Star.
London, England, 1831-06-06 00:00:00

THE DISSOLVED CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.

PARIS, JUNE 2.—" Long look'd for—come at
last!" This is what we all say this morning; and
though we feel that the measure is late, " yet better
late than never." At length the Chamber of De-
puties is dissolved. It was returned to accomplish
an object, and to arrive at one result. It was re-
turned in the reign of Charles X. to convince
Charles X. that the nation would not be governed
by a Polignac administration, and that the electors
required the honest interpretation and the honest
fulfilment of the Charter of Louis the Eighteenth.
But although thus returned by the nation as then
represented by the then electors, the ill-advised
Monarch would not permit the Deputies to as-
semble, and the revolution of last July inter-
vened, and gave a new character to the Re-
presentatives of France. M. Cormenin was
quite right in the abstract, when be said that
the Chamber of Deputies of 1830 was charged with
no other mission than that of overthrowing the Po-
lignac Administration, either by an Address, or by
refusing the Budget ; and legally speaking, when
the revolution arrived, the Chamber of Deputies of
1830 ceased to exist. However we cannot blame,
but must praise the Deputies who were then at
Paris, who took any part in the month of last Au-
gust. Although the revolution had destroyed the
corporate capacity—yet, as citizens of respecta-
bility, patriotism, property, and talent, they did
well to meet in the Hall of the Hotel de Ville, and
in the Chamber of the Representatives of the
people—and they did well to declare Charles the
Tenth banished-_to make a new Charter, and to offer
the throne to Louis Philip, but surrounded by repub-
lican institutions . But here their functions should have
ceased. From that moment they should not have
acted until an appeal had been made to the country.
The electors should in August last have been at
once invited to return a new Chamber, and the
Deputies who were returned by France to overthrow
the Ministers of Charles X. ought never to have re-
mained in office to overthrow many of the principles
of the Revolution ofJuly. In spite, however, of the
protestations of the people—in spite of public opi-
nion—in spite of the efforts of the press--in spite
of mobs and assemblies, and journals, pamphlets,
and cries of " Down with the Chamber," repeated
yet a thousand times over the whole of Fiance, the
Chamber of Deputies, elected to overthrow the
Polignac Administration, has remained till yester-
day undissolved ; and has laboured bard to pre-
vent the realization of the large and liberal pro-
mises of our last Revolution. Not, however,
that our censure must be unlimited, or our dis-
approbation undefined. The Chamber has done
much good, thergh it has done much harm.
It has organized the Nc;ional Guards, established
the trial of political offences by the Jury, and
passed a law, though it was not accepted by the
Chamber of Peers, for banishing Charles the
Tenth and his posterity to the third, and fourth
generations front the sha es of France. But, on
the other hand, it has shackled the Press, crip-
pled the right of public meetings, neglected
the introduction of a spit it of rigid economy in
the public expenditure, encouraged the cries of
the timid and illiberal against the liberal inter-
pretation of the revolution of July—supported
the system of prosecutions for political opinions
—aided the Minister in preventing the advan-
tages of the July revolution from being extend-
ed to foreign lands—left Poland unaided, Bel-
gium unprotected, and 'ltaly without a ftiend ;
and was contented with the system of " I am
clothed and I am fed," without desiring to clothe
or to feed those who cried for liberty and eman-
cipation.
To the Chamber of Deputies now dissolved we
are indebted for a defective electoral system—for
enormous taxes to support an army which is not to
act—for hundreds of prosecutions which it bac en-
couraged against the press—for the rejection of
multitudes of propositions made by the patriots of
France in the interest of liberty, education, and hu-
man happiness—and for the difference whieh exists
this day—an alarming and a lamentable difference
—between the people and the government, the mil-
lions and the crown. To the votes of the majority
of the Chamber, we owe the existence of a station-
ary government—the humiliation of France in Eu-
rope—the intestine divisions of Belgium—the failure
of the efforts of the Italian patriots, and the
present unexampled state of Poland labouring to
contend against an enemy ten times more pow-
erful than herself. If the majority of the last
Chamber of Deputies had understood the revolution
of July, Belgium would now have been re-united to
France—ltaly would have possessed an indepen-
dent Government, Portugal would have been free
from the dominion of 'Miguel Spain would
have enjoyed the blessings of a constitutional Go-
vernment—Poland would have been an indepen-
dent kingdom—Prussia would not have been longer
tricked out of a Constitution—and the power of
Austria and Russia would have resethled that ofa
babe in swaddling clothes when opposed to the
strength of a healthy and vigorous man. If the
majority of the last Chamber of Deputies had un-
derstood the Revolution, Louis Philip would have
been the popular Monarch of a happy and con-
tented people : trade and commerce, manufacturers
and agriculture, would have been flourishing ;
IFrance would have possessed a national system of
representation; the Press would have been freed
from vexatious persecutions, and from needless
and oppressive imposts; the Budget would have
been fixed at the amount which should have been
expected by a Citizen King. A law for banish-
ing
Charles X. and his descendants from France
would have been unanimously passed—all the mobs
and riots of ten months would have been avoided—
La Vendee would not have been in a state of civil
war—the Clergy would not have been in a state
of revolt against the Civil Powers.--France would
not have been without allies, and Europe would

