The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-18 00:00:00

these grounds, therefore, he contended that the Government
did not legislate impartially towards the people of Ireland. He
could assure the House that if this measure were passed, i'.
would completely fail to secure the objects it contemplated.
On the contrary, it would only increase the present calamities
of Ireland. If its oppressive clauses were enforced, there
would certainly be a lamentable reaction. He could also
prove, from documents, that the evidence on which the
Government had relied in introducing this mea-
sure was not such as should be received by
the Members of that House, and although it had
been stated by the Right Honourable Baronet, the
Secretary of State for the Home Department that
social order in Ireland was completely disorganised, yet when
that young man came to be hanged in the front of the New
Bailey the populace greeted him with tremendous cheering.—
( Hear, hear.) So much for the statement of the Right Hon.
Gentleman as to the immorality of the Irish people. Perhaps
the Right Hon. Baronet would, on reflection, see that his as-
sertion that the people of this country did not exhibit that
sympathy for criminals which was manifested in Ireland was
altogether untrue. Then, on the Bth of April, it appeared that
there had been a case of assassination in the county of Oxford
together with several other outrageous crimes, and that the
total number of crimes committed in that county since the last
assizes was 69. He did not think that the amount of crimes in
the county of Limerick would be found to exceed that. But it
would be a very invidious and disagreeable task for him to go
through the catalogue of English _criminality, to show that the
people of Ireland were equally as moral as the people of this
country. He was very sorry to find that the Hon. Member
for Pomfret was not in his place, because that gentleman had
said a few nights ago that this Act was a very harmless one, and
that it would not be considered anything more than a tem-
porary police correctzonelle, and that it was impcssible for any
inconvenience to result from it. Now, in such a case as this,
what would the Hon. Member for Pomfret think if the Pro-
testant people of that part of Yorkshire in which he resided
were to be handed over to the care of Roman Catholic magis-
trates? Would he not cry out against the abolition of the
British constitution, &c.? Would he not become indignant, and
express his feelings against such an nneenstitutional proceeding?
And yet this measure proposed to place the Roman Catholics
of Ireland in the hands of Protestant magistrates, the ma-
jority of whom had no sympathy for them.—( Hear, hear.)
And yet the Hon. Member had advised her Majesty's Govern-
ment to pursue their present course. Mr. Shaw Lefevre had,
at one time, in that House, stated, when there were disturb •
antes amongst the peasantry of England, that the best and
most effectual way of suppressing those disturbances was by
relieving their wants, not by goading them by coercive mea-
sures to outrages still more violent.—( Hear.) And could he
quote an authority higher than that of the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman who then occupied the chair of that House ?—( Hear. )
He (Mr. Powell) found that in February, of the present year,
there had been disturbances amongst 2,C00 labourers that
were engaged in the construction of a railway in Carlisle.
Now, if such a thing had occurred in Ireland, most
assuredly the people would have pronounced it to be in rebellion.
—( Hear, hear.) He would now take the liberty of stating
what measures were in his opinion calculated to promote the
tranquillity of the people of Ireland. In the first place the
people of Ireland should have the laws impartially administered
to them ; the Government must not proscribe the constitu-
tional expression of political opinion in that country. He
thought that there was a very ample scope for physical
amelioration of the people of Ireland, in the reclamation of
waste lands.—( Hear, hear.) He Jelleved that it would bea very
easy, and a very immediate mode to relieve the great physical
destitution that at present existed in Ireland, and he believed
that they would be perfectly justified in making eompulsory
powers for the cultivation of those large tracts which were
left uncultivated. Then there was another remedy, however,
left for them if they would not do these things, and that was
the repeal of the legislative union between the two
countries.—( Hear, hear.) If they would undertak a
to do that, he would undertake to say that it wou'd
immediately improve the condition of the people of Ireland.—
( Hear, hear.) But if they were not prepared to do any of
these things, would they adopt the other courses which he had
suggested for the amelioration of the Irish people ? If they
were nut, however, to do any of those things, they might de-
pend upon it that the people of Ireland would some fine day
right themselves.
Mr. WARD said that few Members, who were in the
House, had had so much experience in Indian corn as himself.
He, too, was aware that at a public meeting that had recently
been held in Ireland, it was stated that this corn was a
slow poison. Now, he had !wed in countries where maize was
almost universally used as food by the people, ano he had not
known a more wholesome food, nor one more capable of enabling
the people to endure fatigue. It was a substantial, nourishing,
and wholesome diet, but it bad only one fault. It would keep
for any length of time in the grain cart ; when it was ground it
sometimes turned sour. If, in each case, it were to induce a
slight diarrhoea in Ireland, what would be at once said of the
Saxon Government and the Saxon Ministers ? He was happy to
say that, at a meeting the other day, a Mr. O'Shea boldly
stepped forward, and, in defiance of prejudice, explained the
nourishing and wholesome qualities of the food.
The ( HANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said that
with regard to the distribution of the food for the people, as
they could not know how to use it themselves ; orders had
been sent to the agents in Ireland to select officers for the dis-
tribution of the fond ; those persons who had lived most in the
counties where the food had been used, and who were ac-
quainted with the manner in which it should be kept so as to
insure its soundness.
Mr. J. COLLETT presented a petition from the inhabitants
of the town of Athlone against the Coercion Bill, and remon-
strating against the effects of such a measure.
THE ADJOURNED DEBATE.

On the motion that the Orders of the day LiP read,
Mr. J. O'BRIEN said that in rising to address the House
on this adjourned .Rebate he had to express his regret that the
long and unavoidable discussion which had arisen should have
interfered with the progress of those measures of commercial
legislation introduced by her Majesty's Government, the
speedy adjudication of which he held to be not more essential
to trade, to the agricultural interest of the empire, than to the
modification of that destitution in Ireland, which was now no
longer a matter of speculation but of urgent and unquestionable
certainty. He had to regret his absence on a late occasion,
when the Right Hon. Gentleman at the head of the Govern-
ment referred to the Member for Limerick, for he should have
offered his testimony in support of the accounts of the distress
in Ireland. He should have done so not only on his own know-
ledge, but on the unsuspected and almost official testimony of
the documents which he held in his hand. One was a letter
from the high sheriff of the city of Limerick, and the other was

an address from the relief committee of the city, bearing the
signature of the mayor, the Protestant dean, and the chairman
of the poor-law union. With the permission of the House he
would read their plain and simple statements. The letters
stated that in the city of Limerick the want of food was such
that they were not sure that the next moment an outbreak of
the people would not take place. The military were kept under
arms—a deputation had been sent to Dublin to expre's the
state of affairs to the Executive Government there. He felt
that he had been almost censurable in not having submitted to
the House before these documents, whieh were so strongly
illustrative of the wants and necessities of the city
which he had mentioned, and in which the south-
western portion of Ireland so fully participated. It
was necessary, with facts such as these before the
House, to join wise and humane measures with the
present measures of relief introduced by her Majesty's Govern-
ment. He would also remark how overpowering must be that
sense of duty which compelled a considerable proportion of the
Members for Ireland to resist those measures which the energy
of their country was said to have required—when that resist..
ance was accompanied by the unavoidable delay of the measures
for their country's good. That resistanee was not alone the re-
sult of their own determination, but was fully in accordance
with the sentiments of people who would not consent to pur-
chasesuffering without a parallel
I rights by a seeming acqui-
trained, so unconstitutional,
andefosrent sehoee ewsxuiertinoperativerfihrepnatdi e:r of
fass fromtutihr' their
rms political
physicala)°lsivitaeire then before the House. He
rose to oppese that measure, and as cases of strange suffering
and unpunished crime had been demonstrated he telt it to be
his duty briefly to state the reasons which determined him to
give his opposition to the measure professedly intended to ar-
rest the perpetration of crime, and to achieve those objects
which it must be the general and permanent aim of all Govern-
ments to accomplish, safety to property, and protection to life.
