It is the absence of all demand for labour that constitutes the real evil of Ireland. In the distressed Unions a man's labour is absolutely worth nothing. It is not that the Irish people will not work. I spoke to an Irish navigator the other day respecting his work, and I asked him why his countrymen did not work in their own country. 'Give them 2_s_. 8_d_. a-day,' said he, 'and you will find plenty who will work.' There exists in Ireland a lamentable want of employment. The land there enjoys a perpetual sabbath. If the people of Ireland were set to work, they would gain their subsistence; but if this course is not adopted, they must either continue to be supported out of the taxes, or else be left to starve. In order to show how great is the general poverty in Ireland, I will read a statement of the comparative amount of legacy duty paid in the two countries. In England, in the year 1844, the amount of capital on which legacy duty was paid was 44,393,887_l_.; in Ireland, in 1845, the amount of capital on which legacy duty was paid was 2,140,021_l_.—the population of the latter being nearly one- half of the former, whilst the proportion between the capital paying legacy duty is only one-twentieth. In 1844, the legacy duty paid in England was 1,124,435_l_., with a population of 16,000,000; in Scotland it was 74,116_l_., with a population of 3,000,000; whilst Ireland paid only 53,618_l_., with a population of 8,000,000. These facts offer the strongest possible proof of the poverty of Ireland.
On looking over the reports of the Poor-law Inspectors, I find them teeming with statements of the wretchedness which prevails in the distressed districts of Ireland. The general character of the reports is, that starvation is, literally speaking, gradually driving the population into their graves. The people cannot quit their hovels for want of clothing, whilst others cannot be discharged from the workhouses owing to the same cause. Men are seen wearing women's apparel, not being able to procure proper clothing; whilst, in other instances, men, women, and children are all huddled together under bundles of rags, unable to rise for lack of covering; workhouses and prisons are crowded beyond their capacity to contain, the mortality being very great in them. Persons of honest character commit thefts in order to be sent to prison, and some ask, as a favour, to be transported.
I know of nothing like this in the history of modern times. The only parallel I can find to it is in the work of the great German author (Mosheim), who, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, speaking of the inroads of the barbarians into the Roman empire in the fifth century, says that in Gaul, the calamities of the times drove many to such madness, that they wholly excluded God from the government of the world, and denied His providence over human affairs. It would almost appear that this state of things is now to be seen in Ireland. The prisons are crowded, the chapels deserted, society is disorganised and ruined; labour is useless, for capital is not to be had for its employment. The reports of the Inspectors say that this catastrophe has only been hastened, and not originated, by the failure of the potato crop during the last four years, and that all men possessed of any intelligence must have foreseen what would ultimately happen.
This being the case, in what manner are the Irish people to subsist in future? There is the land, and there is labour enough to bring it into cultivation. But such is the state in which the land is placed, that capital cannot be employed upon it. You have tied up the raw material in such a manner—you have created such a monopoly of land by your laws and your mode of dealing with it, as to render it alike a curse to the people and to the owners of it. Why, let me ask, should land be tied up any more than any other raw material? If the supply of cotton wool were limited to the hands of the Browns and the Barings, what would be the condition of the Lancashire manufactories? What the manufactories would be under such a monopoly, the land in the county of Mayo actually is under the system which prevails with respect to it in Ireland. But land carries with it territorial influence, which the Legislature will not interfere with lest it should be disturbed. Land is sacred, and must not be touched.
The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade will understand what I mean when I allude to the Land Improvement Company which the Legislature is ready to charter for Ireland, but which it fears to suffer to exist in England, lest the territorial influence which ever accompanies the possession of landed estates should be lost or diminished. But one of the difficulties to which a remedy must be applied is the defective titles, which cannot easily be got rid of under the present system of entails. This is one of the questions to which the House of Commons must very soon give its serious attention. Then there comes the question of settlements. Now, I do not say there ought not to be any settlements; but what I mean to say is, that they are so bound up and entangled with the system of entails as to present insuperable difficulties in the way of dealing with land as a marketable commodity. I have here an Opinion which I will read to the House, which I find recorded as having been given by an eminent counsel: it is quoted in Hayes' work on Conveyancing, and the Opinion was given on the occasion of a settlement on the marriage of a gentleman having a fee-simple estate:—
'The proposals extend to a strict settlement by the gentleman upon the first and other sons of the marriage. It will appear from the preceding observations, that where the relative circumstances are such as in the present case, a strict settlement of the gentleman's estate does not ordinarily enter into the arrangement, which begins and ends with his taking the lady's fortune, and imposing an equivalent pecuniary charge upon his estate (for her personal benefit). The proposals seldom go further, unless there is hereditary rank or title to be supported, or it is in contemplation to found a family. The former of those two circumstances do not exist in this case, and the latter would require the settlement of the bulk of the estates. The policy of such settlements is extremely questionable. It is difficult to refer them, in the absence of both the motives already indicated, to any rational principle. The present possessor has absolute dominion; his character is known, his right unquestionable. He is asked to reduce himself to a mere tenant for life in favour of an unborn son, of whose character nothing can be predicted, and who, if he can be said to have any right, cannot possibly have a preferable right. At no very distant period the absolute dominion must be confided to somebody—and why should confidence be reposed in the unborn child rather than the living parent? Such, a settlement has no tendency to protect or benefit the father, whose advantage and comfort ought first to be consulted. It does not shield him from the consequences of his own imprudence. On the contrary, if his expenditure should in any instance exceed his income, he—as a mere tenant for life—is in danger of being obliged to borrow on annuity, a process which, once begun, proceeds generally and almost necessarily to the exhaustion of the life income. The son may be an idiot or a spendthrift. He may be tempted to raise money bypost obit. If to these not improbable results we add all the family feuds generated between the tenant for life and remainderman, in regard to the management and enjoyment by the former of that estate which was once his own, particularly with reference to cutting timber, the disadvantages of thus fettering the dominion will appear greatly to preponderate. At best, a settlement is a speculation; at worst, it is the occasion of distress, profligacy, and domestic discord, ending not unfrequently, as the Chancery Reports bear witness, in obstinate litigation, ruinous alike to the peace and to the property of the family. Sometimes the father effects an arrangement with his eldest son on his coming of age; the son stipulating for an immediate provision in the shape of an annuity, the father for a gross sum to satisfy his creditors, or to portion his younger children, and for a resettlement of the estate. This arrangement, perhaps, is brought about by means, or imposes terms, which, in the eye of equity, render it a fraud upon the son; and here we have another source of litigation.'
Now, what I have here read is exactly that which everybody's experience tells us is the fact, and we have recently had a notable case which exactly answers to that referred to in the last paragraph of this Opinion. The practice of making settlements of this description is mischievous—leads to endless litigation—and sooner or later the landed classes must sink under it.
