The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-07 00:00:00

om(efsoopnlaumi:nenice of them were so.--(Hear, hear,) But he would say let
them consider thesis, for in such a state of things he dare not
refuse the proposal to legislate altogether.—( Hear.) With
respect to the general policy upon which the Government of
Ireland ought to be based, he was willing to go as far as most
men he believed. He was a party to the introduction of the
memorable appropriation clause— ( Hear, hear)—and he stated at
the time his opinion that its rejection would be an injustice to
the great bulk of the people of Ireland.—( Hear, hear.) At
the same time he frankly stated, that that measure of itself was
not calculated to give permanent satisfaction to the Irish
people.—( Hear, hear.) Whilst he was in office he proposed,
us conjunction with his Noble Friend the Member for London,
to increase the franchise to the Irish people, and to make them
equal in that respect to English and Scotchmen. They also
And
adt
opinions
contemplatedn:
moseo hns
more
euletr
fw. cordiallyovt)ohrby
y
proposed an adjustment of Irish property, and Irish poverty,
e
tediUpon
formed
hpel
ennGdwfi
calculatedoadoat
Government
tewi
augmenting
apemhgno aomedi
and it seemed to him that what Ireland wanted in a great
s
e
e
e
degree was the improvement of the law of landlord and tenant.
npnnseedtt
na
ntttwhiohdneoagbutm equitablecdt
getoh,
hesue telowdmftshhrpeelenei arnsroesoi
tdltuu:etrrni
desired
produced,.
dsnerswdsee-
mdhmti
oectg
fahni
het ;vasittt.
h_hbhbleeees
anh toe hear.)
untenantedr present )
propose t
paswasrnoe dypt
measureru
runeewdt
oh
treok
country and improving the condition of the people.—( Hear,
sdlt
uhi Ministry
agn
is
net
srsdeyt
voutef oewls onhf
detailsi
ttehhh ea he eont
afhoot
erur
epe:l:aannnaosdr p,owaf rwatoshne
e
When, upon the one hand, they had didr
hen
such a vast area of land
they had such immense masses of the people without
the means of turning to profitable use the hands and
the strength which God had given them, he thought it
might be possible, either by the wisdom or kindness of man to
devise some means of turning the present state into the ele-
ments of future benefit to the country.--( Hear, hear.) One
more word with reference to the Bill then before the House.
Whenever the time should come at which the Bill should
arrive at its first reading, as a matter of course a considerable
time must elapse before it can reach or pass through its subse-
quent stages. If in that interval any improvement in the
state of crime should take place, from any cause which might
be brought into operation, or the exorcise of the ordinary
powers of the law, or the exertion of the military and the
police—not, I hope, always henceforth to be employed, as they
had heard in some of the speeches of Hon. Members—when
the verdicts of justice are given fearlessly and righteously— and
he saw that the two men who were charged with
the murder of Mr. Clarke had been recently ap-
prehended—(Hear)—if the softened and tempered tone of the
discussion in this House—the unanimous language of warrants
in which these cowardly assassinations had been branded, not
only by the organs of her Majesty's Government, and by the
ministers of the gospel, but by the favourites and leaders of
the popular mind of Ireland ; if, above all, the beneficient and
overtaking hand of Providence shall have checked in any way
the career of Irish crime, and shall have restored comparative
security to property and life in that country, he then hoped
that her Majesty's Government would not consider it at
variance with their dignity or their sense of duty to meet this
improved manifestation in a corresponding spirit, and to dis-
pense either with the whole or partial provisions of the Bill
now under diacusssion.— ( Hear, hear.) If otherwise, he
could only bow to the necessity of the case. He was, however,
convinced that for the government of Ireland there was a better
way than that.—( Cheers.) He remembered, in the first
speech he made within the walls of the then Parliament—he
was sorry he could not quote a better authority— it was on the
subject of the Repeal of the Catholic Disabilities Bill. He
said upon that occasion, " We have made England great, we
should now study to make Ireland happy."—( Loud cheers. )
Since that period the greatness of England had gone on ad-
vancing, it perhaps never culminated to a higher point than at
present. All parties will be inclined to agree withthere still remained a vast amount of indebtedness to us to
him that
make Ireland happy.—( Prolonged cheering.)
