The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-07 00:00:00

and property. Lard Clarendon, in his letter, observed
that Ireland had been too long trained to a system of
agitation, and that it was to secure to Ireland continued
repose, so vitally essential to her prosperity, that he
asked for the renewal of those extraordinary powers.—
He (Mr. Moore) thought he could take to himself the
credit of having opposed and discountenanced the agita-
tion referred to at least as long, as steadily, and as ho-
nestly as her Majesty's Ministers. He remained in pri-
vate life for years because he would not lay down his
honour before the standard of agitation, while her Ma-
jesty's Ministers were dispensing place and patronage
from those (the Treasury) benches beneath the wing of
one agitator, just as they were now sitting there under
the wing of another.—(Hear, hear.) Nothing, he
thought, was so bad as agitation, unless it was the aban-
donment of public principle, and the persecution of fore
mer ass 'elates when they became no longer necessary.
Mr. MUNTZ regretted to be obliged to say, that he
felt it quite impossible to support the Government on
this occasion.—(Hear, hear.) He always wished to
support them, when he could consistently with justice
and honour ; but, if the same circumstances existed in
England as now existed in Ireland, he should not vote for
the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act—(ll, ar, hear)
—and, although there had been different circumstances,
it appeare I to him, from the statement of the Home
Secretary, that they were so completely altered that
there was no pretence for this measure.—( Jeer, hear.)
As to the Lord-Lieutenant's letter, asking for certain
powers in order to prevent political agitation, where
would her Majesty's Ministers have been without
political agitation ?—(Hear, hear.) Where would the
liberties of England have been without agitation ?
(Hear, hear.) Every one had a right to agitate, if he
did it like an honest man, and he (Mr. Mintz) would
oppose any Government that would coerce the people
from doing it.—(Hear.)
Lord J. RUSSELL—It is very easy to follow
the course of the Hon. Gentleman who spoke last
but one, and when the immediate urgency of danger is
past, to laugh at that danger—(Hear, hear)—and when
security is obtained, to make light of the precautions by
which it was procured.—(Hear„ hear.) I admit at once
that the case we have to lay before the House is not
similar to that which we had last year, when insurrec-
tion appeared to be impending—when the urgency was
so great that this House almost unanimously passed in a
single day a measure of such vital importance, and I will
say as hostile to the general liberties of the country,
as the measure now under consideration.—(Hear, hear.)
But when the Hon. Baronet (Sir H. W. Barron)
gives his reasons against the measure—(A laugh)—l
own that they appear to me to be reasons which my
Right Hon. Friend might very well have urged in his
opening speech.—(Hear, hear, and a laugh.) The Hon.
Gentleman says—" Waterford was in a state of the ut-
most alarm; it was expected that rebellion would imme-
diately break out; this measure was passed, and I now
find that the country around is more tranquil than it has
been for three years, that that alarm has subsided, that
confidence has taken the place of panic, and that men
feel they are no longer living under the apprehension of
outbreak." Why, I should have thought that was as
great a panegyric as could well be passed upon the effects
of the measure.—(Hear, hear.) But the Hon. Gentle-
man gives further reasons, for he says--e" I must say,
likewise, that the Act has been administered with great
leniency, that nothing could be more judicious or more
merciful than the conduct of the Lord Lieutenant in the
administration of the great powers confided to him."—
( ilear, hear.) If here is an Act which has not only
produced the most beneficial effects, but which has been
so administered that no fault is to be found with the au-
thority to whom that administration is confided—l say
here is a case for continuing at least for some time
longer the beneficial operation of that Act.—(A. cry of
" Oh!" answered by cries of " Hear, hear l")—commit
ting it to the same administrator—(Hear, hear)—and
taking care not too soon to remove the bandage, lest the
wound should bleed afresh in consequence of which you
found it necessary to take your precautions.—(Hear.)
