The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-14 00:00:00

one in Ireland who was in distress, but he w ould take
it that a large portion of the agricultural population
were. Now how much money lied they expended
already, and in hat state had they left the population
of Ireland ? When he spoke of the Irish population,
he meant from the highest to the lowest, because he
did not find a particle of difference between any of them,
and would say, with respect to the population
generally, that there was a desire to acquire with-
out labour.—(Cries of "Oh ! oh !") It was all
very well to cry "Oh ! " but it was they who should
make use of that cry. They would not pay
That demoralisation extended to all portions of the
population, and if he wanted any certain means to de.
monstrate the demoralisation which existed among th©
Irish people, he should desire no better documents to
prove his case than those returns which had been made
of the manlier in which the loan from England had been
expended.—(Loud cries of " Hear, hear.") If their
generosity had been expended for the poor, or it it had
been laid out to relieve their necessities, he would be one
of the last to complain; but it was not the poor
who were relieved, for the money went to bolster up a
system which was in the highest decree injurious to
Ireland.—(lltar, hear.) The tact was, that the treasure
had been poured from this country into one vast golden
heap, and there was a regular scramble amongst all
classes to strive who should get the most.—(Hear, hear.)
It was just such a scramble a 3 he had seen to get into the
opera—a struggle who should sooneet arrive et the heap,
and who should get most of the treasure.—(Hear, hear,
and laughter.) He would tell them what it was.—
(Hear, hear.) It was nothing more nor less
than au attempt to live upon other people's
labour—(loud cries of hear, hear, and order, order)—
a total want of that independent spirit, he might call it
of that enthusiastic desire, to realise a livelihood, without
the labour that was necessary to earn it.—(Hear, hear.)
lie bad, however, heard one Irish member open his
mouth upon the subject of Ireland, but there was a con•
tinual cry of somebody must do something, but that
somebody was never thernselves—(heare bear, and up-
roar.) What he asked, then, what was it they intended
to do and when ?—did they intend to allow the
Irish to help themselves—hear.) lie had been Englishcontin-
in this case most certainly that
legislation interfered with Irish
let
would affirm that if the maintenance of
been thrown on the British people
contin-
ually
that
Irishidtatp:t oojeoi
ao dnnr.
Irishdthh aa h He
dto
peoplewould wished
would FOOn maietain their own
poor. and that there would then be no further appeal to
England in the name of religion. The whole fact was,
that this was the case of the Irish proprietors—and a
very Irish sort
they
hadwas—proprietors r
more right than he had who did not possess a single
living upon the whichit
;rents
tps reofp rliaeotodrss btiop
acre.—(Cries of "Hear, hear.'') Among all the Irish
complaints he had never heard of any complaint from
any complaint from any Irish proprietor of being
directly over taxed—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) If a
landlord was reputed to have 10,0001. a year, and his
estates were mortgaged to the extent of 9,0001., you
never heard an Irishman asserting that he had only
1,000. /. a year to live upon, notwithstanding the alleged
griping influence of the new poor law—(Elear, hear.)
All that must now be stopped. But when the difficulty
was propounded, and he complained of the [draught
from the taxes of Britain, all the reply he could ob-
tain from the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the
alternative of a rate in nid—(Hear. hear,)—last
Friday, he thought it was, he had heard the soft re-
medy of the Attorney-General propounded in a speech
which had certainly captivated his imagination, but
which had certainly failed to convince his judgment.
He had desired to avert all the evils of Ireland by
an amelioration of the practice of the Courts of
Chancery.—(Hear, hear.) And such was the end. The
fact was, the whole fault arose out of the faulty mea-
sures of the Ministers of the British people. The evil
lay in their legislation. The only justification for one
bad act of legislation was that it was made
necessary by two others that a ere worse, ali;ch
had preceded it. As au amendment, reed he pre-
sumed some pretence for justification for the line of con-
duct the Ministry had puraued, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer told him that lie expected to get the
whole of his money back.—(Hear, hear.) By
what law, lie a uuld like to know, would
they would be able to do that, and if they did it w want only
be an aggravation of the evil of which he complaint d,
and a permanent increase of the inlet:ties of the
people of Ireland. Eventually this money would
prove a national incumbranco, and he for one would
be no party to taxing the British people for the support of
persons who refused to labour for their own subsistence.
Talk of capital! He (Mr. Roebuck) did not deny the
necessity for making roads in Ireland. Why did they
not offer 15 or 16 millions for making roads in Ireland
when it was proposed three years._ _ ago by
Lord George Bentincit, instead of dribbling on
day by day under the pretence of supplying
the miseries of Ireland. The one and the other
was the
it way
to appl and
well conceived scheme ; and if they were e
.
y the
same ; it was the application of the funds of the country
to individual enterprise. In that caselarge
money of the State to general purposes, be (Mr. Roe-
,.,
buck) would rather have voted for the plan of the
Lord,Noble now deceased, instead of the present procedure.
Be was told "you got your money bask."
That was no answer to his question ; he was out of his
money when he paid his taxes; and he asked what was
the concerted scheme—taking it as a scheme—which the
Government had when they brought forward this single
measure for the relief of Ireland? He would allow that
thesChancellor of the Exchequer every now and then took
the opportunity of asking to give a deal of money
for the Irish people. He allowed that ; but why, he
asked, could that money in any shape be considered as
means of employing the starring people of Ireland ? He
asked the common sense of this country, if it was not
under the guise of asking for money to support the
poor of Ireland that they were lending money
to the landed proprietors ?—(Cries of " Hear, hear.")
