The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-20 00:00:00

' the insisting upon the presenie of the traversers in
the Court during the whole of the proceedings.—(Hear,
hear.) These* were all extraordinary and vexatious
proceedings—(Cheers)—but they were matters personal
to the Attorney-General.—(Cheers.) But why was the
list of witnesses on the back of the indictment
not furnished to the traversers ?—(Hear, hear.)
It was essential to the defence that they should
be furnished with the list, and he would ask
the • Attorney-General for England, if in the
whole course of his professional experience he- had ever
known an instance in which the list of witnesses had
been refused ?—(Hear, hear.) He would ask the At-
torney-General if he would, under similar circum-
stances, have refused the list ? Then the application for
a copy of the jury list, which was equally necessary to
the traversers, in order to prepare their challenges was
alsorefused.—(Hear, hear.) The sheriff had trans-
mitted that list to the Home-office, and
had offered to furnish a copy to the de-
fendants if the Attorney-General would consent, but
that consent had been withheld.—(Hear, hear.) What
reason could they have had for such refusal ? Was it
not to be presumed that they were acting, under the in-
structions of the Government ? The production of those
documents were essential for the defence of the traversers
on their trial, and yet these documents had been refused.
Then, with regard to striking off the names from the
jury-list, how had they proceeded ? It was said that
eight of those who were struck off were repealers. He
took that statement as it was made, but there were
still four others who were to be accounted for—two
Roman Catholics and two liberal Protestants. He should
like to know why it was they were struck off. The
Government, by the proceedings which they adopted,
succeeded in keeping twelve 'men on the jury who
combined the three-fold elements of _ being Protes-
tants, Anti-Repealers, and Conservatives. With
regard to the omission of the names from the
general list, though it might have happened through
accident that they were left out in the first in-
stance, the Government took care to avail them-
selves of the error, and they forced on a trial with an in-
complete hiry list. It was a maxim of law, according to
Lord Bacon; that if a man found a door open and en-
tered, and having purloined something broke out
through a different way, he was guilty of burglary. It
was in a similar way Government acted in those trials.
They obtained a jury according to their own wish,
and obtained a conviction, but it was one not likely to be
much respected.—(Cheers.) It was a conviction which
he hesitated not to say, was a false conviction—
(Cheers)—and would be followed by no moral results.
And if no moral results followed from it, what practical
results would follow from it. The Right
Honourable Gentleman told them of one practical
result which had already followed, namely, that
peace was restored to Ireland. But he was not aware
that the peace of Ireland had ever been broken.—
(Cheers.) It was a peace like a sort of smothered rebel-
lion.—(Hear, hear.) As the Noble Lord said, they held
Ireland by military occupation. They held her in
peace as long as there was peace in Europe
—(Hear, hear)—as long as they were in a state
of quiescence ; but the moment a move was made,
the moment a shot was fired, they would fall in
pieces.—(Cheers.) If they continued their present
policy to Ireland, they must play the coward at home,
and truckle to France and America.—(Hear, hear.)
The Right Hon. Baronet did not read aright the
the spirit which now prevailed in Ireland. He would
do well to' onsider that spirit. It was a spirit which
had before now been seen in England and Scotland.
It was a spirit similar to that with which Scotchmen
secured the independence of their country ; it was a
spirit like that which Lord Chatham said
he rejoiced to see in America ; and let him
tell the Right Honourable Baronet it was a
spirit which great men sympathised with, which good
men inculcated—a spirit which the boldest and the
wisest statesman would do well to consider, and which
the boldest Minister might not be ashamed
to tremble at. Notwithstanding, the vaunting
of the Right Honourable Baronet, there tt as
no man in the whole empire at this moment who had
so much cause for alarm as he had. To whom had
the Right Honourable Baronet delegated the govern-
ment of Ireland ? They were told by the Right
Hon. Baronet the other night of the commotion which
was created in the Home-office by the Clontarf procla-
mation. They were told that an attempt had been
made to wrest by force the executive from the hands
of the Government. They were told that on that occa-
sion the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Lord Chancellor,
and the Attorney and Solicitor-General were sum-
moned to the Home-office, and that they remained
four clays in debate. The only man who was not sum-
moned to that. important Council, was the. Prime
Minister of England. (Some observations were
passed across the table, which did not reach the
gallery.) He must say that he saw many causes of
alarm in the present state of affairs in Ireland, and these
causes of alarm were not at all lessened by the
manner in which they were treated by the Govern-
ment. It seemed to him to be a case on which no per-
son could reflect seriously without alarm. He did not
mean to enter into any of those questions connected
with Ireland which were not fit subjects of inquiry. He
would only say on that occasion that he thought, among
the many causes of complaint which the Irish
people had, one of the greatest, as well as the
most frequently urged, was the want of sym-
pathy among English Members for Irish grievances.
