Speeches on Questions of Public Policy Part 13

The position in which I am placed this morning is one very unusual for me, and one that I find somewhat difficult; but I consider it a signal distinction to be permitted to take a prominent part in the proceedings of this day, which are intended to commemorate one of the greatest of the great triumphs of freedom, and to do honour to a most eminent instrument in the achievement of that freedom. There may be, perhaps, those who ask what is this triumph of which I speak. To put it briefly, and, indeed, only to put one part of it, I may say that it is a triumph which has had the effect of raising 4,000,000 of human beings from the very lowest depth of social and political degradation to that lofty height which men have attained when they possess equality of rights in the first country on the globe. More than this, it is a triumph which has p.r.o.nounced the irreversible doom of slavery in all countries and for all time. Another question suggests itself--how has this great triumph been accomplished? The answer suggests itself in another question--How is it that any great thing is accomplished? By love of justice, by constant devotion to a great cause, and by an unfaltering faith that what is right will in the end succeed.

When I look at this hall, filled with such an a.s.sembly--when I partake of the sympathy which runs from heart to heart at this moment in welcome to our guest of to-day--I cannot but contrast his present position with that which, not so far back but that many of us can remember, he occupied in his own country. It is not forty years ago, I believe about the year 1829, when the guest whom we honour this morning was spending his solitary days in a prison in the slave-owning city of Baltimore. I will not say that he was languishing in prison, for that I do not believe; he was sustained by a hope that did not yield to the persecution of those who thus maltreated him; and to show that the effect of that imprisonment was of no avail to suppress or extinguish his ardour, within two years after that he had the courage, the audacity--I dare say many of his countrymen used even a stronger phrase than that--he had the courage to commence the publication, in the city of Boston, of a newspaper devoted mainly to the question of the abolition of slavery. The first number of that paper, issued on the 1st of January, 1831, contained an address to the public, one pa.s.sage of which I have often read with the greatest interest, and it is a key to the future life of Mr. Garrison. He had been complained of for having used hard language--which is a very common complaint indeed--and he said in his first number:--

'I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for such severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I will be heard.'

And that, after all, expresses to a great extent the future course of his life. But what was at that time the temper of the people amongst whom he lived--of the people who are glorying now, as they well may glory, in the abolition of slavery throughout their country? At that time it was very little better in the North than it was in the South. I think it was in the year 1835 that riots of the most serious character took place in some of the Northern cities: during that time Mr.

Garrison's life was in imminent peril; and he has never ascertained to this day how it was that he was left alive on the earth to carry out his great work. Turning to the South, a State that has lately suffered from the ravages of armies, the State of Georgia, by its legislature of House, Senate, and Governor, if my memory does not deceive me, pa.s.sed a bill, offering 10,000 dollars reward--[Mr. Garrison here said '5,000']-- well, they seemed to think there were people who would do it cheap-- offering 5,000 dollars, and zeal, doubtless, would make up the difference, for the capture of Mr. Garrison, or for adequate proof of his death. Now, these were menaces and perils such as we have not in our time been accustomed to in this country in any of our political movements, and we shall take a very poor measure indeed of the conduct of the leaders of the Emanc.i.p.ation party in the United States if we estimate them by that of any of those who have been concerned in political movements amongst us. But, notwithstanding all drawbacks, the cause was gathering strength, and Mr. Garrison found himself by-and-by surrounded by a small but increasing band of men and women who were devoted to this cause, as he himself was. We have in this country a very n.o.ble woman, who taught the English people much upon this question about thirty years ago: I allude to Harriet Martineau. I recollect well the impression with which I read a most powerful and touching paper which she had written, and which was published in the number of the _Westminster Review_ for December, 1838. It was ent.i.tled 'The Martyr Age of the United States.' The paper introduced to the English public the great names which were appearing on the scene in connection with this cause in America. There was, of course I need hardly say, our eminent guest of to-day; there was Arthur Tappan, and Lewis Tappan, and James G. Birney of Alabama, a planter and slave-owner, who liberated his slaves and came North, and became, I believe, the first Presidential candidate upon Abolition principles in the United States. There were besides them, Dr. Channing, John Quincy Adams, a statesman and President of the United States, and father of the eminent man who is now Minister from that people amongst us. Then there was Wendell Phillips, admitted to be by all who know him perhaps the most powerful orator who speaks the English language. I might refer to others, to Charles Sumner, the scholar and statesman, and Horace Greeley, the first of journalists in the United States, if not the first of journalists in the world. But, besides these, there were of n.o.ble women not a few. There was Lydia Maria Child; there were the two sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, ladies who came from South Carolina, who liberated their slaves, and devoted all they had to the service of this just cause; and Maria Weston Chapman, of whom Miss Martineau speaks in terms which, though I do not exactly recollect them, yet I know describe her as n.o.ble-minded, beautiful, and good. It may be that there are some of her family who are now within the sound of my voice. If it be so, all I have to say is, that I hope they will feel, in addition to all they have felt heretofore as to the character of their mother, that we who are here can appreciate her services, and the services of all who were united with her as co- operators in this great and worthy cause. But there was another whose name must not be forgotten, a man whose name must live for ever in history, Elijah P. Lovejoy, who in the free State of Illinois laid down his life for the cause. When I read that article by Harriet Martineau, and the description of those men and women there given, I was led, I know not how, to think of a very striking pa.s.sage which I am sure must be familiar to most here, because it is to be found in the Epistle to the Hebrews. After the writer of that Epistle has described the great men and fathers of the nation, he says:--'Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, of Barak, of Samson, of Jephtha, of David, of Samuel, and the Prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.' I ask if this grand pa.s.sage of the inspired writer may not be applied to that heroic band who have made America the perpetual home of freedom?

