The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-17 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 1838

sible. If they admitted by birth, servitude, or marriage, it
was legal and allowable ; but they call it a right when they
choose to do wrong, and stand upon their imaginary privi-
leges. If we had an Irish Parliament could this last an
hour ?—(Hear, hear, and loud cheering.) But I ant told
it must last. lam told we must endure this anomaly
longer. When I sought to make evident the rottenness of
their system, I summoned as my witnesses men from their ()en
body.—(Hear, hear.) Archer was one of my witnesses__
Long was another, and their own clerks of guilds were also
produced by me. And yet Shaw complained that I had been
enabled to call my witnesses, and that his were not in
attendance. I shall call more witnesses the next meeting of
Parliament. The Legislature shall decide upon the question ;
and we shall either get rid of an evil or have a new proof of
the necessity of self-government.—( Hear, hear.) The
Joint Stock Banks Committee called some witnesses relative
to the Bank of Ireland Charter; and I have been blamed
for not having called additional individuals competent to
give opinions on the point.—( Hear, hear.) But before
anything shall be done to perpetuate the monopoly, all
Ireland will have an opportunity of speaking out. Why
should there be a monopoly of money-makers. In England
they say that a national bank is necessary to regulate the ex_
changes, and control the export of bullion, so as to pre-
vent too much of it going out of the country. This is, a
indeed, the only argument for the continuance of such
monopoly. But supposing it to be good, what bearing has
it upon the Bank of Ireland? What bullion is exported
from College-green, or what influence has the establishment
there upon foreign exchanges? None. We areanataionnd,
they say, and must have a national bank. In all other
respects Ireland has been made a province by. the Union, and
they only
i recollect that we are a nation when they would in-
flict the injury of a monopoly upon us, and when the bank
of a party is to be upheld in preference to a system of accom-
modation offered to men of all sects and parties,
creed,
colour. I appeal to the instance of Scotland. Joint-stock
banks spread in Scotland, and have not industry eld pros-
perity spread along with them ? If you had travelled as
I have from Berwick to Edinburgh, and observed what has
taken place there, you would have felt deeply the advantage
of a free monetary system. Look at Lammermoor, now no
longer a moor, and then turn to our wastes, still what it once
was, before industry and enterprise were exerted by the
healthy influence of joint stock banks, and then let any man
tell me that these concomitant circumstances—monetary
accommodation, and the advancement of a country's pros-
perity, are not cause and effect, and I will laugh him to scorn
as a vain pretender in the science of political economy —( Hear,
hear.) I mean no injury to any proprietor of the Bank of
Ireland, nor to any officer or clerk 'of that establish-
ment.—( Hear, hear.) Let it continue as a chartered bank.
I for one am anxious to see it prosperous, but not a monopoly.
It may be said that I have an individual interest in the ques-
tion. Well, so I have; but it is as the head of a bank estab.
lished with a view to the advantage of this country. lam de-
termined that capital shall be free, and that no man shall be
refused the countenance of a banking establishment merely
because he happens to be of a certain creed ; and I promise
not to let the question rest until it is settled to the advantage
of the people by the House of Commons.—( Hear.) One of
the three Committees was that on combination—(Loud cries
of " Hear")—and upon this subject I have a right to say
something, for there is no doubt that it was a source of obloquy
with regard to myself. But in return for any unmerited im-
putations which may have been cast upon me,'l have the satis-
faction to feel that my efforts have been rewarded with at least
some success. Yes, Sir, I look with pleasure to the efforts
I have made upon this subject.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.")
