The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-02-08 00:00:00

MR. BRIGHT ON IRELAND.

On Tuesday night, Mr. John Itt ight and Mr. Dixon,
the members for Birmingham, addressed their consti-
tuents in the Town-hall of that borough. Though the
friends and admirers of Mr. Bright gave him the ac-
customed ovation on his rising to address them, his
political opponents, who were present in great force,
got spa counter demonstration, which for some twenty
minutes prevented the hon. gentleman from com-
mencing his speech. On order being established,
passing over all other topics, Mr. Bright addressed
himself to the Irish question—a question, he said,
which at present excites great feeling, and which, be-
fore it is settled, will give rise to great heartburnings,
and in all probability cause the fall of ministries and
perhaps the dissolution of Parliament. The following
are extracts from Mr. Bright's speech :

Now don't let any man In Birmingham imagine that lie haa
no interest in what is called the Irish question. It is a
question which now excites great feeling, and which will
excite great heart-horning, probably, before it is settled. It
is a question which will be the cause, in all probability, of
the fall of Ministers, and, it may be, of the dissolution of
Parliament Whether we look at the present or at the future,
to my mind it far transcends in importance any other
question that I could diacusa to-night. Perhaps many of you
have read a speech that was recently delivered by a member
of the Cabinet, the son of the Prime Minister, at a great
banquet that was given to him and to others in the city of
Bristol. Lord Stanley, in that speech, declared that the
Irish question was the question of the hour. He apoke of
the condition of Ireland in these words; " We have a
strange and perplexing problem to solve." He spoke of the
state of relaiel as " a miserable state of thing.," and then,
as if in despair, he turned to his friends around him, and
he said: " If we look for a remedy, who is there that can
give us an intelligible answer? Ireland is the question of
the hour; " and then he gave them tins advice Having
nothing to offer as a reniedy himself, he said "Don't let
as call in quacks, don't lotus fly to desperate remedies be-
cause the doctora cannot find out an instaiit and perfect
cure for a disease which is of a long standing." Well it is a
disease at least of much more than a hundred years old, and
I think, if the doctors have not already found out anything
about it or what will cure it, it may even be wiser to try a
quack. In that speech this Cabinet Minister spoke very
vaguely on the subject of compensation to tenants for im-
provements, ail he charged a considerable number of the
tenants with wishing to become possessed of the land with-
out paying for it, which was not a very complimentary
suggestion on his part ; and he-said farther, which was a
curious thing considering what happened during the last
session of Parliament, that Ministers would yield nothing to
noise and to menace—they would do only that which was
satisfactory to their consciences—and he wound up this por-
tion of his speech with this emphatic declaration "We will
not allow the British Empire to be pulled to pieces in virtue
of any fantastic theories. Ireland and England are in-
separable now and for ever." Let me ask you for a moment
to look at two or three matters of detail, anti to see how
completely this Cabinet Minister—son of the Prime Minister
—ls justified in the statements he has made. For two years
we have had in Ireland a suspension of the Mabee. Corpus
Act, Well. that means this: that any mast may be taken to
prison by the warrant of the laird-Lieutenant, and he may
be kept there Uts long &lithe Habeas Corpus Act is suspended)
as long as the Lord-Lieutenant may Hindi proper. I don't '
say at all-1 never have said—that there may not arise •
emorgencies iii the most free country where it may be fleece.
nary to suspend late for the sake of the preservation of the
public peace But this Is a matter of frequent recurrence
in Ireland, and we have had during the two years, and even :
for a much longer period, as you all know, a condition of
chronic insurrection in that part of the kingdom. We have
lied more than that. Not only have we had attacks which
were of the nature of open war, but we have had throughout
the country, and In parts of England, a conspiracy of a very I
secret and apparently of a reckless character; and as the
result of that conspiracy we have seen some violent out-
rages, such as this country for a very long period has been a
stranger to. We have had, as you all know, also groat ,
alarm. The chief magistrates of your towns—the mayors '
and the ordinary magistrates—have been in some places in •
a state of panic. You have had troops moved from one part
of the kingdom to the other, and armed ships patrolling
around the coast of Ireland, almost as if the kingdom were
in a state of war. More than this, you have had special
comniissious in Ireland and England, trying men for the
gravest offences. Your police and your soldiers, and
even the gallows, have been brought into an unusual
and unhappy activity and at this very meeting at
Bristol, the Home Secretary himself admitted that he
had become little more of late than a commissiouer of police,
fa/much was the disturbance brought continually before him.
