The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-21 00:00:00

TENANT-LEAGIJE MEETING.

Os Tuesday a special conference of the members
of this body was held at the Council-rooms, Beres
ford-place-, Dublin. The object of the meeting was
to consider " the present position and prospects of
the tenant cause," and considerable interest was
attached to the proceedings from the fact that it was
known to be the intention of Mr. John Francis
Maguire, M.P., to make a statement with reference
to the course taken by the representatives of the inde-
pendent opposition party. Thera was a large
attendance of Roman Catholic clergymen and others,
Mr. Maguire, M.P, for Dungarvan, Mr. Blake, M.P.
for Waterford, and Mr. M'Evoy, M.P. for Meath,
being amongst the number.
The chair was taken at one o'clock by the Rev. Mr.
Fitzgerald, P.P., Roman Catholic archdeacon,
Rathkeale.
Letters were read from the Roman Catholic
Archbishop of Town, and from Messrs. P. M‘Mahon,
M.P., F. M. Calcutt, M.P., J. O'Dwyer, the Rev.
Peter Conway, and others.
Having been called on by the CHAIRMAN,
Mr. JOHN F. MAGUIRE, M.P., said he rose in
obedience to the wish of that body to give an expla-
nation to his countrymen nt large of his conduct iu
reference to the Tenant Bill which he had had the
honour to introduce into Parliament. But let him
be distinctly understood, owing every obedience to
his countrymen and respect to their just demands,
he had no sympathy with those whose whole object
was to return the Whigs back to power, and whose
constant practice for the last half-dozen years had
been to malign, to traduce, and to calumniate the
conduct of the Tenant League and those assisting it.
To the hacks of party he flung down the gauntlet—
to the mere partizans of those who were anxious to

get in the Whigs and to get out the Tories he pro.
claimed hostility and contempt. The bill which had
been confided to him was that which had been intro-
duced by his friend Mr. Moore, whose absence from
Parliament had always been considered by him as a
national loss and whose restoration would be a
national advantage. If any person had felt surprise
or dismay at the result of the discussion in the House
of Commons he was certainly not answerable for it,
as on two or three occasions he had spoken in that
room in a manner so plain as to be almost dis-
couraging. He bad some experience of the House
of Commons, and of the materials of which the Irish
representation was composed, and he hail stated over
and over again that there was no possible hope under
the present circumstances of the country to obtain a
measure such as he believed ought to be passed. In
1857 a committee of forty five Liberal memoers waited
upon Lord Palmerston, and one of the gentlemeo
called Tenant Leaguers put into the mouth of that
statesman an objection which his ingenuity did not
require to have supplied to him. Upon that occasioo
Lord Palmerston distinctly stated that he could not
allow the second reading of the bill then before the
house, because by so doing he would be sanctioning
the principle of retrospective compensation which it
contained ; yet after that distinct declaration on the
part of the leader of the greatest party in England,
he asked anybody that bad scanned Irish politica
whether Lord Palmerston had lost a single one of his
supporters in consequence ? Was the enthusiasm in
his favour, the eagerness of the support, or the
reckless partizanship in his favour diminished one
single iota in consequence of that deliberate declara-
tion of hostility, not only to the present but for the
future? Under these circumstances he had told the
league last year that one of two courses must he
adopted. If they were for immediate legislation they
should bring forward a modified bill, such as would
be listened to ; if, on the other hand, they were
disposed to wait for better days, and merely to keep
the question alive, the bill then proposed was as good
as any other for the purpose. This was the under-
standing upon which he had taken charge of it—for
he believed it would require very many years to
obtain that organization of popular strength,
amounting almost to a national convulsion, which
would be required to carry that measure in de-
fiance of Lord Palmerston and of the landlords,
who constitute a majority or the House of Commons.
Shortly after his return to London he went to Lord
Derby with a deputation, of the constitution of which
he would only say that he was obliged to be as vague
and general as possible in his observations, otherwise
he could not have been the spokesman upon
tile occasion—for perhaps if he had gone into any-
thing like uetail, some of the members present would
have caused a discussion which would have been
more fatal than any refusal on the part of the Minister
could possibly be. With Lord Derby's answer he
would not trouble the meeting ; but he came to the
question as it was dealt with upon the second read-
ing. If it was only a debate upon the bill that was
wished for by the league, they obtained as satisfactory
and prolonged a debate as ever there had been ; and
it was rendered important by the speeches of Lord
Palmerston and Lord Naas. In order that there
miht be no mistake aoout the opinions which he had
explessed in 1857, Lord Palmerston, no way in-
fluenced by the opinion of his late Attorney-General,
whom he followed in speaking, attacked the bill, and
especially the retrospective principle, with a vigour
and an energy peculiarly his own, and in which he
seemed to excel upon that occasion. Mr. Maguire
then read extracts from a
,speech of Lord Palmers-
ton, in which he declared his opposition to the re-
trospective clause. He (Mr. Maguire) might ask
him what hope they had if Lord Palmerston was
brought into effice next day to have a retrospective
measure carried ? Lord Naas took his tone from
his speech. And yet at the time of Mr. Cardwell's
motion did Lord Palmerston lose any of his Irish
fullowing ? Did they not conspire to put into office
again the man who from a higher elevation would
hurl against the measure a greater condemnation?
Knowing the feeling of the house when he (Mr.
Maguire) was replying, he asked for a vote on the
preamble and not on the details of the bill, and thus
he gut some votes. He knew right well that if he
had asked for a vote on the details several who were
most friendly to a prospective measure would have
voted against the retrospective clause. Did tint this
fact show the worth of the advice he gave at the last
fleeting? Then lie and the supporters of the cause
of justice were blamed fur having given up the metro-
spective clause. It was not true that they had.
Who abandoned it? When the measure was brought
forward under Lord Aberdeen's Administration, who
destroyed the bill ?—the Duke of Argyll and the
Duke of Newcastle, two of the Ministers of the day.
He maintained, if John Sadleir had been an honest
man, if others who had acted with him had been
honest men, these noble lords would not have dared
oppose the clause, and the people of Ireland would
then have had thoir rights. Then they had no ez•
pectation at present of getting a retrospective clause