Every evil which had ever been felt by Ireland was
in some degree owinc, either to English bigotry
or English dislike. We had hitherto denied all the
claims of justice, till now—justice and self-interest
were combined. This was no longer an Irish
question.. He believed that if the prosecution
which had recently been conducted in Ireland
had been conducted in the same manner against
the Chartists, there would have been a sensation from
one end of England to the other, and the
business of that House would have been stopped
until the injustice had been redressed. The
course of justice should be as dear to them on Irish as
on English soil.—(Hear, hear.) He believed that
the unity and integrity of the empire were
at stake. The eyes of Europe were upon
them. He would read to the House the opinion
of a writer, whose authority on such subjects stood ex-
ceedingly high. The Honourable Member then read an
extract from an author, whose name was inaudible,
in which, after a statement of the position of Ireland,
it was said that, unless in time England permitted some
small inroads to be made upon her tyranny, the result
would be fatal to English greatness. Such was
the opinion of a writer, who was as- impartial as be
was enlightened, and he hoped that the warning this
given would not be heard in vain.
Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT said that, as an Irish pro-
prietor, taking a very deep interest in the welfare
of that country, he must express his regret at the tone
and manner in which this question had been sub.
mitted.—(Cr;es of " Hear, hear.") He did hope,
when he saw the announcement of this motion in
the paper, proceeding, as it did from a Noble Lord, for
whose statesmanlike qualities no man in that House
entertained more sincere respect than himself,
that Ireland would not again be made the battle-
field of party.—(Hear, hear.) If he had conceived
that the course proposed by the Noble Lord was
calculated to benefit Ireland, no party ties or personal
predilections would have prevented him from stating the
opinions which he entertained.—(Hear, hear.) Now,
before he proceeded further he thought he might con-
gratulate gentlemen on that side of the House that the
charges on which the Government bad been
arraigned were admitted to be unfounded.—
(Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord, the Member for Sun-
derland, with that abstinence of party spirit which
characterised him, admitted that they had not been
established ; and the Right Hon. Baronet, the Member
for Devonport, had also acquitted the Government.
But he found that, in the speech of the Noble Lord there
was a sentence which showed that, even in the Noble
Lord's opinion, in the circumstances in which Ireland was
placed, it was necessary that something should be done to
assert the majesty of the law.—(Hear, hear.) He
thought that was a great admission, coming from a
party which inculpated the Government, and had not
when in power made itself very remarkable for its
power of enforcing the majesty of the law.—(Cheers.)
The Noble Lord had proceeded to attack the Govern-
ment for their conduct in the disposition of their patron-
age. Now he (Mr. II.) must admit that there was no
great enthusiasm in Ireland in favour of the Govern-
ment.—(Laughter.) But they must look to what
was the nature of popularity in Ireland.
There was nothing easier for a Government
than to attain popularity in Ireland. They had only to
throw themselves unreservedly into the hands of one or
other of the extreme parties, and they would be sup-
ported by the shouts of exultation on the one side, and
by the silence of terror on the other. Such popularity
was inconsistent with his notion of an impartial
Government.—(Hear, hear.) The Government of
Lord Normanby had no pretensions to the title of
impartial.—(Tory cheers.) That Government obtained
popularity by giving up everything to one party solely
and exclusively.—(Hear, hear, from the Ministerial
benches.) He would now come to the question of the
Noble Lord's proposition. The motion of the Noble
Lord was in itself very large and comprehensive,
but the suggestions which he threw out for
the amelioration of the grievances to be inquired into
were exceedingly small. All that he proposed to do
was to make a new appropriation of the revenues of the
Church, and what the Noble Lord considered a more.
impartial distribution of the: Patronage of the Crown.
The Noble Lord acknowledged that his hopes for the
pacification of Ireland, as far as they depended on his
measures, were unfounded, as he 'admitted those mea-
sures to be impossible. Now he (Mr. S. Herbert) en-
tertained an
~opinion that the 'Roman Catholic clergy
ought to-be endowed. Ile entertained that opinion,
because he was anxious to see them placed in
a situation above the necessity of taking part
in politgal agitation. He believed that in many
parts of Ireland where an indisposition had been mani-
fested on the part of the priests to join political agita-
tion, it had been difficult for them to obtain their dues.
He believed that the people, had themselves protested
against the amount of those dues, and the necessity of
political agitation had been superadded to religious in-
fluence, in order to obtain them. This was a
lamentable thing, as the Catholic religion was one
always allied with the maintenance of peace
and order. Again, he wished to see the clergy
taken from a higher class of men than those who were
now found in it. The Noble Lord had said it was better
that they should be taken from the lower order of society,
but he differed from that opinion when he saw the little
respect paid to the clergy when they were of a rank only
a little above the peasantry. After all, the Government
proposed much more than the Noble Lord opposite
they proposed a more comprehensive plan and greater
changes. He did not include, of course, the pro-
p als of those gentlemen who supported the Noble Lord.
Asere was one point—he meant education—to which
almost more than any other conceivable means he looked
for the amelioration of the condition of the Irish