Thus, in spite of all that persecutions could do, opinion grew in the North in favour of freedom; but in the South, alas! in favour of that most devilish delusion that slavery was a Divine inst.i.tution. The moment that idea took possession of the South, war was inevitable. Neither fact, nor argument, nor counsel, nor philosophy, nor religion, could by any possibility affect the discussion of the question when once the Church leaders of the South had taught their people that slavery was a Divine inst.i.tution; for then they took their stand on other and different, and what they in their blindness thought higher grounds, and they said, 'Evil! be thou my good;' and so they exchanged light for darkness, and freedom for bondage, and good for evil, and, if you like, heaven for h.e.l.l. Of course, unless there was some stupendous miracle, greater than any that is on record even in the inspired writings, it was impossible that war should not spring out of that state of things; and the political slaveholders, that 'dreadful brotherhood, in whom all turbulent pa.s.sions were let loose,' the moment they found that the presidential election of 1860 was adverse to the cause of slavery, took up arms to sustain their cherished and endangered system. Then came the outbreak which had been so often foretold, so often menaced; and the ground reeled under the nation during four years of agony, until at last, after the smoke of the battle-field had cleared away, the horrid shape which had cast its shadow over a whole continent had vanished, and was gone for ever. An ancient and renowned poet has said--

'Unholy is the voice Of loud thanksgiving over slaughtered men.'

It becomes us not to rejoice, but to be humbled, that a chastis.e.m.e.nt so terrible should have fallen upon any of our race; but we may be thankful for this--that this chastis.e.m.e.nt was at least not sent in vain. The great triumph in the field was not all; there came after it another great triumph--a triumph over pa.s.sion, and there came up before the world the spectacle, not of armies and military commanders, but of the magnanimity and mercy of a powerful and victorious nation. The vanquished were treated as the vanquished, in the history of the world, have never before been treated. There was a universal feeling in the North that every care should be taken of those who had so recently and marvellously been enfranchised. Immediately we found that the privileges of independent labour were open to them, schools were established in which their sons might obtain an education that would raise them to an intellectual position never reached by their fathers; and at length full political rights were conferred upon those who a few short years, or rather months before, had been called chattels, and things, to be bought and sold in any market. And we may feel a.s.sured, that those persons in the Northern States who befriended the negro in his bondage will not now fail to a.s.sist his struggles for a higher position. May we not say, reviewing what has taken place--and I have only glanced in the briefest possible way at the chief aspects of this great question--that probably history has no sadder, and yet, if we take a different view, I may say also probably no brighter page? To Mr. Garrison more than to any other man this is due; his is the creation of that opinion which has made slavery hateful, and which has made freedom possible in America. His name is venerated in his own country--venerated where not long ago it was a name of obloquy and reproach. His name is venerated in this country and in Europe wheresoever Christianity softens the hearts and lessens the sorrows of men; and I venture to say that in time to come, near or remote I know not, his name will become the herald and the synonym of good to millions of men who will dwell on the now almost unknown continent of Africa.