Did any body believe that 300,000,000/. could in any
way relieve the distress of the country ? Now, he would
ask, what ought to have been done?—(Hear, hear)—
and he must say, as far as regarded Irish questions in
that House. it was a question that he had often asked
of himself—What would they do for Ireland?—
(Hear, hear.) One talked about the area of tax-
ation being too large. He heard a conversation
bandied about that House this very day. The Hon.
Gentleman asked the other, "Did you not go to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer to ask to have these people
paid ?" "To be sure I did," said the Honourable Mtu-
ber for Dublin. (Laughter.) That Honourable
Member used a happy phraseology which he (Mr.
Roebuck) would in vain attempt to imitate ; but
it
stronglymarked
thatthe hfeeling
Roebuck)of
(Mr. the Honourableshonl
d n never
v e Member
forget
so
it. " I wanted to have a pull at the Chancellor of the
Exchequer," continued the Hon. Member for Dublin;
but when the pull at the Chancellor of the Exchequer
failed when they found the Chancellor of the
Exchequer would not bite, an Honourable Gentle-
man opposite said—" Let the' corporation of Dublin
pay." " The corporation of Dublin pay! Why you are
a set of cormorants"--(laughter)—said the hon. member
for Dublin. [Here Mr. Roebuck so happily imitated
the Irish brogue as to elicit roars of laughter.] " You are
a set of robbers," said the hon. member for Dublin. Now
what was the meaning of that language of the hon. gent.?
Why, that he was the advocate of those gentlemen who
wanted compensation. But there was a Right Honour-
able Gentleman who came from Yorkshire, and he
said, "Not at all; I am not willing to permit you
to have a pull at the Chancellor of the Exchequer."
lie would not say more; but they quarrelled among
themselves.—(Laughter.) They were told that it was a
regular practice to have a pull upon the Exchequer, but
that the debt was a dishonest one when the landlords had
to pay
it themselves. He took a lesson from what had oc-
curred at the debate, and determined should also derive a
lesson
from it on the first opportunity. They came
there to have a pull upon theoLschenaer. Exchequer, and that Bill
he termed pulling upon the Exchequer. The Exchequer
was filled by our hard-working countrymen, men who
laboured at their vocation with an honest and upright
spirit—with a virtue, he must say coolly, with
an indignant virtue; and when they consi-
dered the demands thus made upon the pro-
ceeds of their labour. He had of late seen the
working men of England assemble in their thousands,
and he told them, though they had teen often misled,
that the first voice he should raise he the Cot-omens of
England would be against the rapacious desires of the
extravagant landed proprietors and gentry of Ireland.
But, in the strict sense of the term, they were not
landed proprietors ; let them, therefore, got rid of
the name; let them go abroad and earn their own sub-
ffstcnoe; the land does not beleng to them, and the rents
ought to be paid to them. Let them act like men whose
capital was in their bare hands.—(Hear, hear.) It was
on these grounds that he entered his seleinn protect
against this Bill, which was part and parcel of the
mischievous policy adopted by the Government.
in which he saw nothing that was likely to redeem for
a renewal of the same tax hereafter. Many country
gentlemen were around him—what did they say to be
called upon year after year to feed the Inch nation. As
the harvest neared the prospect blackened—as
the next few months wore on they would
hear more of the awful sufferings of the
people of Ireland. Hero they had been four years
legislating how to meet the deficiencies and defects of
the harvests of Ireland. Four years ago the Right
Hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir R. Peel) told the land-
lords of Ireland that unless they set about in earnest to
cultivate the soil, the evils the House was then
seeking to cute must recur hereafter. But
instead of obtaining the aid of practical men
and tilling their fertile land, the advice was not acted
upon. What was given to the poor was seized by the
rich; and the consequence was that the people of Eng-
land had become disgusted. (Hear.) A reverend
friend of his was implored by the minister of' a pariah in
Ireland to solicit contributions from his flock in aid of
the suffering people of the parish. Ile did so,
and transniitten over a small sum, but a largo one, con-
sidering the means of the people who contributed it.
What was the reply? " God bless you for your cha-
ritable donation—we are quite happy—all the rents are
paid!" Why his friend sunk almost into a swoon.—
(Laughter.) Was it for this that he had begged from door
to dour, preaching charity to men, women, and children.
No! It was to relieve the starving people of Ireland—
not to pay the rents of grasping proprietors. It was
taken by those who ought to hare been the almoner,,
in-
stead of the receivers of the gifts. If such a course
were pursued they would dry up the sources of charity
altogether—(Cries of " Hear, hear")—and he would
be amongst the first to preach with that
intent. Tho Government originate a better and snore
rigid system of the dispensation of the money thus ad-
vanced. If they did so Ireland might be retrieved iu
two years; and England, in tiny future period of need,
would not fail in her aid. If the Government did not
do this, such Bills as these, owing to their inefficiency,
would be only treated with scorn and contumely.
Was it rihgt that a Member should insult his Irish
fellow Members without some stop being put to it? The