'have made the progress of .a century in one
little year. September last was the moment for
action. By September a new Chamber of De-
puties could have been returned, prepared to march
with and to follow up the revolution of Jtily.
Kings were then stupifed and thunderstruck.
They would have rejoiced to have made equi•
table terms, and have granted wise and noble
institutions.

But the late Chamber of Deputies was aßoyalist
Chamber ;of course I speak of the majority. It
was not ultra royalist, like Polignac and Peyronnet,
' but it was royalist like Royer Collard and Baron
Louis. It gave time to Kings to think, to enquire,
to prepare, to threaten, and to arm; and what has
followed all this ? Why France, forsooth! is
le Igued in another Holy Alliance to destroy
freedom in Belgium, and to compel Four Mil-
lions of individuals to adopt a system they
reject, and to make sacrifices of principleslind
of feelings, in order to preserve that peace which
France has a right to demand, and ought not to be
compelled to crave. The last Chamber of Deputies
(I speak of the majority) lent itself to the fears of
Louis Philip—to the commercial system of politics
of M. Casimir I'erier- -to ant school which values
the happiness, honour, and glory of a nation by the
price of the Rentes—and to the Restoration party,
which even ventures to deny that the events
of July amounted to a Revolution. It might
have conducttd the people of Europe to the
goal they have so long desired to reach, and
might have ensured to the millions peace, liberty,
and independence. But it mistook its mis-
sion —mistook the French people—mistook the cha-
racter of the events of July, and was persuaded to
go back to the men of the restoration for guides,
ministers, and ambassadors. It feared the people,
instead of adopting their cause, and made league
with princes, instead of coalescing with the mil-
lions. It was afraid of following out the revela-
tion, and so it lent its aid to crush liberty, and re-
fetter those who had even broken their chains.—
This is no partial statement ; these are no idle words
of reproach or party recrimination. History, im-
partial history, must pronounce this judgment on
the Chamber cf Deputies—" It «as born to be a
giant, but it died a dwarf."

MISERIES OF IRELAND.
From the Dublin Freeman's Journal.
TO THE RIGHT 110 N. THE EARL. GREY.

BALLIMA, blvt.
Whether distressed or prosperous, or exports
must continue : nay, for want of any other branch
of trade or industry whereby to meet the rents,
tko exports of corn are generally in the inverse
ratio of our prosperity. To such extent is the
rage for exportatiou carried, that the tenantry are
systematically left without seed for the future cul-
ture of the soil, until bought again at a usurious
price ; and some landlords have adopted the sum-
mary process of the Indian who cuts down the
tree b arrive at owe at all its produce.
Is such it desolating system to be left without
some legislative controul ? Are tenants not only
to be abandoned to all the capricious exactions of
a cruel landlord ; but, what is worse, must the
neighbouring people continue to sustain the burden
of that pauperism which they had no share in in-
flicting? In ►ain will it be advanced that the land-
lord has his rights, v.ith which the law cannot
terfere. The tenant, too, has hie rights, derived
from a higher and a holier source. " The labourer
is worthy of his hire." Were the proprietor to
farm his ow•a estate, he would surely be liable to
all the inflictions of a bad season ; and were the
present tenant to till his ground in the capacity of
a hired labourer, or even of a slave, he would be',
permitted to eat of the fruit of his labour, nor would
his employer abandon him to starvation.
Is the condition of the free tenant to be conti-
nued worse than that of the hired labourer or the
slave ! Is a British subject to continue to live in a
state of precarious existence, to which the negro
would not be doomed by the Indian planter? Yes,
a precarious existence, entirely depending on the
degree of benevolence the proprietor may possess
as well as on the bounty of the public. Even in
the bad theology which sprung from oriental des-
potism, the malignant principle was not suffered to
exert all his influence without the check of a bene-
ficent Being with which he was associated. It is
not surely under a constitution that boasts the bles-
sings of freedom, the blighting principle is to find
no corrective, and that poor people are to be thrown
on the world without house, without food, without
money. or means to procure it by any employment,
merely because they could not controul the times
and seasons, and multiply the harvest, or discover
the art of making gold by the philosopher's stone.
But cruelty recoils upon him who practises it, and
the fields of some of those proprietors untenanted
and untilled are now abandoned to desolation.

