The Statesman.
London, England, 1823-03-05 00:00:00

ES•iEN COUNTY MEETING.

It is notified that there is to be a meeting in the
county of Essex on the subject of agriculttrrallistress.
The requisition is said to state that they wish to abstain
from all political controversy, and to promote a cordial
union of the landed interest. This Meeting will, doubt.
less, petition for an equitable adjustment .of contracts.
Perhaps it may wish to effect this adjUstment by the is-
suing of small coin or debased paper-money. Ourat
commendation to it would be to petition for the adjiia.
meat ; and to leave the mode to the Parliament. It is im-
poesible that something should not be. done, -
.1 n Hamp-
shire there were three petitions; one praying fia an
eisholie adjustment, without pointing out the mode;
anothempraying for an egnitable arrangement, without
paging rot the mode, bat protesting against small
coin or debased paper-money ; a third, praying for a
silver standard, which the prime minister calls a partial
bankruptcy, and :n addition to that; for making the
fundholders pay the poor-rates, or, in other words,
to deduct the amount of the poor-rates from
their dividends. The first of them :was pro-
posed by Mr. Cobbett, and had a lair put of the
• Meeting for it; the second was propos4by Mr. Marsh,
and was carried, there being certainly more than half
the Meeting for it; the thirdma.proposed by Mr. Flem-
ing, one of the Members for the County, and for this pe-
tition there was not a single hand held up !—The county
of Essex may judge from this; and as it wants an union
of the landed interest, it must at once see that the way
to have that union is to pray for the adjustment, and to
leave the mode not specified. That it will pray for an
adjustment, in some weeds or other, we are certain: and
we beg leave to suggest to it, that the wise nay will be
not to let those words cause a distmidn of the landed in-
terest. The land and labour, if united, are too strong
for the Jews and Jobbers, strong as they are ; but if dis-
united, mighty as the land and labour are, the all-de.
vouring monster will bare them down his thi,oat.

ORANGE-MEN.
We have just been reading an Irish paper called the
Antidote. From this paper, as well as from other Irish
publications; and, indeed, from all we hearfrom Ireland,
it srems impossible to restore any thing like tranquillity
to that country without a change of the Lord Lieutenant.
We do not blame his Lordship, and never have. His in-

tentions appear to us to be very good ; but, he does not
appear to have perceived the trite nature of the thing
that he had to deal with. Wild, Sjr Elkgcourt Lees
appears to bt, and pushing as he appears, things to the
other extreme, of the two, his policy is, certainty, the
most likely to restore something like peace to Ireland.
It is not a question of conciliation or non-conciliation : it
is not a question of the more or the less. The plain
question is, shall the governing powers remain in
I the hands of the Protestants, or shall they be trans-
ferred to the Catholics ? This is the real question.
This both Catholics and Protestants know very well; and,
therefore, all attempts to reconcile them by giving a little
to the Catholics ; by showing them acme degree of fa-
vour; to introduce them into powt‘r by degree', can only
tend to irritate and inflame. These endeavours hare
produced the present slate of things. The Lord Lien.
tenant, by endearoirs to conciliate, has actually thrown
the country into such a +tate that it is impssibte for
some terrible crisis not to arise out of i-, unless a change
speedily tak• place.—We have not heard any tbiog at
all about the intentions of the Ministers in this respect ;
but, our opinion is, that if they persevere much longer in
upholding their colleague in Ireland, the Mieilotry itself
will be broken srp.—We have aesn several Ministers take
their stand against NO POPERY. "No popery"
has always triumphed, and it always will triomphl
until, at least, the Protestant Church Establishment
be put an end to. Let any man look at the im•
mense mass of property; not lees than a good
fourth part of the whole of the real property of the
kingdom. Let any man look at this mass of property,
and consider that it must all he shaken, to say the very

least of it, by putting an end to protestant predominance
in Ireland.—Let any man 'oak at this, and then let him
bAieve if he can, that the parties who either possess or
have the reversion of this property, will ever listen for
a moment to any measure that shall shake that predomi-
nance. The Orangemen have, therefore, fur allies,
those who are interested in this great mass of propere,
and then they have, besides, all the unconquerable
prejudices of ninety•ninr hundredths of the p •ople of
England. That part of the people; even that part of
them who never read a newspaper, and never see a
newspaper, get at information upon this subject, and
are all alive to it. In the year 1507, when Perceval
set up the cry of "No Popery," a man that kept a
little shop upon the skirts of a common near Botley,
had a woman come to his stop for :oat° little
thing, and she fell eagerly to talking about
the popery." The blessed the good old King, and
hoped lion would preserve his life, for that it was owing
to him that we hail now been saved from having our
throats cnt and from been burnt alive by the "popishes."
The man that kept the shop was a roman catholic ; but
that his neighbours did not know.—The feelosophers
will tell us that this woman was a poor weak creature.
She was just the contrary; Isuethat is no matter; she
spoke the sentiment of every protestant in that stage of
; without any noise; by quiet Acts of
Parliament, the government might remove all the law.
that the Catholics want removed. But, those who are
interested in preventing the removal of those laws, will
not suffer it to be doop quietly; they will set op
the cry of "no popery," and, if they do, they
will sorely beat their adversaries.—Tbo Melia