'IONICS OF THI4 DA'.
POLITICAL ODDS AND ENDS.
Tams sessh n to session of Parliament, the best, perhaps, of guides to a knowledge of the state of parties, is the communications wilich take plave between Members and their constituents. The first production of the present recessii this line may be seen in another minium It well deserves a careful examination. Mr. HUTT, who, 11101Igh nut much of a speaker in Parliament, is a re• Heel jig.painstaking, assiduous, and thoroughl■ iodependent Mem- ber, represents a verv important constituescy; whom he intisrms, that, " if nothing be done by Illinisters with a v kw to preventing another such absurd session as that which is just closed, he shall not be found next year amongst the supporters of Govirtuttent." "Absurd session !"— elsewhere he calls it a " tin!) ridiculous " session. But we must refer to his letter for all the grounds tnu which he has ileterminial to withdraw his vote from Ministers in ease they enter on another session witheut some plan for managing the Lords. Within the twist motobor two, there wit! be many like indications Or the fate which awaits Lord M NE, if he should neglect, during the recess, to form u plan of Whig-Radisal uction. We happen to know of one Member, the tepresentative of a very large and wealthy constituency—a sober-minded person too, in whom his constituents have the utmost confidence—who says, in private society, and will probably declare publicly, that he intends to stay away from Parliament next session, rather than take part in such another as the last. It would not be surprising if many Liberal Members should adopt a similar course. The earnest Reformers of the House of Comtnons are smarting under the ridi- cule which the past " absurd session " has brought upon 11R111. They will not give Lord LYNDHURST inseams opportunity to speak of them his derision and scorn. Reforsiug again to Mr. Ilers's letter, we have only to observe further, Ibr the present, that this, the first report of the session made by a Reformer to his consti- tuents, is one proof that we, alien we lately displeased sonic of our readers by indicating the probable results of Ministerial su- pineness, took a correct view of approaching events. Even a pain- ful foresight is better than utter blindness to the futui e. Ministers and some of their friends, on the contrary, seem to think that " Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wisc."
Apropos of our editorial prescience : here is a morsel of discom- fort for Mr. O'CONNELL. We have often tsld him that "mere proposals for asserting the barren principle of Appropriation as to a possible surplus of Irish tithes," would end in the adoption by Ireland of Mr. SHARMAN CRAWFORD'S tithe policy. What fol- lows is taken from a letter of the Morning Chronicle's well-in- formed Irish correspondent- ,. The hostility to tithes in Ireland is sorb, that I am convinced that the golden opportunity which the parsons have lost will never again return. No roar, the most regardless of passing events, can shut his eyes to the fact 01 avoid the conclusion, that total abolition it( the system will alone satisfy' the people. I doubt much if Mr. O'Connell himself can obtain the popular consent so any arrangement short of this : to this extent the sentiments of Mr. O'Con- nell himself extend ; whatever may he his notions of the policy of an instalment of the claim, his sense of justice reaehes to the advocacy of the total extinction of this nuisance. It is clear that the sentiments of Mi. Sharman Crawfiad are those in whkh the people universally participate. The mass feel the evil, and lend their hearts but indifferently to any claims of expediency not in- volving justice to the full : many, too, who feel that policy should be consulted in the mode as an agent to the end, are strongly of vpinion that a more extensive measure of justice is likely to be consequent upon utging the detwant in full, than would be the result of a limited claim. At the last meeting of the National Association, Mr. Lalor, the late Member tits the Queen's County, declared, Mat he test, red only the sentiments of people or that county, erhe:a he stated Mat they coincided with Me views of Mr. Cratifiird, and that nothing short of a total abolition of the tithe system could or should give pnblic satis-
Adios.*
But now, to keep an even hand between our vanity and can- dour, self-condemning as well as self-applauding when the occa- sion serves, let us acknowledge that we fell last week into some- thing very like an error. At all events, we led sonic of the Ministerial papers into a pretty considerable one. Having stated, that "the uniform practice of Royal Speeches, in modern times, is never to allude in other than complimentary terms to the pro- ceedings of the session," we were followed by the courier: who thus got into a controversy with the Standard, of which our Tory contemporary seems to have had the best.