The Irish proprietors have also another difficulty to contend with, and that is their extravagance. It is said—for I cannot vouch for the fact myself—that they keep too many horses and dogs. I do not mean to say that an Irish gentleman may not spend his rents as he pleases; but I can say that he cannot both spend his money and have it too. I think if they would cast their pride on one side, and go honestly to work—if, instead of their young men spending their time 'waiting for a commission' they were to go into business, they would be far better and more usefully employed, and they would find that the less humiliating condition of the two. Another bane of Ireland is the prevalence of life interests in landed property there. Under such a system the land can neither be improved nor sold. Now what has the noble Lord at the head of the Government done towards grappling with all these questions? Nothing— absolutely nothing. I think him very unwise in not propounding to himself the momentous question, 'What shall be done for Ireland?' The right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth has a plan. He entered upon its outline on Friday last. But I doubt whether it has yet taken that distinct form which it must assume in order that the House may take cognisance of it. I admire some of the measures which the right hon. Baronet intimates he would carry into effect, but there are other parts of his proposals which are vague and impracticable. I think, if it is believed in Ireland that a Commission is to be appointed to take charge of the distressed Unions of the south and west—that the whole thing is to be managed through a new department of the Government, and all without the slightest trouble to the landlords—that there will be more than ever a clinging to this wretched property in bankrupt estates, and more than ever an indisposition to adopt those measures which are still open to them, in the direction in which the right hon. Baronet wishes to proceed.
The right hon. Baronet stated in his first speech on this topic, that he did not wish the transfer of property to be by individual barter; and on Friday he stated that he was very much averse to allowing matters to go on in their natural course, for by that means land would be unnaturally cheapened. Well, but upon what conditions would the right hon. Baronet buy land in Ireland? would it be under the same circumstances, and at the same price, that he would buy an estate in Yorkshire or Staffordshire? If any sane man goes to the west or south of Ireland to purchase an estate, he must go on account of the cheapness of the bargain—a cheapness which he hopes will compensate him for all the disadvantages to which he must necessarily be subjected in such a purchase. There can be no redemption for that part of Ireland—if it is to be through the transfer of land—except the land take its natural course, and come so cheap into the market that Englishmen and Scotchmen, and Irishmen too having capital, will be willing to purchase it, notwithstanding all its disadvantages. [Colonel Dunne: 'Hear, hear!'] The hon. Member for Portarlington cheers that, as if it were an extraordinary statement. If the hon. Member prefers purchasing what is dear to what is cheap, he is not a very sensible man to legislate for Ireland. If he thinks that a man will go into Galway and pay as much per acre for an estate as he would in England, he is greatly mistaken; but the fact is, I believe, that not only English and Scotch capital, but that much Irish capital also, would be expended in the purchase of estates in the south and west, if the ends which the right hon. Baronet has in view were facilitated by this House.
But we have a case in point which affords us some guidance upon this question, and it is a case with which the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth, and the right hon. Baronet the Member for Ripon, are very familiar. I allude to the case of Stockport in 1842. Owing to a variety of circumstances—I will not go into the question of the Corn-law, as that is settled—but owing to a variety of circumstances, from 1838 to 1842 there was a continued sinking in the condition of Stockport—its property depreciated to a lamentable extent. One man left property, as he thought, worth 80,000_l_. or 90,000_l_. Within two years it sold for little more than 30,000_l_. Since that time the son of one man, then supposed to be a person of large property, has had relief from the parochial funds. In 1842 the amount of the poor-rate averaged from 7_s_. to 8_s_. in the pound. From November 4, 1841, to May 30, 1842, the rates levied were 6_s_. in the pound, realising the amount of 19,144_l_. From January 28, 1843, to August 2 of the same year, the rates levied were 7_s_. in the pound, and the amount raised was 21,948_l_. And bear in mind that at that time Stockport was in process of depopulation—many thousands quitted the place—whole streets were left with scarcely a tenant in them—some public-houses, previously doing a large business, were let for little more than their rates; in fact, Stockport was as fair a representative of distress amongst a manufacturing community as Mayo, Galway, or any western county of Ireland can be at this moment of distress amongst an agricultural community.
Now what was done in Stockport? There was a Commission of Inquiry, which the then Home Secretary appointed. They made an admirable report, the last paragraph of which ought to be read by every one who wishes to know the character of the people of Stockport. Mr. Twisleton, speaking of them, said that they were a noble people; and truly the exertions which they made to avoid becoming chargeable upon the rates were heroic. Well now, all this suffering was going on—the workhouses were crowded, the people were emigrating, there was a general desolation, and if it had not been for the harvest of 1842, which was a good one, and the gradual recovery of trade which followed, nothing in Ireland can be worse than the condition of Stockport would have been. What was the result? Property was greatly depreciated, and much of it changed hands. Something like half the manufacturers failed, and, of course, gave up business altogether. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport purchased property in the borough at that period, and since then he has laid out not far short of a hundred thousand pounds, in a very large manufacturing establishment in that town. In fact, the persons who are now carrying on the manufacturing business in Stockport are of a more substantial character than those who were swept away by the calamities of 1842. This is a very sorrowful process. I can feel as much for those persons as any man; but we must all submit to circumstances such as these when they come.
There are vicissitudes in all classes of society, and in all occupations in which we may engage; and when we have, as now in Ireland, a state of things—a grievous calamity not equalled under the sun,—it is the duty of this House not to interfere with the ordinary and natural course of remedy, and not to flinch from what is necessary for the safety of the people by reason of any mistaken sympathy with the owners of cotton mills or with the proprietors of landed estates. Now, I want Parliament to remove every obstacle in the way of the free sale of land. I believe that in this policy lies the only security you have for the restoration of the distressed districts of Ireland. The question of a Parliamentary title is most important; but I understand that the difficulty of this arises from the system of entails beyond persons now living, and because you must go back through a long search of sixty years before you can make it quite clear that the title is absolutely secure. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth suggested that the Lord Chancellor should be ousted. I proposed last year that there should be a new court established in Ireland, for the adjudication of cases connected with land, and for no other purpose, and that it should thus relieve the present courts from much of the business with which they are now encumbered. But I do not say that even such a court would effect much good, unless it were very much more speedy in its operations than the existing courts. I believe that the present Lord Chancellor is admitted to be as good a Judge as ever sat in the Court of Chancery; but he is rather timid as a Minister, and inert as a statesman; and, if I am not mistaken, he was in a great measure responsible for the failure of the Bill for facilitating the sale of encumbered estates last Session. The Government must have known, as well as I do, that such a measure could not succeed, and that the clause which was introduced—on the third reading, I believe—made it impossible to work it.
There is another point, with regard to intestate estates. I feel how tenderly one must speak, in this House, upon a question like this. Even the right hon. Member for Tamworth, with all his authority, appeared, when touching on this delicate question of the land, as if he were walking upon eggs which he was very much afraid of breaking. I certainly never heard the right hon. Gentleman steer through so many sinuosities in a case; and hardly, at last, dared he come to the question, because he was talking about land—this sacred land! I believe land to have nothing peculiar in its nature which does not belong to other property; and everything that we have done with the view of treating land differently from other property has been a blunder—a false course which we must retrace—an error which lies at the foundation of very much of the pauperism and want of employment which so generally prevail. Now, with regard to intestate estates, I am told that the House of Lords will never repeal the law of primogeniture; but I do not want them to repeal the law of primogeniture in the sense entertained by some people. I do not want them to enact the system of France, by which a division of property is compelled. I think that to force the division of property by law is just as contrary to sound principles and natural rights as to prevent its division, as is done by our law. If a man choose to act the unnatural and absurd part of leaving the whole of his property to one child, I should not, certainly, look with respect upon his memory; but I would not interfere to prevent the free exercise of his will. I think, however, if a man die by chance without a will, that it is the duty of the Government to set a high moral example, and to divide the property equally among the children of the former owner, or among those who may be said to be his heirs—among those, in fact, who would fairly participate in his personal estate. If that system of leaving all to the eldest were followed out in the case of personalty, it would lead to immediate confusion, and, by destroying the whole social system, to a perfect anarchy of property. Why, then, should that course be followed with regard to land? The repeal of the law would not of necessity destroy the custom; but this House would no longer give its sanction to a practice which is bad; and I believe that gradually there would be a more just appreciation of their duties in this respect by the great body of testators.
