BRUNSWICK CLUBS.
THE PRESS.
GLOBE—We hope, before associations of this kind (by which it is under- stood the associating parties bind themselves to resist an amicable arrange- ment of the affairs OF Ireland, and will, if they have the power, cut oil the hopes, now and for ever, of any such arrangement) are extensively formed, that the parties who are solicited to enter into them would fully reflect on the consequences of their measures. These associations are to be formed on the principle of an avowed distrust, not only of the parliament, but of the present miuistry, at the head of which an individual is placed in whom the oppone els of Catholic emancipation not long ago professed the most unbounded confi- dence. If the careful consideration of the affairs of the kingdom, forced upon the Duke of Wellington by the station in which he is now placed, lies led him, in spite of his former opinions or prejudices, to think it absolutely necessary to tranquillize Ireland by seine concessions—to reduce it to some ressmblance to the system of government of the civilized parts of Europe— may his friends not hesitate before they ascribe the change to weakness or dishonesty ? If the Duke of Wellington, in spite of all his prepossessions, has been brought to the same opinion as Fox Pitt, Burke, anti so many other statesmen, on the proper remedy to be applied to an admitted evil, may the Brunswick Clubbists not hesitate before (on the strength of angry mid partial representations) they _set themselves about to raise obstacles to mea- sures of conciliation and peace ? If the Brunswick Clubs ivill not have the arrangements which they fear the Duke of Wellington will adopt, what would they have ? This is the question to which they should always have a distinct answer in their minds before they proceed to associate. Do they hope to dis- franchise the Catholic voters of Ireland ; No minister will venture to propose any such measure—no reasonable government will give this provocation to rebellion—the House of Commons. as it is constituted, or as it can be con- stituted, so long as it is a fair specimen of the educated people in England, will not permit it. But if it were effected, and (for the present) quietly, how far would the Clubbists then be from the end which they desire ? Tue real cause which renders the Catholics of Ireland formidable, and which makes it the interest of every government (over and above that duty towards so large a mass of men which no government can cast off) to give then, rea- son to be contented subjects, is, that they have the real power of the greatest part of the country in their hands—that they have now the physical force— and that the property is gradually, and by an inevitable process, falling into their possession. If you shut these men out of elections, you make the government cease to be a representation of the people ; but you do not de- stroy the people, or mitigate their well-founded hostility :—you exasperate it—you make the disabilities under which the Catholics labour more galling and more general—you give the peasantry a tangible interest in that question in which they are now only concerned through feelings of nationality and injured pride. The project to perpetuate the "cleaving mischief" of dis- content in the heart of a nation is the maddest idea which has been enter- tained in modern times. It is vain to say that we have the power to keep down Ireland. It may be possible, by the application of the power of fifteen millions of people, to keep down seven millions ; but is it wise to have seven millions of enemies, especially internal ones so placed as to afford MI open- ing and a temptation to every invader ? Is this the state of things Which a thinking nation should set itself about to perpetuate ? We assume that if the principle on which the Brunswick Clubs are to be formed be acted upon, the Irish people must become our bitter enemies. It is assumed by both parties that some measures must now be taken, and the question is between two courses, one of which professes to make the Catholics friends, and en- deavours to conciliate them—the other to treat them as enemies—to treat them as unfit to have not merely the equal rights they claim, but any degree of trust in the commonwealth. In taking this step we must proceed on the calculation (or we should be silly as well as unjust) of the utmost degree of nostility which the Catholics can display. We ought to look forward with confidence to a rebellion, and embalm, at the time most inconvenient to us ; because the Protestants of this country must very well know, from their own feelings, that they would not submit to a government from which such a measure, if directed against themselves, proceeded, for a moment after they ow a probability of resisting it with success.
STANDARD—We have no distrust of the Duke of Wellington on this vital question ;—but, as we have often argued before, it is not to be expected that his Grace is to support the Protestants of these kingdoms, if they show themselves supine or indifferent. It is the bounden duty of every Protestant to come forward to assist him with his support and countenance ;:to prove to him that as he and his administration have been denounced by the Irish Bo- man Catholics, they will be upheld by the Protestants of the empire. It is most unfair to expect that he alone is to have the task of opposing the Ro- man Catholic Claims—to embarrass his government with the question, if those to whom it is of vital interest, stand by really or apparently lukewarm. It is, therefore, not because we distrust the Duke, but because we wish to call forth Protestant England to his aid that we advocate the extension of Brunswick clubs all over the empire. The general inexpediency of these clubs is asserted by the Globe, on the ground that any measures taken in the spirit in which they are to be established, would irritate and exasperate the Irish Roman Catholics—that it would render them our bitter enemies—that they would rebel as soon as they deemed it a safe measure, and that they would join any invader. What system of measures, we must ask, could by any possibility make them worse than they are ? Is it possible that any sys- tem could render the Irish rabble more insolent and muee envenomed against every English institution in church and state ? Are we not as it is, threat- ened day after day with the power of the Irish nation, as they call their most contemptible faction, and with the assistance they are to get front Protestant America and Infidel France, in establishing the reign of the Jesuits ? The truth is—history and common sense equally prove It ; the system of conci- hat:on towards people so circumstanced as the Irish Roman Catholics, is the most absurd and impolitic that can be. conceived. They were quiet and tractable under the penal code: when in an evil hour that was relaxed, they became turbulent and seditious; and their turbulence and sedition has in- creased M a direct ratio with every concession made to them. It is time to show them that we have the power to keep them down ; and some three or four acts of strong government would tend mast materially to tame the noisy spirit now infesting Ireland. As for their rebelling against us—let them try
it when they please.
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