The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-08 00:00:00

said that Mr. Grattan was a rebel, he said what was
not.the fact.
Mr. O'CONNOR made some observation, the pur-
Port of which did not reach the gallery.
.tr. H. GRATTAN contended that the Hon.
"'ember for Nottingham had called Mr. Grattan a
ra.rehel, and that statement was false.—(" Order.")
The statement in the paper read by the Hon. Member
!vats a falsehood. He knew Mr. Grattan better than
the. Ron. Member could know him ; and Mr. Grattan
never was an United Irishman. The Honourable
Member had done more ; he had not only
libelled Mr. Grattan, but he had libelled
Lord Charlemont; and he (Mr. H. Grattan)
Would not sit in any assembly where Lord Cherie-
Mont was libelled without answering his traducer.—
°f ear, hear.) Lord Charlemont did not sell the
volunteers, neither did the volunteers sell their eoun-
'
,4'3% The Hon. Member had also libelled Mr. Pon
°flby. It was not the fact that Mr. Ponsonby was
in the list to which the Hon. Member had referred.
neither Mr. Ponsonby nor Mr. Grattan ever be-
longed to the Society of United Irishmen, though
tnea' did belong to the volunteers. [Mr. O'Connor
Made some gesture of assent.] The Hon. Member
admitted that he was right ; then why had he not
the civility and courtesy to ask him beforehand
"/i6therit was correct that Mr. Grattan and Mr.
Ponsonby were United Irishmen ? He did not wish
t° quarrel with the Honourable Gentleman, but he
Would fight him upon this ground to the last drop
of his blood.—(Cheers.) He objected to this setting
thParty against party—this exciting of jealousy—
reviving of things that were obsolete, and this
"'natant reference, in the time of affliction and distress,
When they ought to co-operate together, to old griev-
ances. He appealed to the good heart of the Hon.
Gentleman, for although he wished that House to
believe it was as black as it could be, it was not so
black as he would make them believe it was.—(A
'Pen) The Hon. Gentleman on a memorable occa•
lion in the county of Meath stood by him like a man
cf courage when he had a bayonet at his breast and
a sabre over his head ; and he (Mr. Grattan) would
stand by the Hon. Gentleman when he acted rightly,
as firmly as he would oppose him when he was acting
Wrongly. He did not say that this was a claptrap
Motion, but it might tend to frustrate the object the
Zion. Gentleman had in view. If the Hon. Gentle-
Man proposed a motion for the consideration of the
,Act of Union, he (Mr. Grattan) would support him ;
out not when he came under a mask, libelling Lord
~Charlemont, the volunteers, Mr. Grattan, and Mr.
Ponsonby, and then thought he could sit down there
unanswered. lie charged the Hon. Gentleman with
lour libels, and in calling upon that House, as the
Jury, to convict him, he pronounced the Honourable
Gentleman " guilty, upon his honour."—(Cheers.)
Mr. J. O'CONNELL said, the Hon. Gentleman
Who brought forward the motion had thought it neces-
lat'y to make some species of apology to Irish Mem-
bt!vra sitting on that (the Ministerial) side of the
I-louse, but he assured the Hon. Member that there
1:‘,4 no necessity for an apology, for those Irish
Members felt no jealousy at the Hon. Member's
having brought forward this subject. The Right
lion. Baronet who followed the Right Honourable
Gentlemen had asked what could be the utility of
considering the subject now, but he (Mr. J.
°I:Connell) thought there should not be an entire
oblivion cast over the scenes of the year 1800, but
that the reprobation of mankind should be attracted
to the enormities committed by the Government of
that day in order to carry the measure of the legis-
ittive union. Forty-seven years had passed since
'eland was deprived of
,her right of making
L
'"ws for herself, and what had been the
!onaequence ? That she had been reduced
t 0 a state beyond which there was none deeper,
except that of utter annihilation or total ruin. What
w,as her condition. before the union ? Lord Clare,
Who was one of the artificers of that Act, and'iwho was
es3n, e of the deadliest enemies to the independence of
native country, declared in the Irish house of
Lords that in the history of the world no nation was
ever before known to make in so small a space of
time the same progress in arts, commerce, manufac-
,l,ures, and all that could upraise the condition of a
nation, as Ireland, during the short period of eighteen
Zears that she enjoyed the entire freedom of her own
-e arliament. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Huskisson had also
said that up to 1780 the policy of England had always
been to cripple Ireland, and deprive her of her natural
resources; and Lord Castlereagh, one of the chief
artifice, of his country:s ruin, in 1803 declared that
Ireland had during the same eighteen years he
had referred to made a progress that had asto-,
la'llPd the world. The consequences of the union
1° England had been not less disastrous than to
reland. England might prosper in her own mate-
rial wealth, but so long as, by her neglect, she left
Ireland to decline in her condition she would never
discover any advantages from the trick by which
he Parliament of the sister country had been anni-
hilated. Every victory which had been won under
the English flag was tarnished by her cruelty to Ire-
land, and whenever the Englishman was heard to
boast of his constitution and his country, the reproach
of the foreigner, in pointing across the Channel, would
always be ready. The Hon. Gentleman, in continu-
ation, entered into a calculation to show that an an-
nual external drain of 6,000,0001. upon the re-
sources of Ireland, which was a consequence of her
connexion with England, made it a matter of utter
impossibility that the sister country could ever sus-
tain the burdens at present imposed upon her, or pro-
gress in the same ratio as either of the other British
isles.—(Hear, hear.) Recently her misfortunes
had been aggravated by a visitation •of Pro-
vidence in the complete destruction of the potato
Crop- This deficit in her ordinary capital amounted
,at least to 16,000,0001., and as the potato might be
said , d to have represented the currency of Ire-
land, the evil so occasioned had been enormous. A
short time ago the labourer had been paid with the
Potato ; by the potato the farmer paid his rent; by
aleans
of the potato the farmer obtained clothing for
his .