Then, with regard to life interests; I would make an alteration there. I think that life-owners should be allowed to grant leases—of course, only on such terms as should ensure the successor from fraud—and that estates should be permitted to be charged with the sums which were expended in their improvement. Next, with regard to the registry of land. In many European countries this is done; and high legal authorities affirm that it would not be difficult to accomplish it in this country. You have your Ordnance Survey. To make the Survey necessary for a perfect registry of deeds throughout the kingdom, would not cost more than 9_d_. an acre; and if you had your plans engraved, it would be no great addition to the expense. There can be no reason why the landowners should not have that advantage conferred upon them, because, in addition to the public benefit, it would increase the value of their lands by several years' purchase. Mr. Senior has stated, that if there were the same ready means for the transfer of land as at present exist for the transfer of personalty, the value of land would be increased, if I mistake not, by nine years' purchase. This is a subject which I would recommend to the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, now distinguished as the advocate of the landed interest.
Then with regard to stamps, I think that they might be reduced, at any rate for a number of years, to a nominal amount. In fact, I would make any sacrifice for the purpose of changing land from the hands of insolvent and embarrassed owners into those of solvent persons, who would employ it in a manner usefully and advantageously to the country and themselves. There is another proposition with, regard to the waste lands of Ireland. The Government made a proposal last year for obtaining those waste lands, and bringing them into cultivation. That I thought injudicious. But they might take those lands at a valuation, and, dividing them into farms and estates of moderate size, might tempt purchasers from different parts of the United Kingdom. By such means I believe that a large proportion of the best of the waste lands might be brought into cultivation. I believe that these are the only means by which capital can be attracted to that country.
The noble Lord at the head of the Government proposes to attract capital to Ireland by a maximum rate and a charge upon the Unions. If that maximum rate be all you have to propose, there will be no more probability of capital flowing into those parts of Ireland where it is so much required, than there was at the time when the poor-rate was unknown. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth spoke about emigration; and I think that he was rather unjust, or at least unwise, in his observations with regard to voluntary emigration. Things that are done voluntarily are not always done well; neither are things that are done by the Government; and I know many cases where Government undertakings have failed as eminently as any that have been attempted by private enterprise. But it does not appear to me that there is much wisdom in the project of emigration, although I know that some hon. Gentlemen from Ireland place great faith in it as a remedy. I have endeavoured to ascertain what is the relation of the population to the land in Ireland, and this is what I find. In speaking of the Clifden Union, the Inspectors state—
'In conclusion, we beg to offer our matured opinion that the resources of the Union would, if made available, be amply sufficient for the independent support of its population.'
Mr. Hamilton, who was examined before the Committee of which I am a member, said, speaking of the Unions of Donegal and Glenties—
'There is no over-population, if those Unions, according to their capabilities, were cultivated as the average of English counties, with the same skill and capital.'
And Mr. Twisleton said—
'I did not speak of a redundant population in reference to land, only to capital. The land of Ireland could maintain double its present population.'
Then, if that be the case, I am not quite certain that we should be wise in raising sums of money to enable the people to emigrate. The cost of transporting a family to Australia, or even to Canada, is considerable; and the question is, whether, with the means which it would require to convey them to a distant shore, they might not be more profitably employed at home.
I probably shall be told that I propose schemes which are a great interference with the rights of property. My opinion is that nothing can be a greater interference and infringement of the rights of property than the laws which regulate property now. I think that the landowners are under an impression that they have been maintaining great influence, political power, an hereditary aristocracy, and all those other arrangements which some think should never be named without reverence and awe; that they have been accustomed to look at these things, and to fancy that they are worth the price they pay for them. I am of opinion that the disadvantages under which those rights labour throughout the United Kingdom are extreme; but in Ireland the disadvantages are followed by results not known in this country.
You speak of interference with property; but I ask what becomes of the property of the poor man, which consists of his labour? Take those 4,000,000 persons who live in the distressed districts, as described by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth. Their property in labour is almost totally destroyed. There they are—men whom God made and permitted to come into this world, endowed with faculties like ourselves, but who are unable to maintain themselves, and must either starve or live upon others. The interference with their property has been enormous—so great as absolutely to destroy it. Now, I ask the landlords of Ireland, whether living in the state in which they have lived for years is not infinitely worse than that which I have proposed for them? Threatening letters by the post at breakfast-time—now and then the aim of the assassin—poor-rates which are a grievous interference with the rights of property, and this rate in aid, which the gentlemen of Ulster declare to be directly opposed to all the rights of property—what can be worse?
I shall be told that I am injuring aristocratical and territorial influence. What is that in Ireland worth to you now? What is Ireland worth to you at all? Is she not the very symbol and token of your disgrace and humiliation to the whole world? Is she not an incessant trouble to your Legislature, and the source of increased expense to your people, already over-taxed? Is not your legislation all at fault in what it has hitherto done for that country? The people of Ulster say that we shall weaken the Union. It has been one of the misfortunes of the legislation of this House that there has been no honest attempt to make a union with the whole people of Ireland up to this time. We have had a union with Ulster, but there has been no union with the whole people of Ireland, and there never can be a union between the Government and the people whilst such a state of things exists as has for many years past prevailed in the south and west of Ireland.
The condition of Ireland at this moment is this—the rich are menaced with ruin, and ruin from which, in their present course, they cannot escape; whilst the poor are menaced with starvation and death. There are hon. Gentlemen in this House, and there are other landed proprietors in Ireland, who are as admirable in the performance of all their social duties as any men to be found in any part of the world. We have had brilliant examples mentioned in this House; but those men themselves are suffering their characters to be damaged by the present condition of Ireland, and are undergoing a process which must end in their own ruin; because this demoralisation and pauperisation will go on in an extending circle, and will engulf the whole property of Ireland in one common ruin, unless something more be done than passing poor-laws and proposing rates in aid.
