The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-31 00:00:00

KR. BRIGHT IN IRELAND.

DUBLIN, Tuesday Night.
Mr. Bright, having accepted the invitation of a
number of his political friends and ad.! 'F'-'1:to visit
the sister kingdom was entertained this evening at a
grand banquet in the Rotundo. The O'Donoghue
presided, supported by Sir John Gray, M.P., Mr.
Fildes, M.P., Mr. Bagwell, M.P., Captain White,
M.P., Mr. Lawson, M.P., late Attorney--General
for Ireland ; Mr. Sullivan, M.P., late Solicitor-
General for Ireland ; Sir Colman O'Loghlen, M.P.,
Sergeant Armstrong, M.P., Mr. Barry, M.P., Mr.
Tristram Kennedy, M.P., Dr. O'Brien, Dean of
Limerick ; Sir D. O'Brien, M.P., and Mr. Blake,
M.P. There were also present several dignitaries
and a considerable number of the clergy of the
Roman Catholic Church. Covers were laid for 500
persons. Letters were read from Cardinal Cullen,
Archbishop of Dublin, the Archbishop of Cashel,
the Bishop of Meath, the Bishop of Kerry, the
Bishop of Limerick, the Archbishop of Tuam, &c.
Cardinal Cullen's letter, which was addressed to
the gentlemen forming the Bright Banquet Com-
mittee, was as follows :

" 55, Eccles-street, Oct. 18.

" Gentlemen—l beg to return you many thanks for the
kindness with which you have invited me to meet Mr.
Bright at dinner on the 30th inst. Is common with the
majority of our fellow-citizens, I feel that Ireland owes a
great debt of gratitude to that distinguished statesman.
His eloquent denunciation of inveterate abuses, his courage
in assailing that eeclesiasticalascendancy which was forced
by foreign arms on this country, and which for centuries
has preyed upon its vitals—his exertions to obtain protec-
tion and encouragement for the oppressed tenants, and his
aorta to place those who have been so long trodden down
by persecuting laws ou a footing of equality with every class
of their countrymen, have gained for him the affection of a
warm-hearted people,who are grateful for any services that
are rendered to them. Feeling as I do, I would be happy to
join in your manifestation of gratitude for services already
rendered by Mr. Brightl to this island were it not that
other engagements render it impossible for me to accept
your invitation. Hoping that everything will succeed ac-
cording to your desires, I remain, with great esteem, your
devoted servant,

"PAUL, CARDINAL CULLEN."

The °DONOGHUE proposed "The Health of the
Queen," observing that no monarch had ever sat on
the throne who had a better title to the loyalty and
devotion of all her subjects than her Most Gracious
Majesty, and that in no part of her dominions were.
the qualities for which she was remarkable as a
Queen and as a mother more highly appreciated
than in Ireland. " The health of the Prince and
Princess of Wales, and the rest of the Royal
Family," having been warmly received, the
O'Donoghue proposed the toast of " The People,
the True Source of Political Power," which, he said,
embodied a principle as well as a mission—a truism
which not only in America but in this country was
every day being more strongly manifested, and must
in the end be accepted as a universal axiom, and to
the disregard for this truth most of the grievances
of which Ireland complained were to be ascribed.
(Cheers.) The• O'Donoghue then proposed the
toast of the evening, " Our Guest, John Bright,"
a toast which would not only be warmly received in
this, which he might truly call a national assembly,
but be re-echoed from one end of the kingdom to
the other. They were met to discharge a sacred
duty, to claim equality of political rights, so essen-
tial to political freedom, and in the name of their

