4 OCTOBER 1828, Page 8

CONFLICT OF PARTIES IN IRELAND.

TIMES—We tremble at every wind that blows from Ireland, and our fears are outstripped by every day's communication' so much more terrible is the reality when it reaches us that our wildest fancies had anticipated. The island is on the brink of open war. The array of mounted and regimented peasantry, their endless numbers, and complete organisation, hate mani

festly impressed as much alarm upon the minds of the civilized and enlightened Irish Catholics as they ought to do on that of the Government and people of Great Britain. We do not allude to the doubtful issue of the conflict which seems to approach so awfully, for we do not conceive that in the first instance there would be found an insurgent force at all capable of contending with the military power of the empire. But what must be the heart that can face the civil consequences of such a convulsion unappalled ? Is the substitution of a state of war, for one of society, in the bosom of the same family, to be estimated only with reference to the side to which the scale of battle may incline ? The slaughter of our own countrymen—the desolation of their hearths—the extinction of half a million of the old, the helpless, the mothers and their babes—the ruin of all industry—the stoppage of all national comfort and prosperity—the darkening of intellect—the spread of barbarism—the degeneracy for another age of whatever constitutes the soul and essence of a nation ;—these are the perils and miseries which frighten us ;—these are the inseparable and foul attendants on that struggle to which the Orange clubs invite the Catholic multitude, and which the latter, as might he expected from an ignorant and impetuous race, the bulk of whom have no property to be destroyed, are too little unwilling to decline.

NEW TIMES—We cannot help noticing an insidious argument used by the pro-Popery writers. The Protestants, they say, have assembled in arms to put down the unarmed meetings of the Catholics ; the latter, good charitable creatures, thinking no evil, are met by their bigotted brethren with swords and with staves, instead of kisses of love. But, granting that the Catholics have met without weapons, is it meant to be asserted that no danger is to be apprehended by the inhabitants of a town or village front the irruption of ten or twelve thousand or more strangers, because they do not carry fire-arms ? Does the reconciliation of two factious bands, however desirable it may be, abstractedly considered, present no ground of alarm to a third party, to which each of these reconciled factions is equally opposed, and which in many cases was only saved front destruction by that very enmity and strife which, in appearance at least, the omnipotence of the Association and O'Connell has removed ? The Protestants in many parts of Ireland are in the condition of an honest traveller between adverse bands of plunderers; and well, therefore, might they anticipate instant attack when they beneld the chiefs strike hands, not from friendship, but that they might the more easily secure the booty on which the desires of both were equally fixed: In such a case it was not the duty of the Protestants to stand still until the factions were united, any more than it would be the duty of the traveller to remain quiet and unresisting until the robbers had agreed on what terms his property should be divided. The Protestants do well tube watchful and prepared—not to commit a breach of the laws, but to prevent others from committing it—not to attack the Catholics, but to defend themselves from Catholic attacks.

MORNING CHRONICLE—At the meetings held in the North of Ireland, the clergy are the most fierce—we may say ferocious. A speaker at the county of Donegal meeting, on Thursday last, revealed the motive for the extraordinary violence with which Emancipation is opposed by the Church. "Would they" (the Catholics), he said, " not call for a repeal of those laws which still make the Protestant religion the religion of the State, and exert thorn.selves to have the revenues of the Church transferred to their own clergy ?" There it is—the revenues of the Church ! If the Catholics should, after gaining Emancipation, enter upon the interesting subject of tithes ! Religion by itself would seldom lead to much strife. All men, on the simple condition of leading a pure and unspotted life, may obtain his share of those treasures which are laid where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal.' But all men cannot have the treasures of this life—all those who have a relish for tithes, and the produce of church-lands, cannot enjoy them ; and hence, though there can be no contest for religion, or that for which religion is instituted, a good place in a better world, there will never be any want of strife for the temporalities of religion, and the value of the temporalities will be the measure of the fury of the combatants. A true Cnurchman fights, not merely too keep what he has, but to entitle himself to something better. Every man of them has blood in his mouth every second word.