PROCEEDINGS OF THE ORANGE LANDLORDS.
SOME of the Irish landlords are ejecting Catholic tenants from their estates by the hundred, in order to replace them with Pro- testants. Lord BERESFORD, Colonel BRUEN, and a gentleman who bears the once Liberal name of L ATOUCHE, are represented as being especially active in this work. Their avowed object is to people their estates with men on whose votes they can depend, The landlord finds that he is no match for the priest at an elec- tion where the voters are Catholics, while he can always depend on the subserviency of the Protestants. The Times talks about the authority of the priest being " en- forced by penalties unknown to the Constitution ;" and asserts that the landlords "who take measures for releasing their tenants from the necessity of prostituting a public trust," are highly praiseworthy. But though willing to go great lengths with its new allies, the Times shrinks from the cruelties now practised in Carlow and other counties of Ireland- " Far be it from us to encourage a landlord in stripping the tenant of his lease; but would it not be an act of essential kindness to make such an altera- tion in the tenure by which he holds it, as would relieve the tenant of that right of voting, which entails upon him at once the capricious tyranny of the priest and the risk of quarrelling with his landlord?"
This sort of half work does not suit the Irish Tories. They are for clearing their estates, and turning out the helpless tenantry on the road-side in the depth of' winter. They are not satisfied with the negative aid to be derived from disfranchisement, but desire to have serviceable vassals with votes.
Perhaps, however, the plan of the Times would have been more discreet. There is danger, in the first place, in trampling too hard even on the yeomanry and peasantry of Ireland. There may be a savage revenge taken in the long nights of winter by a popu- lation driven frantic by cruelty. This is a consideration not to be disregarded. Few English landowners would dare to treat even the poorest of their tenantry more Hibernico. Besides, the feel- ings of mankind in general are revolted by such conduct. The party with which Lord BERESFORD and Colonel BRUEN are connected can gain nothing by it. What arc half a score of votes in the House of Commons, when set against the hatred of a whole people? There is not a person of common humanity either in Ireland or England, whatever may be the party complexion of his politics, who is not shocked at the wretchedness inflicted on the cottiers of Carlow. This the Orangemen may find to their cost. The doings of Lord BERESFORD in Carlow are a precious com- mentary on Primate BERESFORD'S pathetic letters on the distress of the Irish Clergy. Have Catholics no sense of cold and famine? Has a peasant no longing for food or shelter ? Let us hope that Archbishop HOWLEY will call a meeting in Exeter Hall, and Dr. BLOSIFIRLD harangue on the sufferings of Lord BERESFORD'S and Colonel BRUHN'S ejected tenantry—nine hundred turned off four estates only ! It is to be feared that the sympathies of the above-named dig- nitaries of our Church are moved by Clerico-Protestant sufferings only, and that they will not give a penny or utter a syllable in order to keep the Papist peasantry from starvation. But such is not, cannot be, the general feeling of Englishmen. The voice of the country will be raised against the oppressor. We feel con- fident that any gain of Orange votes in Ireland, obtained by the adoption of this clearing system, will be more than counterbalanced by loss in England, occasioned by the general abhorrence which the abuse of power—the attempt to crush the defenceless—ahnost universally inspires. This is your Tory plan of " carrying out the principles of Re- form!" This is the mode in which Sir ROBERT PEEL IS to be forced back into office! The leading Tory journal recommends an extensive system of disfranchisement. If men will not vote with the Tories—if they are swayed by any but Protestant land- lords and Protestant parsons—they are not fit to vote at all. It would be an act of "essential kindness" to disfranchise them ! Was there ever such insolent mockery ? Such is the course advocated by the Renegade Jeurnal; but, as we have seen, its Tory patrons spurn such milk-and-water proceedings. They are not content with disfranchisement merely—they doom their re- fractory tenants to the pangs of cold and hunger; and all for the sake of restoring Toryism in England and Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. These are the Reformers of November 1839—the main props of the Orator at Tarnworth and Merchant Tailors Hall
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