Did he believe the measure cap:rble of accomplishing these ob-
jects, no consideration of temporary unpopularity which might
arise from advocacy of the measure would deter bun
from undertaking the responsibility of supporting the measure
—(Hear,hear)—for such a motive of resistance would be dis-
reputable
and opposed to his principles. What was the measure
before the House? Had it been fully, perfectly, and irresisti-
bly demonstrated by its advocates? No! and what aggravated
that reflection was, that this question was but a bad addition to
those past remedies whose inability a long and painful experience
had rendered manifest. What was the condition of Ireland
after centuries of independent legislation, and a century of
imperial legislation? It was disturbed, distressed, and perma-
nently agitated. He could not find any peculiarity in the dis-
position of the people of Ireland, nor any physical distinction
in the country to which they belonged, which throughout cen-
turies should have been so disastrous to them and so little pro-
fitable to the English. Would it not be well, instead of devi-
sing temporary expedients for the punishment of crime, at
once to ascertain and remove the causes tending to it. Those
causes were the physical necessities of the people, and the poli-
tical discontent of the country ; both of these by a mutual and
natural effect acting on and exasperating one another. It was
impossible to deny that the people of Ireland regard with dis-
like, and with an evil feeling, the principles of the English
Government in Ireland. They looked upon it as Anti-Catholic,
and Anti-Irish, which, notwithstanding the Emancipation Act
of 1829, excluded them from the favour of the
Government, or the confidence of the Crown, and they laboured
under the double subjection of an alienated Government and
a sectarian ascendancy. He would also refer to the social con-
dition of the Irish people; it was one of unparalleled suffering
and degradation, which emancipated them from all obLgatfOns
to the maintenance of laws which offered no facility for the pro-
tection of property, nor secured even the common necessaries of
life. That such a condition of things was an incentive to
crime required but little reason to perceive, and that fact was
pat ticularly demonstrated by the class and description of per-
sons on whom the infliction of the law ultimately fell. It was
not the opulent farmer, nor the extensive landowner—they did
not find them amongst the occupiers of five acres—they were
composed of a class, destitute, ignorant and impoverished, who
owed no defeience to the institutions of the country, and who
had no hope of any possible amelioration of their condition,
Would they rescue this class from the temptation to crime, by
improving their condition, and by allowing them greater ac-
commodation, and increasing their comforts, and making it
their interest to obey the laws, and uphold the constitution of
the country? If he were asked how this was to be achieved, be
would refer to those voluminous Committees which for the last
twenty years had encumbered the records of the House—exam-
ples of unavailing inquiry and abortive legislation. He would
refer to unoccupied land, is the unsatisfactory rela.
twits between landlord and tenant, to the poor-law,
which, when properly administered, was the best security for
social and political tranquillity, and provided for the wants and
welfare of the labouring classes of Ireland. He should refer
to the non-resident gentry; nor could he, in his remarks, omit
what he knew to be a feeble source of agrarian outrage—the
absence of all accessible means of deciding the differences of
the people, arising from the tenure of land, or otherwise.
These were the measures he would press the Government to
adopt coincidently wiih the measures it now proposed to
enact for Ireland.

Mr. WARD thought the present was really a most disgrace-
ful state of the House. A great constitutional question was
now before it. Several times in the course of the evening he
could, had he been so inclined, have called !he attention of the
Speaker to the circumstance of there not being forty Members
present. He begged to state his reasons why he, as an English-
man, would not support the present measure. He believed that
in Ireland, in one particular class of crime, the sympathies of
the people were in favour of the criminal and against the law.
They could not get juries to convict, or witnesses to give evi-
trc4.
dence against the criminal. If, then, they had to deal with
such a state of things as these, he thought that of all
times the present was a time for the House to
pause and confider to what cause this perverted
morality could bee
forward the worn out and vulgar measure (Idled coercion?
,Why not deal with Irelande
open
elisthhteey anedlwparvinsciptlo bri
principles. He
did not wish to
saying that those who pow sat upuP ti" ()thFr site of the
House when o indulge in recriminations. He could not help
pon.his side inflamed as 'numb as possible the
minds of the publie by their expressions of bigotry towards
the Irish people. He hoped that Members on his side of the
House would be more just and act in a better manner upon the
rexerit occasion, H . .. . . Terld,
T
—0 was prepared to support the GO.

ment, as he had done upen the Maynooth question, provided
they could convince him that this measure would prove
effectual. He did not think a measure so unconstitutional as
the present could be supported by the Members of this House,
unless they were fully persuaded that it would prove effectual.
He did not think it would. It would only be carried after
more debate than was perhaps desired, and by
allowing great changes to be introduced into the
measure, and accompanied with measures of a more concilia-
tory character.—( Hear, hear.) The first vote he gave was in
favour of a ooercion Bill, he was wrong in so doing. ..1( Hear,
hear.) He had too much faith in the Government at that
time. He did not know so much of Ireland at that time as
he then did. He did not know how much liberty was cherished
on this side of the water, and disregarded on the other side.—
(Hear, hear.) He did not know that that Bill was a c.-py of
a series of Bills, of which the Bill of 1764, passed in the Irish
Parliament, was the first—a Bill in which power was given to

magistrates to convict. That Bill was denounced by an emi-,
nent legal authority, Chancellor Clair, who called it a mon-
strous attempt to establish religion by an Act of Parliament.
(The Hon. Member then proceeded to read some extracts from
" The Correspondence of Edmund Burke," describing the stet.?
of the count in 1761 ; also from the speech of Mr. Fitzgib-
bon, in 1781.) The Bills of 1764 and 1787 were no remedies
and the present was not a new Bill—it had been tried before.