And even the northern residence of the Queen at Balmoral,
and the southern residence of the Queen in the Isle of Wight,
both these places have been, no doubt by order of the Home
Office, specially guarded during the period of alarm. And
more than all this, in Ireland and in Canada—iu Ireland to
keep the peace, in Canada to resist threatened invasion from
Irishmen in the United States—we are maintaining at least
50,000 armed nien paid for out of the taxes of the United
Kingdom, What I think I might complain of is this: that
the Cfthinet Minister of whom 1 have spoken had no remedy
whatsoever to offer the people at this great Bristol banquet.
All that lie says is this: that he will not allow the empire to ,
be pulled in pieces. But I think if any man is deterniined to
take timt coarse, he should at least be able to point out upon
what principle the empire cau he kept united. Another
member of Parliament—a general supporter of the Govern-
ment, though sitting on the Opposition side of the House—
making a speech the other day at Sheffield, declared in the
most emphatic manner, that whilst there was breath in his
body anti blood In his veins he would oppose any kind of
separation of the two countries. Bear in mind that lids •
gentleman, four or live years ago, was the most determined
supporter of the alaveholders' war—that he went so far onto
offer himself as an envoy between the Emperor of the French
and the Parliament of England, with the object of bringing
abets? the recoznitlon, as a distinct State, of the Slavehold-
Mg Confederacy. There was every kind of slander of the
most offensive description tittered by him against the people
of the Northern States, who deterndned tluit their republic
should not be polled in pieces; and now he says, as long as
there is breath in li sbody and blood in his veins there shall
be no separation between Great Britain and Ireland. . . . . I
However, the question before us is tilts—it is a fair question I
—can we so deal with Ireland as to make union peaceable
and inevitable, through its obvious advantages to both coon-
tries a They are in Ireland really the same people as our-
selves, We all speak the same language. We read the same '
books, and the Irish write a great number of books which we
read in England. Our interests are the same. Our faintly
conne,tions are wonderfully intertwined, and as is proved
by the harmony which eaists in different parts of the
continent of Europe, there is nothmg ii. the difference
of religion between Catholics and Protestants if met, will
act in a just and Christian spirit, to prevent the most
perfect harmony between two countries The
Minister of whom I have spoken said there were two
gnat subjects for Parliament and controversy with regard to
Ireland—viz., the Church and the laod. But these questions
are much more than queatiops of Parliament and controversy. 1
These are questions on which maydepend the duration or the
decay of the empire. these two questions are the be-
ginning and the 01111 of this terrible Irish ilifficolty. . . .
Suppose we had a Parliament in Dublin that was elected by
the free equal vote of the householders of the Irish •
nation. Does anybody believe that there would exist in that
country an institution such as there is now under the mune
of the Protestant Eatablished Church. Let nolmily suppose !
that I am hostile to a Protestant Church or Protestantism.
