NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE first intoxicating hour of triumph having passed, the scope and tendency of the renovated Repeal agitation are somewhat more distinctly seen. The specific projects do not differ from those which O'Costrism. promulgated on his reappearance at the Conci- liation Hall : the Clontarf meeting is to be pronounced legal and possible, but not expedient ; the " Preservative Society," the " drag " upon the Repeal Association, is to be invited to assemble ; and the Irish Judges and Attorney-General are to be impeached— the English people to be agitated for support in that part of the affair. The form of proceeding against the Judges is to be the constitutional one of Parliamentary address to the Crown for their removal, with a preliminary inquiry,—a mild method. We are left to infer that Mr. Attorney-General SMITH is to be criminally impeached before the House of Lords by the House of Commons—if the faithful Commons think fit to comply with Mr. O'CoNNELL's proposal to that effect ; which is, of course, out of the question. All this impeaching only means that O'CONNELL is to make an impracticable demand on the House of Commons, and being refused, is to get up a new complaint against the United Par- liament. It therefore means nothing at all. The Clontarf delibe- ration also means nothing, except that the Repealers see that they can attain no useful end in the direction of monster-tbeetings: it means nothing positive to be done. The Preservative Society will be a " House of Lords" to the Repeal Commons, self-appointed and self-supporting ; an upper story, imparting a more imposing air to the old edifice. The most forcible characteristic of the recommenced activity is its eager spirit of conciliation. O'CONNELL flatters and conciliates all round—Protestants, Whigs, Federalists, Orangemen, and even " Saxons." " Saxon," he declares, is an honourable name. He vindicates his abusive use of it by quoting the " surpliced ruf- fians" and " felonious multitude" of the Times in its Anti-Irish days ; and offers to forgive " the compliments of the Times" if the English people will forgive him the " Saxon." But there is no quid pro quo in the bargain. The " surpliced ruffians" was merely a sally nfjournalism ; and the author, absolutely uuknown to the public at large, even by name, is perhaps dead and buried, and is at all events no sufficient and authorized representative of the English people : the English people are not responsible for his sallies, and take no benefit in the condonation. But will Mr. O'CONNELL ad- mit that he does not speak for " all Ireland," or that the Repealers at least are not responsible for the habitual vituperation of " the Saxon," which he taught them ? He is right to ask forgiveness for that offence ; but the forgiveness which he offers in return does not touch the English people.
The moral to be gathered from this earnest grasping at alliances of any kind—alliances which cannot be in fact, but which are greedily sought if' only in show—is, that the Repeal leaders ac- inowledge the necessity of renewing and multiplying their re- sources ; and O'CossiELL, the first to perceive the necessity—the origin and deviser of all the projects—is himself the end and object of the necessity at least as much as Repeal is. We repeat, as we have said before, that it is idle to charge him with mere mercenary motives: he bears the repute, and we believe most justly, of being
4 princely in his generosity. But then he must live ; he must have wherewithal to be princely and generous. He relinquished his legitimate profession, the law, fur the antagonist trade of agitation ; and he must agitate, for he cannot retire on his savings in the business. Elevated to the place of anti-official supreme power in Ireland, he has become used to a kind of irregular magnificence of state, which must be maintained: he may not care much for lucre, but he must have revenue, just as kings must have it. As he can- not compel his lieges to contribute their subsidies, he must in- duce them; and he can best induce them by watching and grati- fying the fancy of the hour—making fancies to be gratified if he can —and at all events, by using every possible influence, profane or sacred, to make the Irish believe it their vital interest to maintain him and his irregular administration in regal state. Hence arise his pretensions to negotiate and threaten on equal terms with foreign countries and potentates; hence his got-up shows of feud or alliance with great parties in the state ; his al- liance with the Virgin Mary ; his succession of projects for the honour and dignity of Ireland and every individual Repealer ; his solicitude to make the appropriation of funds subscribed for his purposes " national " ; his addresses in short paragraphs and royal style. This art, the art of being a king without right divine or punishable usurpation, is peculiar to O'CONNELL : it will die with him ; but while he exists, his exigencies, and the very impulse to exercise his activity and skill, will make him unceasing in his schemes. There are but three chances of peace for any English Government,—to bear the trouble patiently till he die ; to pension him off, which could only be done at all by doing it in every sense handsomely; or by beating him at his own trade, and driving hint out of the market with gratifying the Irish people. If the present Ministry do not deign to try the last expedient, some other will.
In the mean time, the least they can do is to make their own subordinates carry out the law regularly and efficiently. There is a new story, that the Jury-list for the ensuing year has already been vitiated by gross neglects and informalities in the earliest stages of its preparation ; so that if Government should have oc- casion to repeat their State trial, they must wait till 1846, or be stopped in lindne by one of the objections that upset the late judgment ! This is not the sort of diligence and accuracy to use against the astute lawyer ever bent on defeating the rulers of the country at law : it is repealing, for the time, in his favour, all the laws that need the Jury-list as machinery for their enforce- ment.