I can fearlessly say, in the first place, that, by the course
I had taken, I sought no unworthy popularity--on the
contrary, I incurred the displeasure of my countrymen,
whose very errors I respect, because I know that
they were founded in a misconception of the facts, and the
consequences connected with the great question at issue.—
( Hear, hear.) I love my countrymen, and I ought to love
them, and it was that esteem for them, and a sense of public
duty, that induced me to grapple with a subject whereby I
risked my own popularity, and enlisted the prejudices of many
honest men against me ; but, as I have said, the result has re-
paid me. In November last I commenced my exertions, and
even then there was scarcely a week that some outrage or
violence of one kind or another, arising out of combination,
did not take place. But in saying this now, lam not making
a charge against any man. I then made no charge against
any individual ; it was the system I grappled with ; and I
trust I have succeeded in opening the eyes of many honest but
mistaken men as to the course they were pursuing. The very
day before our memorable meeting at the Royal Exchange, a
man was assaulted in the streets through the effects of combi-
nation. Since that no outrage of the kind has taken place in
Dubin. It may be said, indeed, that this happy state of
things is owing to the existence of the new police force. I
do not want to detract from the merits of this excellent insti-
tution, and some share of merit may be due to them in this
case too. They are out by day and by night in your streets,
and everywhere through your city, and outrages of the kind
could not take place with impunity. But I attribute the mo-
ral change that has taken place more to having the minds of
men of worth and sound understanding aroused to a sense of
that duty, which should teach every man to set his face against
the horrible system of combination—so it is that men who
have been my bitterest opponents have become most valuable
adjuncts in putting an end to it—even amongst the corporators
this has been the case.—(Cheers.) Free capital, free trade,
free labour, freedom in every moral sense is my motto ; and
the honest tradesmen, who might have a temporary per-
sonal interest in keeping up the monopoly of labour, must
unite with me. Freedom and a good understanding be-
tween the labourer on the one hand, and the capitalist on the
other, should always exist, and there is little doubt that
trade would flourish.—(Loud cheers.) But the moment art
attempt is made to raise wages by compulsion that mo-
ment the prospects of trade are blighted.—( Hear, hear.) I
have been all my life working against monopoly and aristo.
cracy, and any attempt to force wages by compulsion is the
worst sort of monopoly. Those who do so are the aristocracy
of trade, and against aristocracy I war, no matter whether
dressed in lace and ruffles, or in a working apron and paper
cap.—(Loud cheers.) Well, a Committee sat to inquire
into the momentous question of combination, and no one can
say that the workman did not get fair play in that inquiry.
I may here state that facts of the deepest interest to Irishmen
and to the trade of Ireland have been there proved. It has
been clearly demonstrated that combination had the effect of
introducing Englishmen and Scotchmen into the country, who
are now doing the business and employed in the works in
which Irishmen ought to be engaged.•—( Hear, hear, and
cheers.) We have proved, Sir, the introduction of strangers,
Englishmen and Scotchmen, into the country; but we have
proved more—we have proved that trade has been banished
from us in some particular branches of business, and that it
has gone to England and Scotland, and some of the Irish ma-
ritime ports, in consequence of the existence of combination in
Dublin. In every port of note upon the channel, ship-build.
ing has increased save one, and that is Dublin..—( Hear.)
In Dublin it is extinct, and the cause may be traced to a hor-
rible and atrocious murder that was perpetrated by the ship_
carpenters in the open day, upon one of their own trade,
because the unfortunate man had the name of being a colt, or
having worked at a lower rate of wages than the trade
directed.—( Hear, hear.) His wife was left screaming, and
his children wailing; and the murderers escaped punishment,
save such as God, in his mercy, never fails to inflict, either
through penitence or suffering. —( Cheers. ) Since that horrible
murder a blight has fallen on the trade of ship-building ; and
wi.ilst at Drogheda, twenty miles north of Dublin, men are
making a fortune, of ship-building, there is not. I believe,
a single vessel being built in Dublin at present. In Gasgow,
Greenock, Belfast, and Drogheda, the trade is flourishing,
whilst in Dublin, alas ! there is nothing to be done. There
is another circumstance connected with the combination
which deserves to be mentioned here, and that is, the ques-
tion of apprentices.—(Hear, hear.) I have said before, and
I here repeat it again, that it is most foolish and most
unjust to interfere with the apprentices at all.—( Hear, hear.)