country they welcomed John Bright, the champion
• of English liberty, and the tried and trusty friend
of Ireland. They welcomed him as an Englishman
in whom his countrymen had unbounded confidence;
who regarded the honour and prosperity of his coun-
try as dearer than his life ; who, by the simplicity,
purity, and unselfishness of his public and his pri-
vate life, had earned a name second to no public
man ; although, when he said this, the name of Cob-
den occurred to him, but between a Cobdeu and a
Bright there could be no rivalry, and the praise of the
one was the highest tribute to the memory of the other.
:This was no party demonstration, and in according
this national ovation to him to-night they were doing
honour to one who, neither by word nor deed, had
done aught to assail or prejudice the interests of
Ireland, and he trusted that this day would do toore
than had been done in times gone by to unite the
two countries, to reconcile antagonistic feelings, by
removing the pernicious system of class legislation
which had caused the impoverishment and depopu-
lation of Ireland. This state of things, however, was
one for which the great bulk of the English people
were not responsible in the slightest degree, and
:would DOG tolerate for a moment if they were ad-
mitted to a fairshare of their political rights. Hitherto
political power had been in the hands of the few,
.and not of the many, but this exclusive system could
no longer be maintained. England as well as Ireland
,now cried out for good government, and in order to
obtain this they were ready to join might and main
to carry such a measure of Reform as would give to
,the people both of England and Ireland a potential
voice in the government of their country. this
,movement their respected guest was the apostle.
He wanted to break down political exclusiveness, to
give political rights to the great mass of his country-
men, and when they invited Mr. Bright to visit Ire-
land in order to thank him for the services which he
had rendered to Ireland they were not unmindful of
the services which he had rendered to his own coun-
try, and they were not without the hope that his
presence here would light up the flame of Reform,
and rally them all for the great struggle to obtain
such an extension of the electoral franchise as would
put an end to class supremacy—the curse and almost
the ruin of Ireland. (Cheers.) Referring to the re-
sults of recent elections, he said that all classes of
Roman Catholics had rejected Tories. All Roman
Catholics and all who held Liberal principles had de-
clared that they would have no union with the Tories
unless they abjured principles which they (the Ro-
man Catholics) of Ireland regarded as inimical to
their political and their religious privileges. He pro-
posed " The Health of John Bright." (Loud cheers.)

Mr. BRIGHT, who was received with loud and con-

tinned cheers, responded. He said—l feel myself
more embarrassed than I can well describe at the
difficult, but still the honourable position, in which
I find myself to-night. I am profoundly moved by
the exceeding and generous kindness with which
you have received me, and all I can do is to thank
you for it, and to say how grateful to my heart it is
that such a number as I see before me, I will say of
my countrymen (cheers) have approved generally
the political course which I have pursued. (Cheers.)
But I may assure you that tho difficulty of my posi-
tion is not at all of my seeking. I heard during the
last session of Parliament that if I were likely to
come to Ireland during the autumn it was not un-
likely that I sliOuld be asked to some banquet of
this kind in this city. Iliad an intention of coming,
but being met by that kindness or menace—(laugh-
ter)—l changed my mind, and spent some weeks in
Scotland instead. When I found from the news-
papers that an invitation was being signed, asking
me to come here, I wrote to my hon. friend Sir J.
Gray, to-ask him if he would be kind enough to put
an extinguisher upon the project, inasmuch as I was
not intending to cross the Channel. He said the
matter
had proceeded so far that it was impossible
to interfere with it, that it must take its natural
courae
an andinvitation
iia n
.the end the result was that I received
signed, I think, by about 140 names,
among Whom we
re not less, I believe, than 22 mem-
bers of the Hous
of Commons. As you will pro-
bably imagine, I felt that that invitation was of
such a nature that
although
it was most difficult to
Suite
accept it, it was
htneprossible to refuse it. That
accounts for my being
e to:einght, and is a sim-
ple explanation of what has t
among those signatures were the place. I said that
names of not less
than 22 members of the House
o
speak with grief when I say that one of our friends
with
who signed that invitation is no longer
had not the pleasure of a long intimacyith I'3' Iformes%
with NI
Dillon, but I shall take this opportunity of sayirg.
that during the last session of Parliament I f
a very high opinion of his character. (Cheers.)
There was that in his eye, in the tones of his voice,
in his manner altogether, which marked him for an
honourable and a just man. (Cheers.) I venture
to say that his sad and sudden removal is a great
loss to Ireland. (Hear.) I believe that among all the
worthy sons which Ireland has hail she has had no
worthier and no nobler son than Taker Dillon.
(Cheers.) I shall not be wrong if I Mune that the
ground of my visit to Dublin is to beibund first in