Sir, if ever there were an opportunity for a statesman, it is this. This is the hour undoubtedly, and we want the man. The noble Lord at the head of the Government has done many things for his country, for which I thank him as heartily as any man—he has shown on some occasions as much moral courage as it is necessary, in the state of public opinion, upon any question, for a statesman to show; but I have been much disappointed that, upon this Irish question, he has seemed to shrink from a full consideration of the difficulty, and from a resolution to meet it fairly. The character of the present, the character of any Government under such circumstances, must be at stake. The noble Lord cannot, in his position, remain inactive. Let him be as innocent as he may, he can never justify himself to the country, or to the world, or to posterity, if he remains at the head of this Imperial Legislature and is still unable, or unwilling, to bring forward measures for the restoration of Ireland. I would address the same language also to the noble Lord at the head of the Irish Government, who has won, I must say, the admiration of the population of this country for the temper and manner in which he has administered the government of Ireland. But he must bear in mind that it is not the highest effort of statesmanship to preserve the peace in a country where there are very few men anxious to go to war, and to preserve the peace, too, with 50,000 armed men at his command, and the whole power of this empire to back him. All that may be necessary, and peace at all hazards must be secured; but if that distinguished Nobleman intends to be known hereafter as a statesman with regard to his rule in Ireland, he must be prepared to suggest measures to the Government of a more practical and directly operative character than any he has yet initiated.
Sir, I am ashamed, I must say, of the course which we have taken upon this question. Look at that great subscription that was raised three years ago for Ireland. There was scarcely a part of the globe from which subscriptions did not come. The Pope, as was very natural, subscribed— the head of the great Mahometan empire, the Grand Seignior, sent his thousand pounds—the uttermost parts of the earth sent in their donations. A tribe of Red Indians on the American continent sent their subscription; and I have it on good authority that even the slaves on a plantation in one of the Carolinas subscribed their sorrowful mite that the miseries of Ireland might be relieved. The whole world looked upon the condition of Ireland, and helped to mitigate her miseries. What can we say to all those contributors, who, now that they have paid, must he anxious to know if anything is done to prevent a recurrence of these calamities? We must tell them with blushes that nothing has been done, but that we are still going on with the poor-rates, and that, having exhausted the patience of the people of England in Parliamentary grants, we are coming now with rates in aid, restricted altogether to the property of Ireland. That is what we have to tell them; whilst we have to acknowledge that our Constitution, boasted of as it has been for generations past, utterly fails to grapple with this great question.
Hon. Gentlemen turn with triumph to neighbouring countries, and speak in glowing terms of our glorious Constitution. It is true, that abroad thrones and dynasties have been overturned, whilst in England peace has reigned undisturbed. But take all the lives that have been lost in the last twelve months in Europe amidst the convulsions that have occurred— take all the cessation of trade, the destruction of industry, all the crushing of hopes and hearts, and they will not compare for an instant with the agonies which have been endured by the population of Ireland under your glorious Constitution. And there are those who now say that this is the ordering of Providence. I met an Irish gentleman the other night, and, speaking upon the subject, he said that he saw no remedy, but that it seemed as if the present state of things were the mode by which Providence intended to solve the question of Irish difficulties. But let us not lay these calamities at the door of Providence; it were sinful in us, of all men, to do so. God has blessed Ireland—and does still bless her—in position, in soil, in climate; He has not withdrawn His promises, nor are they unfulfilled; there is still the sunshine and the shower; still the seed-time and the harvest; and the affluent bosom of the earth yet offers sustenance for man. But man must do his part—we must do our part—we must retrace our steps—we must shun the blunders, and, I would even say, the crimes of our past legislation. We must free the land, and then we shall discover, and not till then, that industry, hopeful and remunerated—industry, free and inviolate, is the only sure foundation on which can be reared the enduring edifice of union and of peace.
* * * * *
HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 17, 1866. [The Fenian Conspiracy and threatened Insurrection in Ireland compelled the Government to introduce a Bill to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. It was brought in suddenly, the House meeting on Saturday to consider it.]
I OWE an apology to the Irish Members for stepping in to make an observation to the House on this question. My strong interest in the affairs of their country, ever since I came into Parliament, will be my sufficient excuse. The Secretary of State, on the part of the Government of which he is a Member, has called us together on an unusual day and at an unusual hour, to consider a proposition of the greatest magnitude, and which we are informed is one of extreme urgency. If it be so, I hope it will not be understood that we are here merely to carry out the behests of the Administration; and that we are to be permitted, if we choose, to discuss this measure, and if possible to say something which may mitigate the apparent harshness of the course which the Government feels itself compelled to pursue.
It is now more than twenty-two years since I was first permitted to take my seat in this House. During that time I have on many occasions, with great favour, been allowed to address it, but I declare that during the whole of that period I have never risen to speak here under so strong a feeling, as a Member of the House, of shame and of humiliation, as that by which I find myself oppressed at this moment. The Secretary of State proposes—as the right hon. Gentleman himself has said—to deprive no inconsiderable portion of the subjects of the Queen—our countrymen, within the United Kingdom—of the commonest, of the most precious, and of the most sacred right of the English Constitution, the right to their personal freedom. From the statement of the Secretary of State it is clear that this is not asked to be done, or required to be done, with reference only to a small section of the Irish people. He has named great counties, wide districts, whole provinces, over which this alleged and undoubted disaffection has spread, and has proposed that five or six millions of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom shall suffer the loss of that right of personal freedom that is guaranteed to all Her Majesty's subjects by the Constitution of these realms.
Now, I do not believe that the Secretary of State has overstated his case for the purpose of inducing the House to consent to his proposition. I believe that if the majority of the people of Ireland, counted fairly out, had their will, and if they had the power, they would unmoor the island from its fastenings in the deep, and move it at least 2,000 miles to the West. And I believe, further, that if by conspiracy, or insurrection, or by that open agitation to which alone I ever would give any favour or consent, they could shake off the authority, I will not say of the English Crown, but of the Imperial Parliament, they would gladly do so.
An hon. Member from Ireland a few nights ago referred to the character of the Irish people. He said, and I believe it is true, that there is no Christian nation with which we are acquainted amongst the people of which crime of the ordinary character, as we reckon it in this country, is so rare as it is amongst his countrymen. He might have said, also, that there is no people—whatever they may be at home—more industrious than his countrymen in every other country but their own. He might have said more; that they are a people of a cheerful and joyous temperament. He might have said more than this—that they are singularly grateful for kindnesses shown to them, and that of all the people of our race they are filled with the strongest sentiment of veneration.
And yet, with such materials and with such a people, after centuries of government—after sixty-five years of government by this House—you have them embittered against your rule, and anxious only to throw off the authority of the Crown and Queen of these realms. Now, this is not a single occasion we are discussing. This is merely an access of the complaint Ireland has been suffering under during the lifetime of the oldest man in this House, that of chronic insurrection. No man can deny this. I dare say a large number of the Members of this House, at the time to which the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire referred, heard the same speech on the same subject, from the same Minister to whom we have listened to-day. [Sir G. Grey: 'No!'] I certainly thought I heard the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department make a speech before on the same question, but he was a Minister of the Government on whose behalf a similar speech was made on the occasion referred to, and no doubt concurred in every word that was uttered by his Colleague.
