The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-17 00:00:00

power, to be governed by the new law of conspiracy, and an
army of occupation.--( Hear, hear.) There were 21,000 men
now in Ireland, instead 14,000, as there were a few years 240.
The present Government had proclaimed to all Europe that
they could not trust Ireland. hey had their armies, their
steam-boats, and fleets, but not for the purposes of commerce.
Ireland was in a most critical condition, even by the admission
of the Right honourable Baronet at the head of the Govern-
ment. After six months of a state of discontent, almost bor-
dering upon revolution, the Government proposed no
remedy. The Hon. Member then adverted to the state trials,
and observed that those who were tried could not have been
aware that the law was as defined by the Attorney-General
and the Chief Justice. Indeed if the law was
as laid down by the Chief Justice, there was
not a single man on either side of the House,
who had taken a prominent part in public affairs
for the last ten years, that bed not brought himself within the
meshes of this conspiracy law. The speeches made during the
Irish agitation, and the meetings assembled were not more
violent or multitudinous than those which preceded the Reform
Bill, in which agitation the Right Hon. Gentleman the Se-
cretary of State fur the Home Department was a prominent
acter.—( Hear.) Above all, the Noble Lord the Secretary for
the Colonies ought not to forget the line pursued by his poli-
tical friends on that occasion. Never, in the annals of this
country were stronger words used by apublic man than by the
Noble Lord on that occasion, when, aided by three hundred
Members, he said distinctly, and publicly—it was no-
torious at the time—that the King might choose
what Ministers he pleased ; Lerd , Grey's Government
had done their duty in bringing forward a great national mea-
sure, and the Duke of Wellington and his colleagues might
take place and inf smy.—( Hear. ) Now when they talked of
conspiracy, and held up their hands in horror at the atrocity
committed at those meetings in Ireland, they ought not to
forget what they had said themselves.—( Cheers.) Let them
not say that they were voting for what they believed a great
national good, but that if others did so they were conspirators.
The Right Hon. Baronet should not have forgotten his receiv-
ing the deputations from Birmingham—above all, when
his Noble Friend passed a just eulogium on the conduct of
Mr. O'Connell in Ind, 1838, and 1842, on one of which
occasions, Mr. O'Connell risked his popularity, and almost his
life, by standing up against the combination of tradesmen.
Had Mr. O'Connell held up his finger at the time of the
Chartist movement, it would have been joined by the whole
Irish people. Nobody would deny that that was a great na-
tional service, and he regretted that the Right Hon. Baronet
had put so ungenerous a construction upon it as to say that it
was, in point of fact, only a proof how much more deeply laid
that conspiracy was. The Right Hon. Baronet was the last
man that ought to have used such language. Were he to look
back to the period of 18.31, when he came into office on the
shoulders of Mr. Attwood, he should make the admission that
his conduct, as a Member of Parliament, went to the verge of
legality. He was cautious, no doubt—he was always a sort of
Secretary of State in embryo on those occasions, and
ho was willing to profit by the incaution of others—such
as that of the Noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies.
One was carried into the Admiralty, and the other was made
Secretary for Ireland. As was said by the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman, the Member for Waterford, there was no direct ap-
plication of physical force, as in a more recent instance, but
a sort of moral force, based on a physical organisation.
What most influenced the decision of the House of Lords
with regard to the Reform Bill was—deny it as they might—the
Birmingham meeting of 1831. Now he had the curiosity to
look back to the records of that period. They had heard a
great deal of Mullaglimast, and Tara, and other multitudinous
meetings in Ireland, but he believed they forgot what passed
amongst themselves in England only ten years ago. When he
looked to the records of this period, he was inclined to think
that it was a mere milk and water affair in Ireland. There
was an earnestness, and stubbornness, and high resolve charac-
teristic of the English meetings, which carried the Reform
Bill. A great meeting was held in Birmingham on the 4th
of October, 1831. It was attended by an enormous multitude
of people from the Midland Counties. Mr. Attwood presided
at it, and the first words he used were not very unlike those
used by Mr. O'Connell. Ho said, "I am about to ask you to
cry out, ' God bless the King,' I desire you all to take off your
hats, and look to heaven, where the just God is, who rules
both Heaven and earth, and to cry out, God save the King.'"