But we must not allow our own land to be forgotten or depreciated, even whilst we are saying what our feelings bid us say of our friend beside me and of our other friends across the water. We, too, can share in the triumph I have described, and in the honours which the world is willing to shower upon our guest, and upon those who, like him, are unwearied in doing good. We have had slaves in the colonial territories that owned the sway of this country. Our position was different from that in which the Americans stood towards theirs; the negroes were far from being so numerous, and they were not in our midst, but 4,000 miles away. We had no prejudices of colour to overcome, we had a Parliament that was omnipotent in those colonies, and public opinion acting upon that Parliament was too powerful for the Englishmen who were interested in the continuance of slavery. We liberated our slaves; for the English soil did not reject the bondsman, but the moment he touched it made him free. We have now in our memory Clarkson, and Wilberforce, and Buxton, and Sturge; and even now we have within this hall the most eloquent living English champion of the freedom of the slave in my friend, and our friend, George Thompson. Well, then, I may presume to say that we are sharers in that good work which has raised our guest to eminence; and we may divide it with the country from which he comes. Our country is still his; for did not his fathers bear allegiance to our ancient monarchy, and were they not at one time citizens of this commonwealth?

and may we not add that the freedom which now overspreads his n.o.ble nation first sprang into life amongst our own ancestors? To Mr.

Garrison, as is stated in one of the letters which has just been read, to William Lloyd Garrison it has been given, in a manner not often permitted to those who do great things of this kind, to see the ripe fruit of his vast labours. Over a territory large enough to make many realms, he has seen hopeless toil supplanted by compensated industry; and where the bondman dragged his chain, there freedom is established for ever. We now welcome him amongst us as a friend whom some of us have known long; for I have watched his career with no common interest, even when I was too young to take much part in public affairs; and I have kept within my heart his name, and the names of those who have been a.s.sociated with him in every step which he has taken; and in public debates in the halls of peace, and even on the blood-soiled fields of war, my heart has always been with those who were the friends of freedom. We welcome him, then, with a cordiality which knows no stint and no limit for him and for his n.o.ble a.s.sociates, both men and women; and we venture to speak a verdict which, I believe, will be sanctioned by all mankind, not only by those who live now, but by those who shall come after, to whom their perseverance and their success shall be a lesson and a help in the future struggles which remain for men to make.

One of our oldest and greatest poets has furnished me with a line that well expresses that verdict. Are not William Lloyd Garrison and his fellow-labourers in that world's work--are they not

'On Fame's eternal bead-roll worthy to be filed?'

IRELAND.

I.

MAYNOOTH GRANT.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 16, 1845.

[On April 3rd Sir Robert Peel proposed a Resolution for the improvement of Maynooth College, the grant to consist of 26,000_l_. per annum.

It was suggested by some speakers, that the act would justify the endowment of the Roman Catholic priesthood, and Lord John Russell a.s.serted that such a plan would be a larger, more liberal, and more statesmanlike measure. Others objected to the grant on theological grounds, others for the reason that it was a step towards endowing another Church Establishment in Ireland. The Resolution was carried by 216 to 114. The debate on the Bill was resumed on April 10th, and was continued on April 14th and 16th. The second reading was carried on the last day by 323 votes to 176; on May 2nd the Bill pa.s.sed through Committee. It was opposed again on bringing up the Report, on May 5th, and was finally pa.s.sed on May 21st, by 317 to 184. The Bill, after opposition, pa.s.sed in the Lords on June 10th.]

I am anxious to make a few observations on the principle on which I shall give my vote; because I shall be obliged to pa.s.s into the lobby along with a number of Members of the House from whose principles I entirely dissent; and after the speech of the n.o.ble Lord the Member for Bandon, I think that any one who votes with him has need to explain why he votes on his side, for anything more unlike the principles of the present day, more intolerant, or more insane with respect to the policy to be pursued towards Ireland, I have never heard; and I could not have believed that any man coming from that country could have used such language in addressing this House. I do not think that this question is to be looked at in a favourable or unfavourable light because of the party from which it comes. Some hon. Members have charged the right hon.

Baronet with inconsistency, and have in some degree thrown the blame of his conduct on the measure which he has introduced. The right hon.