The Hon. Gentleman who spoke early in this debate laid
great stress upon one particular paragraph of the Lord-
Lieutenant's letter, and endeavoured to infer from it that
it was on account of agitation, and because that agitation
was for an unattainable object, that the suspension of
the Habeas Corpus Act is now proposed. Now I think,
although there was some plausibility in that statement.
it took its whole force from separating that paragraph
from the general tenor of the letter, by removing it from
the context, and thus not placing before the eyes of the
House the whole case which the Lord-Lieutenant has
desired to place before them. It would not, I admit, be
any ground for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act
that an agitation was going on, and was for an unattain-
able object; but, when we have found that agitation,
after continuing for many years, and displaying in its
course a singular mixture of vehemence and of patience,
of continued disappointment and of revived hopes—a
system which could only be kept up, as I believe, by
the influence and the talent of one man—has at length
led to what might have been expected some time
before—the separation and division of those
aho agitated for that object into two parties,
the one still clinging to a hope that by continued
and organised agitation they might eventually attain
their object; the other declaring that it was useless to
expect anything from discussion—that the time had
arrived when they must take measures to prepare and
organize rebellion, and to attempt to wrest by physical
force that which they had failed in obtaining by petition,
by discussion and agitation,—then I say that the para-
graph of the Lord-Lieutenant's letter bears a more sig-
nificant sense, and is well worthy of being taken into
consideration by this House.—(Hear.) Such has been
the course of events. There was a separations—the
Honourable Member for Limerick speaks of it him-
self—a separation between those who said that there
was still a hope of this which I maintain is an unat-
tainable object (in which I quite agree with the Lord-
Lieutenant), and who still said that they would con-
tinue their organized agitation for that purpose, and an-
other party' who in the most open way, in a way I
believe to which there is no parallel in the his-
tory of the world, began declaring that their object was
treason—(Hear, hear)—that what they wished was to
drive the Lord-Lieutenant from the castle of Dublin, to
plant there the rebel flag, to kill or to seduce her Ma-
jesty's troops, to thrust from the soil of Ireland every
authority placed there by the Queen, to instal a Provi-
sional Government in the place of the legal Government
then existing in Ireland, and to inflict a blow upon what
one of them was pleased to call the accursed British
empire."—(Hear, hear.) Such was the language used
and published, and the newspapers containing such
open avowals of treasonable designs were, as I have
been told by Irishmen living in Ireland, having no
official authority there, read with avidity by the peasants
end tradesmen in the country and in the towns through a
great portion of Ireland. The Hon. Member says that
there was not such a course of prosecution taken by the
Lord Lieutenant as would have put a stop to that evil in
its commencement. I totally deny that that was the
case. As soon as the Lord-Lieutenant could obtain
from the law officers an opinion that there was any
chance of a successful prosecution, he directed those
articles to be prosecuted.—(Hear, hear.) Those who
remember the events that took place last year may re-
collect that, in some instances, those prosecutions were
successful ; in several others they were defeated ; and I
may say that, in those cases in which they were defeated,
any man in this country reading the paragraphs that
were prosecuted would have said that sedition was the
mildest word that could be used with respect to their
character.—(Hear, hear.) But the evil became more
dangerous ; the effect of baffled prosecutions was to
give increased power to those who sought to effect their
purpose by rebellion. Clubs were formed ; those clubs
were directed to procuring arms ; about 7,000 members
were enrolled in Dublin alone ; the system spread with
marvellous rapidity ; almost in every town there was
a combination under some name or other with
a similar object in view. Precautions were thought
necessary. The Hon. Member who spoke last but one
says that the Lord Lieutenant made the giants first,
and then slew them; all I can say is, that persons used
gtt.
hor
ee
fieldta r
precautions—(Hear,
ae rle ad didu whoti
nott)rs had_ti shown
En
think
rit
hear)—lest
theiree
anre) at,
hkn l
esot w ledge
them
an
toe
outbreakot
af
kw e ar
v e
riaynt
Dublin or elsewhere should cause a surprise and a sud-
den loss of blood, although the triumph might ulti-
mately rest with the Queen's troops.—(Hear.) Such
was the state of things when this House thought it ne-
cessary, on the demand of the Government for fresh
powers, to pass the Bi 1 for a suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Act. But although that Act was most effectual
—although the attempt at insurrection very quickly
failed, we are not to conclude from that that if no
precautions had been taken, if those prepara-
tions for rebellion had been allowed to go on
till harvest and the period immediately after hare
vest, there would not have been a sanguinary out-
break in Ireland, and a contest, in which I have
no doubt the Queen's troops and the loyal subjects of her
Majesty would have been successful, bat in which their
success would have bt en attended with calamities such

as every Member of this House would deeply deplore.—
(Hear.) Why, then if, so tar from ita being '• a mock
rebeLion"—it, so far from there having been no danger,
there was considerable danger, and that danger was only
averted by extraordinary measures, I do say pause for a
time before you deprive the Lord-Lieutenant of the
means of preventing the commencement of similar move-
ments having a similar object in view.—(Hear.) • The
lion. Gentleman the Member for Waterford (Sir H. W.
