The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-20 00:00:00

the House of Commons, and we have limited the powers of
the Crown, and are we to be told that the people of Eng-
land have not the power of making an organic change in
the House of Lords? I had hoped that reflection would
have induced their Lordships to fulfil the pledge they for-
merly gave—for I contend that they have violated a sacred
engagement—and that engagement was to do equal justice
to Ireland.—(Cheers.) I therefore protest against the
whole conduct of the House of Lords. If any body deserve
the name of Destructives, they of all men merit it.—( Hear,
and laughter.) I have been often told that lam a des-
tructive. lam so—a destructive of pensions and sinecures.
—(Hear.) But let my Hon. Friend, or any body else,
show, if he can, that I have been a destructive of one right
of the people. In one respect, as my Hon. Friend reminds
me, I have been a constructive ; I have aided in the reform
and reconstruction of municipal corporations in this coun-
try, and the people of Ireland may safely claim the same be-
nefit. Why are not they to have the same means of con-
trolling and managing their affairs? I assert, in the strong-
est terms, that the House of Lords, by mangling this Bill,
has declared that the people of Ireland shall not have equal
justice.—(Cheers.)
Sir JAMES GRAHAM—I confess I heard with
great satisfaction the commencement of the speech of my
Noble Friend, and I admit, most distinctly, that the pre-
sent crisis of affairs is somewhat dangerous.—(Hear.) I
therefore thought the advice given by my Noble Friend,
in his outset, prudent and statesmanlike—namely, that we
should proceed on this question with calmness and delibe-
ration, and not rashly and prematurely. That advice, I
repeat, was prudent and statesmanlike, and worthy of my
Noble Friend ; but I am bound to add, that the satisfac-
tion I felt at the commencement was not carried through
to the conclusion, because, already the discussion has pro-
ceeded farther than I think it consistent with the calmness
and forbearance recommended by my Noble Friend, and the
inducement was given by him.—(No, no, and cheers.)
He admitted, speaking of the co-ordinate branch of the
Legislature, that we are not informed of the nature of the
Lords' amendments. The motion is, that they should
be printed immediately previous to the adjournment, in
order that they may hereafter be taken into deliberate con-
sideration ; yet my Noble Friend went on to argue as to
the nature and extent of the amendments. He certainly
held out a strong inducement for the House not to concur
in them, if it should happen to agree with him that they
were inconsistent with what was due to the attachment and
loyalty of the people of Ireland. If my Noble Friend did
not go quite to that length, he led irresistibly to the conclu-
sion that the people of Ireland could not take the amend-
ments. If I thought that concession after concession would
naturally produce contentment, I might be led to take
that course, even at the risk of danger. My Noble Friend
has mentioned various concessions ; one in 1793, which
granted the elective franchise, and when also the Test and
Corporation Act may be said to have been virtually re-
pealed in Ireland, although it did not strictly lead to that
result. Next he referred to the concession of 1829, which
placed Roman Catholics on a footing of perfect equality.
His inference was, that because these great concessions had
been made, and made in vain, that therefore we ought to
proceed further. I doubt the policy of such advice. I say
that where great national concessions have been made, and
those who made them have been disappointed in their ex-
pectations, instead of being hurried on from concession to
concession in a downward path,'without being called upon
to halt,. the time has arrived when we ought to pause. I
contend that you must deliberate before you proceed fur-
ther in the same direction.—(Cheers.) And here I am re-
minded of the observation of a man of as great experience
in government as any living—l allude to Prince Talley-
ran. What he is reported to have said is full of truth and
wisdom—" That those who commence a government of
concession, never fail in the end to make some concession
they did not contemplate when they began their career,
which concession proves ultimately fatal to them." I hope
my Noble Friend will not experience this result in its full
extent. Now to advert shortly to what fell from the Hon.
Member for Middlesex. Ido not think it, in the first in-
stance, the duty of any individual Member of the Legis-
lature to solve the difficulty of our present position. If;
unfortunately, there be any difficulty in reconciling the two
Houses of Parliament, it is the duty of the executive Go-
vernment to propose the mode of overcoming it.—( Hear.)
If I understood my Noble Friend correctly, he did, per-
haps indistinctly, hint at some mode of reconciliation. I
thought he said that his objection to the amendment was,
that it removed entirely from Ireland municipal govern-
ment.—(Cbeers.) Thereby he pointed at a mode by which
the difficulty might be surmounted. Not having Parlia-
mentary knowledge of the amendments, 1 am not prepared
to enter into the discussion of them ; but I should frankly
and fairly point out to the House, as I did when the mea-
sure was under discussion here, that my objection was to
the constructive part of the Bill. It was distinctly avowed
and has not been dissembled, that the measure, as sent to
the House of Lords, consisted of two parts—one destruc-
tive, to which we on this side of the House did not in the
least object—(Some laughter)—destructive, I mean, inas-
much as it was generally admitted that the Corporations of
Ireland, close in reality, as the Report proves them, though
technically and legally open, ought no longer to continue.