"The Ministerial journals have asserted that there was no precedent for the King to allude in his Speech at the close of a session of Parliament, to the con- duct of the House of Lords. Oh yes, says the Standard, there is a precedent ; and it quotes the King's Speech on the close of the session of 178-4, on which occasion the King teproved the House of Commons. He spoke of the unhappy divisions and distractions which had lately existed, but which applied solely to that House. The King's Speech further contained these words—‘ I feel it a duty which I owe to the constitution and the country, in such a situation, to recur as speedily as possible to the sense of my people, by calling a new Parliament." The King, therefore, only addressed these wends of reproof to the Commons, as a preliminary to his inflicting upon them the punishment of a dissolution. They were used as ajustification for the appeal he meant imme- diately to make to the People. They can only be a precedent, therefore, for reproving the Lords in a King's Speech, when the Ministers and the King are disposed to disband the Peerage, and ate resolved to appeal on that point to the sense of the People. The precedent is not at all in point : it applies to the Commons, not to the Lords ; and, being a justification of a dissolution of the House of Commons, will only be applicable to the House of Peers when a bill le to be proposed by Ministers to reform that House."— Courier, Aug. 24. It matters not whether the Lords or the Commons were reproved by the King in 1784: allusion was made by a Royal Speech, in a tone sf reproof, to the proceedings of the session. Here, then, is a prece- dent, which, it' 1784 may be considered " modtrn time." m showarhir stateeut to have been not strictly correct. Going back to e olden time, and therefore without at all contradicting us,ithe Standard has discovered is case which, if precedent is to be;the guide, would amply justify the King in scolding the Lords for " bringing legislation," as Mr. HWIT says, " to a dead stand." Perhaps this bonne trouraille of the Standard may be brought ioto uso by the Reformers so soon even as the opening of next session. Here it is, Lord MslarOURNe, for service in case, not of need, but of goed-will for the necessary work of Peerage Reform,— being a speech of Queen ANNE, composed in right good English, and delivered in 1704, " at the close of a year," quoth the Stand«rd, " distinguished by the most angry controversy ever eartioil ell by the two Houses of Parliameut."
" Nly Lords and Gentlemen— I cannot but tell you how essential it is, for attaining these great ends abroad. of which we have so hopeful a prospect, that tve should be entirely united at hoine. " It is plain our eteallies have no ~out agenwnt left but what arises from their hopes of our divisions ; it is, therefore, your concern out to give the least countenance to those hopes. " My inclinations are to he kind and indulgent to you all. I hope you will do nothing to endanger the loss of this oppottunity which God has put into our bawls, of seeuting "whirs and all Europe ; and that theie will be no con- tention among fl l, bat who shrill most promote the public wellizre. " Such a temperas. this, in all your proceedings, cauutot fail of securing your reputation both at borne :old alauad. C. Tbis would mike me a happy Queen, whose uttnoNt endeavours shall never be wantiug to make you a happy aud Omit ishing people."
Acknowledging., then, that the Stamford has corrected us in this matter, we most now have a word with him on another. He is perfectly furious at our exposition of that state of Irish affairs which alone, perhaps, at this timed Whig-Radical disunion, pre- vents the Tories from taking possessiou of Downing Street. He considers our assertion that England and Scotland would not allow the Tories to provoke and crush an Irish rebellion, to be " direct encouragement" to a rebellion of the Irish ; and he " would therefore dissuade from this style of writing, as neither innocent nor perhaps safe to the writer." Alas, good Standard, for the (lays of Sinmouni and CASTLEREAGH ! it is in vain to hanker after a return of that bygone time when honest writers could be really threatened with seeming advice. But the operation of Six Acts is not the only thing after which our Tory contempo- rary hankers just now. See bow he longs for that to which he says we have given " direct encouragement!"— " No, if rebellion weie to explode in Ireland, England and Scotlazd would not reautiti passive: so far we admit. But the active exertions of Eng- lishmen and seorclonen would take a direction exactly the epposite of that antic!- pitted for them. They would he employed unanimously, zealously, enthusiasti- cally, in suopressing the rebellion, not in extending it. Is 18:16, as in 1798, all party distinc!bms frauld be instantly lost in anxious care for the integrity of the empire. The name of Mulled or Whia would become as odious, and as much an occasion of suspicion, as the wane of Jacain or Whig was thirty- eight pars ago. It was Me Irish Rebellion of 1798, or rather the prepare. twos made fin it by Me Whigs If that 'day, which extinguished the Whig and Jacobin parties in our fathers' time. In the decline of these SaniC parties now, we see the premonitory symptoms of their second death from similar causes."
Yes, the Tories would have an Irish rebellion, if England and Scotland did not stand in their way. If they could but expect that England and Scotland would " remain passive" during the civil war, an Irish rebellion would be just the thing for the LYNDHURST Tories. It is because England and Scotland would surely sympa- thize with, if they did not jo'n, the Irish provoked into rebellion by the Tories, that the Tories dare not tell the King to" raise his arm" against Lord MELBOURNE. Let us repeat, emphatically, that an Irish rebellion for justice and real union, would surely spread over Great Britain This is not "direct encouragement to an Irish rebellion: it is diseouragetuent, ample and conclusive, Isswever indirect, of Tory hopes. Indirectly, but, as must be plain to the least careful observer, it is Lord LYNDHURST's aliens who keep him from the Woolsack. Hence the rage of the Tories against Ireland. and against all in England and Scotland who syrupathize with the Irish.
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