The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-02-26 00:00:00

SKETCHES IN PARLIAMENT.

We this day present our readers with the first of a series
of " SKETCHES IN PARLIAMENT," which it is our
intention to continue at intervals, on the occasion of
any important debate in
.the House of Commons.
They are the production of an intelligent gentleman,
who has numerous sources of information, and who
we doubt not will render the series not on/z
but highly instructive

interesting

Eibtrpool &tanbarb.

FRIDAY

MORNING, FEBRUARY 26, 1841

On reading the prolonged debates that have taken
place in Parliament this week on Lord Morpeth's Re-
gistration Bill, we have been disappointed at finding
so little said on that topic which of all others enters
most deeply and essentially into the question. We
grant that it is an awkward subject in the house ; but
it is not on that account the less important. With the
public press, however, there is not, or at least there
ought not to he this squeamishness. We allude to the
attempt to diacuss Irish questions, as it were conclu-
sively, yet without reference to the subject of religion.
In so doing, Conservatives shew themselves vastly con-
ciliatory, and choose frequently a weak and unfavour-
able position, when they might, if they pleased, have a
strong and irrefragable one. Glance at this registra-
tion question in its first and most obvious point of
view, and if we agree not to perceive anything of reli-
gion in it, the consequence inevitably is, that we give
the Radicals a decided advantage: They ask for a
qualification for electors in Ireland on the ground that
that country is poorer than England—and they shew
what vast numbers are excluded from the franchise by
reason of the present high rate ; and is not this a plaus-
ible argument ? We think it is, and we are not sure
that Conservatives can satisfactorily overturn it, so
long as they stand on political grounds merely.
They speak of the extreme poverty of the people,
and their consequent liability to corrupting influences;
but might not a people be poor, and yet virtuous ?
Must poverty with all its other evils, necessarily bear
the reproach of being vicious and immoral ? "Why
this is a libel upon human nature. And yet it is the
libel, or the doctrine, which the Conservative who fore-
goes religion in discussing the new enfranchisement of
Ireland, is necessarily driven to. That there is great
error here, will hardly be denied. We do not seek to
account for it; we rest simply on the fact. But let
the Conservative place himself directly, and at once on
the religious ground, and the case is completely altered.
As the champion of a Protestant constitution, Church,
and Government, he then acts with perfect consistency
in refusing privileges and powers to men who would
use them for no other purpose than to subvert those
great institutions—and he escapes from the dubious
and unenviable position of shuttihg men out from con-
stitutional privileges merely on the ground of penury.
But, it may be said, this would be declaring open war
against Popery. Doubtless it would ; but are we to
be told that there is any Conservative Protestant afraid, r
or ashamed to engage in that holy war ? Ay, "there's
the rub." We do fear that this is too much the case—.
that our Protestantism has been infected and damaged
by Liberalism—?ml that there are many who think
that religion is not essential to a Conservative policy. r
Hence all our difficulties with Irish questions.
This is a most unfortunate state of things not less