It had never succeeded. Was that, then, a proper remedy
for the Briti-h Parliament to apply in 1846? Were we to say,
with the Hon. Member for the University of Dublin, that re-
!Alien and misery were indigenous to the soil of le-
land? The Honourable Member for Dorsetshire had said
that Irishmen weredeficient in common sense—that they should
not be tried by the rules which apply to humanity in general—
that they wore, in short, " wretches" unable to manage their
estates ! An eminent judge in Irish matters (Mr. Wiggins)
had said, that the Irish were only recklese when labour and
care were found to be useless.—( Heise, hear.) He thought
Irish nature the same as other natures. He did not think
that any nation could have borne so much so patiently and so
quietly as they had done.—( Hear, hear.) Take any autho-
rity you please, the commissioner of the Time!, qr still, other
authority, and yell will gnd crone all that the distress bf that
country is moat alerming and severe. Dr. Karnes, in his work
on " the Industrial Resources of Ireland," alludes to the great
number of small farms in that country. and these small farms
were let at * great deal higher rent than farms in England
of a similar size. Mr. Wakefield, in 1812, stated that the
landlords exacted a larger amount of rent than in any country
in the world, There was the case of a large farmer, who stated
he never tasted a bit of bread or a bit of butter
since he was born, and that numbera were in the
same state in that country. The landlotels, in order to raise
their rents, perpetually re-value and re-let their estates. and
this has led to the worst system of cultivation possible. There
are no agreements, no leases, and where the land is improved
rents are increased. In eases where bog lands have been re-
claimed by the industry of their families, their rents have been
more than doubled by their landlords, Now, if these circum-
stances went on, they would have every other agitation in Ire-
land merging into one against rents.—( Hear, hear.) And he
asked them how were they to deal with the evil when it reached
that magnitude ? The landlords were not alone to blame.
They were the victims of a system. Many of them were but the
nominal owners of their estates. Encumbered with all manner of
mortgages and settlements they could not improve them if they
had the will. Land was often let on leases renewable for ever
on the payment of a small fine, and the proprietors lived by
letting and sub-letting; but they would find that every removal
from the fee-simple ownership was for the worse. There was
no other source of employment open to the middle classes.
No gentleman would put his son to a profession ; he lived by
sub-letting. If that was the state of the farmer, what was the
state of the labourer? Why worse, if worse could be—living
in wretched hovels, composed of the absolute refuse of the
earth—thatched with potato stocks, built of sods.—(" No"
from an Hen. Member.) Did the Hon. Gentleman mean to
deny the fact, against the evidence of so many witnesses?—did
he mean to deny that pigs lived with them, in the same houses
—that they lay on straw, without bed-clothes to cover them ?
Could he deny these facts, vouched as they were by unimpeach-
able evidence ? In Lord Devon's report, it was stated that
they passed one half of the year dragging sorrow at
their heels. And what did Kohl, the German, say ?
That when he saw the Leots of Lithuania he conceived that
there could not be a race of men more miserable ; but now
(in Ireland) he saw a portion of the human race compared to
whom the Egyptian Fellah lived in a state of luxury. But in
the midst of all these miseries we find the same concurrent tes-
timony. As to their resignation, and cheerfulness. and sense
of religion—a woman to whom he spoke, said that those strug-
gles were hard, but that God gave them backs to bear the
burdens. And those were the people whom they were ealled
upon to coerce, and to shut up from sunset to sunrise in
order to teach them respect and love for that law,
which to them was what the Obek was to the Egyp-
tian Fellah, distraining his cattle, and serving him
with perpetual notices to quit, and coming at last with the
military and police to pull down his miserable hovel, and send
him adrift upon the world. And this Bill was to put an end
to the struggle which existed between the tenant and the
landlord. It was a very old struggle. Go back to the be-
giening of the last century, and you could trace it through
every page of the criminal code. lie admitted that the prin..
ciple of intimidation was extending itself in Ireland, and was
passing from land to wages. Toe steward could not do justice
to his master at present. This was a state of things which
could not be endured, and he was perfectly prepared to go with
the Government in voting for any measure which would have
for its object the introduction of a better state of things, pro.
vided they would show him that they intended to reach the
cause of the evil as well as the criminal. But what was the
present remedy proposed ? Coercion. How did they treat
the tithe question? They found that it cost 12,000'. to collect
some 801. or M. of rent. Well, they came down with a pro-
posal that the Church should charge itself with the burden of
its own maintenance ; and they did this, and did not show any
cowardice in doing it, because they felt that they were law-
makers, and were bound to make law and justice harmonise,
drawing Lod Chatham's distinction. " That law was not right,
but that the principles of right were unalterable ; and when
law did not accord with them, it was their duty to b: ing them
into conformity." They were law makers, and he thought that
they were to blame in arraying a long list of crimes before Par-
liament to endeavour to enlist its sympathies against the
criminals, without going back to the primary cause which led
to them. He did not believe that they could remedy them
unless they went to the root of the evil. He believed that no-
thing but a sense of grievous and persevering injustice could
band a whole people against the law ; and it could not be
denied but that a very large portion of the people in Ireland
were banded against it. He believed that the people were a
moral people in comparison to them.—( Hear, hear.) Crimes
against property are peculiar there, and crimes against persons
are almost invariably connected with land. He was quite pre-
pared to adopt strong measures against the crime, but he
wished to see the cause of it removed. They found that in
Ireland no man could live without land; a man who loses
his little holding -there, loses everything. Mr. Lilo
recommended certain restrictions on the right of property
in Ireland ; he was an advocate for free trade in land, but he
considered that Ireland should be excepted. Why, he would
ask, was the north of Ireland more quiet than the south?