Barron) spoke with respect to some other matters,
and, like many Members coming from hie country, I
think be confounded things which are within the
power of Par:iament, matters for which we may be
justly reproached and criticised, with matters over
which we have no control whatever.—(Hear, hear.)
He said there was great discontent in Ireland, and
that that was caused by the present state of poverty
and distress in that country. Now, with respect to
that distress, there are two circumstances most apparent.
There is one, which is the infliction of the loss of the
staple food of the country, beyond the power of man to
avert; and there is the choice of that particular food as
the staple food of the people, and that it was in the
power of man to prevent. It is a food which every one
knows is of so cheap and low a nature that those depend-
ing upon it cannot go to any cheaper food when they are
deprived of it.—(Hear, hear.) It is a kind of food that
does not keep beyond the next harvest like the corns of
different kinds, and its deficiency in one year cannot be
supplied by the abundance of another.—(flen.r.) It is,
moreover, a kind of food liable to disease, that ofte'n
sweeps away the greater portion of the crop. Now, in
the last year, in Ireland, after repeated losses, espe-
cially after the losses of 1845 and 1t 46, it was—l will
net say unnaturally, after being for so long a time ac-
customed to it—but it was, as I have heard, the desire,
the psesion, of great masses of the people to revive that
food—(hear)—and there were no little means of comfort
remaining which the peasantry were not ready to part
with in the hope of obtaining a renewal of the food, on
the planting and produce of which they had so long re-
lied.--(Hear, hear.) The failure of the potato, however,
in the past year has been as bad as in any year preced-
ing ; and many who were in the hope of obtaining

abundance of food hare been disappointed, and, being
disappointed, remain helpless and almost hopeless in a
land naturally fertile.—(Hear, hear.) It is cause of la-
mentation that they should have placed their reliance so
entirely on the hope of a successful production of the
food of the potato. It is cause for lamentation that it
pleased Providmnce to defeat and disappoint those hopes.
These circumstances are matters for refl -ction, or per-
haps for precaution against reliance for the future on
that kind of food, but they are not reasons for coming
down to the House and assailing the British Parliament
and the Act of Union as being the causes of the calamity.
—(Cheers.) (Sir H.W. Barran here expressed dissent.) I
so understood the Hon. Gentleman; but if he did not
mean to produce that effect his language ought to have
been made much clearer, and I hope that another time
when he introduces the subject he will take care to make
the distinction more evident than he has done on the
present occasion.—(A laugh.) Let us be rep: oached, if
you will, for our ignorance of Ireland; reproach us if
you will fur passing so many Acts of restriction on the
liberties of the people, but let us not be reproached for
that for which we are not accountable.—(Hear, h"er.)
