It is exceedingly proper that the persons who helped to
throw cut the Government measure for securing a comfortable income to the Irish Protestant Clergy, should come forward with subscrip- tions to relieve them from starvation. We object not to the rather ostentatious manner in which they trumpet forth their charity ; but we do protest against the tone assumed by almost all the speakers at the meetings held for setting on foot subscriptions. Thus, at the meeting no Thursday at the Freemason's Tavern, where the Archbishop of CANTERBURY presided, and the Bishop of LONDON was the principal orator, the Archbishop recommended abstinence from politics ; but Dr. BLOMFIELD, disregarding this injunction while he professed obedience to it, indulged in remarks which were intended to injure the Liberal Government. He said that the sufferings of the clergy were owing to neglect in enforcing the law,—as if he were ignorant of what he must know perfectly well, that every peaceable means had been tried, and, far worse, the bayonet employed, to collect the legal demands of the clergy- men, but all in vain. The Tory Government failed in this as well as the Liberal; Sir HENRY HARDINGE had no better success (and he admitted it) than Lord STANLEY or Mr. LirneroN. It was therefore the discreditable trick of a Tory partisan to impute to the Government an indisposition to see the law en- forced. Sir ROBERT INGLIS and the Reverend Mr. MEL- IfiLLE followed the Bishop's lead with equal candour and re- gard to truth. Not a word was said, by any of the speakers, 4110 the dreadful consequences of attempts to enforce the law. Oh no! they were silent about Ratlicormac and Newtown- berry; and an ill-informed person might rise from reading the speeches of these wealthy dignitaries of the Church, and the "fat, sleek, and contented" Sir ROBERT INGLIS, without a surmise that horse and foot had been jaded in Ireland in running down tithe- defaulters, and forcing from the half-famished peasantry the dues of the Protestant parson. The object of these men is at least as much political as it is charitable or religious. They strive to turn out Lord MELBOURNE as well as to relieve the Clergy. The King sent 500/. and the Queen 100/. as their subscriptions to the fund-; and the zealous Standard announced the fact, not simply as an act of Royal generosity, but as an indication of his Majesty's disapprobation of the course pursued by his Ministers in regard to the Irish Church. This imputation was perfectly gratuitous; but it marks the use intended to be made of these meetings.
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