I am, as you know, a Protestant of Protestants. I can have'
no kind of religious sympathy with the organisation, with
some of the doctrines, with many of the practices of the
Roman Catholic Church ; aud, therefore, when tam speaking
of the Protestant Church, I ant speaking purely of a political
State organisation. If any man will say, with such a Parlia-
ment In Dublin, the Irish people would permit that political
State Church to exist, he moat have this Idea of Ireland and
the Irish people—he must believe that Ireland is nothing
better than a huge lunatic asylum. Then why should we,
the people of England, being the most powerful eectitn of
the three kingdoms—why should our Parliament in Loudon
assist tel auppurting that Church against the known opinion
and the thousand repeated protests of the great majority of
the Irish people. The Church has been maintained there
for the sake of building up in time past what was considered
the English interest. A auprenomy party was established,
with the idea if preserving the union with England, and it
has become in our time, more than other institutions, that
which imperils that union. I believe that nobody who really
can have any kind of claim for thinking on the question
will say that we, the people of England, the Parliament
of Great Britain, can pretend any longer to govern
Ireland on the principles and in accordance with the pre-
jildices and the pasaions of that supremacy party. The case
has gone far beyond argument. It has gone altogether be-
yond the resistance of the Tories or the tinkering of the
Whigs. It is a question which the people of England them-
selves must no longer leave to peddling statesmen, but one
Ott which they must express an opinion whenever there
comes an election, when we shall have the pleasure of in-
viting a larger number to express their opinion on public
qllO5OOlll than ins past times. They must express an over-
whelming 00111011 in favour of common sense and common
justice in the government of Ireland_ I said the case has
gone beyond araniment The other day I saw, I think, the
latest estimate that has been made oh the property of the
Irish Church. IL was estimated at a principal suni of not
less than thirteen millions sterling. Now I cannot tell yea
how much thirteen millions sterling is. I can write it down
in figures, and, as you hear, T speak it from my lips. Bull
can give to no man here any accurate notion of what is
meant by 1;13,000,000 Harting, hut what is the section of
the Irish people into whose bands that vast sum, with its hi-
West every year, is given for religious purposes and
tracking? Why, the whole Protestant ',rogation In
Ireland, and I suppose in Ireland no more than in
England, for every Protestant does not get much religious
teaching and does not go much to church, but in Ireland
the Proteetaht Church population is just a little over—
and I am not quite sure whether it is at all over—the
population of two towns like Birrningham, What would
yon think in Birmingham, of this great city and the city of
Marichenter, or their population and nobody else, having
awarded to them this vast sum of £13.00 i,OOO and the interest
f roni it anottally, under the pretence of religious teaching.
I believe it is not banal in Ireland that the Protestauts are a
bit better relationaly taught than either Presbyterians or
Catholics. In point of fact, it Is a huge political job, which
ought never to have existed, and which, having existed,
ought I,ng ago to have been abolished, together with another
which is somewhat skin to it, for Parliament gives the in-
terest of noire than a million of money, being £40,000 in
every year out of the taxes to the Presbyterian Church in
Ireland, as a bribe that it may not say anything about the
£13,000,000 which Is given to the Protestant Church. Now
I have no idea of saying anything against the Protestants of
Ireland. Their present circumstances are not of their own
creating. And atilt less shall I say anything against the
ministers of their Church, tor 1 doubt not there is to be
found amongst them a fair proportion of energetic Christian
110111, fi..tiimg themselves in adverse and unfortunate circum-
suttees, but still probably labouring honestly in the places
te which they have been appointed, but of the institu-
tion, as a political institution, I will venture to say
that the time of its downfall has nearly come and
that is essential for the good government of Ireland,
Inn the tranquillity of that country, for the maintenance of
the onion with England in peace—it is essential that every
trace of Protestant Church supremacy should be for ever
abolished. When it comes to he abolished, I would do no
bdustice either to the ministers or the members of that
Church. Of course all life interests would be cared for and
preserved ; and lilt were not that I should take up too much
of you. time, aml that I feel myaelf unable to act through
what I wished to say, I would a little elaborate a plan by
which I think sorer justice might he done with regard to the
dispoStion of the funds which Parliament will receive as the
Established Church of Ireland is gradually disposed of. I
think if the sum were £13.000.0a0 that it would net be just—
arm I hope some oh my Nonconformist friends who have