Baronet has, from unfortunate circ.u.mstances, been connected in Opposition with a party of such a nature, that he could never promote any good measure whilst in power without being charged, and justly, with inconsistent conduct. But I will look at the measure as a measure by itself, and if it be a good measure I will vote for it as willingly, coming from the present Government, as if it came from the Government which preceded it. But I object to this measure on the ground that it is proposed to vote some of the public taxes for the purpose of maintaining an inst.i.tution purely ecclesiastical, and for the rearing and educating of the priests of a particular sect. I am the more strongly against the Bill, because, from all that has been said on both sides of the House, and from all that I can learn from the public papers, and even from the organs of the Government, I am convinced that there is no argument which has been used in defence of this measure, which would not be just as valid for the defence of further measures, not for the payment of Catholic priests of the College of Maynooth only, but for the payment of all the priests in Ireland or in England. I admit that the principles and the arguments which have justified the original vote are good to some extent to justify this vote. The right hon. Baronet in his opening speech has stated that the principle was conceded, that it is but a matter of a few thousand pounds. But if the principle were conceded now, ten or twenty years hence some Prime Minister might stand up and state that in 1795 the principle was conceded, and in 1845 that concession--or rather, that principle--was again sanctioned; and then, arguing from the two cases, it would be easy to demonstrate that it was no violation of principle whatever to establish a new Church in Ireland, and add thereby to the monstrous evils which exist there now from the establishment of one in connection with the State. The right hon. Baronet has paid no great compliment to the Irish Catholics in the possession of means and property, when he has said that the 9,000_l_. now voted is just sufficient to damp the generosity of the people of that country. If 9,000_l_. were enough in some degree to check their generosity, I should think that a sum of 26,000_l_. is sufficient to destroy it altogether. When I consider that the Catholic gentry of Ireland pay no Income Tax and no Property Tax, and no a.s.sessed Taxes, I do not think it would be a thing altogether impossible, or to be unlocked for, that they should have supported an establishment for the rearing of priests to teach that religion to which they profess to be so much devoted.

But the object of this measure was just as objectionable to me when I learned that it was intended by this vote to soothe the discontent which exists in Ireland. I will look at the causes whence this discontent arises. Does it arise because the priests of Maynooth are now insufficiently clad or fed? I have always thought that it arose from the fact that one-third of the people are paupers--that almost all of them are not in regular employment at the very lowest rate of wages--and that the state of things amongst the bulk of the population is most disastrous, and to be deplored; but I cannot for the life of me conceive how the grant of additional money to Maynooth is to give additional employment, or food, or clothing to the people of Ireland, or make them more satisfied with their condition. I can easily see how, by the granting of this sum, the Legislature may hear far less in future times of the sufferings and wrongs of the people of Ireland than they have heard heretofore; for they may discover that one large means of influence, possessed by those who had agitated for the redress of Irish wrongs, is to be found in the support which the Irish Catholic clergy has given to the various a.s.sociations for carrying on political agitation; and the object of this Bill is to tame down those agitators-- it is a sop given to the priests. It is hush-money given, that they may not proclaim to the whole country, to Europe, and to the world, the sufferings of the population to whom they administer the rites and the consolations of religion. I a.s.sert that the Protestant Church of Ireland is at the root of the evils of that country. The Irish Catholics would thank you infinitely more if you were to wipe out that foul blot, than they would even if Parliament were to establish the Roman Catholic Church alongside of it. They have had everything Protestant--a Protestant clique which has been dominant in the country; a Protestant Viceroy to distribute places and emoluments amongst that Protestant clique; Protestant judges who have polluted the seats of justice; Protestant magistrates, before whom the Catholic peasant could not hope for justice. They have not only Protestant, but exterminating landlords, and more than that, a Protestant soldiery, who, at the beck and command of a Protestant priest, have butchered and killed a Catholic peasant, even in the presence of his widowed mother. All these things are notorious; I merely state them. I do not bring the proof of them: they are patent to all the world, and that man must have been un.o.bservant indeed who is not perfectly convinced of their truth. The consequence of all this is, the extreme discontent of the Irish people; and because this House is not prepared yet to take those measures which would be really doing justice to Ireland, and to wipe away that Protestant Establishment which is the most disgraceful inst.i.tution in Christendom; the next thing is, that they should drive off the watch-dogs, if it be possible, and take from Mr. O'Connell and the Repeal a.s.sociation that formidable organization which has been established throughout the whole country, through the sympathies of the Catholic priests being bound up with the interests of the people. Their object is to take away the sympathy of the Catholic priests from the people, and to give them more Latin and Greek. The object is to make the priests in Ireland as tame as those of Suffolk and Dorsetshire. The object is, that when the horizon is brightened every night with incendiary fires, no priest of the paid Establishment shall ever tell of the wrongs of the people amongst whom he is living; and when the population is starving, and pauperised by thousands, as in the southern parts of England, the priests shall not unite themselves with any a.s.sociation for the purpose of wresting from an oppressive Government those rights to which the people have a claim.

