The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-23 00:00:00

fused to do so. said that they had been guilty of a high misde-
meanour and were i•ubject to a prosecution. lie would, therefore,
impress upon English Members the danger of elacing such a
power in the hands of the magistrates of Ireland, who had
themselves set the law at defiance.
Mr. SEY VIER said, when he recollected that the Noble
Lord (the Member for London) had proposed a Bill of a similar
nature, and that the protection party had voted for is first
reading, it appeared to him that the time had arrived when, by
&strong muster of all parties, it was hoped to place her Ma-
jesty's Government in a minority, and the party who sat upon
the Opposition benches, on those at present occupied by the
Treasury. And taking all these facts into consideration, he did
not think the Secretary-at-War, when he reproached the Noble
Lord (Lord Bentinck ) for the inconsistency of the course
which he had pursued. and when he excused the party led by
the Noble Member for London, he had been quite fair in his
observations, for he had not been equally just. The Noble
Member for Lynn and his party had changed their votes with
a view to defeat the Ministry, who, they think have not acted
in a band fide manner on the qu stion of coercion. But she
Member for London and his party had equally changed their
such
Mem-
bersgrea read rue Bill? for he had some t
votes for the purpose of defeating the Ministry to o
uncondition.c
ally. —(He,r, hear.) He would wish fcr a moment
con
-
which
Hon.
party divisions were to take
side: what was the nature of
placethem?eoarsutroe on which
had
doubts as to that, always
excluding the
Hon. Member who had last ad-
dressed the House, and who had appeared to have
given the subject deep attention. But the observations
of some Hon. Members had induced him to believe that they
had not read the Bill then before the House. It was-trot, as
had been asserted, proposed to coerce the whole of Ireland—
the Bill was only a temporary one, and it did not follow that
any one country, or any one parish, should be coerced. When
a necessity arose a district might be coerced, but not until then.
Whatever might be the faults of the Government, and he for
one would not justify them, he considered that they had
acted in a just and generous spirit towards Ireland.—( Hear.)
That was his opinion; and a similar one had been expressed by
the Hon. Member for Cork on the occasion of the Maynooth
Bill; and such having been the case he was prepared to ac-
cede to the powers proposed to be vested in the Government.
As long as parts of Ireland remained in such a
state as they were at present they would require a coercion
Bill, and he was of opinion that no Government should he
allowed to hold office which was not prepared to propose such
a Bill in such a state of circumstances ;- and if they abused the
powers vested in them, or the people of England and Scotland
saw a desire to oppress Ireland, they would not permit them to
remain in office, for they would know that if they permitted
such a proceeding their turn would come next. The present
state of things could not be allowed to continue with safety ; if
the people were not protected, they would take the
law into their own hands. They had heard a great
deal about the liberties of Ireland, but he would like
to know what; amount of liberty existed in Ireland.
He would take any five charges from the list of the state
of crime in Ireland, and he would read them to the House.
One was a threatening notice to a steward not to collect his
master's rents; another was a notice for a man not to pay a
debt he owed to a certain man, but to his wife, from whom he
bed separated ; another was to prevent a man from proposing
for a widow for whom another had proposed.—(A laugh.)
Hon. Members might laugh, but it was no laughing matter.
They could thus see that a steward could not do justice to his
master, nor could a man marry the wife of his choice. They
were told that things were a better aspect, and that therefore
coercion was unnecessary, - hut he was disinclined to doubt the
statement, and they knew that former Coercion Bills had been
successful. though they had never been put into operation.
He would ask them how coud lauded proprietors be expt•eted
to reside on their estates unless they were afforded protection ?
He would support the Government upoi, the present occasion,
and he • could not see the consistency of the course, that.
having voted for protection, he should now he called on to
vote against the Coercion Bill ; in other words to assist ir.
bringing in a Government more favolrable to free-trade than
the present. and which wauld be strongly urged to take off the
proposed three years of protection which had been afforded.
The Hon. Member for Stockport wield, of course, be in the
Government—( Hear, hear)—and he confessed he would not
be sorry to see him there. He (Mr. Cobden) had already
done them all the mischief in his power, and if they were to
hare bad measures, why they would have the consolation of at
least having good speeches.--( Hear, hear.) Nothing surprised
him more than the strong party spirit which was evinced at
the present moment by the party to which he had the honour
to belong. When Hon. Members met in the streets, after
the first observation of the heat of the weather, the next ques-
tion was " What will you do on the Coercion Bill ?" " Oh,
I will take the straight course, and vote against the Bill."