very strong °Mahn:s on this question, arid perhaps have not
looked at it hi the same light that I have, will have a little
elvoty for me when I say I believe it would not be just to
take cathedrals, and churches, and ministers, and glebes,
and all the tithes, and everythieg that composes those
£l3 (1,0,000, hito the halal of the State, alai to throw the
whole of the preseut Protestant Church of Ireland bare and
naked upon the country. I think there should be some very
small—it 'night not be temporary. I think it ought to be
clear tool permanent—apPropriation to them of some
not considerable sum of that whole amount, but that
with this condition. that whea the matter was disposed of
and the Proteatatits had received whatever was appro-
priated to them, they would become as the Episcopalian
Church in Scotland, or the Wesleyan Church in England,
a Church absalutely disconnected from the State,
and altogether a voluntary institution... . Let any
one of you fancy that he has been laving in Ireland
as a Catholic during all these years What would no the
result of such a change ? Why, the whole sentiment of the
people would be altered. They would feel that the past was

[ about to be forgotten, and that there was anew and a better
. opening before thetn. They would feel that the state es-
' tablished Church, which bas been fir 200 years the symbol
ef their degradation, was to be removed for ever; ant I have
no iluobt whatever that the change would work the moat
' wholesome, the most marked improvement in the sentiments
j of the Irish people toward. the Imperial l'arilarneut end Ira-
penal conitectiona You have heard of the code of laws
, which existed in Ireland called the penal laws. But I sup-
! pose very few of yon could comprehend really what was in-
tended by those lawn I do Oct feel able to go into them.
and to explain them fully to you. hot I have here A list of
some ten or • dozen duqualifications which they Indicted
upon the Irish Catholm people, and which accounta fully
for all the poverty, the degradation, and the helpless posi-
tion of that people. If I were to read for you only an
extract from a speech or a letter of Mr. Burke, yon would have
some idea of what those laws have done. They existed
from the time of William 111, to the time of the American
War of Independence. 'they existed nearly for a hundred
years, and Burke says of them The diblared object of
these laws was to reduce the Catholic people of Ireland to •
miserable populace, without property, without estimation,
and without education, for the Catholic parents were not
alliiweil to give education to their children. The framers of
this oule divided the nation Into two distinct bodies, one of j
winch bodies a-as to possess the franchims, all the property,
Auld all education; the other were to be drawers of water
and cutters of turf for the privileged class and community."
tie lays: "limos a mxhine as well fitted for the oppressioo,
impoverishment, and degradation of the people, and the
debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever pro-
ceeded front the perverted ingenuity of man." I give you
this on the authority of Edmund Burke, himself au Irishman,
arid thoroughly conversant about that on which he was
writing. I recollect when O'Connell was in the House of
Commons that on many occasions I sat by him. I asked
him on one occasion if he would write me an autograph for
a lady relative of mine, who wished to preserve it. He went
Into the lobby, arid taking a pen he wrote these four lines,
apeaking of Iretind he says—l don't know that the lines were
Lis own composition—
" Within that land was many a malcontent,
Who cursed the tyranny to which he bent.

That land full many a wringing despot saw,
Who worked his tyranny in form of law."
Well, all this, which has now passed away—all this came
from England, was inflicted upon them by the English
. Parliament and Government, and by their own Parliament,
' which was a Protestant Parliament. And, therefore, is it
to be wondered at that there haa grown up a bitter feeling of
hostility, and that happy union between the two countries
has Iron all along impossible to exist? But all this would be
changed if the measures that I would suggest—measure., in
my opinion, moderate and lust -were passed. All this would
be changed, and the memory of the penal laws would wise
from out the minds of coming generations, and there would
be left only this other question to which Lord Stanley re.
ferred, the great economical quesidon of the land. now, of
the land, the story is as Mt an that of the Church. From
the days of Queen Elizabeth to the days of William 111. there
Were successive confiscations of the land in Ireland. I think
an Irish nobleman who took an important part at the time
of the Union, has left it on record as his opinion that there
was scarcely an acre of land in Ireland which had not been
three times confiscated. Well, what do we find now? We
find for the most part Protestant owners and Catlmlie
occupiers, and we have found to a very large exterit--and it
has not yet disappeared—poverty and degradation of an
astounding kind and magnitude prevailing amongst large
classes of the population. AIM what comes of all that? Why,
suspicion, of course, between the landlord and tenant.