To the destructive part of the measure, therefore, we felt
no objection ; and the whole difference arose as to the con-
structive part of it. The opinion which was pronounced
Upon the subject by the House of Lords was' the opinion,
not of a small number, but of a very large majority of that
House. Sir, I am, and ever have been, the unflinching
friend of every description of just and necessary reform ;
but if we arc to be told, as indeed we have been told
—if the threat is to be held out, that unless the House
of Lords concede on this point, an organic change in
that body is so inevitable that it will be impossible to prevent
it—why then, Sir, I say that, friend as I am of reform, I am
no friend of revolution.—(Hear, hear, hear.) Having been
born under a limited monarchy, with a House of Lords co-
ordinate in authority with the House of Commons—a
House of Lords hereditary, not elected by the people—l,
for one, can never consent to that which, under the name
of reform, is nothing more nor less than revolution.—
(Hear.) To such a reform, I trust, I shall always be
found opposed. The Hon. Member for Middlesex talks
centemptuously of the number of those by whom the Bill
on the table has been altered from the shape in which it was
sent up by this House. The House of Lords was not so
numerous a body as the House of Commons ; but the
amendments which were made in this Bill by the House of
Lords were made by a majority of two to one of a body
which the Constitution declares to be co-ordinate in legis-
lative power with ourselves. It is possible that a time may
arrive when the general opinion shall declare that the House
of Lords ought no longer to exist ; and when what I have
already characterised as a revolution with reference to that
body shall take place. But, Sir, the public men of this
country are at present on their trial. I firmly believe that
the people arc still warmly attached to the existing form of
our Government. Whether proceeding from any pulic man,
from any Minister, from the House of Commons, or from
the House of Lords, I am convinced that any rash or impru-
dent step, that any violent measure, threatening in its conse-
quences to involve the peace and tranquillity of the empire,
will not be pardoned by a people, too much attached to the
existing institutions of the country—too much attached Us
the pieservation of liberty—too much attached to the se-
curity of property, to risk any of those benefits for a spe-
culative theoretical proposition, recommended on the
grounds of a remote and contingent advantage.—(Hear,
hear.) Convinced that this is the fact, I say that we
ought to proceed with caution and deliberation. The Hon.
Member for Middlesex has said that, as a good Radical,
he supported his Majesty's present Government ; and that
he supported them especially in consequence of the mea-
sures which they have brought forward respecting Ireland.
A letter from the Hon. Gentleman has been published
w;thin the last month, in which he states that as a good
Radical he thinks some forbearance is due to his Majesty's
present advisers, and recommends to the people to wait a
little before they censured the conduct of Government.
This and other circumstances ought, in my opinion, to
operate upon the House as a warning ; and ought to in-
duce them to pause, before they agree to any proposition
which may be deemed a preliminary step to obtaining the
approbation of the Honourable Member for Middlesex.
Sir, I still reserve the point to which I have already al-
luded, namely, that the discussion is at present premature.
—(Hear, hear.) If, as that cheer imports, I have failed in
pursuing the course which
.1 have advised to others, it
is in consequence of what fell from the Noble Lord, and
which, if it had been wholly unnoticed, would have left
those Hon. Members who sit on this side of the House
open to misrepresentation. I have endeavoured to state
what I have stated as dispassionately as possible ; but it
is impossible on a question of so much importance wholly
to restrain one's feelings. I cannot be blind to the
very critical emergency of the situation in which we are
placed. At the same time I do not think that a pre-
mature discussion of the subject can be in any point of
view beneficial ; and I regret, therefore, that the Noble
Lord courted, and more than courted, that he provoked,
such a discussion ; for the observations with which the
Noble Lord concluded his speech rendered it imperative
on this side of the House that those observations should
not be left unnoticed. If a system of concession on this
subject seemed calculated to be beneficial, if it were
probable that the people of England would be satisfied
with any step that might be taken on this subject, even at
the risk of a departure from the system of caution and pru-
dence which I have been recommending, I might be desi-
rous of seeing some proposition of that nature adopted.
But as it is, seeinc, no probability whatever of a consum-
mation so desirable, I am prepared to adhere to the last
two votes which I gave on the subject. It has been de-
clared that what is called justice to Ireland cannot be ob-
tained without an organic changeintlleHooseofLordss.
Now, to such organic change I am as strongly opposed a