The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-09 00:00:00

THE ADDRESS-ADJOURNED DEBATE,

The order for the resumption Of the adjourned debate on
the address to be presented by the house in answer to her
Majesty's most gracious Speech on the occasion of the
opening of Parliament having been read,

The O'DONOGHUE rose arid said ho was about to refer
to a paragraph in the Address to which ho could not agree.
It was that portion of it which referred to the conspiracy
that had been found to exist in Ireland. He had the
greatest objection to the words as they at present stood;
and, therefore, he should move an amendment be made
to the effect that the house express its deep re-
gret at the state of things in Ireland, but that it
is of opinion that the disaffection is the result of a
grievance, the cause of which it is the duty of her
Majesty's Ministers to inquire into and remove. The hon.
member then proceeded to refer to the disaffection that
existed in Ireland, and said that it had in a great measure
been produced by the coldness and inattention by which
representations from that country had been treated. He
was of opinion that the whole of the wide-spread disaffec-
tion was misgovernment. He could not tell the house
that the Irish people were loyal and contented, because the
contrary was the fact ; and he could not tell Irishmen that
they ought to be loyal, because this country refused
them justice. There were certain matters they ought to
concede to Irish people, and amongst them was a tax on
absenteeism; to do away with the ascendancy of one
Church over another—(hear, hear)—to assimilate the
poor-law with that of England ; and pass an Act with
reference to tenant right, which would give the
tenant a firm hold on the soil irrespective of the caprice
of landlords. If these concessions were made it would
indeed be difficult again to create disaffection in Ireland,
but if, on the contrary, it was refused, then the present
lamentable stato of things would exist and enlarge.
He hoped some steps would be taken to restore
peace and traniuillity in Ireland before blood had been
shed ; before passion had taken the place of reason ; before
the demon of bate had risen up amongst them. The people
of Ireland hoped for justice from the new and united
Parliament, and he hOped their expectations would not be
disappointed. He should press his amendment to a divi-
sion.

Mr. BLAKE seconded the amendment. He had done
his best to point out to the people in Ireland the utter folly
and uselessness of persevering in their present course, and
he felt that the only way in which peace could be restored
was that the state of the country should be taken into
consideration by Parliament with a view to its
amelioration, and to take steps to secure a fair
compensation for any improvement of the land, and protect
the tenant against boing entirely at the mercy of
his landlord for all the outlay he might have incurred
in improving his property. If these matters were earnestly,
taken into consideration, and redressed, Ireland would be-
come the right hand of England, and peace and content-
ment would reign in place of disappointment and distrust.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND thought
the house ought not to accede to the proposal of the mem-
ber for Tralee. It had been said that some of the political
prisoners had been subjected to corporal punishment, but
that was entirely destitute of foundation. The Fenian
movement was supposed to have arisen from the misgo-
vernment of Ireland. That was not so. Its aim was not
to improve, but to destroy the institutions under which
they lived. It denounced all constitutional agitation for
the reparation of grievances—it also denounced all appeal
to the Imperial Parliament, and oven went the length of
stating that Catholic Emancipation was a mistake, inas-
much as it had rendered that class of the population more
loyal to British Protestant rule. He thought that the
majority of the Irish population believed that the Parlia-
ment of England was at all times open to hear and redress
their grievances, and for this reason he trusted that the
amendment would be rejected as unnecessary.
Mr. GEORGE complained that in reference to the
Fenian movement the present Government had not acted

rRicE.... 4d.
STAMPED sd.