Because it possessed the tenant right. He was not an advocate
of that right ; he was aware of its evils. The outgoing tenants
often exacted an enormous sum for their interest, but it had its
good effect also; it conveyed a feeling of security. He would
force the Irish landlord to deal with his tenants as if he hail
not the force of England to fall back upon. Now this Bill
would give increased power to the landlord ; it enabled every
petty magistrate, or his understrapper, to lay held of an ob-
noxious person, and to get rid of him. He believed
that if this Bill were carried, that the clearance
system would find in it a most valuable support.
He believed that this would be the best cure for absenteeism.
The value of a resident landlord could not be overrated. He
could show that the resident landlord had metamorphosed a
whole district of country. Lord George Hill, in the county
Donegal!, had made a great amelioration in the habits of the
people with whom he resided, and he had no doubt that if the
same system adopted by him were carried on throughout.
Ireland, the same results would follow. The book of Dr.
Kane, which had been so often quoted in Conc.liation Hall,
showed " that it was not the want of capital which was the
cause of Ireland's misery. Labour was capital, and intelligence
was capital, and if they were properly exercised the same re-
sults would follow as in England. The fault was not in the
country, but in themselves. They wanted industrial know-
ledge." He ( Mr. Ward) agreed with Dr. Kane. Po-
litical questions were certainly of great importance.
The question of the franchise and the Church ought to be
dealt with by every stateman that wished to govern Ireland
well, hut political changes could not remove the social evils of
Ireland. They must break up the monopoly of the needy
landowners, they flaunt endeavour to adjust the relation of
landlord and tenant—then and not till then would the people
of Ireland be disposed to peace and quietude, and the necessity
for such Bills as the present he entirely removed. That was
his view of the case, and he saw no other method of dealing
with the question.
Mr. VERNON SMITH could not agree with the Hon.
Gentleman who had just sat down. That Gentleman said that
other measures of a remedial kind should have preceded this
Bill. He did not agree with that opinion, as he thought that
both the crimes and the criminals should be suppressed before
any thing else was considered. He could not agree either with
the Right Hon. Baronet who introduced the Bill, for it
appeared from his statement that the powers of the
present Bill were to be carried out by the same juries
who, according to the Right Hon. Gentleman, were
unable to carry out the common law. He (Mr.
Smith) expected that some stronger measure would
have been proposed after that statement. He considered this
measure would have the effect of causing irritation rather than
suppressing the outrages which it was directed against. Tae
manner in which the measure was brought forward by the
Government, as well as the measure itself, he thought ob-
jectionable. He did not agree with the Hon. Gentleman the
Member for Cork, that an adjustment of the representative
system would be a remedy for the evils of that country, nor did
he think that the Church had anything to do with the outrages.
The crimes entirely arose from the occupation of land. 'he
Right Hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Graham) exhibited a dis-
inclination to touch upon this question in consequence of the
excitement it wan likely to produce, but to what purpose he
would ask was the landlord and tenant commission issued?
When they talked of land it should be remembered what was
mixed up with that question. No man would pretend to say—.
at least no Member of that House, would pretend to say that
the owners of land could carry out their rights, even at the risk
of sacrificing life. The tenant system of Ireland was bad in
the extreme, and something should be done to alter it.--
(Hear, hear.) How differ ent from the tenant system of
this country. In England, when a tenant left his farm, the
incoming tenant paid so much to the other for the improve-
ments. This was the just mode of dealing, with the tenant-
farmers. It was monstrous that something should not be of-
fered to alter the state of things in Ireland. It was a country
which had all the resources of prosperity, and why were they
not brought to bear. 'there was not a book or publication of
any sort but contained something regarding the resources
of that country. A few days ago he had taken up the
Report of the Tid.il Harbour Commissioners, and he
did not expect to find anything regarding Ireland, but
he had not read far before he found it stated that
the port and harbour of Cork had been the victims of half
measures.—( Hear, hear.) Notwithstanding the evils and
sufferings of the people of that country, he was of opinion that
s mething should be done to put down crime, as it at pre-ent
existed there. He would not be assisting the Government in
putting down that state of things if he were to vote against the
first reading of the Bill.—(Hear, hear.) He would vole for
the first reading of the measure for the purpose of putting an
end to that crime. lie would, however, oppose the Bill in
many of the provisions at a future stage ; and he only now
voted for it because lie thought that crime should be first put
down before the cause of that crime should be redressed.