( Hear, hear.) The straight course ! as if no other course
was straight. Now, he would be almost inclined to call it the
crooked course, but if his course was allowed to be straight in
supporting the Bill, he would allow the contrary course to be
straight also.—( Hear, hear.) But if his course was not
called: straight, he would be obliged to quarrel—what he most
wished to avoid. Again, if he met in a club-room, he would
be told, " Oh, we count upon so many honest and true men to
defeat the measure." Now, he was not so foolish as to take
offence. but he felt his face getting rather hot—( Hear, hear)—
when such language was used. He was attached to
the principles of protection to British industry, but he
also believed that the present Bill would be
beneficial, and he would therefore vote for it.
He would just instance in the Secretary-at-War, a man who
never took a course but such as was perfectly consistent with
honourable feeling; and he did so because he knew the Right
Hon. Gentleman ; yet that gentleman, he ventured to say,
would not stick at applying in debate those hard names which
had been made use of by the Hon. Gentleman. The case of
Fox had been introduced in exculpation, but he would answer
that by a single line of the Latin poet—
" Distat eloquentid vitas
Let Hon. Gentlemen imitate Fox in his eloquence, and leave
him alone in his use of hard names and hard
words.—(Lond cries of " Hear, hear.") There was one
sentiment used by the Learned Recorder for Dublin in which
he con' d not concur. Tnat Hon. and Learned Gentlemtn
had said in effect, that it would be wall if her Majesty's pre-
sent Ministers were •11 placed by the Noble Lord, became
then they would have no more of those painful scenes, those
hard words, and Le (Mr. Seymer) thought he added, vitupe-
ration ; but he (Mr. Seymer) ratte: expected that in op-
pisition these hard words, and hard nines would be revived.
At the same time, he felt it was the duty of every Mem.. r
i i that House, to assuage, as far as possible, all to rsonalities,
and the use of hard names. —( The Hon. Gentl n:an sat
down, after stating that he would oppose the ameedment of the
Right Hon. B ronet (Sir W. Somerville) opposite.)
Mr. C. POWELL sad, he never hear 1 opinions expressed
in Parliament, founded more upon ignorance of the condition
of Ireland than those uttered by the Hon. Gentleman who had
just sat down. That Hen. Gentleman could not surely have
heard the admirable speech which had beer, delivered on the
'subject by the Member for 'xfordshire. Thar Hen. Member
had shown to demonstration, in his able speech, that the docu-
ment on which the Hon. Gentleman had rested, the Govern-
ment returns of crime in Ireland, was incorrect, and could not
he relied upon. He had shown that out of the 2,000 cages.
which was the gros-; amount stated, 805 were merely threaten-
ing notices, and SO2 of the.e notices, which were never
followed by injurious aces—he (Mr. Powell) believed had been
got up by the scouts of the police. Instances might be quceed
from the annals of crime in England to parallel what had
taken place in some parts of bellied ; but he would
not detain the House.. He could not imagin a severer
satire on her Majesty's Government than the present
measure. That Government, the strongest that had
existed, came &ern now, the ei.ghteenth time in the
political hiseery of Ireland, fora coercive measure —a Bid giving
them the command of physical force—a measure to annihilate
the liberties 44 the eeople of Ireland. It might be Pail to him
that the present measure did not apply to all Ireland ; but his
reply was, that it did, if the Lord-Lieutenant chose. Her Ma-
jesty's present Government on this occasion, found Ireland in
1841 in a state !,f perfect tranquillity, the authorities in the
country had the confidence of the people ; and the present Go-
vernment selected for the highest offices in the admieistration
of the law, the most obnoxious indivi-luals in the comery—indi-
viduals who had for years been in the habit of reveing the
people of Ireland. If there was an obnoxious person in the
provincial localities-, they made him a magistrate; and if there
was not such a man in the district, they set about hunting him
up froua another quarter ; and having done so, that Govern-
ment came down to Parliament and asked for power
to put down the disturbances which had been excited
by these gross abuses. Her Majesty's Government had
endeavoured to represent these disturbances as nen-
, political. But he thought that the great mass had
withdrawn their confidence from the constituted authorities in
the country, and was not that political ?—( Hear, hear, from
Mr. Sheil.) The repeal agitation had been cc nstrued by an
Hon. Gentleman opposite into high treas,a. He (Mr.