There was no disloyalty in that. The Ti»zes, in commenting
upon it, said, " The spectacle which here presented itself was
beautifully and magnificently sublime." One might think it
was the Nation newspaper, the editor of which was involved
in the late prosecution. " Every head was uncovered,
every face was turned to Heaven, and one hundred thousand
voices responded to the cry of God save the King.' " That
was a burst of loyalty ; but he was afraid it did not last very
long ; for he found that there was a speech made by iklr.
Haynes, who said, that "he agreed that the power of the
people was greatest, not when it struck, but when it was sus-
, Fended, and that it was best to show force, without using it,
as the Roman said--

ttiteroaht;
pass the
io,,Poacnoe 7fl
Bill.
his bAceobti ell nut ietsrs.y:
question
n h had
beenad met
tHo ep
i et
ni
ot non the°t o'Lt seoanryds d
asked, Would they pass the Bill ? He would answer it by
asking another—Dare they refuse to pass the Bill ? He then
referred to the army, and said, that the army could not fight,
if the people refused to pay the taxes—that those who hatl reaped
immortal honours in foreign countries would not murder their
wives, relations, and friends, in order that 400 might tyrannise
over 16,000,000. This was language (said the Hon. Gentle-
man) not very dissimilar to that used in Ireland, and according
to the definition now given of the conspiracy, those who joined
in the English proceedings were equally guilty of conspiracy,
and he was himself as guilty as any body ; but he did not profit
so directly by it. The Noble Lord and the Right Hon. Baro-
net were as guilty of conspiracy as any of the band which the
Right Hon. Gentleman boasted of having caught in his net.
He should like them to be tried by a jury—not by an illiterate
Dublin jury—not by anilliterate Dublin jury, who mixed in
public-houses with their pot- house associates—but tried even
b a jury of their own colleagues. He would give themthe
lion. Baronet, the Member for Lincoln, as their foreman, or
the Right Hon. Gentleman, the Secretary at War, who
once declared, as the guns were firing, when the King
was coming to open Parliament that the next time they
were fired, they would be shotted.—( Hear, hear. )
As to the law as it now stood, it was difficult to understand it.
—( Hear, hear.) It threw a halo round an illegal act for an
illegal object. The Governwient seemed to have sacrificed all
those principles which they had hitherto asserted were right in
the abstract —(Hear, hear.) Now, if thay adopted such
courses, was it at all surprising if they sacrificed the principles
of liberty ?—( Hear, hear.) He thought the greatest injustice
hail been shown in the late trials in Ireland, and he felt no
doubt, that if the Attorney-General of England could only
forget those principles of justice, of honour, of mercy and in-
tegrity, which lie had ever held, that the time was not far dis-
tant when they would not only see Mr. O'Connell, hut Mr.
Cobden, the inmate of a gaol —( Hear, hear.) He believed
that in no place but Ireland would they find an
Attorney-General who would frame an indictment against
a whole people.—( Hear, hear.) Ile would warn
Gentlemen on the other side of the House of the course
that they were pursuing ; they were leading the people to
inquire where was the real conspiracy—was it among the
people of Ireland ? was it among the people of England ? or
was it in that House ? Let them answer that question ? Were
they not leading the people to believe that the Queen was
favourable to the support of an oligarchy ? (Hear, hear.)
Every concession that had been made to the Catholics had
been neutralised by the manner in which the law had been ad-
ministered. Years back no Catholics had been admitted into
any place of trust in Ireland. Was it to be wondered at that
they should have raised a cry against the proceedings of that
House? They wanted ;the same justice for them that was
adopted towards England, and they were entitled to it.—
(Hear, hear.) The Church question in Ireland was what
emancipation bail been. The Act of Union was in dispute.
He thought some of the articl s of the union and the Church
were the bane and the curse of Ireland.—( Hear, hear.) The
Right Hon. Baronet, with all the responsibility of the Govern-
ment on his shoulders, had closed Isis eyes to his own predic-
tions, when they were, in fact, realised.—( Hear, hear.) The
fifth article of the Act of Union was, in his opinion, the real
bar to its continuance.—(Hear, hear.) He thought that the
Catholic feeling on this point ought not to be misunderstood.—
( Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member then proceeded to read
several extracts from a work, entitled " The Correspondence
of a Junior to his Senior," showing the degraded manner in
which the Roman Catholics in former times were treated,
many parts of which raised considerable laughter in the House.
