The Sun.
London, England, 1836-03-08 00:00:00

him. It appeared to him (Mr. Sergeant Jackson) that a Pro-
testant returned bider such circumstances was a much more
dangerous foe to the Protestant Church in Ireland than a
Roman Catholic. With reference to this part of the subject,
the Hon. Gentleman referred to addresses delivered by the
Hon and Learned Member for Dublin to the people of Lime-
rick and New Ross, in which he denounced those who favoured
tithes as " traitors to Ireland ;" and enjoined the people in
those words, " Let no man deal with them—let -no woman
deal with them."—( A laugh, and cries of " Hear.") This
was a species of the toleration exhibited in Ireland. He
begged to direct the attention of the House to the report of
of the Intimidation Committee, which sat last Session. It

would be seen in the evidence delivered before that committee
that the Roman Catholic priests harangued the people from
their altars to prevent them from voting in favour of the
Knight of Kerry, and not only were they intimidated by
threats, but if they did not conform, their lives and property
were in danger. The Hon. and Learned Member for Dub-
lin would not tolerate even neutrality in Ireland ; he denounced
every man who would not go the full length. " Neutrality,"
he said, "was a crime at that period—every man who was a
neetral must be a Cumberlander." The Hon. and Learned
Gentleman ehen referred to several instances of the interfe-
rence of the Roman Catholic clergy in the Irish elections.
—( Hear, hear, hear.) The Honourable and Learned
Gentleman next read some extracts from the address of
Father Keogh to his congregation from the altar of the
chapel at Leighlin-bridge, on Sunday, the 14th of June :
" Good people, you must aaswer at the election that you vote
for fit and discreet men to represent the county of Carlow in
Parliament. Is Bruen a discreet man ? What, Bruen !
Orange Bruen 1 He who always opposed Catholic Emanci-
pation, till it was extorted from the Government, and his op-
position could be no longer any injury to you. Is it Bruen,
who said in Parliament (the only time he did not give a silent
vote) that the priests instigated the people to commit murder
and all kinds of outrage ; and that till the priests were exter-
minated, the country would not be fit for a Christian to live in.
Is this a fit and discreet person to represent the county of Car-
low—this hard-hearted tyrannical landlord ? Well, what of
Kavanagh ? Is he a fit person to represent you? Why he is
dead ! so the Dublin Freeman's Journal and the Kilkenny
Journal say ; but if he is not dead, he is always laid up with
the gout.—( Laughter. ) Is this a fit and discreet man to
represent the county of Carlow ? Oh, boys, take care and
do not perjure yourselves. Why this Bruen always sup-
ported tithes—blood-guilty tithes—tithes that have mur-
dered and bayoneted you—( Loud cries of " Hear")—that
have dragged you out of your quiet and peaceable beds, and
have torn the very sheets and blankets from under you! That
have bayoneted you, as they did at Rathcormac and Newtown-
harry But I tell you, if you gain this election, before the
end of the year there will be no such things as tithes; and
even now a Bill for the total extinction of tithe laws has
passed the second reading of the House of Commons, it only
requires a third reading to become the law of the land ; for,
as Peel himself said, neither the Lords nor the King dare re-
fuse what the House of Commons pass into a law. Well,
boys, Bruen and Kavanagh, I think you will agree with me,
are neither fit, discreet, nor honest men. Vigors is an honest
man—(Opposition cheers and laughter)—he who has taken
upon himself the people's rights and is determined to protect
them. But you know him well enough. We tried to get an
Irishman, and applied to several other gentlemen of this county
to side with Vigors, but they all refused. An English gentle-
man, however, has volunteered, Mr. Raphael—( Great laugh-
ter),—High Sheriff of the City of London, who has plenty
of money—(Cheers from the Opposition benches),—and
plenty of honesty--( Laughter) ;—vote, then, for Vigors and
Raphael, and you will vote for yourselves, your country,
your religion, and your God.—(Hear, hear.) Is there any
man will- tell me that agitation has done nothing for lie-
land ? Where are tithes now ? You no longer have to
pay tithes, but a pitiful land-tax, and we will soon put
an end to that too. The Protestant clergy are now very dif-
ferent from what they were. They are no longer the fine gen-
tlemen they were, but are in a sad bobble, and we will make
them in a greater hobble ; for instead of bringing up their
sons and daughters to be gentlemen and ladies, they will be
glad to bring them up to be farmers and tradesmen like your-
selves, good people. Boys 1 Vigors and Raphael intend to
address you after Mass, and I desire that you will not leave
the chapel-yard until you have heard them. These Orange
Conservatives are very confident, like the devil when he tempted
our Saviour in the wilderness ; but we will strike fear and
terror into their hearts on Tuesday. I hope it will not be ne-
cessary to draw the sword, for I hope the very sight of the
scabbard will frighten them. But I tell you, boys, if the Con-
servatives gain this election—they cannot gain it—but if by
perjury, threats, and violence, they do gain it ; if they do trick
us out of our representatives on this, as they did at the last
election, and be beat, more blood will flow than there is water
in the river Barrow.—( Cries of " Hear, hear.") Come then
good people, to the poll at once. I denounce that man who
will not come to the poll at once, as one who is tampering with
his landlord, as one who is waiting to see on which side the
scales may turn, and I will suspect that man to be a renegade
and an apostate I" Such were the opinions he could furnish of
the toleration of the Roman Catholic party. The Hon. and
Learned Member for Dublin was anxious to have tools of the
kind this Bill would supply him with, that he might carry on
the work of agitation over the whole of Ireland.—(Opposi-
tion cheers.)