Mr. M. GORE would vote for the measure of her Majesty's
Government. It was not to be den ed that there appeared
something unconstitutional in such a proceeding, but on the
other hand it was too true That they were called upon to put a
stop to crimes of the deepest dye. He considered the ab-
sence of middle men from Ireland, was a great cause of many of
its evils. He was as anxious as any one to support the supre-
macy of the law in Ireland; but he would ask, how could the
law be expected to be respected, under the circumstances of
Government such as he had instanced. He would say that ten
long had Ireland been the scene of Tarty pgjities
and party conflicts, and MO until they were
pr4t crl end to, peaee could not be expected there.
lie next proceeded to read extracts from a work recently
published, on the state of Ireland, in which was depicted a
description of the most harrowing misery in the county of Kul,
dare, and other adjacent counties. riceo
where; accordini to cite reilorts of ciirtilo

en—e.
cieties, it appeared that a strong desire existed amongst the
tenantry to improve their condition, if they were only en-
couraged by the landlords. He should only speak in favour of
the Irishmen who had been engaged in the late battles of the
Stith j, in which Irish soldiers had subscribed liberally to the
fund made up for the relief of the wounded soldiers in those
engagements.—( Hear, hear.) Under all the circumstances
he did hope yet to see Ireland made the inde-
pendent nation she deserved to be.—( Hear, bear. )
They ought to treat the poor man with kindness. They would
find the hearts of the people to expand, and there would be no
difficulty in governing them? Still, he supported the princip'e
of the present Bill, as he was anxious to maintain the su-
premacy of the law. But, at the same time, he would support
any measures that might be devised, calculated to relieve the
distresses of the people.
Sir W. SOMERVILLE said that whatever dispute might
exist about the necessity of the Bill, it could not be denied that
the Bill would suspend the constitution, in one part of the
empire at least. He was opposed to the first reading of the
Pill, and therefore, that he might not be misrepresented, he
would give a few reasons why he did so. In proposing tihvse,
the
einar y laws
present Bill, they should, in the first place, prove h
existence of the crimes alleged ; second, that the o
were not sufficient to meet them ; and, this, that the Bill was
calculated to pet an end to the etatn of things complained cf.
With regard to the causes that existed, ha deplored their exist-
ence and extent, especially some of those crimes which were so
alien to the true charactee of the Irish people. Still, they were
limited to e fees districts, though they proved a great demo-
ralieatine fq exist, and evidenced a state of things such as he
deplored as much es any Member in that House. They were
such, however, that Ito thought might have been met by the
ordinary course of the law. The Government might have ap-
pointed a Special Commission to sit upon such crimes in the dis.
t urben districts. Such a course had been attended with the best
effects elseweere. Better would it have been to appoint such
a Commission, and to allow it to sit permanently, if necessary,
than to ease; Dill like the present. If the Right Honourable
Discs:net thought the Bill was calculated to suppress crime, he
was justified in pressing it forward night after night ; but that
would not be the case he (Sir Wnliam Somerville) was fully
convinced.—( Hear, hear.) The commission of the crime so
much complained of—the common crime of assassination—
would not be put a stop to by any regulation for keeping parti s
is: their houses from sunset to sunrise. Those bent on such
crimes would still find means to commit the crimes. He could
not consent, from such slender expectancy of success, to arm
the Lord Lieutenant with such extraordinary powers. The
watching and surveillance would be most vexatious and ex-
pensive, and it was to be saddled on the poorer classes. The
Government might advance the expenses out of the Consoli-
dated Fund, but they would never get it back again.—( Hear,
hear.) The people would be neither able nor willing to pay
it; and if soldiers or police were employed to enforce the pay-
ment, it would tend to make those forces still more unpopular
than now, and keep alive bad feeling and irritation. —( Hear. )
They would disgust all their police—all their officers, and for
nothing. Well, what would come then? Harra.ssing and
vexatious questions, the final effect of which would be the
further disgusting of their agents, without having effected a
single thing. Having only harrassed the innocent and taken up
the men who were only out at night, and made them prove their
innocence—their innocence of what ? And could they wonder
that the population was bandied together to resist those laws.