Mr. P. SCROPE was not surprised that an Irish discussion
should be so discursive as the present had been. He deplored
that so mnch attention had been paid to political subjects, which
had no connexion whatever with the matter in hand. The
attention of the House should be directed to the prevention of
crime, and the preservation of life and property in Ireland. The
Hon. Member proceeded to read some extracts from minutes
of evidence given before the Poor-law Commissioners of Ire-
land, as tending to illustrate the frightful state of society in
that country with referer.ce to agrarian crimes. The Hon.
Member then went on to remark upon the anomalous state of
Ireland—the inhabitants of that country were remarkable for
their social and hospitable feelings—they would share there
last potato with their distressed neighbours, but they
al ways sheltered and protected the murderer, they
looked upon him as a martyr, and considered it
their duty to support his surviving relatives. They
thought themselves entitled to resist the law of the land,
which they considered their enemy rather than their friend.
What he urged was, that the law protected property while it
abandoned those who lived on the property. The system of
extermination—of removing the people off the face of the
land—must be put an end to. He wished to know where
was to be the limits of that system ? In the present state of
the law, if the landowners of an entire county chose to eject
the tenants from their respective properties, the law of the
land must come to their assistance, though a wide-spread
rebellion should be the consequence. He wished, therefore,
to see the introduction of a remedy. The Coercion Bill before
the House, could not surely be considered a remedy. The
Right Hon. the Secretary-at-War said, a few evenings ago
what startled him. He said that this Bill would
eradicate the evil. Now, in his (Mr. Scrope's) opinion this
did not show the Right Hon. Gentleman to be very well ver-
sant with the evil which he proposed to remedy. He (Mr.
Scrope) always had resisted similar measures. In 1835, when
a Bill of a like nature was brought forward, he proposed an
amendment, and would not consent to its becoming law unless
some measure of a conciliatory kind were to accompany it.
The Secretary-at-War had also said that bold and ample mea-
sures were in contemplation for Ireland. He confessed that he
did not place much confidence in these promises, and he warned
them that the social state of Ireland was in a perilous condition,
and every exertion should be made to prevent the smouldering
elements from exploding with the most destructive violence. What
he would ask, became of those individuals who were ejected?
They had no resources, but to perish from want, or from fever,
the consequence of want. One point he would wish to add—
he denied that these outrages were all connected with land.
This I vitro, in his opiniun, d, lunch CVIIIIGLACa with want of
employment. Give the people employment—let them secure to
them the means of living, and if they did, they would have no
grounds whatever for passing Coercion Bills, but they would
bind the people by the strongest tics to the Government of the
country. How had they altered the condition of the country
by the Poor-law Commission? They had done a little by the
temporary relief, but nothing was done to alter the condition of
the country—nothing was done to do away with the cause of
agrarian disturbance which the present measure was sought
to affect. The remedy of the Government would, however,
fall short of the intended result.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.")
The duty of the Government was to adopt such a measure as
would allow the tenantry to live out of the land which they
toiled to bring into cultivation, and render profitable to the
landed proprietor.—(Hear, hear.) What caused this agrarian
outrage ?—( Hear, hear. ) It was caused by the dread of desti-
tution which the tenantry had of being turned out of their land
by the proprietors of the soil at their will and pleasure, and

until this was remedied there could be no hope for the peace
and prosperity of Ireland.—(Hear, hear.) In the reign of
Henry VIII. coercion was tried, and it was an historical fact,
that about 70,000 persons were hanged. Did thiechange the
state of things? Ever since that period the landed tenure of
Ireland had been the cause of more commotion than
any other evil with which the country had
been afflicted. ( Hear, hear.) He called upon
the House to look at the state of Ireland—to judge of the re-
medies which were called for—and, as they valued the prospe-
rity of that country, to apply themselves to the real remedy of
the state of society in that country. What was it that caused
the French revolution? Was it not the encroachments of the
nobles, the tyranny of the landed proprietors, backed and for-
tified by the coercive laws, that paved the way to all the scenes
that resulted ?—( Hear, hear.) He warned the House that
this state of things could not continue. These coercion Bills
could not always repress the just aspirations of a people. In
their own day they had revolutions its Prussia, Austria, the
north of Poland, and indeed over the whole of the north
of Europe. The peasants had been raised from a state
of serfdom to the blessings of freedom, and did they think
that Irishmen would for ever shut their eyes to these facts?