Sixty-five years ago this country and this Parliament undertook to govern Ireland. I will say nothing of the manner in which that duty was brought upon us—except this—that it was by proceedings disgraceful and corrupt to the last degree. I will say nothing of the pretences under which it was brought about but this—that the English Parliament and people, and the Irish people too, were told, that if they once got rid of the Irish Parliament they would dethrone for ever Irish factions, and that with a united Parliament we should become a united, and stronger, and happier people. During these sixty-five years—and on this point I ask for the attention of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) who has just spoken—there are only three considerable measures which Parliament has passed in the interests of Ireland. One of them was the measure of 1829, for the emancipation of the Catholics and to permit them to have seats in this House. But that measure, so just, so essential, and which, of course, is not ever to be recalled, was a measure which the chief Minister of the day, a great soldier, and a great judge of military matters, admitted was passed under the menace of, and only because of, the danger of civil war. The other two measures to which I have referred are that for the relief of the poor, and that for the sale of the incumbered estates; and those measures were introduced to the House and passed through the House in the emergency of a famine more severe than any that has desolated any Christian country of the world within the last four hundred years.
Except on these two emergencies I appeal to every Irish Member, and to every English Member who has paid any attention to the matter, whether the statement is not true that this Parliament has done nothing for the people of Ireland. And, more than that, their complaints have been met— complaints of their sufferings have been met—often by denial, often by insult, often by contempt. And within the last few years we have heard from this very Treasury bench observations with regard to Ireland which no friend of Ireland or of England, and no Minister of the Crown, ought to have uttered with regard to that country. Twice in my Parliamentary life this thing has been done—at least by the close of this day will have been done—and measures of repression—measures for the suspension of the civil rights of the Irish people—have been brought into Parliament and passed with extreme and unusual rapidity.
I have not risen to blame the Secretary of State or to blame his Colleagues for the act of to-day. There may be circumstances to justify a proposition of this kind, and I am not here to deny that these circumstances now exist; but what I complain of is this: there is no statesmanship merely in acts of force and acts of repression. And more than that, I have not observed since I have been in Parliament anything on this Irish question that approaches to the dignity of statesmanship. There has been, I admit, an improved administration in Ireland. There have been Lord-Lieutenants anxious to be just, and there is one there now who is probably as anxious to do justice as any man. We have observed generally in the recent Trials a better tone and temper than were ever witnessed under similar circumstances in Ireland before. But if I go back to the Ministers who have sat on the Treasury Bench since I first came into this House—Sir Robert Peel first, then Lord John Russell, then Lord Aberdeen, then Lord Derby, then Lord Palmerston, then Lord Derby again, then Lord Palmerston again, and now Earl Russell—I say that with regard to all these men, there has not been any approach to anything that history will describe as statesmanship on the part of the English Government towards Ireland. There were Coercion Bills in abundance—Arms Bills Session after Session—lamentations like that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) that the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was not made perpetual by a clause which he laments was repealed.
There have been Acts for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, like that which we are now discussing; but there has been no statesmanship. Men, the most clumsy and brutal, can do these things; but we want men of higher temper—men of higher genius—men of higher patriotism to deal with the affairs of Ireland. I should like to know whether those statesmen who hold great offices have themselves comprehended the nature of this question. If they have not, they have been manifestly ignorant; and if they have comprehended it and have not dealt with it, they have concealed that which they knew from the people, and evaded the duty they owed to their Sovereign. I do not want to speak disrespectfully of men in office. It is not my custom in this House. I know something of the worrying labours to which they are subjected, and I know not how from day to day they bear the burden of the labour imposed upon them; but still I lament that those who wear the garb—enjoy the emoluments—and I had almost said usurp the dignity of statesmanship, sink themselves merely into respectable and honourable administrators, when there is a whole nation under the sovereignty of the Queen calling for all their anxious thoughts—calling for the highest exercise of the highest qualities of the statesman.
I put the question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is the only man of this Government whom I have heard of late years who has spoken as if he comprehended this question, and he made a speech in the last Session of Parliament which was not without its influence both in England and in Ireland. I should like to ask him whether this Irish question is above the stature of himself and of his Colleagues? If it be, I ask them to come down from the high places which they occupy, and try to learn the art of legislation and government before they practise it. I myself believe, if we could divest ourselves of the feelings engendered by party strife, we might come to some better result. Take the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Is there in any legislative assembly in the world a man, as the world judges, of more transcendent capacity? I will say even, is there a man with a more honest wish to do good to the country in which he occupies so conspicuous a place?
Take the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the leader of the Opposition—is there in any legislative assembly in the world, at this moment, a man leading an Opposition of more genius for his position, who has given in every way but one in which proof can be given that he is competent to the highest duties of the highest offices of the State? Well, but these men—great men whom we on this side and you on that side, to a large extent, admire and follow fight for office, and the result is they sit alternately, one on this side and one on that. But suppose it were possible for these men, with their intellects, with their far-reaching vision, to examine this question thoroughly, and to say for once, whether this leads to office and to the miserable notoriety that men call fame which springs from office, or not, 'If it be possible, we will act with loyalty to the Sovereign and justice to the people; and if it be possible, we will make Ireland a strength and not a weakness to the British Empire.' It is from this fighting with party, and for party, and for the gains which party gives, that there is so little result from the great intellect of such men as these. Like the captive Samson of old,—
They grind in brazen fetters, under task,With their Heaven-gifted strength—'
and the country and the world gain little by those faculties which God has given them for the blessing of the country and the world.
The Secretary of State and the right hon. Gentleman opposite have referred, even in stronger language, to the unhappy fact that much of what now exists in Ireland has been brought there from the United States of America. That is not a fact for us to console ourselves with; it only adds to the gravity and the difficulty of this question. You may depend upon it that if the Irish in America, having left this country, settle there with so strong a hostility to us, they have had their reasons—and if being there with that feeling of affection for their native country which in all other cases in which we are not concerned we admire and reverence, they interfere in Ireland and stir up there the sedition that now exists, depend upon it there is in the condition of Ireland a state of things which greatly favours their attempts. There can be no continued fire without fuel, and all the Irish in America, and all the citizens of America, united together, with all their organization and all their vast resources, would not raise the very slightest flame of sedition or of insurrectionary movement in England or in Scotland. I want to know why they can do it in Ireland? Are you to say, as some people say in America and in Jamaica when speaking of the black man, that 'Nothing can be made of the Irishman'?
Everything can be made of him in every country but his own. When he has passed through the American school—I speak of him as a child, or in the second generation of the Irish emigrant in that country—he is as industrious, as frugal, as independent, as loyal, as good a citizen of the American Republic, as any man born within the dominions of that Power. Why is it not so in Ireland? I have asked the question before, and I will ask it again—it is a pertinent question, and it demands an answer. Why is it that no Scotchman who leaves Scotland—and the Scotch have been taunted and ridiculed for being so ready to leave their country for a better climate and a better soil—how comes it, I ask, that no Scotchman who emigrates to the United States, and no Englishman who plants himself there, cherishes the smallest hostility to the people, to the institutions, or to the Government of his native country? Why does every Irishman who leaves his country and goes to the United States immediately settle himself down there, resolved to better his condition in life, but with a feeling of ineradicable hatred to the laws and institutions of the land of his birth? Is not this a fit question for statesmanship?