810

carried after the crushing majority of the House of
C.nnmons that voted against them. He believed,
under the circumstances, the best thing they could
do was to take what the Chancellor of the Exchequer
promised them—a fair and honest bill. They should
do what Daniel O'Connell advised, take an instalment
of what they wanted if they could not get all they
wanted. These were his sentiments ; and if they
choose to pass a resolution embodying different
opinions he would not act according to it, because he
knew the state of the House of Commons better than
most men, and the rottenness of Irish representation.
He was not among the number of those who turned
Lord Palmerston out of office ; but now that lie was
out, he (Mr. Maguire) thought the best thing he
°mild eo for the interests of his country and the
maintenance of justice Was to give an independent
support. He would conclude by telling them that he
believed a bill such as that which they had last ap-
p .oved was utterly unattainable in the House of
C immons, and therefore he asked them seriously to
a scept such a bill as it was possible to pass, and not
t 3 wait for what they could never obtain.
Mr. BLAKE, M.P., then addressed the meeting
b idly, and sail that he felt to continue the agitation
far the retrospective clause would be utterly useless,
and that sooner than lend himself to the continuance
of any sham he would, if his constituents desired it,
ratire from their representation.
Mr. G. H. MoORE commenced by stating that he
did not concur in the opinion entertained by many
persons present, and by most of those who had
sipped away from the meeting, that the cause of the
tenant was less flourishing in its aspect now than it
hid been. Hs begged, moreover, to remind them
that he had formerly been less sanguine iu his ex•
pectations than many of those who were now most
despondent. He always believed that if this agitation
were, like all other great movements, to succeed, it
should be by the patient exercise ofeff.,rt and resolu.
Lion. The question of emancipation looked half won
when O'Connell took it up, but it required a long
series of years and of patiens; and determined effort
to carry that reform ; and should they give up the
cause of Irish homes and Irish (:earths because it
had not been carried by a few meetings in William-
street and Beresford-place ? He believed that from
the very disorganization of the Lberal party there was
hope. Like a clock that had for a long time gone
badly, there was hope that when it stopped it would
be taken to pieces, and cleaned and oiled; and it
would then, he hoped, go a little faster than before.
Mr. Moore maintained that the independent members
in Parliament should not seek t , establish claiira
upon a Government such as the present. By their
conduct or by their forbearance in opposition to them
they might acquire their respect and good will, but
the principles of the present Administration were
such as could not be regarded with anything short
of constant abhorrence and hostility, and that of
course would render all sympathy and confidence
hopeless and an impossibility. Their sympathies were
now, as they had ever been, with the great Li'oeral party
in the State, whenever and wherever it might be
f lund—the party of progress and reform ; aid the
reason why they bad lately refused all sympathy,
all support, and all forbearance to the party as
Burning that title and position was because they
regarded that title as an imposture, that position
as an usurpation—because that party had betrayed
its trust and deserted its pi inciples—because it had
fallen into the hands of an arrogant camarilla and
a covetous cabal. What hail been the history of
this cabal since it had acquired possession of the
Government of Ireland? In the name of liberty
they had refused the rights of men even in arms,
which rights the Conservatives had honourably
conceded in the name of progress and civil and
religious liberty. English fanaticism was hounded
back to bygone centuries to seek for causes to put
them down ; and in the name of Reform they had
b !en obliged to sit under the shadow of the grossest
abuses. What were the independent Opposition
that they should endure such things? It was to
their devotion to liberty and reform that was owing
the overthrow of that faction which stopped ithe
way they pretended to lead. A charge was made
against the representatives of the independent party
that they were the supporters of the Tory Govern-
ment. If by that were meant that they were the
friends of Tory rule or Conservative dominion, lie
believed a more false assertion was never made.
There was, however, an opinion, not confined to the
Irish members,
i but widely spread and rapidly in-
creasing, that f this country must be governed
up )n Conservative principles it should be governed
by Conservatives ; and the result as well as the
purport of that opinion was to expel, to exorcise,
from the Whig party the demon of Conservatism
that bad so long possessed it. It was a devil which
was inexorable, and could only be reduced by
Listings. Mr. Moore proceeded at considerable
length to urge upon the independent members that
tliey should unite with the advanced Liberals in
forming such a party as the traditions of the Whigs
themselves should lead them to belong to. If ever

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