Apprenticeship to a trade is in point of fact education, and
that education of the most useful kind, both as relates to
society and the apprentice himself ; and what, I ask you,
would be said to the man who, in this age of letters and civi-
lization, would attempt to limit education, and say to his neigh-
bour—" You, Sir, shall not teach your son to read and write—
you shall not educate him ?" He would be called, and called
most truly, a savage. The man who says that his neighbour's
child shall not learn a trade, or become apprentice to whatever
line of business may be best suited to him, is a greater savage ;
for, as I have already said, he deprives him of an opportunity
of learning a branch of knowledge even more useful than
reading and writing. Such interference is foolish, criminal and
unjust. See with regard to the trade of which I have been
speaking, the shipbuilding, what a melancholy picture Dublin
presents. Here we have only 20 apprentices in that line, and
indeed I believe there is nothing built here but a few boats,
and the apprentices are not wanted ; whilst in Liverpool there
are 2,400 ship carpenters' apprentices. That was their number
the other day when they turned out, at the Coronation, in
honour of the Queen. They assembled in their new clothes,
and spent a day in amusing themselves in honour of our
lovely little Queen, and God knows they were right.
Sir, this is the comparative state of those two trades in Dublin
and Liverpool; here we have twenty apprentices belonging to
it in Dublin, whilst in Liverpool they have two thousand four
acid
than I trust that there is an end to combination,
than when honest men come to see the melancholy results
that have flowed from it, the evil will right itself. I want no,.
harsh laws, no severe measures against the working man, I
wish that that great moral power which is capable of triumph-
ing in every case, may triumph here too, and that there may
be an end put to intimidation and brute force. Let them cease
intimidation and an interference with the rights of others, and
then they may combine as much as they like. Such, Sir, has
been my course, and you will say that between the three Corn-
mittees—( Hear, hear)—one on fictitious votes—one on com-
bination, and the other upon joint stock banks—in attending to
ttFibereoamimi y
to
12 tlgo
ihv4aede
avenenr
ayocucgoh I
u ntto do.ofh
in
Andl u
sheedr e
to allow o%v
spend m e p
ma rye ih et) trile
day, was regular attendance at the Com-
mittees. On Saturdays I attended to the business of the
Bank of which I am a director. After going home from
the Committees I took a hasty dinner and proceeded to
the House, and from the hour that it opened
until twelve
or one o'clock I was never absent..—(Cheers.) By the
time I got home and to bed it was generally two o'clock.
Then, a man at my time of life requires some sleep (althoug h
I was never fond of it—l never took over-doses of it)—so
that it was generally nine o'clock when I was dressed and
ready for breakfast. It:was ten when I had done breakfast,
and read a small portion of the letters which I receive. Then
from ten to twelve, heaven help me !—( Hear and laughter.)
I don't exaggerate when I say that I gerer.slly got tkin hun-
-pbeentcnTpupslvflat ieft my house,
the regular postman. There never
dwrleradt liegttoct"boyi thaedtawy•O and what
ahamt
aanrewdheolihvearsedbebeyn
so besieged by persons looking for places. No man asked

me, to be sure, to get him a bishopric, although I have
been positively asked for places in the Church.—(Laughter.)
There is not an office, from Lord High Admiral down to
scavenger, that I have not been asked for.—( Laughter.) But
heaven help the applicants l for it is little I can do for
them. The Government has been so repeatedly accused of
being in league with me, and under my influence, that it
has caused a re-action against me—and I believe there is not
a single man who votes with them who has got less from them
than I have.—( Here the Honourable and Learned Gentleman
laid his hand on Mr. Pat Costelloe, who was beside him.)
have, to be sure, got something that I like very much.—
(Laughter.) I take this opportunity of informing my nume-
rous correspondents that it is quite impossible that I could
answer all, or even the one-half of their letters. It is quite un-
reasonable that they should think I could do so ; and I beg most
unfeignedly to say that nothing can give me more pain than
that any of my countrymen, who write to me, should for a
moment imagine that I would be capable of treating them in
an unkind or uncourteous manner. Let this then be my pub-
lic apology to ail my friends; they will see it in print in the
course of the week, and I trust it will satisfy them. So much
for the parenthesis. I will now come to other topics, and
the first subject I shall touch upon shall be the Poor-law.—
(Hear, hear.) My opinion wzs against the measure brought
into Parliament, and I only hope that I may be disappointed
in that opinion.—(Hear, hear.) I did all that was in any
power to avert the iv its which I believed would flow from it.
