of the dishonest and unprincipled priests of
Maynooth. If the corporations, then, founded chiefly
for the protestants, and in many instances solely for their
protection, are to be opened up to the popish and infuri-
ated enemies of England, civil war, a war for religion,
a war for truth, a war FOR THE BIBLE, must he the
result !

There can be no protestant struggle in Ireland in.
which the protestants of England will not join by a treaty
offensive and defensive. Let us therefore be prepared
for the worst. Ireland, the curse of England, the most
barbarous country in Europe, and the last stronghold of
popery in its most debasing and guilty form, must be re-
conquered. It must be finally subdued, by the protes-
tants of England. O'CONNELL is the demon created for
the purpose of leading his deluded countrymen into the
trial by fire and sword, in which both he and they will
perish ; and perhaps the sooner the trial comes the
better.

The municipal corporation reform act is beginning to
prove a fruitful source of occupation to the gentlemen of
the long robe, to whose mill almost every modern legis-
lative measure brings an abundance of grist.
In the first place the magistrates of Gloucester are
forced into the King's Bench in order that they may be
instructed by the court as to whether they have or have
not the power of stopping up a footpath at Clifton, a
large suburban district added to the ancient boundaries
of the city of Bristol ; the town-clerk of Poole has been
called upon to answer a mandamus, to show cause why
he refused to allow certain burgesses of that place to copy
at their own expense the voting papers delivered in at
the election of common councilmen ; a rule for a quo
warranto has been obtained against SAMUEL BENNETT,
calling upon him to show by what authority lie fills the
office of town councillor of the borough of Bridport, and
a similar agreeable proceeding has been commenced
against WILLIAM BOBER rs, Esq., who is required to show
his right to the office of mayor of Cat narvon. As this
last appears to be the most puzzling of all the cases we
have glanced at—we pass over those of Ipswich and se-
veral other places—we quote for the edification of the
admirers of hasty legislation the following passages from
the law report of Tuesday's Times :

" Sir WILLIAM FOLLETT.—The twenty-fifth section directed
that the new body. should coLsist of a ma 3 or, aldermen, and
council ; the thirtieth" regulating the choice of the latter,
and the forty-ninth that of mayor. The order of the
Privy Council directed the election of councillors on the
26th of December, of aldermen on the 28th, and that the mayor
should be chosen on the Ist of January instant. No provision,
however, existed in the act fur the event of there being an equal
number of voices in the choice of aldermen by the councillors
elect, as had occurred in this and two other boroughs; and here
a difficulty arose which did not appear to be remediable except
by a distinct act of parliament. A certain number of council-
lors, eighteen, appeared to have teen elected on the day ap-
pointed for that purpose, but upon this point a doubt arose as to
the validity of the election, in consequence of the absence of
the proper presiding officer, whose attendance was requisite un-
der the directions of the act. On the 28th of December, on
proceeding to the election of aldermen, of whotn six were to be
chosen, there was an absolute majority for two only, the num-
bers for the other four being exactly divided between two sets
of candidates ; and, as the act specified the choice of six, and
not two, the whole matter fell to the ground, the councillors
failing to complete the number. Notwithstanding their incom-
plete numbers, the councillors, together with the twe persons
for whom there was a majority in the choice of aldermen, pro-
ceeded to the election of a mayor, which, it was now alleged,
was a proceeding altogether unwarrantable, the other compo-
nent parts not having been filled up. The election of mayor