It was impossible for any one to look at the Irish who existed
in England, without being convinced of their industry, and he
would add their perseverance ; and it was only the system
which prevailed in Ireland that repressed these virtues. If they
had had a fair modicum of justice from their landlords—if the
land tenure had been different—then the writers who were so
ready to detail the idlenesses and the apathy of Irishmen would
have Lad a different tale to tell. It should be the endeavour
of Government to pass measures which would give peace to
that country. The Hon. Member then read extracts, exhi-
biting the state of Ireland at present, and arguing that it was
a doubtful question whether the Whiteboyism that unhinged
society, or the exterminating system of the landlord, were the
greater evil. If they took from the Irish peasantry their plea
of poverty, the necessity of dying in ditches as on the estate
of Gerrard, from that moment they would secure the alle-
giance of the Irish people. If they wished to put down agrarian
outrages, they had only to give them the means of living.
Lord GEORGE BEN TINCK said that he did not wish to
express any sympathy with, or any palliation of, the long cata-
logue of crimes detailed to the House. The difference be-
tween crime in England and crime in Ireland was, that in
England, when crimes were committed, the sympathy of the
English people did not go with the criminals.—( Hear, hear.)
The crimes- upon which they had to decide were crimes with
which the people of Ireland had shown great sympathy, and it
was because of the difficulty in detecting these crimes, and
bringing the perpetrators to justice, that this difference
existed. It appeared to him that her Majesty, in calling the
attention of that House to consider of and devise measures for
increasing the security to life in Ireland, and the more easily
bringing to justice the perpetrators of these crimes of desperate
assassination, informed the House that she had, with deep re-
gret, observed that these crimes had of late become of frequent
occurrence in that country. He was prepared to support the
first reading of this Bill, the more unconditional it was made ;
and it was because he thought that in this measure the House
would show mercy, not only to the landlord and to the magis-
trate, but to the tenantry of Ireland, that he was disposed to
support it. When they were charged, and himself in particular
charged by the Hon. Gentleman the Member for Wickham,
who spoke second in that debate on Friday nightlast, with coming
down to the House with only superficial information, and hasty
statements, gathered from two or three slips cut out from news-
papers, he begged leave to say, that in the first instance he re-
ferred to her Majesty's speech from the throne, and he might
also have referred to the answer to that speech from that
House, in which they (the Commons of England), humbly
assured her Majesty, that they, together with herself, had
observed with deep regret the commission of crimes of deliberate
assassination in Ireland, and promised obedience to her com-
mands, when she told the House it was their duty to consider
some measure for the snore effectual preservation of life, and
the more surely bringing to justice the perpetrators of these
crimes. They did promise to her Majesty to give their con-
sideration to a measure of that description, and he conceived
that the honour and good faith of the House of Commons was
therefore pledged to a measure of that description. He did not
for one consider that either the party around him or he him •
se'f were in any way bound to support all the clauses that
were retained in this measure. He assured the Hon. Gentle-
man the Member for Wickham, in answer to the charge he
(the Member for Wickham) had brought against him, that he
would not have been so anxious to support this measure had it
not been that the consideration that it was connected with the
corn laws induced him to do so. He was able, both
for his:friends around him and himself, to refer to the conduct
of their whole lives to prove that they had supported those
measures when Government called upon them to du so. He
supported the measure of the Government of 1833, of
a description similar to the one now before the Howe,
and the measure then introduced, and which he then
supported, was stronger than the measure then before
the House. And he took leave to say that he thought that
that measure was more effectual for its purpose than the on?
then under the consideration of the House. He believed the
measure then introduced, on the 29th January, passed both
Houses of Parliament, and received the royal consent. He
must say that he did not think it was urging on the House to
pass a measure of too great baste, it was announced from the
throne on the 22d January, and they bad now reached the 6th
April, and still had not read the Bill a first time. He should
not go again into a detail of all the crimes committed in
Ireland, to shock the feelings of that House which the Right
Hon. Gentleman had detailed to the House. He thought
when he saw all the great leaders of party supporting the