I am altogether against this system for any purpose, under any circ.u.mstances, at any time whatever. Nothing can be more disastrous to the best interests of the community, nor more dangerous to religion itself. If the Government wants to make the priests of Ireland as useless for all practical purposes as the paid priests of their own Establishment, they should not give them 26,000_l_. merely, but as much as they can persuade the House to agree to. Ireland is suffering, not from the want of another Church, but rather because she already has one Church too many; for with the present Church, having a small community, overpaid ministers, a costly Establishment, and little work, it is quite impossible to have peace and content in that country. If you give the Catholic priests a portion of the public funds, as the Government has given the _Regium Donum_ to the Presbyterians of the North, they will unite with the Church as the Presbyterians did against any attempt to overturn the old system of Church and State alliance in that country.

The experience of State Churches is not of a character to warrant the House in going further in that direction. In this country there is a State Church, and I do not deny that there are many excellent ministers in it; but from time immemorial it has been characterized by a most deplorable and disastrous spirit of persecution, which even at this hour still exists; for that Church is now persecuting a poor shoemaker at Cambridge for non-payment of Church rates, and pursuing him from court to court. That Church has been upheld as a bulwark against Catholicism, and yet all the errors of Catholicism find a home and a hearty welcome there. In Lancashire and Yorkshire, and in other counties, that Church is found to be too unwieldy a machine, and altogether unfitted to a population growing in numbers and intelligence like that of those parts of the kingdom. Even in Scotland, where there is a model of the most perfect Establishment which perhaps could be raised, there are the Secession Church, the Belief Church, and the Free Church; that which the State upholds being called by the complimentary name of the Residuary Church. After the experience of such State Churches, which have done so little good and so much evil, is this a time for establishing another Church? If I approved of Church endowments by the State I would vote for this Bill with all my heart, because it is calculated to create a kinder feeling towards this country amongst the people of Ireland.

Two parties opposed to the Bill are represented by hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House. They state that the Roman Catholic religion should not be established or helped by the State. But when their Church is absorbing millions of the public money, while millions of their countrymen refuse to enter its doors, how can they for a moment object to the pa.s.sing of a measure which will give some sort of show of a.s.sistance to that Church to which millions of the Irish people belong?

The Nonconformist or Dissenting party in this country are opposed to the measure; but by some of them a spirit is mixed up with their agitation of this question which shows that they do not understand, or do not value, the great principles of Nonconformity, for which their forefathers struggled and suffered. I allude more especially to a portion of the Wesleyan body, which, I believe, does not altogether repudiate the principle of endowment.

But, with regard to the rest, I am persuaded that their agitation against this measure is honest. If the Dissenters look back to all that their forefathers have suffered, aye, even within a late period, they will be recreant to their own principles, and merit the contempt of the House and of the world, if they do not come forward manfully to uphold their own principles, and dissent from and oppose the measure under the consideration of the House. For myself, I shall oppose the Bill in every stage, simply on one ground, that I believe the principle of endowment to be most unjust and injurious to the country, and whatever may be the effect on any Government, whether that of the right hon. Baronet or any that has preceded or will succeed him, no strength of attachment to party or Government will induce me to tamper with what I hold to be the greatest and dearest principle which any man or any body of men can a.s.sert. When I look back to the history of this country, and consider its present condition, I must say, that all that the people possess of liberty has come, not through the portals of the cathedrals and the parish churches, but from the conventicles, which are despised by hon.

Gentlemen opposite. When I know that if a good measure is to be carried in this House, it must be by men who are sent hither by the Nonconformists of Great Britain; when I read and see that the past and present State alliance with religion is hostile to religious liberty, preventing all growth and nearly destroying all vitality in religion itself, then I shall hold myself to have read, thought, and lived in vain, if I vote for a measure which in the smallest degree shall give any further power or life to the principle of State endowment; and, in conclusion, I will only exhort the Dissenters of England to act in the same way, and to stand upon their own great, pure, and una.s.sailable principle; for, if they stand by it manfully, and work for it vigorously, the time may come, nay, it will come, when that principle will be adopted by the Legislature of the country.

IRELAND.

II.

CRIME AND OUTRAGE BILL.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 13, 1847.