With suspicion, hatred with hatred, war and with war,
destruction of security, destruction of industry, de-
struction of comfort, and of wealth. And you have
the state of thing which you have all heard of,
that there is no bond of sympathy whatsoever between
the Protestant landlord on the one . part and the
Catholic occupier and cultivator on the other part
The real great want of Ireland is this, that the Irish people
should by some means or other ho polio a position gradually,
rapidly if you can, of becoming the possessore and the
cultivators of their own soil. You want to create a great
fanner proprietary class in Ireland. Well, how are you to
do it? First of all, see if there he any laws upon your
statute book which artificially prevent the dispersion of land.
All the vices of the atxuniulation of land are in active opera-
tion, and you have lawn which prevent and retard the action
of all the natural forces which would counteract those to a
certain extent, arid enforce or produce a dispersion of the
land. I,Vhat I want is, that the natural law should act, and
that there should be large and middle-sized and small estates
of every kind, according to the priulence and iinhistry of
men, arid that there should be no law to prevent persons be-
coming the owners of large estates or small ones. The aame
want has been felt in other countries ; it was felt for a
hundred years in Prance, and it was felt in Prussia. In
Frame the great evil was swept away by the terrible
Revolution which burst like a great volcano in the
midst of Europe. lii Prussia it woe met, not by a
revolution of violence, but by a gentle, a gradual, and
most beneficent change of the law. Many plans have
been proposed, to mime of which, except under the most
desperate circumstances, I should give rio snnolsou, . . .

Gentlemen here- will remember that about Often months
ago I was received at a great banquet in Dublin, and made a
speech on the subject of Ireland, and I have im doubt that
to-morrow some of the papers will say I am repeating what I
said in Dublin. 1 have found that true things and right
things in this country require to be repeated a great many
times. At that banquet I made a suggestion or proposition
which was misrepresented by some, was misunderstood by
others, and was chaffed at and ridiculed by many more.
Now, what was it? It was a proposition that we should
have a Parliamentary Commission for the purpose of acting
as the Rent Banks, as in Prussia, not only to help the tran-
sactions between the tenant and the landlord when they
have agreed upon it, but to go about and negotiate for the
purchase of large estates held by absentees; and having
purchased them, the sale being voluntary on the part of the
owner, they would then offerthose estates its separate farms,
as far an was convenient or proper, to the tenants who now
oneupy them. l'on will recollect how all this was ridiculed.
The very week afterwards a number of Irish gentlemen, some
of whom had been loud in their ridicule of my suggestion,
went to the Lord Lieutenant to represent to him what a
great advantage it would be to Ireland, and to the share-
holders of Irish railways in particular, if the Government
would purchase the Irish railways; and the Lord Lieutenant
Is reported to have expressed himself in favourable terms of
the project, and to have promised to lay It before hla col-
leagues in the Government with such support as he was able
to give it. Ido not see much difference in the possibility of
bujing the estates of absentees, and the railroads of share-
holders who cannot work them to advantage—many of whom
probably are absentees also, and live in Great Britain. . . .
In every country in the world the possessor of laud is the
Conservative of that country. In Russia, where the serfs
have been freed, and have been put in possession of the laud,
there is not a man of them that would not step forward to
defend the Crown and the Emperor. In the United States
the conservatism of the country is to be fond In what the
Chancellor of the Exchequer called the territorial democracy
of America. And every purchaser of a farm would become
instantaneously loyal to the country and loyal to the law
that did him justice, and you would have at once the com-
mencement of a new life, and you would have discovered
and planted for a great future the germ of a regenerated
nation. But what would happen further In the House of
Commons? There are 105 members in the nom. of Com-
mons that come from Ireland. They are divided like some
ether peoule„ like, I woo going to say, what-but 1 might be
irrelevant ; as there are nearly half of thou on one sine and
half of them on the other. But the Irish incinhers never act
together, so far as I have seen, for the benefit of Ireland,
and, as a united body, I never saw them act for the benefit of
the United Kingdom.