What had been the conduct of Government on another occa-
sion ? How did they deal with the Rebecca riots? Did they
then suspend the Constitution. In Caermarthen, workhouses
were attacked, and peaceable people were obliged to fly the
country; the people were armed and drilled at night. But
they made no such law. What did they do? They issued a
Commission to Inquire, and when they had found oat what
grievances the people complained of, they remedied them and
the riots ceased. The effect of any legislation they hail adopted
had been the immediate removal of ascertained grievances, by
means of the most efficient measures in their power. He con-
sidered that the conduct of the Government in this particular
was wrong. They ought not to have lost a moment in endea-
vouring to carry into effect some of the recommen-
dations of their Commissioners. The proposal would
be a good one, if it was to one point only,
namely to redress the grievances of the Irish farmer ; but the
principal grievances they had to deal with in Ireland were
masses of horror and destitution' not amongst the farmers, but
amongst the labouring classes. He would take this opportunity
of saying that he did hope, and hoped sincerely, that the mea-
sures would be framed to regulate a system of landlord and
tenant in Ireland; and that the Government would not be led
away from the wants of the labouring and the working classes.
These wants were the first great grievances in that country,
and were the cause of the agitation. The people of Ireland
were surrounded with grievances, and there was not a people
on the face of the earth who suffered the same amount of
misery, and endured it with the same amount of patience
as the people of Ireland. They were steeped in misery,
wretchedness, and distress, and they attributed those evils to
the effect of the laws and the institution under which they lived.
He believed that the people of Ireland were not entirely averse
to the exercise of the law—on the contrary, they would be
most anxious to avail themselves of it; and as a proof of that,
he appealed to the stern manner in which these unfortunate
people obeyed the laws which they themselves framed. Ile
wished the Hon. Gentleman who hod just sat down could be
convinced how necessary was some alteration of the law in
Ireland. When he sat on the other side of the House, he had
often warned them of the state things would come to if they
proceeded as they then did. Ireland was made the scene of
party warfare ; every Irish question was made a question, not
as to the merit it had with reference to the wants of Ireland,
but a question with regard to the existence of one party and
another. The question of the Church had been treated
in a similar way. What was the case with regard to
the Municipal question? 'When her Majesty in that
House desired that the municipal rights of Ireland
should be placed on an equal footing with those of England,
the Right Hon. Gentleman had acquiesced, but he had since
said that the municipal rights of Ireland should not be placed
as those of England. Let them look at the conduct of Go-
vernment with regard to the Irish registration. The Govern-
ment would not wait a week with this measure, as perjury and
falsehood were said to be so rife in that country. They now
allowed perjury to continue in the manner which they did
formerly, and yet there was no registration Bill. Did they
think that that sort of thing made no impression in Ire-
land ? Did they think that this sort of political
action could be perpetrated, and make no impression
on the people ? For, if they did, p hey were mistaken.
He would beg for one moment to consider the consequences of
this Bill. Let them do all that they could, still such was the
state of that country, they could not relieve it without some
radical measure. He begged pardon of the House for the length
of the time that he had detained them—.`Cheers)—but he
could not conscientiously fulfil his duty withosit stating these
opinions, and fie should feel obliged to oppose this Bill in all its
stages.
Mr. J. COLLETT was obliged to differ from the Hon.
Baronet who had just preceded him, and it vas to a certain ex-
tent. In doing so he was assured that this most atrocious Go-
vernment Bill would only end in disappointment and regret.
In doing so he was only doing his duty, for so long as the
Union Bill existed, he could only join his Hon. Friend in be-
lieving that no relief could be afforded to the Irish people con-
sistent with law, equity, and justice. He had hitherto opposed
any repeal of the Union, but he was now led to believe that it
was only in giving a domestic Legislature, that any relief to the
miseries of Leland could be aecompl ished.—(Cheers. )
Mr. J. O'CONNELL would wish to move the adjournment
of the debate, but was met by loud cries for a eentinuance of the
debate, and obeying the impulse, he was bound to say that this
was the most outrageous, injurious, and insulting Bill by
which Ireland had been threatened.--( Laughter from the Minis-
terial benches.) During this debate they had had a fair sample
of the manner in which the Irish people were to be treated, and
he conceived that no better example could have been afforded
of the way in which Ireland was to be treated. It had been
shown that the attendance of the Irish Members was a mere
nullity, and it was an assurance that the Iri,h people had lost
all confidence in this Parliament. It was indeed degrading to
the Irish Members to attend there, and the only relief was to
be obtained from the establishment of a domestic Legislature.