; by the potato large classes were fed ; and
n°w the substitute was money.
.This being the case,
the prevailing distress in Ireland was easily to be ac-
counted for; and it would be well if the House now con-
. wdered if some cheap currency might not be substituted
:If a substitute for the deficiency created by the loss
the •
this potato. With regard to the money part of
question, he thought he was bound to make out
k Cie in order to justify the words he had used the
e;i011s evening. The terms of the Act of Union
811,4 expressly stipulated that Ireland should not be
oVected to bear any of the burdens of the debts
England contracted before 1800—the encum-
brancesa of the two nations being at the time very
disproportionate, and the principle was recognised
13° all bands that the annexed ought not to be
The funded
with any of the debts of the annexing country.
then 420,000,000/., and those of Ireland about
'OOO,OOO/. Ireland, it was agreed, should contri-
bute
a two-seventeenths to the imperial expenditure,
t?ii even Lord Castlereagh admitted that this propor-
t?n was too large. The stipulation was to be main-
ltined :o long as there was an absence of certain con-
tingencies ; and, in the event of either of these, the
erasure of the national debt or the improvement of
the circumstances of Ireland, until there was complete
fquality in wealth between England and Ireland, taxa-
tion was to be made equal, and the imperial encumbran-
ces were to be borne in the same proportion. Neither of
these contingencies had arisen ; on the contrary, the
debt of Ireland, by legislative mismanagement and in-
Jestice, had increased out of all proportion. In
1800 it was 24,000,0001. and in 1817 it was
150,000,000/. ; the increase altogether being 59 per
cent. for England, and about 300 per cent. for Ire-
, land ; and yet it was declared that a casus had been
made out for a consolidation of the Exchequers, and
that the time had come when taxation ought to be
made equal. The consolidation of the Exchequers
had been accomplished in direct violation of the terms
of the Act of Union, and all the subsequent financial
Measures founded upon that consolidation were, in
consequence, as completely illegal as they were grossly
unjust. Ireland, it might be, had failed to contri-
bute equally, but no good reason could be shown
Why she should have done so. England had failed to
maintain, by separate taxation, the separate liabili-
ties imposed on her by the Act of Union, and the
,eault of the policy of Parliament had been to make
-yeland bankrupt, thus crippling one country while
.`ney crushed the other. The Hon. and Learned Mem-
ber continued to treat the financial part of the question
't considerable length, citing various authorities to
t°W the injustice that had been inflicted upon Ireland
the consolidation of the Exchequers, and contending,
that
Whatever happened to increase the expenditure of
frglind operated in absorbing every available shilling
ell Ireland. He calculated that since the Union
abet had passed Ireland had paid 60,000,0001. more
elfin her Proper share, and on that ground alone he
h?mied for her the consideration of this country in a
act of distress, not as a grant of charity, but an
justice.
.As to separate taxation. England only
Psad 10,e00,000/., while her proper share, according
ii.s° the interpretation of the Act of Union, was
1°°0"01., and in that estimate he reckoned the
income-tax, which was only laid on four or five years
ag°; so that the fact was, deducting the income-tax,
voEngland only paid about 5,000,000/. of separate taxa-
el__n• It had been asserted that Ireland had had
,i7peniation for all this, in an indirect way, since the
1:81.°,.9, being free from certain imposts, as the as-
foed. taxes
but he contended that there was no
herself in
that argument, as Great Britain had relieved
sh,sB'f in far greater proportion from those taxes than
bad relieved Ireland. In the aggregate, Great
retain had relieved herself from 47,000,000/. while
rehevin
eaxitt,_ g Ireland from only 2,000,000/. of the same
L'-'ll. All this time Ireland paid the expenses of
lideefr civil and military establishments, fur, although
tbatraYed out of the Consolidated Fund, it came out of
Part of the fund which was produced by Irish
Mamee.a.:
theao. The remittances from the British Ex-
'"*talrelend since the union up to January 1,