[Towards the conclusion of this year (1847) numerous crimes and outrages of a serious character were committed in Ireland. They were chiefly agrarian. In order to increase the powers of the Irish Executive, Parliament was invited in the Queen's Speech (Nov. 23) to take further precautions against the perpetration of crime in certain counties in Ireland. The Bill was moved by Sir George Grey on Nov. 29, and leave was given, by 224 votes to 18, was read a second time (296 to 19) on Dec. 9, and pa.s.sed (174 to 14) on Dec. 13. It was pa.s.sed in the House of Lords on Dec. 19. On July 31, 1848, the Irish Government proclaimed certain districts in which rebellion had broken out. Smith O'Brien and the other leaders of the insurgents were speedily arrested, tried, and convicted.]

I feel very much in the position of the hon. Member who has just addressed the House, for I am in some degree compelled to speak before this Bill is read a third time. I have presented a pet.i.tion against the Bill, signed by more than 20,000 persons, inhabitants of the borough of Manchester, and I am unwilling to vote without briefly giving the reasons which make it impossible for me to oppose this Bill. When I recollect the circ.u.mstances attending the rejection of the Bill of 1846, for the protection of life in Ireland, I am convinced that the Government would not have brought forward the present measure if it had not appeared to them absolutely necessary, and that, but for this supposed necessity, it would never have been heard of.

The case of the Government, so far as the necessity for this Bill is concerned, seems to me to be as clear and as perfect as it can be. From the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Home Department, from the unanimous statements of all the newspapers, and from the evidence of all parties connected with Ireland, it is placed beyond a doubt that in the disturbed districts of Ireland the ordinary law is utterly powerless. The reason why the law is carried into effect in England is, because the feeling of the people is in favour of it, and every man is willing to become and is in reality a peace officer, in order to further the ends of justice.

But in Ireland this state of things does not exist. The public sentiment in certain districts is depraved and thoroughly vitiated. [Mr. J.

O'Connell, 'No! No!'] The hon. Member cries 'No, No;' but I maintain that in the disturbed districts the public or popular feeling is as I have described it. I do not mean to a.s.sert that all which the newspapers contain is true, or that they contain all the truth; but I ask the hon.

Gentleman if he has not read accounts which are not contradicted, from which we learn that on the occurrence of some recent cases of a.s.sa.s.sination, whole districts have been in a state of rejoicing and exultation? These a.s.sa.s.sinations are not looked upon as murders, but rather as executions. Take the case of Mr. Lloyd, a clergyman, who was recently a.s.sa.s.sinated. There was no show of vindictive feeling on the part of his murderers; there was little of the character of ordinary murders in it. The servant was allowed to depart unharmed; a boy who was in the carriage was removed that he might not be injured; and the unhappy gentleman was shot with all the deliberation and the calmness with which a man would be made to suffer the extreme penalty of the law.

It is clear, then, that the ordinary law fails, and that the Government have a case for the demand they make for an extension of the present powers of the law.

I do not say the present Bill will certainly be effective, but it is the less to be opposed because it does not greatly exceed or infringe the ordinary law; and it is the duty of the Legislature, when called upon to strengthen the Executive, to do so by the smallest possible infringement of the law and the const.i.tution. But, to leave the particular measure now before us, I am bound to say that the case of the Government with respect to their Irish policy in general is not as good as could be wished. The Government has not shown the courage which is necessary to deal effectually with the difficulties of Ireland. They should remember what pa.s.sed when the Poor-law was proposed for that country. They were told it would be a failure--that it could not be worked; but disregarding these statements, they pa.s.sed the Bill; and I believe, since the Act of 1829, no measure has pa.s.sed this House of equal benefit to Ireland. The n.o.ble Lord at the head of the Government has said that all parties are to be blamed for the misgovernment of Ireland; but he should remember the responsibility which is upon him, for he is now in the position of dictator on Irish questions, and whatever he proposes for that country, I verily believe, will find no successful opposition in this House.

There is another fact to which I would call attention. The Irish Members complain, and very justly, of the past legislation of this House; but when we call to mind that there are 105 of them here, of whom 60 or 70 are of Liberal politics or opinions, and that about 30 of them are Repealers, and hold very strong views with regard to the mismanagement of Irish affairs in the Imperial Parliament, I think we have a right to complain that they have not laid on the table of the House any one measure which they believe to be necessary to the prosperity of their country.