If the Secretary of State, since his last measure was brought in, now eighteen years ago, had had time, in the multiplicity of his duties, to consider this question; instead of now moving for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, he might possibly have been rejoicing at the universal loyalty which prevailed, not throughout Great Britain only, but throughout the whole population of Ireland. I spent two autumns in Ireland in the years 1849 and 1852, and I recollect making a speech in this House not long afterwards, which some persons thought was not very wide of the mark. I recommended the Ministers of that time to take an opportunity to hold an Irish Session of the Imperial Parliament—to have no great questions discussed connected with the ordinary matters which are brought before us, but to keep Parliament to the consideration of this Irish question solely, and to deal with those great matters which are constant sources of complaint; and I said that a Session that was so devoted to such a blessed and holy work, would be a Session, if it were successful, that would stand forth in all our future history as one of the noblest which had ever passed in the annals of the Imperial Parliament.
Now, Sir, a few days ago everybody in this House, with two or three exceptions, was taking an oath at that table. It is called the Oath of Allegiance. It is meant at once to express loyalty and to keep men loyal. I do not think it generally does bind men to loyalty, if they have not loyalty without it. I hold loyalty to consist, in a country like this, as much in doing justice to the people as in guarding the Crown; for I believe there is no guardianship of the Crown in a country like this, where the Crown is not supposed to rest absolutely upon force, so safe as that of which we know more in our day probably than has been known in former periods of our history, when the occupant of the Throne is respected, admired, and loved by the general people. Now, how comes it that these great statesmen whom I have named, with all their Colleagues, some of them as eminent almost as their leaders, have never tried what they could do—have never shown their loyalty to the Crown by endeavouring to make the Queen as safe in the hearts of the people of Ireland as she is in the hearts of the people of England and of Scotland?
Bear in mind that the Queen of England can do almost nothing in these matters. By our Constitution the Crown can take no direct part in them. The Crown cannot direct the policy of the Government; nay, the Crown cannot, without the consent of this House, even select its Ministers; therefore the Crown is helpless in this matter. And we have in this country a Queen, who, in all the civilized nations of the world, is looked upon as a model of a Sovereign, and yet her name and fame are discredited and dishonoured by circumstances such as those which have twice during her reign called us together to agree to a proposition like that which is brought before us to-day.
There is an instructive anecdote to be found in the annals of the Chinese Empire. In a remote province there was an insurrection. The Emperor put down the insurrection, but he abased and humbled himself before the people, and said that if he had been guilty of neglect he acknowledged his guilt, and he humbled himself before those on whom he had brought the evil of an insurrection in one of his provinces. The Queen of these realms is not so responsible. She cannot thus humble herself; but I say that your statesmen for the last forty—for the last sixty—years are thus guilty, and that they ought to humble themselves before the people of this country for their neglect. But I have heard from Members in this House—I have seen much writing in newspapers—and I have heard of speeches elsewhere, in which some of us, who advocate what we believe to be a great and high morality in public affairs, are charged with dislike to the institutions, and even disloyalty to the dynasty which rules in England. There can be nothing more offensive, nothing more unjust, nothing more utterly false. We who ask Parliament, in dealing with Ireland, to deal with it upon the unchangeable principles of justice, are the friends of the people, and the really loyal advisers and supporters of the Throne.
All history teaches us that it is not in human nature that men should be content under any system of legislation, and of institutions such as exist in Ireland. You may pass this Bill, you may put the Home Secretary's five hundred men into gaol—you may do more than this, you may suppress the conspiracy and put down the insurrection, but the moment it is suppressed there will still remain the germs of this malady, and from those germs will grow up as heretofore another crop of insurrection and another harvest of misfortune. And it may be that those who sit here eighteen years after this moment will find another Ministry and another Secretary of State ready to propose to you another administration of the same ever-failing and ever-poisonous medicine. I say there is a mode of making Ireland loyal. I say that the Parliament of England having abolished the Parliament of Ireland is doubly bound to examine what that mode is, and, if it can discover it, to adopt it. I say that the Minister who occupies office in this country, merely that he may carry on the daily routine of administration, who dares not grapple with this question, who dares not go into Opposition, and who will sit anywhere except where he can tell his mind freely to the House and to the country, may have a high position in the country, but he is not a statesman, nor is he worthy of the name.
Sir, I shall not oppose the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman. The circumstances, I presume, are such that the course which is about to be pursued is perhaps the only merciful course for Ireland. But I suppose it is not the intention of the Government, in the case of persons who are arrested, and against whom any just complaint can be made, to do anything more than that which the ordinary law permits, and that when men are brought to trial they will be brought to trial with all the fairness and all the advantages which the ordinary law gives. I should say what was most unjust to the Gentlemen sitting on that (the Treasury) bench, if I said aught else than that I believe they are as honestly disposed to do right in this matter as I am and as I have ever been. I implore them, if they can, to shake off the trammels of doubt and fear with regard to this question, and to say something that may be soothing— something that may give hope to Ireland.
I voted the other night with the hon. Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue). We were in a very small minority. ['Hear, hear,'] Yes, I have often been in small minorities. The hon. Gentleman would have been content with a word of kindness and of sympathy, not for conspiracy, but for the people of Ireland. That word was not inserted in the Queen's speech, and to-night the Home Secretary has made a speech urging the House to the course which, I presume, is about to be pursued; but he did not in that speech utter a single sentence with regard to a question which lies behind, and is greater and deeper than that which is discussed.
I hope, Sir, that if Ministers feel themselves bound to take this course of suspending the common rights of personal freedom to a whole nation, at least they will not allow this debate to close without giving to us and to that nation some hope that before long measures will be considered and will be introduced which will tend to create the same loyalty in Ireland that exists in Great Britain. If every man outside the walls of this House who has the interest of the whole Empire at heart were to speak here, what would he say to this House? Let not one day elapse, let not another Session pass, until you have done something to wipe off this blot—for blot it is upon the reign of the Queen, and scandal it is to the civilization and to the justice of the people of this country.
* * * * *
DUBLIN, OCTOBER 30, 1866. [Mr. Bright was invited to a Public Banquet in Dublin. The invitation was signed by more than twenty Members of Parliament, and by a large number of influential Members of the Liberal Party in Ireland. This speech was spoken at the Banquet. The O'Donoghue was in the Chair.]
I feel myself more embarrassed than I can well describe at the difficult but honourable position in which I find myself to-night. I am profoundly moved by the exceeding and generous kindness with which you have received me, and all I can do is to thank you for it, and to say how grateful to my heart it is that such a number as I see before me—I will say of my countrymen—have approved generally of the political course which I have pursued. But I may assure you that the difficulty of this position is not at all of my seeking. I heard during the last Session of Parliament that if I was likely to come to Ireland during the autumn, it was not improbable that I should be asked to some banquet of this kind in this city. I had an intention of coming, but being moved by this kindness or menace, I changed my mind, and spent some weeks in Scotland instead of Ireland. When I found from the newspapers that an invitation was being signed, asking me to come here, I wrote to my honourable friend, Sir John Gray, to ask him if he would be kind enough to put an extinguisher upon the project, inasmuch as I was not intending to cross the Channel. He said that the matter had proceeded so far that it was impossible to interfere with it—that it must take its natural course; and the result was that I received an invitation signed, I think, by about one hundred and forty names, amongst whom there were not less, I believe, than twenty-two Members of the House of Commons. Well, as you will probably imagine, I felt that this invitation was of such a nature that, although it was most difficult to accede to it, it was impossible to refuse it. This accounts for my being here to-night, and is a simple explanation of what has taken place.
