" ORANGE PEEL."
SOME. people wonder that Sir ROBERT PEEL 'should have been so indiscreet," say they, as to join with the rash Lord STANLEY in an attempt to save the Orangemen to.ni the punishment i■••%;,:t1rti to them l.v the Great Council of the Nation. We are not at all surprised at the course taken in this affair by tl:e Mem- ber for Taniwortb. What else could he do? To defend the Orange Society was impossible, after Mr. Humes exposure of its treason- able objects: so Sir ROBERT gave up the Society to destruction. But the Sodoty being destroyed, those who were members of it
remain. These form a very important _sec #,i0 that arty—
" The great Conservative palty of frireiltritre,'`red% calls it—of which Sir ROBERT PEEL is the acknowledged leader. It is a frequent boast of the Tory journals, that " all differences between sections of the Conservative party have long been at an end." The party is no longer divided into sections : it ie a " Pro- testant" unity, all of one mind, Orangemen included. Well then, was Sir ROBERT PEEL to sit still, and passively join in put- ting a disgraceful stigma—the brand of treason—upon his most strenuous supporters ? They have been marked in spite of his effort to protect them ; but they must be grateful to him for that effort. Had he deserted them in their extremity, they might have reminded him that, when Secretary for Ireland, he was so woo) of an Orangemen as to have obtained the nickname of " Orange PEEL;" that his Protestant-ascendancy opinions "remained un- changed" when he submitted to Catholic relief; and, what is more to the purpose, that ever since "all differences between Con- servatives have been at an end," they, the Orangemen, have formed one of the largest portions of his tail. Without their sup- port, he would be as insignificant almost as poor Lord STANLEY. Depending on them for keeping his place as. the head of a yet for- midable party, he is still "Orange PEEL." It would have been more than indiscretion—it would have been political suicide in him, to have left his warmest and most effective allies completely in the lurch.
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