In the present state of society any landlord who
is cursed with a cruel heart and a head that cannot
calulate its real interests, is restrained by no law
from indulging his wasting propensities. Were he
obliged to relieve, in some shape, the poverty of
which his excesses mOat be productive, the avarice
of the members of society would prove an antidote
against the rapacity of the proprietor, and the con-
sciousness that he should support every pauper be
would make would prove a salutary restraint to his
desolating career. Then neighbouring parishes
would out be ihundated as now with the flood of!
wretched men that is sometimes let loose upon
them by those whose hearts appeur to be steeled
against every feeling of remorse, es well as every
impulse of humanity.
If the land were let and leased to the tenantry
for an equitable rent—if they were relieved from
the arrears accumulated in bad seasons—if the
seed furnished by hindlords to preserve their land
from waste, were, as it would in many cases ap-
pear to the public, a gratuitous donation, then it

might bo hoped that the distress would pass away
with the season that produced it, and that the te-
nantry, with the energy of their labour applied to a
prolific soil, might soon be placed in a comforiab!e
condition. But the reverse of all these suppositions
would be a more exact description of their state.
Many of the estates in this country are now
subject to the same tents for which they were
!et during the years immediately preceding the
Lonclusion of the war. I need not advert to the
immense depreciation in stock and produce
between the two periods. I shall only remark,
that if a proprietor knew then the value
of his land, a knowledge in which it must
be confessed whatever might be his other acquire-
meats, an Irish landlord is seldom found deficient,
on what principle of equity or justice can be
now demand for an article triple its real value ?
If in the covenant between landlord and tenant, the
latter was allowed but a fair remuneration for his
labour, when cattle and produce bole a certain price,
is it not clear that he is allowed no remuneration,
if he is still charged the smile rent, whilst all the
product of his industry has sunk more than three
or four fold in the value ? The more familiar are
these truths, the more they illustrate nay position,
that while things continue in such a state as that
no industry can meet the rent with its arrears, it is
impossible that the people would not be at the
mercy of the proprietors, and by consequence, when
the proprietors are merciless, exposed even amidst
plenty to starvation.
I am well aware of the usual apology that is ad-
vanced for the proprietors. Their lands, it is said,
are so encumbered by annuities, mortgages, and
marriage settlements, that some of them cannot
afford to lower their rents, or what is synonymous,
to let their tenantry keep and eat of the fruit of
their labour. In the first place, this apology for
:ruelty and injustice is not near as extensive as it
is assumed. Becausa it is applicable to some gen-
tlemen, it is taken up as a convenient defence by
others, to shield their grinding extortions behind
the plea of an imperious necessity.
There are many considerable properties in this
district free flout any heavy charges. Yet I know
the condition of the tenantry to be but little
affected by an exemption from such claims ; nay,
some landlords who, in addition to a large unin-
cumbered rental possess a large share of funded
property, are as oppressive as those whose estates
are subject to encumbrances. And even during
the last summer there were among the wealthiest
of that class, and there may be this year, indivi-
duals who refused a shilling to mitigate the hor-
rors of a general famine. Some law must wring
from the reluctant gripe of such persona what a
heart incapable of pity forbids them to bestow.
Instead of being like stagnant pools that swallow
all the rains and dews of heaven, while the waste
around them appears parched and sickly, they
should be formed into useful reservoirs, with le-
gislative sluices and outlets, in order that in ma-
sons of drought they should discharge their redun-
dant waters to give health and fertility to the
country.
But supposing the settlements to which I have
alluded, is it equitable that the few should not con-
sent to retrench any of the superfluities, in o:der
that the many should be left something of the ne-
cessaries of life ? Must the people of whole vil-
lages starve, lest some foreign member of the pro-
'
prietor, s family should contract in the least the
circle of his follies ; or lest a duo ager should pluck
a feather from her head dress, or a jewel from
those ornaments which the grave decorum of
age should suggest to lay aside ? Are the
I dissipation and extravagance of the war times
like an original sin, to be entailed upon the pea-
santry alone, and their children, and to be expiated
only by those who had no share in the guilt !
What then becomes of the moral axiom that those
who partake of the benefit should also share in the
burden ? These, my Lord, are serious considera-
tions. In spite of all that pride and selfishness
may suggest to the contrary, the sales populi Su-
Ipreme lea will remain an incontrovertible proposi-
tion Annuitants, mortgagees, and fundholders
have, doubtless, their rights; not so extensive, how-
ever, as to supersede the existence of the labouring
classes. Will it be asserted that they are like the
sanguinary idols of old, whose appetites cannot be
appeased but by the immolation of human sacri-
fices? While regard is had to all other interests,
those of the agriculturist alone should not be ne-
glected. If the other officers of society are to be sup-
ported, surely the labouring classes alone are not to
beconsigned to ruin, by whom you, I,and annuitants,
mortgagees, and fundholders, and all other function -
aries are ultimately supported ? Else we have nut
been rightly taught that agriculture is the foutu!a-
tion of public prosperity : and the error of Ptolemy
has misled the antients in political as well as astro-
nomical science in supposing the land to be the
basis of the social system, while the moderns have
discovered the funds to be the immoveable centre
round which agriculture and its obedient interests
must revolve.