I acquitted my conscfce, and if it should turn out as I an-
ticipated, I will have nothing to answer for. I was at one
time their advocate—the miseries of the poor and the
heartless conduct of the landlords drove me to it; but
when I came to examine the subject in detail, and to trace
out the consequences that I know in my soul would flow from
the measure proposed, I became opposed to it. When I found
that it would decrease Irish capital—that it would not procure
employment for the people, and that the money raised was
chiefly to be swallowed up by Poor-law Commissioners, by
chaplains, and by building workhouses, and by all the ma-
chinery necessary to work it, I opposed it in every way I
could.—( Hear, hear.) The whole plan is of the most expen-
sive Kind, and the greater part of the money will go, not to
the support of poor, but to the payment of persons holding
places under the Poor-law Bill.—( Hear, hear.) The cost of
chaplains alone will be twenty thousand a year.—( Hear, hear. )
I have been taunted with having changed my opinion on the
question. It is true I have, and more than once; but I give
now the answer which I have given before, and it is this, that
the sufferings of my country have impelled me to giving my
assent to some scheme of mitigating them : but when I came
to look narrowly into details, I shrunk back from the prospect.
I thought 1 saw the impossibility of carrying them into use-
ful effect. However, I might have been mistaken—l sin-
cerely hope I was. I shall be most happy to find the new
law working well. Not one of its advocates shall rejoice
at its success more sincerely than myself, and I do not
hesitate to avow my anxiety that it shall have a fair trial.
The Hon. and Learned Gentleman continued to say that he
had never taunted any man with change of opinion, for he
despised the man who would continue in error for the sake of
a miserable consistency. With regard to Poor-laws, he would
add that while England was working herself oat of Poor-laws
she was working us into them. He next touched upon the
Canada question, and said he opposed Lord John Russell when
he would take from the Canadians the power of disposing of
their own money, but when they broke into acts of violence,
and shed blood, he gave up any interest in their case till Lord
Durham Rent out among them. He was the disciple of a
new doctrine which was adapted to the present age of the
world, and taught nations to conquer without the sword. When
rebellion succeeded it led to military despotism; and when it
failed,—as in Ireland in 1798,—t0 ferocious and sanguinary
slaughter. With these feelings he could listen calmly to the
sneers of Roebuck, who in his ignorance confounded the United
Irishmen and Irish Volunteers.—( Cheers and laughter.) After
adverting to an attack lately made on him by the grocers of
Dublin, and explaining the part he had taken in their behalf,
he said, with regard to the new Tithe Bill, he was totally op -
posed to it, and refused to accept it even as an instalment. If
England would maintain an Established Church in this country
for one-tenth of the people, let them pay for it.—( Cheers.)
Peel, Shaw, and Lcfroy were anxious to give money to the
parsons, but he was glad to say that something had been se-
cured in return for the people, for if the costs were
settled, not one farmer in Ireland would have a penny of
tithe to pay. The demand in future would be upon the land-
lord, and the parson could not send his proctors to the tenant.