I have been in this House more than four years, and I have never yet seen the Irish Members bringing forward any proposition of a practical character--nor am I aware that they have supported any measure they deemed necessary for Ireland, with unanimity and earnestness, or with anything like perseverance and resolution. I am sure that 105, or even 30 English Members, sitting in a Parliament in Dublin, and believing their country had suffered from the effects of bad legislation, would, by their knowledge of the case, their business habits, activity, union, and perseverance, have showed a powerful front, and by uniting together, and working manfully in favour of any proposition they might think necessary to remedy the evils of which they complained, they would have forced it on the attention of the House. But the Irish Members have not done this. So far then, they are and have been as much to blame as any other Member of this House for the absence of good government in Ireland.

I will not, like them, complain of bad legislation, and propose no remedy. What is the condition of Ireland? Last year we voted millions to keep its population from starvation; and this year we have been asked for a further sum, but have not granted it. We maintain a large army in Ireland, and an armed police, which is an army in everything but in name, and yet we have in that country a condition of things which is not to be matched in any other civilised country on the face of the earth, and which is alike disgraceful to Ireland and to us. The great cause of Ireland's calamities is, that Ireland is idle. I believe it would be found, on inquiry, that the population of Ireland, as compared with that of England, do not work more than two days per week. Wherever a people are not industrious and are not employed, there is the greatest danger of crime and outrage. Ireland is idle, and therefore she starves; Ireland starves, and therefore she rebels. We must choose between industry and anarchy: we must have one or the other in Ireland. This proposition I believe to be incontrovertible, and I defy the House to give peace and prosperity to that country until they set in motion her industry, create and diffuse capital, and thus establish those gradations of rank and condition by which the whole social fabric can alone be held together.

But the idleness of the people of Ireland is not wholly their fault. It is for the most part a forced idleness, for it is notorious that when the Irish come to England, or remove to the United States or the Colonies, they are about the hardest working people in the world. We employ them down in Lancashire, and with the prospect of good pay they work about as well, and are as trustworthy, and quiet, and well-disposed to the law as the people of this country. The great secret of their idleness at home is, that there is little or no trade in Ireland; there are few flourishing towns to which the increasing population can resort for employment, so that there is a vast ma.s.s of people living on the land; and the land itself is not half so useful for their employment and sustentation as it might be. A great proportion of her skill, her strength, her sinews, and her labour, is useless to Ireland for the support of her population. Every year they have a large emigration, because there are a great number of persons with just enough means to transport themselves to other countries, who, finding it impossible to live at home in comfort, carry themselves and their capital out of Ireland; so that, year after year, she loses a large portion of those between the very poorest and the more wealthy cla.s.ses of society, and with them many of the opportunities for the employment of labour.

I do not believe that the Bill for regulating the relations of landlord and tenant, as recommended by the hon. Member for the County of Limerick, will restore prosperity to Ireland. Such a measure may be pa.s.sed with great advantage; but if it be intended by a Bill with this t.i.tle to vest the ownership of the land in the present occupiers, I believe this House will never pa.s.s it, and if it did, that it would prove most fatal to the best interests of the country. I think we have a right to blame the Government that as yet we have not seen the Bill for the sale of enc.u.mbered estates in Ireland. I wish to ask why such a Bill is not ready before this? [Lord John Russell: 'The Bill has been ready a long time'] The n.o.ble Lord says the Bill has been ready long ago; but that statement only makes the Government open to greater blame, for if the Bill is ready, why has it not been brought forward before this? Last Session the Bill was withdrawn, and the reason given was that landlords and mortgagees did not like it. If the Government wait till the landlords and mortgagees like it, it will never be brought forward at all. Had they waited till the Irish landlords asked for the Poor-law, there would have been no Poor-law in Ireland now.

The Government should disregard the opposition of these parties, and should take their stand above all cla.s.s interests. They must refuse to listen to the interested suggestions of one cla.s.s or the other, and they must remember that they are the Executive Government of the country, and bound to act for the public good. There is an unanimous admission now that the misfortunes of Ireland are connected with the question of the management of the land. I have a theory that, in England as well as in Ireland, the proprietors of the soil are chiefly responsible for whatever bad legislation has been inflicted upon us. The ownership of land confers more political power than the possession of any other description of property. The Irish landowners have been willing parties to the past legislation for Ireland, and they have also had the administration and execution of the laws in that country. The enc.u.mbered condition of landed property in Ireland is at this moment the most pressing question. I am informed by a gentleman in Dublin, of the best means of information and of undoubted veracity, that in the province of Connaught there is not five per cent, of the land free from settlements of one kind or other, and that probably not one per cent, is free from mortgages. I have asked Irish Members of all parties if this be true, and not one of them is disposed to deny it; and if it be true, I say it is idle to seek elsewhere for the source of the evils of Ireland; and every day, nay, every hour we allow to go by without taking instant measures to remedy this crying mischief, only adds to the criminality which rests on us for our past legislation.