As to the Church question, he had spoken so fully upon it last
session, that he did not now feel himself justified in trespassing
on the attention of the House. He thought he had some
reason to congratulate himself on the progress of the opinions
announced by him regarding the Irish Church. The senti-
ments expressed by the Noble Lord the Member for the City
of London, and the Noble Lord the 'Wernher for the town of
Sunderland, were of a liberal nature, and he must say they
were very promising disciples.—( Laughter.) Perhaps he
could not, without some impertinence, call the Noble Lord
( Ilowiek) his disciple, as that Noble Lord had always pro-
fesssed sentiments of a very liberal character. There were
several remedies proposed—the first was the appropriation of
the income of the Protestant to the Catholic Church. The
other was to abolish all, and that was what he preferred.
It was again suggested that the voluntary system
should be established in Ireland—always, of Course,
with a due regard to vested interests. Great obloquy had
been cast upon him in the course of last session. He had al-
luded to the immense fortunes left by certain Protestant digni-
taries. He was not then aware that a return had been laid on
the table of the House, which showed that the probate of all
the Irish Bishops exceeded the enormous sum of 1,875,000/.
The state of the Protestant Church in Ireland really required
modification ; the semi-religious, semi-political condition of
the Protestant clergy was most offensive to the public, and
they had just reason to complain of it. They frequently at-
tended very large meetings, and took a very prominent part in
them—sometimes using moat violent language—and yet
they were not prosecuted. There was the Reverend
Holt Waring, for instance, who attended very large
meetings and used very violent language, and yet lie was not
prosecuted. The Right Hon. Gentleman the Member for the
University of Dublin seemed to ba quite insensible to the in-
terest of the great body of the people when talking of his own.
That Right lion. Gentleman talked of domestic peace being
founded upon religious truth. Religious truth ! Who was
to be. the exponent of that truth ? He supposed the Right lion.
Gentleman. He said the Church question should not be
agitated—that it was indecent to agitate that question.—(A
laugh.) But where was this truth—where was its source?
(
Why more
gt
iiaoharunrdis
sh)
t,bai
regardedale half
sterohst
nn.ey_E.
ihebissnriceuieotrscal
pitehnri ama.ecann)y.
impossiblea
dtnwtecooooewforinmalamt(drhaeapietnaadi
Compared
eamtns
dieanpdgamisrworieetenti ehrt.:eidai
they
T;fwi
theeityrtehoahrewteegt
ooirhwoureii
de-
clarations but as almost impious. lie feared that the abilnsioed hy(isM orrf.el
Wiinsulting,
hsprin-
ciplese
ceodni
speedily
dlteehlaveddltioii
xhhuietottudilesi to preserve the union than he was, but
no man more anxious
of the Right Hon. Baronet, the Secretary of State
for the Home Department, were to be acted upon. They
should adopt a conciliatory and healing policy. The lion.
Gentleman then quoted the opinions of Mr. Maddison, who
had been President of the United States of America. These
opinions were delivered at a time when it was apprehended
that the union of the States was about to be dissolved, and
that each was to have a separate government. What took
place in America then ? Did he urge upon those States which
were induced to hold together, the propriety of governing those
States which were inclined to separate by a military force,
and so forcibly retaining them ? No ; a convention met at
Philadelphia, arid at that convention 11r. Maddison urged in
the strongest manner the policy of giving equal rights and equal
privileges to all the inhabitants of the States—a perfect
equality of civil and religious rights. He told them they
ought to live together as the members of one family, and as
ndgidla notnd
.
The
no people a
oplf: otfin
fellow-citizens of a great and flourishing republic, for which
their ancestors had spilled their dearest blood. So said he
(Mr. Ward), let the Irish people have an equality of
upon
Ireland of
were ee
civil and religious rights, and be in all respects placed
i
ualiattypwreistehnteopentoepnletedo; lie
of
E
say but military force might suppress the untoward signs of
that discontent. For some time they might continue to govern
Ireland in this manner, but if the political horizon should
become clouded—if foreign countries should threaten war,
encouraged, perhaps, to do so by the discontent of Ireland—
then, instead of finding the Irish people their steady, warm,
and efficient supporters, they would find them dangerous and
determined enemies. A great responsibility was attached to
the present Government. They should recollect the condi-
tion of Ireland from the union to the period at which Catholic
emancipation way grantA. If in 11:100 Catholic Emancipa-
tion had been granted, thirty years of agitation and turmoil
would have been prevented. The Right Hun. Daronet should