the sympathy which I have always felt and expressed
for the condition, and for the wrongs, and for the
rights of the people of Ireland—(loud cheers)—and
probably also in the fact that I may be supposed in
some degree to represent some amount of opinion in
England which is also favourable to the true inte-
rests of this island. (Cheers)
_The Irish question is
a question that has been very often discussed, and
yet it remains at this day as much a question as it
has been for centuries past. The Parliament of
Kilkenny, which was a Parliament that sat a very
long time ago, and which was scarcely a Parliament
at all—(laughter)—it was a Parliament which sat
about 500 years ago, and which I believed proposed
to inflict a very heavy penalty upon any Irish horse
found grazing on any Englishman's land—(laughter)
—the Parliament of Kilkenny, I say, was a Parlia-
ment which left on record a question which it may
be worth our while to consider to-night. It asked
the King this question, " How comes it to pass that
the King is never the richer for Ireland ?" We, 500
years afterwards, venture to ask the same question.
Why is it that the Queen, or the Crown, or the
United Kingdom, or the Empire is never the richer
for Ireland ? And if you will permit me I will try to
give, as shortly as I can, something like an answer
to that very old question. What it may be followed
by is this,—How is it that we or Parliament can act
so as to bring about in Ireland contentment and
tranquillity and a solid union between Ireland and
the rest of Great Britain ? And that means further,
how can we improve the condition and change the
minds of the people of Ireland ? Some say—l have
heard many a man say in England, and I am afraid
there are Irishmen also who would say it—that there
is some radical defect in the Irish character which pre-
vents the condition of Ireland being so satisfactory as
is thac of England or of Scotland. Now, lam inclined
to believe that whatever there is that is difficult in any
portion of the Irish people comes not from their
race, but from their hititory and the conditions to
which they have been subjected. (Loud and pro-
longed cheers.) I am told by those in authority that.
in Ireland there is a remarkable absence of crime.

(Hear, hear.) I have heard it since I came to Dublin
from those well acquainted with the facts that there
is probably no great city in the world—in the civi-
lised and Christian world—of equal population with
the city in which we are sow assembled, where there
is so little serious crime committed—(hear)—and I
find that portion of thelrish people which has found
a home in the United States has in 16 years—be-
tween the years 1848 and 1864—remitted about 13
million sterling to their friends and relatives left
here. (Hear, hear.) Well, lam boundto place these
facts in opposition to any statements which refer us
to any personal difficulty in the Irish people. I say
it would be much more probable the difficulty lies in
the Government and the• Irish laws; but there are
some others who say the great misfortune of Ireland
is the existence of the obnoxious race of political
agitators. Well, the most distinguishedpoliticalagi-
tators who have appeared during the last 100 years
in Ireland are Grattan and O'Connell—(loud cheers)
—and I should say that he must be either a very
stupid or very base Irishman who would wish to
erase the achievements of Grattan and O'Connell from
his country. (Cheers.) But some say—and that is
is not an uncommon thing in England—some say
that the interests of the popular church in Ireland
have been the cause of much discontent. (Cries of
" No, no.") I believe there is no class of men in
Ireland who have a deeper interest in a prosperous
and numerous community than the priests of the
Catholic Church. Further, I believe no men have
suffered more, I mean in mind and in feeling, from
witnessing the miseries and desolation which during
the last century, to go no further back, have stricken
and afflicted the Irish people. But some others say
that there is no ground of complaint, because the
laws and institutions of Ireland are in the main the
same as the laws and institutions of England and
Scotland. They say for example that if there be an
Established Church in Ireland there is one in Eng-
land and one in Scotland, and that Nonconformists
are very numerous both in England and Scotland ;
but they seem to forget this fact,—that the Church
in England or the Church in Scotland is not iu any
sense a foreign Church—(hear, hear) - —that it has
not been imposed in past times and is not main-
tained now by force,--that it is not in any degree
the symbol of conquest, —that it is not the Church
of a small minority absorbing the ecclesiastical re-
venues and endowments of a whole kingdom, and
they omit to remember or to discover that if any
Government attempted to plant by force the Epis-
copal Church in Scotland, or the Catholic Church
in England, the disorder and discontent which
have prevailed in Ireland would be witnessed with
tenfold intensity and violence in Great Britain.

