The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-03-05 00:00:00

THE LONDON PRESS.

4111011 THE GUARDIAN AND PUBLIC LEDGER.)
We have never denied that some measure of severity,
even one of extraordinary coercion, was necessary to
suppress the disturbances in Ireland. Urgent and
im-
perious necessity, we suppose, called upon the King's
Government to protect the King's subjects in that part
of the united kingdom against the open violence of law-
less mobs and midnight assassins. Of course we were
bound to assume that some evidence of the murders,
atrocities, and other illegal acts alluded to in Earl Grey's
speech, would be submitted to both Houses of Parliament
by his Majesty's ministers. That the noble earl did not
overstate or colour the facts we are well convinced. That
Ireland was and is in the deplorable state represented by
the first minister of the crown we never entertained, and
do not now entertain, the slightest doubt.
But despite all this we do not think that a measure of
such overwhelming severity, which places the life, liberty,
and property of every man in Ireland at the mercy of the
Lord Lieutenant and a military tribunal, should be justi-
fied by the conviction of any man or set of men, or should
rest upon evidence which even the most fastidious could
reasonablquestion. Certain we are that neither the
Duke of Wellington, nor Sir Robert Peel, nor any other
members of the conservative party, had they been the
responsible ministers of the crown at the present junc-
ture, would have introduced such a bill for the suspen-
sion of the constitutional laws of Ireland, without giving
to Parliament and the nation the most complete and sa-
tisfactory body of evidence in justification of the necessity
of the measure. We should not have asked the delay of
a tedious examination of witnesses by a parliamentary
committee. This would have been a sort of toleration
of crime. It would have sufficed had a return from the
judges and special commissions, and affidavits from ma-
gistrates, clergymen, and resident gentry—from military
officers, police constables, and others in Ireland—setting
forth the nature of the disturbances, the details of crime,
the prevalent insecurity, the dread of life—and establish-
ing by such local, direct, and incontrovertible evidence,
the sad necessity for arbitrary and even despotic mea-
sures. With this we are sure that every intelligent man
in England would have been satisfied.
But this ministers have not thought fit to do. They
introduce the bill on their own responsibility—they base
it upon private evidence—they hazard it upon moral
conviction, and they fortify it with something like the
notoriety of the facts. This is the chief fault we have to
find with the bill ; for it is the most vulnerable part of it,
and that which will be made a handle of by the factions
for purposes which we need not describe, for they are
rendered sufficiently manifest by the instinctive love of
popularity which stimulates the conduct of the scribes of
the Times newspaper.
We throw out these hints, but with great diffidence,
for the benefit of the conservative party. It is now plain
that a most furious opposition will be made to the bill.
Lord Althorp indirectly hinted, at the meeting of the
Three Hundred on Tuesday last, that if his former friends
should desert him, and he should fail in carrying it un-
impaired by the aid of the conservative party, he and all
his Majesty's ministers would instantly tender their re-
signations. , This certainly would be a very fearful cala-
mity. The Whigs resign 1 Lord Grey and all his little
ones cut off "at one fell swoop !" Lord Durham and
Sir John Hobhouse deprived of their salaries !—Old Bur-
dett deprived of his expectations I—Lord Anglesey ca-
shiered I—Lord Plunkett and the " young Hanibals"
sent back to the place whence they came I—Mr. Spring
Rice and Mr. Poulet Thomson both drummed out ! Oh,
shade of Charles James Fox, this would be more than
their country could bear, or the genius of English his-
tory could record without a tear !
But the Times tells them to resign, and we for once
say " Amen I" to our honest contemporary. The world
will not come to an end one moment the sooner. It is
impossible that any set of ministers could place the na-
tion in a more deplorable condition. Even Mr. Hume
as premier, with fifteen Greeks for his colleagues, could
not make us worse. Under these circumstances is Lord
Althorp justified in calculating upon the support of the
Tories ? Let us beware here 1 If the Noble Lord, after
being deserted by a large portion of his Whig friends,
is enabled to carry the Irish Suppression Bill by means
of the Tories, what will the nation say ? Let us pause
and consider this with cool deliberation ? The character
of the party is at stake. It is for them to decide whether
they will be rendered responsible for Whig measures—
for measures which they themselves never would have
originated without inquiry—and which, if they should
be carried under these peculiar exigencies, will, to a
'moral certainty, be placed to their account. To sustain
the Whigs in office is one thing ; but to be made respon-
sible for their measures, or their blunders, or their most
arbitrary and obnoxious proceedings, is quite another
thing, and in the present state of the Tory party a very
serious matter. To support the Severeign in his endea-
vours to suppress rebellion in Ireland is their duty as
loyal men ; but the King is not responsible for the mea-
sures of his minister, who must bear all the odium of

defeat. Besides, if they support Lord Grey in carry-
ing the Suppression Bill, will they not, in some measure,
be bound to support the Church itobbery Bill ? And how
do they know that the King approves of that bill ? There
is a matter of conscience, and an oath, which bind his
Majesty to the Protestant Church ; and these must not
be lightly tampered with in a laud which is not yet quite
.depraved by revolutionary and infidel principles.
For these reasons we would most respectfully advise
the Conservative party to be extremely circumspect in
the choice of subjects which they may be called upon
to support. They have already suffered severely from
acting upon Whig principles; let them take care, there-
fore, lest it be said, to parody the words of Moore—
" The trail of the Whigs is over them ail."

(FROM THE TIMES.)
The city election ternijnated yesterday; Mr. Lyall is
the successful candidate. At the election in December
the one of the returned members who stood lowest on the
list polled 565 more votes than Mr. Lyall on the present
occasion, and imp more than Mr. Alderman VenableS;
are we to infer that the city is already tired of the reform
bill, and pants for the return of the good old times of
Toryism, and contracts, and Bank restriction ?

The Paris papers of Wednesday, as we mentioned yes-
terday, derive their only interest from their remaks on
the situation of the Duchess de Berri. None of .them
,seem to lend any credit to the report of a marriage; but
siren on the showing of the royalists, all the liberal jour-
nals agree that a marriage would b as fatal to the ab-
.Aurd assumption of, he regency as the frailty which it is
invented to cover.

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