From this first position of being subject to rents
which they ure unable to pay follows the second,
namely, of arrears continually accumulating. A
prosperous year might have hitherto enabled the
tenant to liquidate a portion of the debt, but he has
seldom been enabled to cancel it all. Hence in-
stead of receipts in full many of the acknowledg-
ments of the tenantry are eternally on account—a
practice a hich,without any intentional fraud,exposes
to mistakes prod ucti►•e of most serious inconveniences.
The years 1817 and 1822 were such disastrous sea-
sons that, instead of being able to pay the rents,
the tenantry contracted additional debts by pro-
visions furnished in some instances by their land-
!order. The intermediate seasons were employed in
paying up some of the arrears ; so that, like the
quarter's revenue with regard to the national debt,
h e poor tenant estimate/ the passed half year, not

by the quantity of wealth which it might have
brought, but by the condition in which it placed
him with regard to his arrears. Thus every yenr
they hang over hint, discouraging his hopes, and
depressing his energies. In a prow( roas season,
he may strive wore frequently to steep his cares,
unfortunately. in intoxicating b.)vetage, despair-
ing of his lot, or renew his tare-ed raiment, or,
what may be deemed a mighty tff at of successful
industry, to replace the mach cow tl at was seised
and auctioned in the preceding season : but as for
my increase in his fortune, or any add Lionel com-
fort in his home, or any accession to his house-
hold furniture, these are advantages to which he
is forbidden-to aspire. A genial season may, lile
the seventh year in Judea, crown his labours with
a double havest, but he is not destined, like that
happy people, to enjoy a jubilee which may give
him any release from the arrears of rack rents, or
any respite from his toils.
This second misfortune that affects the tenantry
naturally leads to the third, namely, that in their
efforts to meet rents and arrears as well as taxes, to
which their means are unequal, they are of late
years generally left without seed to cultivate the
soil. This last, an effect produced by the rents
and arrears, becomes in ifs Vim an additional cause
to aggravate their burden. To this fact too I ap.
peal— a fact now too familiar and notorious to be
controverted—as a standing proof of the total in-
equality between the rents of land and its produce.
It may be well, however, to shows little Mare ml-
'lately bow this cirametamee operates ee the poor
tenant in diminishing his resources.
In the course of last spring the tenantry of
Tyrawley were for the most part without seed oats,
being obliged to dispose of their entire crop the
preceding winter, to meet rents and taxes. Many
of them were then furnished by their landlords or
their agents or sub-agents ; and sometimes by other
corn factors with seed at ten shildngs a cwt. on
credit until the next autumn or winter. When that
time came, they were obliged to thrash and sell
their oats at five shillings a cwt. so that for what-
ever quantity they got they were obliged to dispose
of a double portion of their crop, which amounts to
cent. per cent. of usury. Again, this very spring
they were reduced to the same condition. In many
cases the proprietors come to tbair relief, and in
others the tenantry have not even that dear-
bought consolation. I call it dear, because next
winter, should they survive this season, it will be
exacted in many cases with a rigorous, nay, a cent.
per cent. of usury.
Some proprietors are praised for expending. sorn►
thousand pounds on their tenantry. If it be a gra-
tuity, as the public is in some instances led to be-
lieve, the people owe much thankfulness. If it
be all, according to the following plan, the pub-
lic will estimate the va tie of the obligation. An
