The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-25 00:00:00

But he denied that they had exhausted the powers at their
disposal. They had the power of special commissions ; had
that been tried and failed? It was said that it had
been tried in the case of Brian Seery, and failed.
This was not so, for they exectieed their man. They secured
their victim, though there was a deep feeling of doubt and
mystery regarding that. affair in the minds of the people of Ire-
land. The Special Commission had succeeded. There were
only five counties in Ireland in which the horrible crime of
assassination prevailed, though that was not to the extent that
had been represented, and they might try a Special Commis-
sion in each of these.—( Hear, hear.) This would be a cheaper,
fuller, and better means of meeting the evil thaw by the Bill
befire the House. Until they had fully tried them, they were
not in a position, fairly and equitably, to ask for such extraor-
dinary powers. They could also increase the police ; and they
had other powers which they could call into operation.
Therefore, until they tried those, and others like these, under
the existing law, he could not consent to their asking for such
a Bill as that before the House. Their case was not complete
until all these had been tried and failed. At present their
case was—

" But half made up,
And that so lamely and uolashionably
That dugs bark at them as they pass by."
But it was to those %elm had been aptly termed the under-
takers of Ireland that they oe ed the present Bill. They
hated the people of Ireland on accoact of the Maynooth grant
and the Corn Bill, and they now made tools of the two Right
Hon. Gentlemen opposite. They had, in consequence, the
Government, on the one hand, attempting a noble revolution,
and at once abandoning the errors they had formerly professed ;
and, on the other hand, sunk in the mud and mire of cruelty,
tyranny, and unchristianity in respect to Ireland.--(Hear.)
He had said that Government had net used their power for
the advantaee of Ireland. They had not even in the cause
of that desolation—they had nut, in the whole course of their
legislation, once touched on tl:e causes of crime in that
country.—(Hear, hear.) What were those causes? lle
would tell them, not in his owe words, but from tee very re •
of the landlords had induced the outrages of the peasantry.
cords of that House. He would show thew that the outrages
The extermination of the tenantry led to the assassination of
the landlords.—(Hear, hear.) The state of that country
was neither more nor less than that of a national
system of murder between these classes, and he found
in the appendix, that from the years 1827 to 1833 (five years
in all) there had been 14,100 ejectment:, comprising a popu-
lation of 40,100 turned out of their houses. The Hon. Nlem-
her then proceeded to read at length quotations font the
charges of Lord Chief Justice Pennefeather, from the evi-
det ce of Messrs. Howley and Lloyd, Sergeants-at-law, and
others, with the view of showing that the legislative Acts
which had reference to Ireland were drawn up to favour the
landlords, while they oppressed the tenants. Ile did not wish
to detain the House too long— (Cries of " Oh !" aid ironical
cheering)—but he could not help thinking that it evidenced
the feelings of the Government towards Ireland, when not one
Irishman was considered worthy of holding a situation of trust
in that country. He would, with the permission of the
house, read some quotations from the evidence of a gentleman
intimately acquaiuted with the north and south of Ireland, a
gentleman who had acted as agent for large estates there, and
who was therefore competent to form an opinion upon the
matter. He meant Mr. Wiggins. The Hon. Member read
quotations from that gentleman's evidence to prove
his argument that Leland was unjustly dealt with.
The example of tl.e Marquis of Ormond was often pointed to,
and what was this example? Why the performance of his
duty. There was a volume of Irish history in that. The
general rule in Ireland was for the Irish landlords to disregard
their duties, although they so closely observed their rights.
He held in his hand a heart-sickening detail of exterminations
in Ireland. The first case he would refer to was that of Mr.
Shea, of Blackmore Lodge, in the county of Kilkenny. ( The
Hon. Gentleman then read from a pamphlet, which detailed a
eourse of persecution which had been adopted by an Irish
landlord for the purpose of exterminating certain of the Roman
Catholic tenantry.) The
proceedings of Government had
already engendered crime in Ireland, and this mea-
sure would drive the people to worse crimes. He
held in his hand a copy of the Cork Examiner, from
which it appeared that from the Gerrard property 80 families,
including 457 individuals, had been ejected very recently;
from another property in that neighbourhood, 19 families, con-
sisting of 95 individuals; from Sir Francis Hopkins', 37 families,
including 218 individuals ; from another property nine families,
including 53 individuals; from another property one widow
and her family, consisting of eight individuals ; from Lord
Waterford's property 270 individual;; arid front another 170
individuals, making a total of parties evicted recently in the
neighbourhood of Cork, of 1,271 human beings, who were in
fact exterminated by their landlords from the land of their
birth.—( Hear, hear.) Those were the first fruits of their
Coercion Bill—that was the prestige of it.—( Hear, hear.) The
Government had talked of the moral effect of this coercive
measure, but the effect of it was this, that the moment the
landlords of Ireladd learned the intention of the Government to
introduce it, they commenced evicting their unfortunate tenants,
who were driven to desperation. This Coercion Bill had in fact
encouraged the most immoral acts.—( Hear, hear.) Let the
Government go on with their Bill; let tleem push it forward.