(Hear, hear.) And these persons whom I am de-
scribing say that the land laws in Ireland are ,the
same as the land laws in England. It would be easy
to show that the land laws in England are bad
enough, and that but for the outlet for the popula-
tion afforded by our extraordinary manufacturing
industry the condition of England would, in all pro-
bability, have become quite as bad as the condition
of Ireland has been ; but if the countries differ with
regard to the land and the management of it in their
kingdoms, may it not be reasonable that they should
also differ in their laws ? In Ireland the landowner
is the creature of conquest—not of conquest 800
years ago, but of conquest completed only 200 years
ago, and it may he well for us to remember—or for
Englishmen to remember—that succeeding that
transfer of the land to the new comers from Great
Britain, there followed a system of law known by
the name of " Penal Statutes," of the most ingeni-
ous cruelty, and such as I believe has never in
modern times been inflicted upon any Christian
people. Unhappily, on this account tile wound
which was opened by the conquest has never been
permitted to be closed, and then we have had land-
owners in Ireland of a different race, of a different
religion, and of different ideas from the great bulk
of the people ; and there has been constant and
bitter war between the owners and the occupiers of
the soil. (Cheers.) Now, up to this point, I sup-
pose that even the gentlemen who were dining to-
gether the other eveninc, in Belfast would probably
agree with me, because what I have stated is a mere
matter of notorious history, to be found in every
book which has treated of the course of Irish affairs
during the last 200 years ; but I think even they
would agree with us further than this—they would
say that Ireland is a laud which has been torn by
religious factions, and torn by those factions in the
North as much as in the South, and I think they
would be doing more than justice to the inhabitants
of the North if they were to say that they have in
any degree come short of the people of the South in
the intensity of their passionate feeling with regard
to their Church. (Cheers.) But Ireland is more
than this—it has been a land of evictions—(heiAr)—
a term, I suspect, which is scarcely known in any
other civilised country ; but it is a country from
which thousands of families have been driven by the
force of the landowners and power of the law. It is
a country where have existed to a great extent those
dread tribunals known by the common name of se-
cret societies, and when in the pursuit of what some
men thought to be justice, there have been com-
mitted offences of appalling guilt in the eye of the
whole world—it is a country, too, in which, and it
is the only Christian country of which it may be
saidfor some centuries past, it is a country in which
a famine of the most desolating character has pre-
vailed even during our own times. I think I was
told in 1849 as 'stood in the burial-ground of Skib-
bereen that at least 400 persons who died of famine
were buried within the quarter of an acre of ground
on which 1 was then looking. It is a country, too,
from which there has been a greater emigration by
ses within a given time than has been known by
any country in the world. It is a country where
there has been a general sense of wrong, out of
which has grown a state of chronic insurrection ; at
this very moment when I speak the common safe-
guard of constitutional liberty is withdrawn, and we
meet
in this hall and I speak here to-night rather by
the forbearance
the rightsand permission of the Irish Execu-
tive than from those usual safeguards which defend
and
the liberties of the people of the
United Kingdom
hWell, I venture to say that this
is a miserable and
ng
of this country. Bear in mind iliati picture to draw
nrd the conquest
I am not speak-
ing of Poland suffering under
for of Russia.
There is a gentleman now a candidate an Irish

