Ministers have one " Irish question " left, which Mr.
O'CON- NELL may without danger, if' with little profit, use as the basis of his new agitation. Municipal Reform is yet to be granted to Ireland ; and accordingly, in a letter to the Dublin elec- tors, just published, that question is put prominently forward. But the subject lacks the zest which belonged to it when the Tories stood upon their high ground, and reviled the Catholic " aliens" as unfit for municipal privileges. It is now admitted even by Lord LYNDHURST, that as the Tithe Bill has placed the Church in a condition of comparative security, corporations, with certain restrictions, may be given to some Irish towns. The sting of insult, therefore, no longer festers ; and it is also remembered that the difference between what Lord LYNDHURST offered, and Lord JOHN RUSSELL expressed himself willing to take, was a mare trifle. The great body of the Irish people have no direct interest in this subject ; for nobody doubts that the Whigs and O'CONNELL would take a Corporation Bill excluding even considerable towns from its operation. For these reasons, it may safely be assumed that extensive and earnest agitation for Municipal Reform is not to be looked for. It is probable that Mr. O CONNELL, a man of great versatility, finding no encouragement in England and Scotland, and not much in Ireland, to persevere in his scheme for obtaining fifty new Members to be added to the Janissary corps, now aims at something like a diversion, and is endeavouring to attract English sympathy by falling back on a question on which the English and Scotch Liberals have proved themselves ready to go further than the Irish Representatives. But this shifting of purpose is not liked in England, and Mr. O'CONNELL will gain little by his fresh move. The other main subject of Mr. O'CONNELL'S letter is the Tithe Bill. Indirectly, but adroitly, the better parts of that measure are put forward, with the view of persuading the people that it is, after all, a material benefit to the country ; and no recommenda- tion to agitate against it is given—on the contrary, the effect of this part of the epistle is sedative. A Cabinet Minister, it seems, assured Mr. O'CONNELL that the Ministerial measure of last ses- sion would go far towards accomplishing Mr. OCONNELL 'S own scheme for the extinction of tithes and pensioning the clergy from the Consolidated Fund : but the Cabinet Minister (rogue that he was !) deceived simple Mr. O'CONNELL, and the result is Sir HENRY HARM NOES " Mohammedan Bill." With the exception of the delusive communication aforesaid, Mr. O't osrstast. says that he had no private information on the subject, and knew nothing of the bill till it was introduced. Neither, as he believes, had any other Irish Member. But Mr. 01:oat:YELL shirks the important question, to which the public require an answer—namely, whether he and Mr. SIMI L did not urge or advise the G oven:me/a. to bring forward a Tithe Bill without the Appropriation ? Surely a dis- tinct reply to this very plain question might and ought to have been given : but we cannot find, in the course of nearly a yard of print on the subject of the Tithe Bill, a single allusion to the Appropriation.
Mr. OCosiNest. again calls upon his countrymen to furnish him with two millions of Precursors. At a shilling a head, two millions would subscribe 100,0011/.; and that part of the "new agitation " has something tangible and substantial in it. We have never joined in the vulgar clamour against O'CotrNast. about the " rent"; always considering that he had a fair title to the revenue ho received, and that with him the money was a secondary consideration—subsidiary to the great Irish objects of his life. But, in this new agitation, every thing seems vague and unreal except the money part. " Repeal" is to be the grand. inducement to the Precursors: and O'CONNELL probably thinks that he will bo at full liberty to agitate that question against the Tories next autumn, as the Whig Ministry will scarcely exist till then. But it is a mere delusion to pretend that there is any chance of obtaining Repeal ; and those who join the Precursor Society with that hope, will pay their shillinsrs for a shadow.