It was a measure for which they could patch up a majority from
all sorts of discordant elements. They could certainly pick up
something like a majority to coerce the Irish people and the
Irish Members, but the Government and those who supported
them must take the responsibility—the responsibility of the
death of the people would be upon their heads ; but the said
grief, and misery, and desolation of the country would be with
the poor of the land.--( Loud cries of "r• ear, hear.") He
would wish to make a few observations with respect to the in-
efficiency of the coercive measures that had hitherto been in-
troduced by the Government. He could quote to them
authorities from their own reports, Commissioners, arid Blue
Books, to show that such measures, instead of pacifying, have
driven the people to despair. The people of those portions of
the country where coercive laws had been in force had
been examined before Commissioners of the Government,
and they unanimously stated that the effect was to enrage
the people, and the consequence was, that the number of crimes
and outrages were far greater than before those laws Caine into
operation. And ti.e Right Hon. Mr. Blackburn, the Master
of the Rolls in Ireland, had given evidence to the same effect.
He regretted that the night had so far advanced, because he
had abundance of evidence to adduce in support of the stand
which he had taken against the Bill, arid there were several
Hon. Gentlemen behind him who had also mountains of evi-
dence to adduce against this most odious measure.—(Hear,
hear.) The Right Hon. Gentleman the Secretary-at-War had,
in support of this measure, brought forward as an argument
that the narrower the ground was, the greater was the neces-
sity.—( Hear, hear, and laughter.) He conceived that that
was a fair deduction of the argument of that Right Honour-
able Gentleman. It certainly was an argument wor-
thy of the cause. He wished to ask what man would
be safe if this measure were passed ?—( Hear, hear.)
Every rank would suffer, hut the lower ranks particularly, be-
caase the wealthier classes had now ample means of protecting
themselves against its clauses. The peasantry would be con-
fined to their cabins, their smoky and unwholesome huts, from
sunset to sunrise, and if they dared to leave them, they would
be liable to the horrors of transportation.—(Hear,hear. ) The
magistrates of Ireland were air, ady
sufficiently
measure would enlarge them to a
pmoo"s. most rus n°i f•
e a thes
n great,a
sbt li l)
beenudxtt extent.—(Hear,
ti:— (Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member
then read a series of documents for the purpose of prming the
increase of crime in England as compared with that of Ireland.
During the last four years murders had increased fully
eight per cent ; arsons had increased twenty-eight per cent.
There was just one circumstance to which he would allude be •
fore he hurried to a conclusien.—(Great laughter.) lie could
not object to Honourable Gentlemen laughing, but he con-
sidered they had no rcason to do se, as he had not the power
of rising to address the House at an earlier period if the even-
ing. What, however, he referred to was the state of the
tenure of land in Ireland. The present Lord Chancellor of
Ireland had introduced a plan that had been found to work
well. He introduced the system of giving leases of thirty-one
years in those tenarity cases that canoe before him ; and he (Mr.
O'Connell) thought that if a similar plan were adopted gene-
rally the best results would follow. Ile had now to thank the
House, and he did so sincerely, for the attention and silence
with which they had heard him in discharging what he con-
ceived to be a solemn and Imperative duty.
Captain JONES said he could assert that not a single eject-
ment had taken place on that property.
11r. H. GRATTAN said he had heard that 277 families had
been ejected from the property in question.
After a few words from Mr. S. O'BRIEN and Mr. M-
O'CoNNEI.I.,
Lord GEORGE BENTINCK said he believed there was
not a more humane landlord in the country than the Marquis of
Waterford, and he hoped he would have an opportunity of re-
futing those charges.
On the motion of Mr. M'CARI HY, the debate was then
adj:,urned.
The ether orders of the day were then disposed of, and the
House adjourLd at half-past One until Monday next.
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