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THE DUBLIN

UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE

A

Literary and Political Journal.

VOL. IX.

JANUARY TO JUNE.

1837.

DUBLIN

WILLIAM CURRY, JUN. AND COMPANY,

SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO., LONDON.

MDCCCXXXVII.

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IN our last Number we offered a few observations on the meeting of the Metropolitan Conservative Association. Within the space to which necessity then limited us, it was impossible to give to this meeting the consideration to which its importance entitles it; we, therefore, return to the subject again, and as some additional meetings have since furnished us with an additional source of comment, we propose to make those proceedings the text of a few observations on the general subject of Protestant movements in Ireland.

We are aware that, in approaching this subject we have many difficulties and many prejudices to contend with. We have the policy of the temporising, the cowardice of the faint-hearted, and perhaps, too, the intemperance of the violent to encounter. We shall endeavour calmly to lay our views before our readers, uniufluenced by any other considerations than a regard to what we believe the interests of Protestantism require. The subject upon which we write is one upon which we have thought much, and we have endeavoured to think deeply. We do not put forward opinions adopted without reflection; and we trust that in every thing we advance, we shall have reason to support our views. Ofone thing, at least, we are certain, that we shall not scruple to speak our sentiments plainly and undisguisedly, without consulting how we may please any individual or any party.

In contemplating the present state of political parties in Ireland, two facts present themselves so obviously to the mind, that it might hardly seem necessary to call attention to them and yet they are facts which seem altogether to be overlooked by

VOL. IX.

some Conservatives, who pride themselves upon being peculiarly prudent politicians. Let us place the two facts to which we allude in juxta position, for our reader's consideration.

First. It is a fact, that the Conservative party in Ireland possess an immense preponderance of all the clements of the political power of the country.

Secondly. It is a fact, that their opponents, inferior as they are in all the elements of strength, have defeated them in the struggle for political superiority, and have, at this moment, a majority of the representation of Ireland in their hands.

These two facts, thus placed in their naked abstraction before the mind, are worth a thousand arguments. The most laboured essay to prove the necessity of Protestant exertion could not speak half as much as do these two simple and unanswerable facts. We will not insult the understanding of our readers by drawing from them the self-evident inference that the Conservatives have been deficient in exertion; and were we called on to argue with the most plausible of the advisers of Protestant inaction-and with regret we say it, there are such among them who profess a deep zeal for the Protestant cause-we would think it necessary to offer no other argument to refute their most ingenious sophistry, than a steady and constant repetition of these two indisputable

statements.

We may, perhaps, best throw our sentiments upon this subject into the shape of comment upon the recent proceedings by which Protestants in various parts of Ireland have manifested their determination to be energetic in the cause of truth. In addi

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