soon enough on the abundant monitions which were given
them of impending outbreak in Ireland. He also regretted
to say that the feelings at present existing in the neigh-
bouring country were greatly caused by the language of
people in high places, who ought to keep aloof from spe-
cious promises, made for temporary purpose; and which
only tended to create wrong ideas.
Sir H. W. BARRON opposed the amendment, and ad-
vised a constitutional course of action as the best calcu-
lated to produce beneficial measures for Ireland.
Mr. WESTROPP. said that the only way to govern
Ireland properly was to do so without regard to party. In
the South there were a largo and powerful body of Roman
Catholics, and in the North there were the- descendants of
the old Covenanter; who came originally from Scotland,
and now formed so largo a•portion of the Orange party.
The worst thing was that Ireland had for the last quarter
of a century been controlled by an oscillatory Government,
each side expecting something from the Whig or Tory
party. The consequence was that that vile sham, the
Loid Lieutenancy, which ought to be abolished, lent its
influence to the side in power. Ireland, he maintained,
must be governed like Shropshire or any other part of
England, instead of as a foreign or alien nation.
Mr. SYNAN went at some length into the wrongs of
Ireland, from the usual Irish point of view.
Mr. WHALLEY described the grievances which had
been so ostentatiously paraded before the house as imagi-
nary in most cases, and in the remainder vastly overrated.
The Fenian movement was the natural and legitimate re-
sult of Roman Catholic principles.

Mr. REARDON advocated that the British Government
should take official notice to the Government of the United
States of the fostering of Fenianism under the very eyes
of the American Administration. If the Cabinet of this
country were to do this, he would then believe in the
sincerity of their desire to suppress this wretched con-
spiracy.

After a few words from Mr. BAGNALL,
Ziilbiltr-rtfMyILLE, US a utember ce the Established
Church, could net but see in existence in Ireland a serious
and just cause of discontent. He trusted Government
would take some steps for the amelioration, if not the re-
moval, of this prominent grievance.
Mr. MAGUIRE disavowed alike any Fenian sympathies
and any anti-English feeling. He had in his own country
denounced the former as characterised by folly, madness,
and having a mischievous tendency. Unhappily, he
thought there were among Irishmen too many grounds, if
not for disaffection, at least for that state of feeling which
led to it ; but at the same time, if the recent movement
were not suppressed, it would be a scandal and a disgrace,
in his opinion, to the empire, and, in addition, a serious
source of weakness. He reminded tke house that for
years past he had over and over again told them of the
state of misery and distress which had prevailed in Ire-
land, and on each occasion the Government had turned a
deaf ear, and denied that there was any such calamity
in that country. He could not, however, acquit the
public journals of Britain from having heaped
" bitter taunts, foul slanders, and libellous mis-
representations" on Ireland, which had raised a
bitter and burning spirit: Added to this, the exist-
ence of an alien Church for• one-tenth of the p)pula-
tion, and the unsatisfactory relations which prevailed
between landlord and tenant, and abundant causes of dis-
affection might be found. Surely it was time for some
steps being taken by the Government to heal these
breaches. The emigration now going on was largely
among individuals who had not, and could not, obtain any
leases of their property. But he assured the house, if the
laws of the country were not amended, and the feelings of
the people consequently changed, the drain of emigration
might prove a very serious affair to this nation. He in-
dignantly, as a Roman Catholic, repudiated the idea that
his co-religionists desired one farthing of the revenues of
the Established Church. Nor would the payment of the
Roman clergy remedy the state of affairs. That body
would not accept it, and if they did it would prove alike
fatal to the honour of the Church and the country itself.
The fact was that Fenianism in America would have no
strength were it not for the state of feeling in Ireland.
Under all these circumstances, would it not be wise to try
measures of peace, in order that both nations might stand
on the ground of common justice ?
Lord NAAS said that he believed the Fenian movement
was instigated by influences and carried on by money
neither of which were English, and remarked on the fact
that in all its organisations there had never been found
any one connected with the landed interest. The conspi-
rators were wholly confined to the inhabitants of the
towns. It was true that Ireland had for years been
the worst governed country in the wcrld, but of recent
times England, he believed, had done everything in its
power to atone for past mistakes. But how it was that the
laws which governed Englishmen should be so bitter to the

Irish nation ho could not pretend to say, and he defied any
one to affirm that any measure which had for.its object the
benefit of the sister isle had not uniformly met with the
candid consideration of the house.