He had seen the commonest matter, the treatment of a common
Parish matter, bring up a debate of a warmer character than
this, while, when an Irish question arose it had not provoked
even the respect of a reply. He would, therefore, call upon
the Irish Members to second him in the endeavour to obtain a
domestic Parliament, for it was evident that it was only in an
Irish Parliament that any hope of redress was to he sought.—
( Cheers.) Such being the case, he anticipated but little good
from the present discussions, and with the impression that such
alone was likely to prove to be advantageous to the country, he
should move fen the adjournment of the present debate.
Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN considered that the course taken
by his Hon. Friend the Member for Kilkenny perfectly justi-
fiable. During the three nights of the debate upon this ques-
tion, only two Gentlemen connected with the Government had
thought the arguments of those who had spoken against the
measure worthy of reply. ( Hear, hear,) This Bill had been
opposed by every representative of the districts of Ireland
sought to be outlawed, and several of the representatives of
England had also entered their protests against it, and yet the
Government persisted in pressing the measure forward.—
( Hear, hear.) In common courtesy to the Irish representa-
tives, the Members of the Government and those who sup-
ported them ought to have replied to their arguments. How - ever, it only furnished one more argument to the words of his
Hon. Friend the Member for Kilkenny to the people ofa I) re land for the repeal of the Legislative Union. Hear her - Sir R. PEEL said he must leave it to
the—( House to .n.dge
how far the accusation made by the Honourable Gentleman
who had moved the adjournment was just or not.
—( Cheers.) He knew of no debate in that
House in which there was more respectful attention
paid by Hon. Members than had been paid to the
arguments advanced by the Irish Members.—( Elear, hear.)
The debate had now only been on four hours, for the greater
portion of the evening had been occupied in a discussion upon
the scarcity at present prevailing in Ireland, and during that
discussion three Cabinet Ministers, viz. his Right Hon.
Friends the Secretary of State for the Home Deportment,
and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and himself, had risen
for the purpose of refitting to the arguments of the Irish
Members. He believed, too, that every Cabinet Minister
(with the exception of one, who was prevented by indis-
position) was present in council when the subject of the
present distress in Ireland was brought before her Majesty'sethr
whether
Members e
Government. He therefore left it to the Houset, ?s say v
her Majesty's Government had treated the
with any want of courtesy or any want I f
sympathy
for the wants of the Irish
Huse to say whether the
lrish people.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.")
He left it to the o
Members
with
ofthe
Govern-
ment
had treated the representatives t
w o
dis-
respect, when in the course of four ho
Government had risen for the purpose of meeting the argu-
ments which they had advanced? He would ask Hon. Mem-
berse wh eHthoeurs
eth, they rwe cholielhec tet y deb
greater
l an
attentiona debate t li that hadtaken
had
been p I at: ee
in thatpaid
to the Speakers, or whether they bad ever heard finer or more
generous sentiments than those which had been expressed by
Hon. Members who supported the measure?—(Hear, hear. )
Was it then just to say that during the course of that debate
they treated the Irish people or their representatives
with the slightest disrespect. The English Members
had listened with the deepeet interest to the social condi-
tion of Ireland, and whatever might be their
political differences, he ventured to say that they ail enter-
tained most sincere wi-hes to have the misfortunes of Ireland
removed. He left it, therefore, to the Hon. Gentleman to say
whether he would still persist in his motion for an adjournment.
Mr JOHN O'CONNELL said that he had not charged
the Members of the Government with want of y
courte, to-
wards
the Irish Members. What he did complain of was those Hon. Members who generally supported the Go
vernment had not thought it worth their while to say anything
in reply to the arguments of his Hon. Friends the re
onlyPresnnta-j
tq urge for-
fives of Ireland, and they appeared anxious
not help expreesing his hope andio
waAridr.th
Ee pirLe (c- nEt coercion,oool d
f;enotlfeimrcenianond,thtoat
rseitootf tah
represented
Hon.
the
interest
lei t ee
progressuuipeo upon wt
the
Injury inflicted upon the whole country if they persisted in the
present course, inasmuch as it would the that measure which was of vital importance to the people of
the United Kingdonn—( Hear, hear.) In making that appeal
to Hon. gentlemee, he hoped that he might not
be considered
to treat; lightly the wants and necessities of Ireland. He had
set in that House for thirty years, and he did not think there
was any one occasion during that period upon which Irish inte-
rests came into discussion, when he failed to support what
was called a liberal policy towel* that country. Ile, as well as
many Hon. Gentlemen eri that side of the House, who repro-
,,.,
sented lge ,Prl,lispt constituencies, had united their best en-
neeebore 10 promote the best interests of Ireland, and he
hoped, that when he now entreated the Irish Nerabe tf# 6) per-