I said amongst the signatures were the names of not less than twenty-two Members of the House of Commons. I speak with grief when I say that one of our friends who signed that invitation is no longer with us. I had not the pleasure of a long acquaintance with Mr. Dillon, but I shall take this opportunity of saying that during the last Session of Parliament I formed a very high opinion of his character. There was that in his eye and in the tone of his voice—in his manner altogether, which marked him for an honourable and a just man. I venture to say that his sad and sudden removal is a great loss to Ireland. I believe amongst all her worthy sons, Ireland has had no worthier and no nobler son than John Blake Dillon.
I shall not be wrong if I assume that the ground of my visit to Dublin is to be found first in the sympathy which I have always felt and expressed for the condition, and for the wrongs, and for the rights of the people of Ireland, and probably also because I am supposed, in some degree, to represent some amount of the opinion in England, which is also favourable to the true interests of this island.
The Irish question is a question that has often been discussed, and yet it remains at this day as much a question as it has been for centuries past. The Parliament of Kilkenny,—a Parliament that sat a very long time ago, if indeed it was a Parliament at all,—it was a Parliament that sat about five hundred years ago, which proposed, I believe, to inflict a very heavy penalty if any Irishman's horse was found grazing on any Englishman's land,—this Parliament left on record a question, which it may be worth our while to consider to-night. It put this question to the King, 'How comes it to pass that the King was never the richer for Ireland?' We, five hundred years afterwards, venture to ask this question, 'Why is it that the Queen, or the Crown, or the United Kingdom, or the Empire, is never the richer for Ireland?'—and if you will permit me I will try to give you as clearly as I can something like an answer to that very old question. What it may be followed by is this, How is it that we, the Imperial Parliament, cannot act so as to bring about in Ireland contentment and tranquillity, and a solid union between Ireland and Great Britain? And that means, further, How can we improve the condition and change the minds of the people of Ireland? Some say (I have heard many who say it in England, and I am afraid there are Irishmen also who would say it), that there is some radical defect in the Irish character which prevents the condition of Ireland being so satisfactory as is the condition of England and of Scotland. Now, I am inclined to believe that whatever there is that is defective in any portion of the Irish people comes not from their race, but from their history, and from the conditions to which they have been subjected.
I am told by those in authority that in Ireland there is a remarkable absence of crime. I have heard since I came to Dublin, from those well acquainted with the facts, that there is probably no great city in the world—in the civilized and Christian world—of equal population with the city in which we are now assembled, where there is so little crime committed. And I find that the portion of the Irish people which has found a home in the United States has in the period of sixteen years— between 1848 and 1864—remitted about 13,000,000_l_. sterling to their friends and relatives in Ireland. I am bound to place these facts in opposition to any statements that I hear as to any radical defects of the Irish character. I say that it would be much more probable that the defect lies in the Government and in the law. But there are some others who say that the great misfortune of Ireland is in the existence of the noxious race of political agitators. Well, as to that I may state, that the most distinguished political agitators that have appeared during the last hundred years in Ireland are Grattan and O'Connell, and I should say that he must be either a very stupid or a very base Irishman who would wish to erase the achievements of Grattan and O'Connell from the annals of his country.
But some say (and this is not an uncommon thing)—some say that the priests of the popular Church in Ireland have been the cause of much discontent. I believe there is no class of men in Ireland who have a deeper interest in a prosperous and numerous community than the priests of the Catholic Church; and further, I believe that no men have suffered more—have suffered more, I mean, in mind and in feeling—from witnessing the miseries and the desolation which during the last century (to go no further back) have stricken and afflicted the Irish people.
But some others say that there is no ground of complaint, because the laws and institutions of Ireland are, in the main, the same as the laws and institutions of England and Scotland. They say, for example, that if there be an Established Church in Ireland there is one in England and one in Scotland, and that Nonconformists are very numerous both in England and in Scotland; but they seem to forget this fact, that the Church in England or the Church in Scotland is not in any sense a foreign Church—that it has not been imposed in past times, and is not maintained by force—that it is not in any degree the symbol of conquest—that it is not the Church of a small minority, absorbing the ecclesiastical revenues and endowments of a whole kingdom; and they omit to remember or to acknowledge that if any Government attempted to plant by force the Episcopal Church in Scotland or the Catholic Church in England, the disorders and discontent which have prevailed in Ireland would be witnessed with tenfold intensity and violence in Great Britain. And these persons whom I am describing also say that the land laws in Ireland are the same as the land laws in England. It would be easy to show that the land laws in England are bad enough, and that but for the outlet of the population, afforded by our extraordinary manufacturing industry, the condition of England would in all probability become quite as bad as the condition of Ireland has been; but if the countries differ with regard to land and the management of it in their customs, may it not be reasonable that they should also differ in their laws?
In Ireland the landowner is the creature of conquest, not of conquest of eight hundred years ago, but of conquest completed only two hundred years ago; and it may be well for us to remember, and for all Englishmen to remember, that succeeding that transfer of the land to the new-comers from Great Britain, there followed a system of law, known by the name of the Penal Code, of the most ingenious cruelty, and such as, I believe, has never in modern times been inflicted on any Christian people. Unhappily, on this account, the wound which was opened by the conquest has never been permitted to be closed, and thus we have had landowners in Ireland of a different race, of a different religion, and of different ideas from the great bulk of the people, and there has been a constant and bitter war between the owners and occupiers of the soil. Now, up to this point I suppose that oven the gentlemen who were dining together the other evening in Belfast would probably agree with me, because what I have stated is mere matter of notorious history, and to be found in every book which has treated of the course of Irish affairs during the last two hundred years. But I think they would agree with me even further than this. They would say that Ireland is a land which has been torn by religious factions, and torn by these factions at least in the North as much as in the South; and I think they would be doing less than justice to the inhabitants of the North if they said that they had in any degree come short of the people of the South in the intensity of their passionate feelings with regard to their Church.
But Ireland has been more than this—it has been a land of evictions—a word which, I suspect, is scarcely known in any other civilized country. It is a country from which thousands of families have been driven by the will of the landowners and the power of the law. It is a country where have existed, to a great extent, those dread tribunals known by the common name of secret societies, by which, in pursuit of what some men have thought to be justice, there have been committed crimes of appalling guilt in the eye of the whole world. It is a country, too, in which—and it is the only Christian country of which it may be said for some centuries past—it is a country in which a famine of the most desolating character has prevailed even during our own time. I think I was told in 1849, as I stood in the burial-ground at Skibbereen, that at least 400 people who had died of famine were buried within the quarter of an acre of ground on which I was then looking. It is a country, too, from which there has been a greater emigration by sea within a given time than has been known at any time from any other country in the world. It is a country where there has been, for generations past, a general sense of wrong, out of which has grown a state of chronic insurrection; and at this very moment when I speak, the general safeguard of constitutional liberty is withdrawn, and we meet in this hall, and I speak here tonight, rather by the forbearance and permission of the Irish executive than under the protection of the common safeguards of the rights and liberties of the people of the United Kingdom.