Patchwork legislation will not now succeed; speeches from the Lord Lieutenant--articles in the newspapers--lending to the landowners at 3 1/2 per cent. money raised by taxation from the traders of England, who have recently been paying 8 per cent.--all will fail to revive the industry of Ireland. I will now state what, in my opinion, is the remedy, and I beg to ask the attention of the Government to it, because, though they may now think it an extreme one, I am convinced that the time will come when they will be compelled to adopt it.

In the first place, it is their duty to bring in a Sale of Estates Bill, and make it easy for landowners who wish to dispose of their estates to do so. They should bring in a Bill to simplify the t.i.tles to land in Ireland. I understand that it is almost impossible to transfer an estate now, the difficulties in the way of a clear t.i.tle being almost insurmountable. In the next place, they should diminish temporarily, if not permanently, all stamp duties which hinder the transfer of landed property, and they should pa.s.s a law by which the system of entailing estates should for the future be prevented. [Laughter.] I can a.s.sure hon. Gentlemen who laugh at this, that at some not distant day this must be done, and not in Ireland only, but in England also. It is an absurd and monstrous system, for it binds, as it were, the living under the power of the dead.

The principle on which the law should proceed is this, that the owner of property should be permitted to leave it to whomsoever he will, provided the individual is living when the will is made; but he should not be suffered, after he is dead, and buried, and forgotten, to speak and still to direct the channel through which the estate should pa.s.s. I shall be told that the law of entail in Ireland is the same as in England, and that in Scotland it is even more strict. I admit it; but the evil is great in England, and in Scotland it has become intolerable, and must soon be relaxed if not abolished. Perhaps I shall be told that the laws of entail and primogeniture are necessary for the maintenance of our aristocratic inst.i.tutions; but if the evils of Ireland spring from this source, I say, perish your aristocratic inst.i.tutions rather than that a whole nation should be in this terrible condition. If your aristocratic families would rear up their children in habits of business, and with some notions of duty and prudence, these mischievous arrangements would not be required, and they would retain in their possession estates at least as large as is compatible with the interests of the rest of the community. If the laws of entail and primogeniture are sound and just, why not apply them to personal property as well as to freehold? Imagine them in force in the middle cla.s.ses of the community, and it will be seen at once that the unnatural system, if universal, would produce confusion; and confusion would necessitate its total abolition.

I am thoroughly convinced that everything the Government or Parliament can do for Ireland will be unavailing, unless the foundation of the work be laid well and deep, by clearing away the fetters under which land is now held, so that it may become the possession of real owners, and be made instrumental to the employment and sustentation of the people. Hon.

Gentlemen opposite may fancy themselves interested in maintaining the present system; but there is surely no interest they can have in it which they will weigh against the safety and prosperity of Ireland? I speak as a representative from a county which suffers extremely from the condition of Ireland. Lancashire is periodically overrun by the pauperism of Ireland; for a year past it has suffered most seriously from the pestilence imported from Ireland; and many of the evils which in times past have been attributed to the extension of manufactures in that county have arisen from the enormous immigration of a suffering and pauperized people driven for sustenance from their own country.

As a Lancashire representative, I protest most solemnly against a system which drives the Irish population to seek work and wages in this country and in other countries, when both might be afforded them at home.

Parliament is bound to remedy this state of things. The present Parliament contains a larger number of men of business and of members representing the middle cla.s.ses than any former Parliament. The present Government is essentially of the middle cla.s.s--[a laugh]--and its Members have on many occasions shown their sympathy with it. Let the hon. Gentleman laugh; but he will not deny that no Government can long have a majority in this House which does not sympathise with the great middle cla.s.s of this country. If the Government will manfully and courageously grapple with the question of the condition of land in Ireland, they will, I am convinced, be supported by a majority of the Members of this House, they will enable the strength and skill of Irishmen to be expended on their own soil, and lay the foundation of her certain prosperity by giving that stimulus and reward to industry which it cannot have in the present circ.u.mstances of that country. Sir, I feel it impossible to refuse my vote in favour of the Bill now before us; but I am compelled to say, that unless the Government will zealously promote measures in the direction I have indicated, they cannot hope long to retain the confidence of this House or of the country.

IRELAND.