Powell) though an advocate for the repeal of the union, enter-
tained the strongest wish for the British connexion ; and he
further thought that, repealer as he was, the measures which
he would support would tend more to cement that connexion
than those which had been proposed I,y the Hon. Gentleman
who had thought proper to characterise repeal as a dismember-
ment of the empire. Why, for 490 years that connexion had
continued to exist at the same time that there was a separate
Legislatme. As he had already said, the returns on which those
fears were founded were incorrect, for nut of 2,000. the total
sum, there were 805 mere threatening notices ; and from these
803, only three had been followed by overt acts. Now, as to
these notices, he himself had received a paper, which he
held in his hand, addressed to Mr. Powell, MP.
Inside there were these words, " Look what comes, death to
the Saxon."—( At least so we understood the Hon. Gentle-
man- to read, for be read with great difficulty.) Then followed
a coffin and cross-bones, and these words, " Mr. Powelrs cur-
tout. Here is your fate, if you vote for the Coercion Bill."
( Laughter.) Now, he believed that many of these cases were
got up as hoaxes, but many of them were excited by the secret
service money of the Government, which, since their acces-
sion, had been freely distributed among the people of that
country.—( Hear hear.) He knew it. Many lived by it,
and it was called " doing business ;" and those persons were
known as " Paddy M'Kerrs." He (Mr. Powell) was sure
that the social order might be sufficiently maintained in Ireland
by the ordinary means of law, if these were used by those who
had secured the confidence of the people. That, however, the
!a-sent Government had not acquired, and he thought never
bren..l and he believed further, that their resignation would
-beenaZin rte people of Ireland. Very different would have
House, when bed
beg for Oxfet,UZt had if a sentiment uttered by the Hon. Mern-
prevaitee some time before in that
ves.lhse people of Ireland ?lion
oarstt the second reading
the evidence supplied ,:i.nther any honest man could, upon
croachment upon nee iilLize tlaiesty's Ministers, sanction en-
; and
. suldiers%
Mr. COLLE rr said he
of the measure on the same grott4telea)
had uttered hie opinions on that ~,c,i4:114 first, for since he
anything to remove those reasons which he' ehtrn not heart
existed a certain set of gave for
so Totigg. There . robber, assassin
were sent out to apprand
and maraud sin
nocte rsteeli ne
why
achoytuhnitsthiees classsa in
mo Ireland
anns,
nahiszair
Naples
Sicily, he did be
adopted had not been committed.
which outrages
hardly passed a day
with • me which he could not
in Ireland. For a period of eight years there hut
assassins. And
There had Arleen a
with these roaming
account for—a sympathy
power to :oppress it? He
why should not the police Lave the
for crime. He
s%mpathy crime
knew that there was a price
knew—and it might seem strings to them—that
the price was 2/, 10s• for crime when the
man was not shot dead, and 61. when the man was killed.
Would he for a trifling saving of heeee or 1.0001. per annum,
send 500 men loose un the ountry-5' e`-) men accu,tomed) to
the use of "unpowder, and weapons of every description?—
(Hear.) No, he could not do it as a Briton, -or as an
Englishman. Let them not be deceived by the temporary lull
that had occurred, for he believed that if this Bill did not pass
the second reading, there would be riot and exultation at the
failure of a measure which would put a stop to the crimes of
he.e marauding assassins. He believed that a temporary
Coercion Bill would be of benefit to the eountry. He ha I
always felt well disposed towards the Irish; and had done all' in
his power for them, but still he thought that this Bill was neces-
sary. The keeping of people in their houses from sunset to
sunrise was not the question. It was the question of whether
there was to be any security for life and property in Ireland—
( Hear, hear)—and they were bound to give protection to people
who were well disposed towards their fellow-countrymen, and
who received nothing but injury in return. He received
accounts of crime and outrage every Monday morning from
Killalue; and his secretary had on four occasions been stopped,
although he was returning with only half notes. Before he sat
down, he would beg to say only one word. -He surprised
to find it recorded that he had dissented from the present
measure, but law felt bound to say that he would on this occasion
give his cordial support to her Majesty's Minilterr.