I venture to say that this is a miserable and a humiliating picture to draw of this country. Bear in mind that I am not speaking of Poland suffering under the conquest of Russia. There is a gentleman, now a candidate for an Irish county, who is very great upon the wrongs of Poland; but I have found him always in the House of Commons taking sides with that great party which has systematically supported the wrongs of Ireland. I am not speaking about Hungary, or of Venice as she was under the rule of Austria, or of the Greeks under the dominion of the Turk, but I am speaking of Ireland—part of the United Kingdom—part of that which boasts itself to be the most civilized and the most Christian nation in the world. I took the liberty recently, at a meeting in Glasgow, to say that I believed it was impossible for a class to govern a great nation wisely and justly. Now, in Ireland there has been a field in which all the principles of the Tory party have had their complete experiment and development. You have had the country gentleman in all his power. You have had any number of Acts of Parliament which the ancient Parliament of Ireland or the Parliament of the United Kingdom could give him. You have had the Established Church supported by the law, even to the extent, not many years ago, of collecting its revenues by the aid of military force. In point of fact, I believe it would be impossible to imagine a state of things in which the principles of the Tory party have had a more entire and complete opportunity for their trial than they have had within the limits of this island. And yet what has happened? This, surely. That the kingdom has been continually weakened—that the harmony of the empire has been disturbed, and that the mischief has not been confined to the United Kingdom, but has spread to the Colonies. And at this moment, as we know by every arrival from the United States, the colony of Canada is exposed to danger of invasion—that it is forced to keep on foot soldiers which it otherwise would not want, and to involve itself in expenses which threaten to be ruinous to its financial condition, and all that it may defend itself from Irishmen hostile to England who are settled in the United States.
In fact, the Government of Lord Derby at this moment is doing exactly that which the Government of Lord North did nearly a hundred years ago— it is sending out troops across the Atlantic to fight Irishmen who are the bitter enemies of England on the American continent. Now, I believe every gentleman in this room will admit that all that I have said is literally true. And if it be true, what conclusion are we to come to? Is it that the law which rules in Ireland is bad, but the people good; or that the law is good, but the people bad? Now, let us, if we can, get rid for a moment of Episcopalianism, Presbyterianism, Protestantism, and Orangeism on the one hand, and of Catholicism, Romanism, and Ultra- montanism on the other,—let us for a moment get beyond all these 'isms,' and try if we can discover what it is that is the great evil in your country. I shall ask you only to turn your eye upon two points—the first is the Established Church, and the second is the tenure of land. The Church may be said to affect the soul and sentiment of the country, and the land question may be said to affect the means of life and the comforts of the people.
I shall not blame the bishops and clergy of the Established Church. There may be, and I doubt not there are amongst them, many pious and devoted men, who labour to the utmost of their power to do good in the district which is committed to their care; but I venture to say this, that if they were all good and all pious, it would not in a national point of view compensate for this one fatal error—the error of their existence as the ministers of an Established Protestant Church in Ireland. Every man of them is necessarily in his district a symbol of the supremacy of the few and of the subjection of the many; and although the amount of the revenue of the Established Church as the sum payable by the whole nation may not be considerable, yet bear in mind that it is often the galling of the chain which is more tormenting than the weight of it. I believe that the removal of the Established Church would create a new political and social atmosphere in Ireland—that it would make the people feel that old things had passed away—that all things had become new—that an Irishman and his faith were no longer to be condemned in his own country—and that for the first time the English people and the English Parliament intended to do full justice to Ireland.
Now, leaving the Established Church, I come to the question of the land. I have said that the ownership of the land in Ireland came originally from conquest and from confiscation, and, as a matter of course, there was created a great gulf between the owner and the occupier, and from that time to this doubtless there has been wanting that sympathy which exists to a large extent in Great Britain, and that ought to exist in every country. I am told—you can answer it if I am wrong—that it is not common in Ireland now to give leases to tenants, especially to Catholic tenants. If that be so, then the security for the property of the tenant rests only upon the good feeling and favour of the owner of the land, for the laws, as we know, have been made by the landowners, and many propositions for the advantage of the tenants have unfortunately been too little considered by Parliament. The result is that you have bad farming, bad dwelling-houses, bad temper, and everything bad connected with the occupation and cultivation of land in Ireland. One of the results—a result the most appalling—is this, that your population are fleeing from your country and seeking a refuge in a distant land. On this point I wish to refer to a letter which I received a few days ago from a most esteemed citizen of Dublin. He told me that he believed that a very large portion of what he called the poor, amongst Irishmen, sympathized with any scheme or any proposition that was adverse to the Imperial Government. He said further, that the people here are rather in the country than of it, and that they are looking more to America than they are looking to England. I think there is a good deal in that. When we consider how many Irishmen have found a refuge in America, I do not know how we can wonder at that statement.
You will recollect that when the ancient Hebrew prophet prayed in his captivity he prayed with his window opened towards Jerusalem. You know that the followers of Mahommed, when they pray, turn their faces towards Mecca. When the Irish peasant asks for food, and freedom, and blessing, his eye follows the setting sun; the aspirations of his heart reach beyond the wide Atlantic, and in spirit he grasps hands with the great Republic of the West. If this be so, I say, then, that the disease is not only serious, but it is even desperate; but desperate as it is, I believe there is a certain remedy for it, if the people and the Parliament of the United Kingdom are willing to apply it. Now, if it were possible, would it not be worth while to change the sentiments and improve the condition of the Irish cultivators of the soil? If we were to remove the State Church, there would still be a Church, but it would not be a supremacy Church. The Catholics of Ireland have no idea of saying that Protestantism in its various forms shall not exist in their island. There would still be a Church, but it would be a free Church of a section of a free people. I will not go into details about the change. Doubtless every man would say that the present occupants of the livings should not, during their lifetime, be disturbed; but if the principle of the abolition of the State Church were once fixed and accepted, it would not be difficult to arrange the details that would be satisfactory to the people of Ireland.
Who objects to this? The men who are in favour of supremacy, and the men who have a fanatical hatred of what they call Popery. To honest and good men of the Protestant Church and of the Protestant faith there is no reason whatever to fear this change. What has the voluntary system done in Scotland? What has it done amongst the Nonconformists of England? What has it done amongst the population of Wales? and what has it done amongst the Catholic population of your own Ireland? In my opinion, the abolition of the Established Church would give Protestantism itself another chance. I believe there has been in Ireland no other enemy of Protestantism so injurious as the Protestant State Establishment. It has been loaded for two hundred years with the sins of bad government and bad laws, and whatever may have been the beauty and the holiness of its doctrine or of its professors, it has not been able to hold its ground, loaded as it has been by the sins of a bad government. One effect of the Established Church has been this, the making Catholicism in Ireland not only a faith but a patriotism, for it was not likely that any member of the Catholic Church would incline in the slightest degree to Protestantism so long as it presented itself to his eyes as a wrong-doer and full of injustice in connection with the government of his country.