The British Parliament found, at thn time of the union,
the people of' Ireland living upon this staple food, and
they have continued to live upon it up to this time, and
with increased numbers. It was not the Act of the
British Parliament that they should be dependent on
this food; and thi retore let us not be reproached with
this calamity.—(Hear, hear.) If we can assuage that
calamity, if any English or Irish Member will point
out to the Parliament the mode by which the cala-
mity can be assuaged and the distress relieved, there
will be every disposition, if that remedy or alleviation is
thought effectual, to adopt it, and to act, not in the
spirit in which we are accused of acting, of doing that
which is hostile to the Irish people, but with the unani-
mous wish, although not the original cause of the ca-
lamity, to do all in our power to alleviate its pressure.—
(Cheers.) Having said thus much with respect to the
Bill now before the House, and with respect to charges
sometimes made, I shall not enter upon the subject of
other measures with respect to which some Gentlemen
have questioned me. When those measures are
before the House I shall be ready to take part
in the discussion regarding them. I will only say
at present that we think it our duty to Ire-
land itself, and to this country also, that we
should arm the Lord-Lieutenant with powers to pre-
vent the renewal of an agitation directly leading to rebel-
lion and insurrection—(Cheers)—that we believe that if
on the Ist of March this Act were allowed to expire,
many of the same persons who have endeavoured to turn
the distress of Ireland to their own purposes, would again
be active—(Hear, hear)—and I should have some fear
that they would again have a partial success, no doubt
to he again defeated.—(Hear, hear.) But if this House
wishes to preserve peace and tranquillity in Ireland—if
this House wishes that there should be time for any
measures of legislation to operate beneficially—if this
House wishes to act in the manner the most useful to
the people of Ireland, who !Ave been misled by this
species of agitation, then they will consent to the intro-
duction of this Bill, and consent to the renewal of those
powers which it is intended to confer.—(Cheers.)
Mr. G. THOMPSON said that he must repudiatke,
imputation cast upon certain Gentlemen for their vote?
on a former occasion. He believed they were influenced
by the same feelings that influenced him on that occa-
sion, viz., that it was neither expedient nor necessary on
that occasion to divide against the Government, inas-
much as they had information they should almost im:ne-
diately afterwards be called upon to discuss the merits
of the particular measure then referred to. He had paid
the utmost attention to the Noble Lord, in the hope
that he would justify Members of the House in voting
for the measure; but he confessed that if the defence of
this measure which was set up by the Secretary of State
for the Home Department was weak, the defence set up
by the Noble Lord was still weaker. When the Noble
introduced the measure six months ago, he assigned
distinct and intelligible reasons for so doing ; he in-
formed the House that he considered it his bounden
duty to make out a case of urgent and in-
stant necessity ; he called on the House to re-
pudiate the measure then introduced, if he should 'ail to
make out such a case, and produce reasons convincing
to the understanding and judgment of the House ;
and as the measure was precisely the same, the reasons
for it should be equally strong now as those which were
considered necessary and justifiable then. The Noble
Lord on that occasion did not tell us, as he told us to-
night, that Ireland, throughout its length and breadth,
was in a state of tranquillity, that the insurrection had
no existence, that it was found easy to administer the
government of the country; but he believed the Lord-
Lieutenant's letter, and all the admissions of Hon. Gen-
tlemen on both sides of the House, were concurrent
with the fact that tranquillity did reign in Ireland, and
the Noble Lord warned them to as.ent to this for the
purpose of continuing that tre, quillity; but such was
not the Noble Lord's argume it when he introduced
this measure six months ago. What was his own lan-
guage ? That when he called on the House hastily to
sanction this measure, he conceived it was absolutely ne-
cessary he should prove three things as the ground of his
justification for introducing the measure to the House.