Sir P. O'BRIEN denounced that "atrocious conspiracy
of Fenianism" in the strongest terms.
After a few words from Lord C. Hamilton, Sir F. Hey-
gate, and Colonel Vandeleur,

Mr. ESILONDE said he thought that good service had
been done by this question being brought before the
Legislature.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, who was
received with cheers, said that he had been anxious to follow
this debate to its close, and to be guided by the convenience
of the house as to the single subject which had as yet been
introduced into the discussion that evening, or in address-
ing himself to any remarks which any gentleman might
still wish to make on any topic in the Address. But as
during the whole evening the attention of the house had
been confined to a subject well worthy that attention, he
would follow the example of those who had preceded him,
and offer a few remarks upon the motion of the hon. mem-
ber for Tralee, reserving to himself, if occasion should
arise, and if other subjects should be subsequently intro-
duced, to offer such explanation as might be required on
the part of the Government. (Hear, hear.) With respect
to the debate of that evening, he thought that hon. members
would agree with him that Ireland had no reason to bo
ashamed of the manner in which her cause had been stated
by her representatrves, whether they looked at the ability
they had displayed or the spirit of seriousness and earnest-
ness which had marked their speeches, or to the strongand
unequivocal language they had held on the subject of the
Fenian conspiracy, or last, though not least important, to
the determined disposition which they had shown to pre-
fer the methods of constitutional action to other and less
legitimate methods of advancing political ends. (Cheers.)
But while he acknbwledged the ability and even the spirit
of the hon. member for Tralee, he must explain to the house
why it was impossible for the Government to accede to the
motion he had made. He took it as a proposal to omit from
the Address to;the Speech from the Throne the paragraph
corresponding with that in the Speech which related to
Fenianism, and substitute for it the passage he had pro-
posed. The Government were not prepared to part with
the paragraph which• related to Fenianism. That para-
graph had three objects. In the first place, it aimed at
denouncing what the Government believed WAS

subversive of all that a civilised community ought to
cherish. He could understand and respect the motive of the
hon.
member for Cork, when he stated that persons of a
pure and virtuous life were unhappily in sympathy with
this conspiracy. But they were not there to pass moral
judgments. They were there to denounce a public evil,
and the solemn denunciation which her Majesty had been
advised to utter from the throne would be sustained by the
general, and he hoped by the unanimous, judgment of the
house. (Hear.) But, secondly, the paragraph aimed at stat-
ing a fact at once gratifying and important, and that was,
that on occasion of that unhappy conspiracy there had been
developed in Ireland a public opinion which had sustained
and strengthened the arm of law and authority, and which
had enabled the Government to walk firmly forward in the
path of repression without fear, without harshness, with-
out favour ; and that opinion was, happily, an opinion not
merely dependent upon any one class or any one portion of
the Irish people, however important or powerful, but re-
presented all who were interested in the maintenance of
authority, of property, and religion, without distinction
of creed or class. His hon. friend the member for Peter-
borough, in the tranquil period of the evening - (alaugh)
did indeed utter a protest against placing on the sameground
the disapprovals which bad been emphatically declared by
tho Roman Catholic clergy against that conspiracy with the
similar and unparalleled disapprovals which had proceeded
from other quarters, and which were entertained in every
loyal heart and in every enlightened mind. But they dif-
fered from the hon. member for Peterborough, and the espe-
cial object of that paragraph was to show the satisfaction
of
society,were on this
ere property, and with which her Majesty announced that all who were inte-
rested
reli-
gion, e nh
t ine
greatthe maintenance
fcivilised
of
oc-
sion at least happily united, and determined to
maintain the
law, and to discountenance and condemn all that rose in op
d e
position to it. And lastly, he hoped, and indeed he felt sure,
that their intention was not disapproved, when, in the lan-
guage which described the methods byti:: which the law had
been vindicated on that occasion,y had invited the
house to join with them, at least by rn express-
ing a general approval of those methods,having been
characterised by fairness as well as by fir nas m ess. The opi-
nions which had been put forward from every side. of the
house —though gentlemen had reserved their opinions nas
to the time at which those measures of repressioo
began—
still he thought he might say that universal approva had
been bestowed on the conduct of the Irish Executive Go-
vernment, aided and advised as they had been by his
learned friends
near him. Therefore thuy could not, wil-
lingly at least, part with the paragraph in the Address.
And nowlet him look at the amendment proposed by the