ll, and that though he is the acknowledged head of the
Conservative party, he doesn't in his heart care much for
Conservative principles. He may possibly calculate that no change
can take place in this country by which property will be menaced;
that personally he is safe, and politically his vast superiority
in all the requisites for public life must, under all possible
circumstances, make him the most eminent performer on the great
stage. I do not know that he has any such thoughts as these, but
it appears to me far from improbable, and the more so from his
keeping aloof at this moment and abstaining (as far as we know)
from any attempt to restrain the indiscretion and impetuosity of
his party.

[Page Head: THE WHIGS' TITHE BILL.]

But if on the one hand the conduct of the Tories with respect to
the Corporation Bill has been violent and rash, that of the
Government with respect to the Tithe Bill has been unspeakably
wicked. I cannot recollect an instance of so complete a sacrifice
of the interests of others, of their own principles, and of
national tranquillity to mere party objects, and the more I
reflect upon the course they have taken the more profligate and
disgraceful it appears. These Ministers have recorded their
opinion that the question of appropriation ought not to be mixed
up with that of commutation; that they are essentially distinct,
and ought to remain so. At the beginning of this session the
united Whigs and Radicals considered only one thing--how to drive
Peel out, and though they had a choice of means to accomplish this
end, the famous resolution about appropriation was the one which
they finally selected for the purpose. In so doing they were
altogether regardless of future consequences,[1] and never stopped
to calculate what would be the effect of saddling the measure of
relief (in which all parties concurred) with this impossible
condition. Now how stands the case? They declare that Ireland (as
all the world knows) is a scene of disorder and bloodshed, of
which the Tithe system is the principal cause, and that the Tithe
Bill will afford an effectual remedy to the evil. It is therefore
their imperative and paramount duty, as it ought to be their
earnest and engrossing desire, to secure the application of their
remedy, and, whether in office or out of office (with the
expectation and intention of coming in), to take care that nothing
should be mixed up with it by which it can be endangered, and t