The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-08-09 00:00:00

support the views of the Earl of Ripon with regard to
this bishopric. His lordship's argument is fully in point.
The Isle of Man forms a community within itself,„en-
tirely, distinct from the English customs; and parliament
might as justly dispossess the inhabitants of their civil
privileges as deprive them of their own exclusive bishop !

The memorable decision of the House of Commons on
Tuesday evening last, on the Irish church, or " tithe bill,"
is, on reflection, a subject of too weighty moment to the
interests of our protestant brethren to be passed over
superficially by us, who stand resolved to defend the
cause of truth, without fear or favour. We therefore
return to the subject, however nauseating it has become,
and calculated to produce mingled impressions of painful
loathing and disgust. We have already broadly asserted
that the "appropriation" part of the question was posi-
tively worn threadbare as a matter for argument—that it
offered nothing beyond a glaring and an anomalous com-
pound of impudent and deceptive irrationality, indefensi-
ble in principle, and contemptibly worthless as a practical
measure of honest " justice to Ireland," however well
calculated to favour the designs of the radical-popish
clan, to deceive the ignorant, and to delude the unwary.
Have not our protestant and candid readers responded to
our sentiments most cordially ? Let us then unmask a
little further this nondescript—unseemly, ill-begotten
measure of papal whiggery—let us show it forth in its
naked, crooked deformity, to the extent of our humble
powers, as it was, finally, we hope, exhibited to Sir
Robert Peel and his conservative band of associates
(representing the wealth and the intellect of the British
nation,) under the reflected light of the great political
star of the church-loving house of Bedford, on this ever-
memorable evening, when the ascendant wisdom of
whiggism assumed,' for a brief moment, the airs of sitting
in judgment on the important question of privilege, until
the wig of a more formidable quality suspended or eclipsed
that judgment, by the interposition of its own I
It surely is not from any novelty displayed by the noble
champion of the united liberal, or papal party, in the
lower, or " people's house," either in tone, or effect, that
we feel bound, as it were, once more to honour this truly
despicable, and happily, by the prowess of the whigs
themselves, defunct bill, with a farther notice; but be-
cause Lord John Russell has, unwittingly, himself dis-
played before us, in their true colours, the astounding
pretensions of that measure of " dubious virtue," which
the Times has saucily, but most justly and pithily ob-
served, " should be henceforth and always denominated,
on the authority of the prime minister himself, a bill for
giving a heavy blow to protestantisna in Ireland !"
Well, indeed, might the peers of England deprive it of
its admitted sting, its paralyzing-noxious qualities--well
done great, good, candid, pious Lord Melbourne, the
protestants of Ireland most gratefully thank you ! But
what shall we say of those who have thwarted the con-
servative peers, the " hereditary legislators," acting un-
der your admonitory jurisdiction ? What ! your coadjutor
and noble colleague in the house of " the people," to
talk of " resigning," if its members did not reject the
amended bill, which you, Lord Melbourne, had so spe-
cially condemned in your place, and before the assembled
peers of England, who, acting under the spirit, if not the
letter of your admonition—your warning, extracted only
the poison from the " great discouragement to protes-
tantism bill," as the Times has it, credite posteri ! Well,
happily for the present, this great evil has been rendered
abortive—the calamity is postponed, and that by means of
the crooked policy of the enlightened spirit of whiggery
itself, pacta convents, accordingly as that amiable cham-
pion of the papacy, Misther O'Connell, and his worthy
allies, and humble subordinates, may deem compatible
with their notions of justice, and their admirable code of
expediency.

The Times, with great justice and force of reasoning,
further observes, on the result of this last debate. " The
question is whether in this land, renowned through all
the nations of the earth, chiefly and above all things,
for having burst asunder the bonds of, spiritual tyranny,
and freed the worship of the living God, from the de-
graing and deceitful mummeries of Popery, a govern-
ment shall be allowed to deal " a heavy blow"—to give
" a great discouragement to Protestantism,"—or whether
their impious and sacriligious band shall be stayed, from
defiling that ever blessed and imperishable work, and
the memory of the glorious army of martyrs, who se-
cured to us with their blood the purity and the liberty
of religious worship, which we enjoy, shall be protected
from the scorn and insult, which these their degenerate
descendants, have dared openly to threaten it." It is
impossible for us, under our Protestant feeling, to
avoid entering into a cordial and hearty reverberation
of these sentiments, which speak aloud to the hearts,
the consciences, and the religious feelings of all Protest-
ants,—nay of all truly Christian men, in accents of
powerful and conclusive conviction. And we repeat the
appeal contained in them,—we address ourselves to the
understanding of our unprejudiced readers, of every
sect, to their sense of honour,—to their respect for mo-
rals,—to their veneration for religion; and we ask them,
how long this moral turpitude is to be permitted to po-
lute the councils of a great, a chivalrous, and a thinking
nation, to its utter wrong, its discredit, and its shame ?
That portion of my countrymen whom we frankly and
proudly acknowledge, as the PEOPLE, properly, unmisti-
fied by the vapourings of the ' Spirit of the Age,' which
is the spirit of irreligion, of anarchy, and of bloodshed,
under temporary restraint, will not fail in forming an
appropriate judgment of the wisdom, the sincerity, and
the ethics of that -band of would-be legislators, who, to
preserve place and to usurp power, in a firm utterly
at variance with all constitutional means have perverted
all the fundamental principles, the genuine and essential
characteristics, the securities of old English policy ; and
even bartered their own honourable independence, as
statesmen, and their reputation as honest men, by manoeu-
vring to obtain office, through the medium of a positively
fictitious majority,composed and made-up of needy place-
men, their own dependants, and Roman Catholic expect-
ants for power, whose feelings and whose principles of
legislation, or even respect for the sanctity of an oath,
have nothing in common with the pure faith and the
tolerant religion of the Gospel of Christ ! Do we over-
colour the picture? Let us at a " bird's eye view" sift'the
value, and the independent pretensions, of the famous
majority of twenty-nine,---let us contrast its actual
strength, and the weight of its authority, for inflicting
upon us, for six months longer, the humiliation under
which we nationally labour,—let us compare the con-
servative majority of the House of Lords, and the de-
clared majority of the people " out of doors," in opinion,
from Devon county to Newcastle town; and let the issue
be decided thereupon, fairly decided, for the constitution
and the protestant church, on the scrutiny we here pre-
sent to the equitable considerations of our fellow-towns-
men,—aye, even the liberal portion of them,--let them
be told, that the conscientious Lord Melbourne declared,
on the second reading of the discarded bill in the upper
House, that he "would continue to hold office so long,
only, as he was supported by a majority of the House of
Commons!" We now come to the quality of the noble
Premier's supporting majority.

On carefully looking through the list on the division
of Tuesday night, we find that thirty-five placemen voted
in the gross majority. Thus leaving—

Conservative members 231
Liberals, Whigs, and Roman Catholics 26U
Deduct officials

Actual independent majority 6!

Of the total number who voted (491) forty-one were
Roman Catholics,—thus leaving a purely independent
majority of twelve Protestants against Lord Melbourne
and his colleagues! It does not appear, that the noble
viscount has yet presented himself at Windsor, for the
purpose of permitting the exercise of the royal preroga-
tive; and although we may be accused of drawing an in-
vidious distinction between Protestant, Official, and Ro-
man Catholic members, we maintain, under our Standard
respect for truth, and our regard for principle, that the
'atter had no fair right to strain their privilege,' by
voting on a question purely relating to the Protestant
Church, and for the avowed purpose of appropriating its
funds to the benefit of ti;e laity of an opposite creed,