They had got rid of the arrears and the claims upon the occu-
pier, and they had also cut off 130,0001. a-year from the tithe-
tax.—( Cheers.) He had offered to pay his tithes, to put the
parsons in good humour, and induce them to join with him, but
they refused to accede to his terms, and he had never paid them
one penny, thoue.h it was reported he had done so. He feared
the parsons would not join them in the intended experiment, for
he knew an instance e here a tenant offered to pay the parson
75 per cent., and he would not accept it. He wanted
equal justice with the people of Scotland and England,
for they were only called upon to support their own clergy-
men- He was opposed to any payment from Government to
the Catholic priests, and he would resist as far as any man the
scheme, which it was absurdly said he favoured, of transferr-

in; to them the tithes. He would resist because he believed it

would necessarily corrupt them. He would next call the attention
of the meeting to the proposed Corporation Bill, and he was
proud to say 1-le helped to kick it out. The present Corpora-
tion of Dublin was most corrupt, for it made fictitious voters
by a system of wholesale fraud, for the purpose of obtaining a
majority in the City. The people of Dublin bad sufficient
reasons for being opposed to the Corporations, but nevertheless
Mr. ShaW declared in the House of Commons that the people
of Dublin were opposed to the reform of that body.—

( Laughter.) The 'Bill which was thrown out was an artful
one. He was in Birmingham when it came on, and
he regretted to find that Lord John Russell had per-
mitted a clause, perpetuating the freemen, to stand part
of the Bill. In that shape it went to the Lords; and
he rejoiced that it was thrown out. He was happy that he
had
helix,ed had
see slavery abolished—(Cheers)—and he rejoiced
that
participated in the battle which had brought vic-
tory to the cause of freedom.—(Cheers.) Mr. O'Connell
next adrerted to the present position of parties, and said that
between the Whigs and Tories the people of Ireland would be
overlooked if they did not rely upon themselves. The Duke
of Wellington was their great enemy. It was a deplorable
thin, that Ireland had ever produced him. It would be written
upon his grave that his ark of glory floated upon Irish blood,
and that he used his power only to crush his countrymen and
the engines of his success.—( Cheers.) If the Tories were
able to seize upon office, little good could be hoped from them
for this country; on the contrary the people would see the
Bench posses,ed by their most violent and relentless enemies,
and the Magistracy- again a horde of partizans. To arrest
v:'eer Tories
o preventedries out
of from
office. doilnfg
t s}
the
e b
Tories
r theies l
camearge
into pwer, the those evils, he still supported the present Ministry.—( Cheers. )
He rejoiced that the Queen was favourable to them ; the Mi-
nistry and the Lord Licutenent, were also anxious to assist
them, butthey t
t
mincrity in the House of Commons, and by the powerful ma-
jority in the House of Lords. They, however, achieved one
god
Belgian uncle of the Queen would tremble on
his throne. The Holy Alliance wanted to bind him by the
o,ot they
kept
treaty of 1831, which was only to remain in force for three
months, if not accepted within that time by the King of Hol-
land. Seven yeas had elapsed, and the King of Holland had
, the support of
not accepted it, but still the Holy Alliance wanted to force it
on Leoreld. The repeal of the Union between Holland and
Belgium, was most beneficial to the latter county. Catholics
and Protestants phire there on an equality, and the Minister
of the Interior, mself a Catholic, brought in a Bill for the
aPro-
testant The time minister in 13russe was come, when they
should agitate, and on Saturday, he would lay his plan of a pre-
society before them, to agitate until they obtained
paratory
would move in November,
their rights. He _ . that 200 Deputies
endowment of a Peotestant Church, and
should be sent from Ireland, with petitions for their rights.
Those Gentlemen would go through England, and endeavour to
impress on the minds of the English people, a sense of the
wrongs endured by Ireland, and if they were not successful, he
would once again raise his voice for a repeal of the union..—
(Great cheers.) After some further observations from Mr
ay, when he s
to introduce his plan for a " Preparatory Association."
O'Connell, the meeting adjourned until Saturday, i
.

LORD 'WESTMEATH AND MR. O'CONNELL.
In the Evening Mad of this evening, the following letter
from Lord Westmeath appears. As Mr. O'Connell will
doubtless reply, I send it to you. It is written with so
much point and force, that I question if it be really the pro-
duction of the Hereditary Legislator:—
TO THE ELECTORAL.BODY OF THE CITY OF