The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-06-02 00:00:00

FRIDAY MORNING, JUNE 2, 1843

There was no need existing of a demonstration of
the meanness which forms the distinguishing charac-
teristic of 'Whig statesmanship. There was scarcely
any evidence wanting of its desperate wickedness. And
yet how irresistibly are these qualities forced upon our
observation by the debate of Monday and Tuesday
nights, upon the Irish Arms Bill ! A reckless incen-
diary
and an alien priesthood, in Ireland, are struggling
to sever that fair but unhappy land from the British
Empire. Midnight crime has for years past stained
with blood its fertile vallies, and carried terror and
outrage to its solitary homesteads. The brutalised and
misguided population of Ireland—to use the expres-
sion of a witness who well knows them—" thirst" for
the possession of arms ; and to procure them rush
headlong to the commission of violence upon the per-
sons of the owners. To provide a remedy for such a
state of things, the Irish government propose the re-
newal, or, more properly, the remodification of the
existing arms bill—a measure passed, under circum-
stances infinitely less pressing, by a Whig administra-
tion ; and yet against the passing of such a measure,
at a crisis the most fearful, with rebellion actually im-
pending, the leader of the late Whig administration has
the insufferable audacity to enter his puny protest, and
mouth out his own miserable specifics for the cure of
the evil which it is designed to meet and overcome I
And what is the Whig prescription for the putting
down of Irish outrage? It is, briefly, impunity, and
encouragement to its perpetration ! " We," exclaims
his lordship, " governed Ireland upon the principle of
conciliation. We released the convicted murderers in

her prisons ; we turned loose upon society her ruffianly
assassins ; we gave power and pay to her disaffected
agitators. We displayed to the civilised world the
novel spectacle of the councils of a great nation swayed
by a mendicant plunderer of his fellow-countrymen
and the tail of 30 or 40/ venal instruments of his bad
ambition, which the terrorism and coercion of mob
violence and priestly intimidation had placed within his
hands to wield ; and as the result of such a policy, we
left Ireland tranquil! Yes : tranquil as the beast of
prey after he has gorged himself with the flesh of his
victim. Oh, how tranquil was Ireland ! It was a
sleeping volcano. Its very air was charged with the
elements of ruin and devastation, with the spark only
wanting to bring about the explosion !
Give justice to Ireland, exclaims the apologists of
Whig statesmanship. " Justice to Ireland," we ask !
What is that ? Where is its definition ? Is it to be
found in the destruction of the Protestant Church in
that unhappy priest.ridden land ? Is it to be found in
the Repeal of the Union ? We can find it nowhere—
in the realisation of no intelligible or definable evasion
of the rights of property or of conscience. It is a
thing too buoyant to be grasped—too impervious to
be felt. Even Lord John Russell dare not attempt to
grapple with it ; but contents himself, as a substitute,
with pacification for Ireland. You need no arms bill,
he exclaims. You may place pikes and muskets in the
hands of her unfuriated and misguided millions, and
you will be safe, if you only consent to govern them
upon Whig principles (!)—to wink at outrage, to con-
cede to threats, to reward the disaffected, and permit a
burly traitor to bask in the smiles of authority, to feed
upon peculation, and to insult with his loathsome and
fawning flattery the throne itself !
" I am prepared, when the question of Repeal of the
Union, is mooted in a constitutional manner in this
house, to meet it by a direct negative ; but I deprecate
harsh proceedings on the part of government, which
will tend to aggravate the popular dissatisfaction."
Indeed, my lord ! But the leader of the agitation for
repeal is not disposed to trouble the House of Com-
mons with any discussion upon the subject. lie
laughs at Parliament ! He laughs at the power of
Great Britain to put down his disaffected proceedings,
and is about to attempt the achievement of his object
by violence. A petty Whig statesman, longing for the
sweets of official place and pay, may talk about his de-
termination to meet that attempt, when the time is ripe
for its explosion, by the arm of authority ; but a wise
Conservative government will disarm treason, before
it has leisure to put its lance in rest, and commence its
headlong career against the peace and integrity of the

empire !

The position of the Roman Catholic clergy of Ire-
land, in connection with the agitation now going on in
that distracted land, is well worthy of our serious con-
sideration. The declaration of Dr. Higgins, the titular
bishop of Armagh, that the entire body of the prelates
of the Romish Church in Ireland are in favour of the
Repeal of the Union, anti of the measures of spoliation
and outrage contemplated a• the issue of such repeal,
stands, as yet, uncontradicted except by Dr. Murray.
In his case, even, it is to be doubted whether the re-
pudiation of sympathy with repeal is so perfectly sin-
cere as he would wish it to be believed ; and we Inve,
in addition to this damning evidence of the designs of
the Romish party, the fact, which will assuredly not be
denied, that ninety-nine out of a hundred of the priest-
hood throughout the country are ardent and pledged
repealers ! By that body is carried out the fearful or-
ganisation—all but a military organisation—which we
see at this moment existing amongst the deluded pea-
santry. It is by them that the vast bodies assembled
at Cork, at Limerick, at Longford, were marched in
triumph, with banners and music, and, we may add,
with arms in their hands, to the places of gathering.
Their chapels are the sources from which the stream-
ing sedition is spread through every hamlet and every
townland ; and it is scarcely concealed, or attempted