The first was that the present state of things in Ireland
was fraught with evil. He asked, was such the aspect
of things at the present moment? That we were on the
eve of an outbreak, if not timely prevented. The se-
cond was, that there were means sufficient to produce
great injury and danger unless some measures were
adopted to avoid them; and the third was, teat this was
the remedy which appeared most appropriate in the
present state of Ireland. He went on to establish these
several propositions by a variety of extracts from
speeches recently delivered, newspapers recently pub-
lished, and he did produce on that occasion an almost
unanimous feeling in favour of the necessity of the
measure which he then called on the House to adopt,
and of the powers which he said ought to be placed
in the hands of her Majesty's representative in Ire-
land.—(Hear.) But had the Noble Lord done so on
the present occasion? Nothing of the kind; and there
was this remarkable difference between the period when
the measure was now brought forward and before, that
whereas in the latter case the House was on the eve of
an adjournment after a long vacation, they were now
just assembled, and had six months before them, and if
there was a necessity in the state of things in Ireland
that these extraordinary powers should be placed in the
hands of the Lord-Lieutenant, there could be no neces-
sity now, seeing that a totally different state of things
prevailed, and that Parliament was in possession of
means of receiving rapidly information, and instantly
applying a remedy. Not only did the Noble Lord de-
clare it to be his opinion that it was necessary he should
make out a convincing and irresistible case, but the
Hon. Gentlemen opposite were of the same opinion,
and the Hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, fol.-
lowing close on the Noble Lord, said that they were
called upon to vote upon grounds that were made
perfectly intelligible to the House. Were they called on
to vote on such grounds as this to-night. They were
called on to vote in utter ignorance of what might have
induced her Majesty's representative in Ireland to ask
for these extraordinary powers. On a former occasion
he had abstained from voting altogether; to-night he
should vote with those who had offered their opposition
to the measure. He could only regret that her Ma-
jesty's Government had not taken advantav of the pre-
sent state of things in Ireland to inform the House that
it was their wish that this Act should expire on the Ist
of March; that they should come down, and, absolutely
in the face of their own admission that the pople of Ire-
land had been penetrated by what the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department
had been pleased to call the clemency and forbearance of
the Lord Lieutenant, should ask the House to act on
grounds that seemed to be totally convincing against the
passing of any such measure,

Mr.—SCULLY moved that the debate be adjourne
(Loud cries of " Nor " Divider)
Mr. J. O'CONNELL hoped the House would give
those who vi ere desirous of speaking against the mea-
sure an opportunity of expressing their sentiments
upon it, which it was impossible they could do at that
late hour.

The gallery was then cleared, but no division took
place; and
Mr. SCULLY addressed the House. He said that he
feared the Government, in endeavouring to suppress
agitation in Ireland, would be adding to the evils at
present existing in that country. The present mea-
sure would have the effect of preventing discussio❑
altogether, and there were many subjects besides the
repeal of the union which the people of Ireland were
anxious to deliberate upon. He could bear testimony
to the fact that the county of Tipperary, to which
so many allusions had been made, was never in a more
quietcent state than at the present moment. Had but
the tenant occupiers a secure mode of giving employ-
ment to the people, there would be no discontent in that
country, and, as this measure would not afford them that
security, he should most strenuously oppose it.
Mr. S. CRAWFORD could have wished to state the
reasons why he should vote against the proposition of
her Majesty's Government, but he thought he should
better consult the convenience of the House if he re-
served his ob,ervations till a future stage of the Bill.
The House then divided, when there appeared--
For the motion 221
For the amendment lB
Majority for Ministers —2o3
Mr. GRATTAN gave notice that on the second
reading of the Bill he should move a call of the House.
On the motion of Sir R. H. INGLIS, a standing
Committee o 16 Members was appointed to assist the
Speaker in the direction of the Library, viz., Sir R. H.
Inglis, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 'Lord J. Rus-
sell, Sir R. Peel, Mr. Goulburn, Mr. W. Wynn, the
Lord Advocate, Viscount Mahan, the Solicitor-General,
Mr. Pendarves, Sir W. Somerville, Mr. Milnes, Mr.
Gladstone, Sir D. Dundas, Sir J. Young, and Mr.
Clive.
ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL.

Mr. ANSTEY then moved for leave to bring in a
Bill for the further repeal of enactments imposing pains
and penalties on Roman Catholics on account of their
religious observances. When he stated to the House
and to the Hon. BAronet the Member for University of
Oxford that the psesent Bill was substantially the same
as the one he introduced last session, and that the only
alterations which had been made in it had been made
with a view of removing the objections of its opponents,
he trusted that the courtesy which had not been„denied
to the promoters of any previous Bill on this subject,
would not be refused on the present occasion, viz., to give
him leave to introduce the Bill, to have it reed a first
time without opposition, and to take the discussion on
the second reading.
Sir R. INGLIS was sure the Hon. 'Member would
acquit him of wishing to show any intentional dis-
courtesy, but he could not help thinking that when the
Hon. Member produced a Bill which he told them was
substantially the same as the one he had introduced last
year. and which he might have further told them
was the same as the Bills of 1846 and 1847, he (Sir R.
Inglis) was not asking too much of the House in wishing
them to decide et once whether ouoh a Bill 61201114 be