Mr. Sergeant WO ULFE said—With regard to several
of the facts alluded to by Hon. and Learned Member, they
are of such a nature that, if proved to be true, I am not
prepared to justify. This is not, however, the time for the
trial of such issues, which would distract the House from
the investigation of the question before it.—( Hear, hear.)
I am not going to justify the excesses which are the conse-
quence of excitement during elections. If, however, it be
contended that the prevalence of sectarian feelings amongst
the Roman Catholics of Ireland incapacitates them from a par-
ticipation in the benefits of a Municipal Corporation Bill assi-
milated to that of England, I will take issue upon that point,
and I will undertake to prove to the House that no such feel-
ings or motives can with justice be laid to the charge of the
Roman Catholic body of Ireland. I deny that in any instance
since 1829 the Roman Catholics of Ireland have acted as a
religious party. They never pursued any object of a secta-
rian character, or in which the Protestants of the empire,
or at least the Protestants of Ireland, were not equally
concerned with them. If they haVe been excited, their
excitement has been directed to objects of imperial
or national concern.—(Loud cheers.) They devoted all
their enereies to the assertion of the principles of civil and
religious liberty.—( Hear, hear.) They have struggled
with the Liberal Protestants of Ireland, of England, and of
Scotland to accomplish Parliamentary Reform, and all the
great consequences which it involved.—( Cheers.) It is to
their excitement that you are indebted for the attainment of
that Reform. I will not deny that they were powerfully ex-
cited ; but the people of England have no cause to complain of
that-4 Hear, hear.) They now enjoy the fruits of that ex-
citement. It was directed to. the promotion of purposes not
peCuliar to the Catholic, but common to him with every Pro-
testant and Dissenter in the empire.—( Hear.) Sir, I 'am not
prepared to justify every act done under the influence of that
excitement. But this much lam prepared to say, and to prove,
that the excitement was the result of the unconstitutional claim
put forward by the holders of property in Ireland to dispose of
the suffrages of their tenants as they thought fit.—( Hear,
hear.) They claimed the votes of their tenants as services
incidental to their tenure—( Hear, hear)—as part and parcel of
their seignorial rights.--( Hear.) Against this flagrant usur-
pation the freeholders of Ireland revolted.—( Hear, hear.) All
the rights of property were put in force against them to reduce
them to subjection. Hence the collision that took place.
Of the two plans before the House I need scarcely say that
that proposed on this side of the House is prima facie
entitled to the preference. The people of England
and Scotland, considering a plan of Municipal Reform
based upon popular principles to be conducive to their
interests, or calculated to gratify their local pride, desired the
establishment of such a plan among them, and they obtained
it. The people of Ireland, -considering that it would pro-
mote their interests also, and gratify their feelings, desire it
likewise. Ido not mean to say that the will of any portion of
this empire is of necessity to prevail over the judgment of the
united Legislature of the entire ; but I do say that in matters
of local concerts it is entitled to paramount attention. I will
go farther, and say that if in any portion of the empire an in-
stitution be established which is regarded in the nature of a
boon or privilege, and that the extension of it is desired by
another portion of the empire, the bare will of the portion so
desiring it does establish a presumptive case for its extension,
which nothing short of the clearest and the strongest reason
can displace.—(Hear.) -The common right must be ousted
by considerations clear and cogent.--( Hear.) These sur-
mises will not suffice.—( Hear, hear.) These allegations of
unfitness without proof—apprehensions vaguely or vainly en-
tertained will not suffice. The evil apprehended from ac-
knowledging the common right must be great as well as cer-
tain. —( Hear, hear.) Now let me ask what is the evil
alleged as likely to result from the Bill of my Right Hon.
Friend, which is to justify that which, unjustified, will be
both an injury and an affront ?--( Hear, hear, hear.) It has
been said by all the Hon Members who have spoken on the
other side, that the effect of the Bill will be to transfer from
the hands of the Protestants into the hands of the Catholics
the power incident to the corporations. Sir, I maintain that
the principle of the Bill is such that it is impossible that it can
take the power with which it deals out of the hands of those
who ought to have it, or to place it in the hands of those who
are not entitled to it.—( Hear, hear.) Ido not care whether
the hands that lose it are Protestants, or whether the hands
that gain it are Catholics ; but this I know, that under the
operation of this Bill, the persons rightfully entitled to it
will acquire it. The principle of the Bill is to distribute the
power by a civil qualification.—( Hear, hear.) Wherever
that qualification is, there the power w ill be. Wherever that
qualification is wanting, there the power will not be.—
( Hear.) The Bill takes no heed as to how many of the qua-
lified shall be found in the one church or in the other. It
does not attempt to maintain the balance of power between
sects, but to break up the classification altogether, and to an-
nex power to that to which by nature it is incident. Sir, this
principle was recognized by the Right Hon. Baronet the Mem-
ber for Tamworth on the first reading of this Bill.—( Hear.)
Ile acknowledged that it was neither just nor expedient, nor
in modern times practicable, to distribute power on any other
principle.—( Hear' hear.) In making this acknowledgment, he
merely recognised the great principle of the Bill of 1829,
which disposed of and scattered among the people all the
functions of the state, by annexing them to civil qualifications
without reference to creed.—( Hear, hear.) This is not only
the principle of that great law, but the principle of a still
higher—the law of nature.—(Hear, hear.) Nature has an-
nexed power to the elements which constitute civil qualifica-
tion.—(Hear' hear.) You may do violence to nature, and
seperate legal power from those elements—but. nature will
avenge the wrong, and restore the balance.—( Loud cheers.)
She will more than compensate for the legal power you with-
hold by the morbid energy of passion,—( Hear, hear.) The