22 SEPTEMBER 1849, Page 12

The Northern Whig, a Liberal Protestant paper published at Belfast,

and distinguished for the impartiality and judgment with which it is conducted, Criticizes the recent proceedings in the Castlewellan affair- " That all the formal investigation will result in any effect of much import- mice, we are sorry to say, we do not expect. To speak very plainly, but as we most surely believe, our thorough conviction is, that the Government will not manfully do their duty in this case. If they were to do 80, Lord Roden would cease to be a Magistrate for the county of Down, and Mr. Beers and Mr. Keown would, in a secondary way, share the sair,e fate. But let the truth be known: an unjust and timid feeling exists which will prevent this—a feeling strengthened by an anxiety to stand by people of rank, let them do well or ill. Lord Roden is one of the order,' and will be spared; and, that being so, the minor men will pass scathless. Of all the wretched mockeries that we have ever witnessed or read of, we know of none equal to that of asking information against a few ignorant men for having been concerned in an unlawful assembly,' whilst Lord Roden, who had harangued and entertained that same assembly in his own grounds, was chief judge in the court before which the charge was preferred. We shall not be accused of any wish to bear hard upon Lord Clarendon; but our solemn conviction is, that his Lordship's public character will suffer much, and the prospects of Ireland be curiously damaged, if the great offenders on this occasion be spared, whilst there has been a makebelieve attempt to -king a few poor men to trial for an offence which, as far as they are concerned, is declared by the Government lawyer to de- serve nothing more than 'nominal punishment.' A distinct practical condemns- tion of Lord Roden, who so well deserves it, would be of more value than the 'nominal punishment,' or even the real, of all the Orangemen who marched through Dolly's Pass and back again under an escort of constabulary and mili- tary. But there will be no such condemnation."