The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-04-29 00:00:00

THE MAYNOOTH GRANT.

During the past week the meetings in various parts of
the country, and the petitions to parliament against the
Maynooth grant have been so many that enumera-
tion is out of the question. Never has there been so ge-
neral an expression of feeling against any measure ; nor
has there ever been a measure which, if carried, will do
greater violence to the sentiment. of the country.
Several mornings last week, the mails, which arrived at
the General Post-office, London, were crammed with ex-
tra mail sacks and bags, containing petitions against the
proposed grant to the Roman Catholic College of May-
noLth. In some districts at the west end, the regular
letter carriers required the aid of assistants, to deliver the
multitude of petitions to the respective M.P.'s to whom
they were addressed.

On the second division on the Nlaynooth Bill becoming
known in Hull, it was determined to send another petition,
against the third reading ; and cn Tuesday evening, on
one day's notice, the largest public meeting (of male in-
habitants) ever known, except a' elections, was held in the
public rooms. Nothing could exceed the solemnity and
interest of this meeting; and the petition was signed with
the greatest alacrity.

A very numerous meeting of Dissenters was held yes-
terday week at Bury, for the purpose of petitioning Par-
liament against the grant, Thos. Greig, Esq. in the chair.
A petition against the grant was proposed, but was met
by an amendment to the effect that the Roman Catholics
and ethers had as much right to hive grants of money
as any Protestants. Some confusion and uproar ensued,
and the meeting was dissolved without coming to any con-
clusion.

A meeting for the same purpose was held at Little Bol-
ton, on Wednesday ; the school-room, which will con-
tain 1000 persons, was completely filled, and in the ab-
sence of Peter Rothwell, Esq. who purposed to attend,
but was detained in London, the Rev. J. Lyons officiated.
Speeches warmly reprehensive of the government measure
were delivered, and resolutions in accordance were unani-
mously passed. The Rev. Fielding Ould was amongst the
argumentators. A similar meeting was held in the Wes-
leyan Chapel, Little Bolton, on Toursday evening, John
Walker, Esq. of Bradford House, in the chair. The reso-
lutions were similar in spirit and were carried unanimously.
The Ref. J. Osborne, of Manchester, addressed the meet-
ing at great length and with much eloquence.

WILL CONCESSION STILL THE REPEAL

AGITATION?

Repealers themselves shall answer this question ; and
first let us see what is the language of the great head of
Repeal—Daniel O'Connell himself. In a letter dated the
18th instant, accepting an invitation to a public banquet
in Cork, the arch demagogue says :
" Whilst the Irish brooded in sorrow and irritation, but
in silent acquiescence, over the grievances which afflicted
their country, no relief was afforded—no conciliation sug-
gested by the government. On the contrary, even in our
earlier movements v e were emphatically told t at con-
cession,'—that is to say, justice to Ireland ' had long at-
tained its limits.' That assertion is now emphatically
retracted—and the loud cry of Irish agit.ition has pene-
trated into the interior cabinet of the ministry, and (force
and fraud having been found useless) is endeavoured to
be quelled by acts of benevolence conferred in a concilia-
tory manner.

Let us then persevere. We have every incitement to
persevere. Every concession made by England is a fresh
proof of her former injustice. It increases the strength
of the repeaters and diminishes the power and numbers
of those who are opposed to repeal."

Again, at the weekly meetings of the Association, at the
Conciliation Hall, he says:—

" The Minister might entertain the idea that by giving
a bribe to the people of this country in the shape of an ab-
sentee• tax the repeal agitation could be stopped. He would
be candid with those planners of the destruction of Re-
peal, and at once tell them that nothing less than Repeal
would do. (Loud cheers.) At the same time he would
take all he could get. (Hear, hear.) Gifts always put
him in good humour ; and at the present juncture they
had that effect in an especial degree, as being evidence
that their enemies saw that Ireland should be treated as a
great country, and no 10. ger handed over to the mercy of
a faction."

Mr. E. B. Roche, at the same meeting, said—
" The people of Ireland would never be guilty of flun-
keyism' to the Minister; they received the bill per se as a
good measure, and they tendered bim their humble thanks
for it, as for as it went. Tbey would, at the same time,
show the people of England that they still kept their eyes
on the main question, and were not t') be diverted from it
by sweet words. He told the British Minister that the
people of Ireland were not to be ' talked over,' and that
they would be satisfied with nothing less than unbounded
justice to their country."

Surely the opini ms of these gentlemen, and our expe-
rience of the effect of past concessions, ought to be quite
as potential evidences of the amount of conciliation to be
expected from this measure as the opinion of Sir Robert
Peel or of his colleagues !