absentee, who draws many thousands from Mayo,
relieves the tenantry on the estates, and makes
use of the agents for that purpose. The agents
purchase corn and potatoes—assemble the tenantry
and put them through a long process of swearing
regarding the extent and nature of their distress.
They then give them corn at 10s. per cwt. on cre-
dit, until winter, though they were obliged to sell
their own oats last winter at five, not however i.ntil
they exact another oath t*.at. they ei;l nut sow that
seed in any other soil ht t their own, and that the/
shall pay the price laid on it whatever day itsd.all
be demanded. On hearing such a stateuteut, I
was naturally incredulous, until, in the presence of
two gentlemen, I questioned some 4 or .5 of the
tenantry, who all affirmed that it was on such
conditions they received the o.i.s and potatoes.
Now this absentee is a p mon confessedly of
great benevolence. Yet what is the value of. ties
loan of seed conferred on the pe.)ple on the estates?
To oblige them, probably as many have duos
last winter, to sell two measures iti order to pay
for one of seed which they bought. If this is dune
without the knowledge of the kind-hearted
sentee, it only demonstrates the evils which neces-
sarily result front that system. If done with the
knowledse of that person, it is no theme °rime-
gyric. Yet such is the wretchedness to which tae
tenantry all over the country are reduced, that they
are Old to get seed and provisions on any term.,
not from any want of forecast of the consequences.:
they are well aware of it ; but, amidst the cravings
of want, they become, like the savage, reckless of
the future, provided they are rescued from the p. e-
sent necessity.

Add, then, this additional burden of usurious
contracts, now a matter of course, to the annual
amount of arrears to which he is already subject,
and it is not difficult to perceive how it must prep.*
still more heavily upon him. The consequence is,
no harvest can save him from starvation, provit'Ael
the landlord pushes his claims to the exteut to
which the law entitles him. Hitherto the rigo►►r
of the law was seldom enforced regarding potatoee.
There was a tacit covenant generally respected,
that while the landlord had the oats for his rent, the
tenant had the potatoes for his family. But that
sacred covenant has been lately violated in various
instances. Example is contagious when favourable
to self-interest. As some then have commenced to
seize the potatoes, what assurance have the tenantry
that others will not follow their example ? If so,
no abundance can shield the poor from starvation ;
while they have to struggle against a load of rent,
disproportioned to the produce, accumulated by
arrears, and aggravated still more by yearly totes•
stor►s from usurious contracts. Yon may, therefore,
perceive, my lord, why I have stated that this evil
was not temporary. Subscriptions may be raised
for the relief of the poor. Committees may he
formed, and provisions distributed. Far from un-
dervaluing, 1 must applaud and support such ben.-
violent measures. They are, however, but tempo-
rary checks, which will not at all prevent the
recurrence of the evil. Nay, what is this huckster-
ing of seed between landlord and tenants ? Under
the guise of humanity, an usurious traffic Is exer-
cised on the labour of the latter, and the prolific
seed of future calamity is perpetuated.
JOHN MACHALR..

We are glad to perceive that, among the ncv
Members, there are enow of practical men to•x-
plain the mischiefs of Peel's bill ; and also enow t
explain the peculiar value of circulation originating
on the spot where is is wanted. On these paints..
the three last Parliaittata ben been deplorably*.
norant. It is nbt ea we* the rose quantity pf
circulating medium to /14 41 be conaideted,lint
the power of generating It ao as to meet the 1041
wants of trade and industry.