( 393 ) 



STATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS. 



The doom of the Irish Corporation Reform Bill is sealed. On 

 Thursday the 18th, Lord Lyndhurst, the accredited mouth-piece of 

 the Opposition Peers, unfolded to the House and the country the 

 course which they mean to pursue in reference to that measure. 

 On the motion for the commitment of the bill, he or some one 

 else is to propose an amendment having' for its object the entire 

 annihilation of the Irish Municipal Corporations. By the time this 

 number of The Monthly is in the hands of our readers, it is probable 

 the measure will be formally lost ; virtually it is so at this moment. 



This comes of having so large a Tory majority in the Upper 

 House. But we enter not on that question now ; we shall have 

 something to say on it anon. 



It will be recollected that we predicted, in our last, the rejection 

 of this measure by the hereditary branch of the legislature. We 

 knew at the time that, in expressing our apprehension of such a result, 

 we were speaking advisedly. We knew, in short, from information 

 which had reached us from a private source, whose accuracy we 

 could noi for a moment doubt, that the leading Conservative Peers, 

 assembled in regular conclave at Aspley House, had come to a reso- 

 lution to attempt to stem the torrent of Liberalism ; and that the first 

 experiment that way should be made in the case of the Irish Mu- 

 nicipal Corporation Reform Bill. 



We pause not now to enquire into the prudence of the course 

 which the Tory Peers have chalked out for themselves ; but what, 

 let us ask, is the language which their conduct speaks ? It proclaims, 

 in terms which do not admit of misconstruction, that Ireland is not 

 entitled to the benefit of the same laws and institutions as England 

 and Scotland. It declares, in other words, that though nominally 

 an integral part of the British em|)ire, their Lordships regard it in no 

 other light than a mere dependency on Great Britain. 



Mr. O'Connell and his co-agitators have said this a thousand times; 

 but, so long as the assertion was made by them only, it was not likely 

 M.M.— No. 5. 2F 