' county who is very great upon the wrongsof Poland.
(Laughter and cheers.) But I have found him al-
ways in the House of Commons taking sides with
that great party which has systematically supported
the wrongs of Ireland. (Loud cheers.) I am not
speaking of Hungary or of Venice as she was, or of
the Greeks under the dominion of the Turk ; but I
am speaking of Ireland—a part of the United King-
dom—part of that which boasts itself to be the most
civilised and the most Christian nation in the world.
I have taken the libertylately at a meeting in Glas-
gow to say that I believed it was impossible for a
class to govern a great nation wisely and justly.
Now, in Ireland there has been a field in which all
the principles of the Tory party have been completely
experimented upon and developed. You have
had the country gentleman with all his power. You
have had any number of acts of Parliament which
the ancient Parliament of Ireland and the Parlia-
ment of the United Kingdom gave them. You have
had an Established Church, supported by the law,
and not many years ago driven to the necessity of
collecting its revenuesby a portion of the army of the
country. In point of fact, I believe it would be dif-
ficult to imagine a state of things in which the prin-
ciples of the Tory party have not had a more entire
and complete opportunity than they have withinthe
limits of this island, and yet what has happened?
Why, that the kingdom has been continually weak-
ened, that harmony has been disturbed, and that the
mischief has not been confined to the United King-
dom, but has spread to the remote colonies of the
empire, and at this moment, as you know, from every
arrival from the United States the colony of Canada
is exposed to the danger of invasion—that it is com-
pelled to keep on foot soldiers which it otherwise
would notwant, and to involve itself in expenses which
threaten to be ruinous to its financial condition, and
all this to defend itself from Irishmen hostile to Eng-
land who are settled in the United States; in fact, the
Government of Lord Derby is at this moment doing
exactly what the Government of Lord North did
nearly 100 years ago—it is sending troops across
the Atlantic to fight Irishmen who are bitter enemies
of England on the American continent. (Cheers.)
Now, I believe every gentleman in this room will
admit that all I have said is literally true, and if it
be true what conclusion are we to come to ? Is it
that the law is bad and the people good, or that the
law is good and the people bad ? (Cries of "Oh !
no.") Let us for a moment, if we can, stand on
one side for a little bit, let us get rid for a moment
of Episcopalism, Presbyterianism, Protestantism,
and Orangeism on the one hand, and of Catholicism,
Romanism, Ultramontanism, and anything else that
friendly or unfriendly tongues may point out on the
other ; let us for a moment get above all these
"iisms," and try, if we can, to discover what is
the matter with your country. I shall ask you only
to turn your eyes to two points—the first is the
Established Church, and the second is the land.
The Church may be said to affect the soul and sen-
timent of the country, and the land the means of
living and the comfort of the people. (Cheers.) I
shall not blame the bishops and clergy of the Esta-
blished Church. There may be, I doubt not, many
among them pious and devoted men who labour to
thi utmost of their power to do good in the dis-
tricts which are committed to their charge ; but I
venture to say that if all were good and all were
pious it would not in a national point of view com-
pensate for the one fatal error of their existence as
ministers of an established Protestant Church in
Ireland. (Cheers.) Every man of them is neces-
sarily in his district a symbol of the supremacy of
the few and of subjection to the many of the people,
and although the amount of the revenue of the Esta-
blished Church as a sum payable as a tribute by a
whole nation may not be considerable, yet bear in
mind that it is often the galling of the chain that
is more tormenting than the weight of it. I be-
lieve that the removal of the Established Church
would create a new political and social atmosphere
in Ireland, that it would be felt by the people that
the old things had passed away and that all things
had become new, that the Irishman and his
frith were no longer to be condemned in his
own country, and that for the first time Irishmen
would fully believe that English people and the Eng-
lish Parliament intended to do justice to their coun-
try. (Cheers.) Now I leave the Church and come
to the question of the laud. I have said that the
ownership of the land originally cattle from the con-
quest and confiscation. As a matter of course,
there was created a great gulf between the owners
and the occupiers, and it has cotne to this, that there
has been wanting that sympathy which existed to a
great extent in Great Britain, and ought to exist in
every.country, between them. lam told, and you
can ansm,er if I am wrong, that it is not common in
Ireland to give leases to tenants, especially to Roman
Catholic tenants. (Cheers.) If this be so, then
the security of the property of the tenant rests on
the good feeling or fairness of the owner of the land.
The law, as we know, has been made by the land-
owners for their own behoof, while the tenants have
unfortunately been too little considered by Parlia-
ment, and the result is that you have bad farming,
bad feeling, bad temper, and everything that is bad,
instead of cultivation of the land. You ha to also a
result the most appalling of all—a population who
are fleeing from their country and seeking a refuge
in distant lands. [At this point considerable inter-
ruption was created by some person who was
promptlyremoved.] Mr. Bright, on resuming, said,
—I am very sorry that that gentleman, who, I am
told, is an Orangeman, was not contented to listen
to the end of my speech, because, probably, I might
have told him something that would be useful for
him to know ; but, returning to the point, and to
the fact that a large portion of the population are
fleeing to another country, I wish to refer to a letter
which I received a few days ago from a most intel-
ligent citizen of Dublin. He told me he believed
that a very large portion of what he called all the
poor people among the Irishmen sympathised with
any scheme or any proposition which was adverse
to the Imperial Government—(cheers)--and he said
further that the people here are rather in the coun-
try than of it, and that they are looking more to
America than they are looking to England: (Cheers.)
Well, I think there is a good deal in that. (Hear,
hear.) When we consider how many Irishmen have found
a refuge in America, I do not know how we can wonder at
that statement. You will recollect that the ancient Hebrew
in his captivity had his windows open towards Jerusalem
when he prayed. You know that the follower of Mahomed
when he prays turns his face towards Mecca, and the Irish
peasant, when he asks for food, and freedom, and blessings,
his eye follows the setting sun. (Loud and continued cheer
ing.) Tho aspiration of his heart reaches beyond the wide
Atlantic, and in spirit he grasps hands with the great Re-
public of the West. (Loud cheers.) If that be so, I say,
then, that the disease is not only serious, but that it is even
desperate (cheers); but, desperate as it is, I believe there is a
certain remedy for it if the people and the Parliament of the
"United Kingdom are willing to apply it. Now, if it were
possible, would it not be worth while to change the senti-
ment and to improve the condition of the Irish cultivator
of the soil ? (Hoar, hear.) Then, again, if we were to re-
move the State Church—(cheers)—there would still be a
Church, but it would not be a supremacy Church. (Hear,
hear.) The Catholics of Ireland have no idea of saying that
Protestantism in its various forms should not exist in their
island. (Cheers.) There would still be a Church, but it
would be a free Church of a free people. (Cheers.) I will
not go into details about the change ; doubtless every man
would say that the present occupants of the livings should
not be disturbed during their Melia:Le. (Hear, hear.) But
if the principles of the abolition of the State Church were
once fixed and accepted, it would not be difficult to ar-
range the details to the satisfaction of the people of Ire-
land. Now, who objects to that?. The men who are in
favour of supremacy, and the men who have a fanatical
hatred of what they call Popery. (Cheers.) But honest and
good men of the Protestant faith have no reason whatever
.to fear that change. "What lets the voluntary system done
in Scotland? What has it done among the Nonconformists
of England ? What has it done among the population of
Wales? What has it done among the Catholic population
of your own island ? (Cheers.) In my opinion, the aboli-
tion of the Established Church would give Protestantism
even another chance. (Cheers and laughter.) I believe
there has been in Ireland no enemy of the Protestant faith
so injurious as the Protestant State Establishment. (Hear.)
It has been loaded for 200 years with sins of bad govern-
ment and bad laws; and whatever may have been the
beauty and holiness of its doctrine or of its professors, it
has not been able to hold its ground, burdened as it has
been with sins of a bad government. The effect of the
Established Church has been this—to make Catholicism in
Ireland not only a faith, but a patriotism ; but it was not
likely that any member of the Catholic Church would
incline in the slightest degree to Protestantism so long as
it presented itself to its eyes as a wrong doer, and full of
injustice in connexion with the Government of his country.
But, now, if honest Protestants have nothing to fear