§ Mr. Emerson Tennent* I rise, Sir, to second the Amendment which has been proposed by my right hon. friend the Secretary for the Treasury; and whilst I feel the highest gratification at the fact, that the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. O'Connell) has, at last, seen fit to bring forward this matter for discussion, I feel convinced, that the course suggested by this Amendment is the only proper one to pursue, since it will tend to elicit a full and fair examination into the merits of the question, and an explicit expression of the opinions of the House. No matter on what impulse the hon. Member may have adopted this course—whether encouraged by the increasing numbers and intelligence of the opponents of the Union, or compelled by the taunts of its supporters, it cannot but be a cause of congratulation to the country, that the question will now be considered calmly
* From the Corrected edition.1289 and fully, in this the proper arena, and no longer abandoned to the bombast and sophistry of intinerant agitators and hired declaimers. This inquiry, if pursued with that close and searching investigation into the real bearings of the subject which I trust it will, must have a tendency to check the present mania in Ireland, in more ways than one—it must call forth such an exposure of the fallacies of the hon. and learned member for Dublin, and his supporters, as must serve to convince those of the advocates of repeal who are capable of reasoning, and open to conviction, of its utter emptiness and delusion; and, on the other hand, it will serve to show to the uneducated and besotted multitude, that, however important and desirable the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. O'Connell) may represent the measure to be, it is one which the good sense of the nation never can and never will concede. In this latter point of view I look towards the result of this debate as a matter of the highest importance, since the Irish peasantry, however heedless they may be in other respects, will scarcely go on paying their money and raising the tribute for an impracticable object, and the House may rest assured that so soon as the money fails, we shall hear little more of the Repeal of the Union.I am only anxious, in taking a part in the debate, to confine myself within those bounds of indulgence which, as an Irish Member, and one deeply interested in the issue of the present struggle, I think I am entitled to solicit from the courtesy of the House, on whose patience I have not often, and I trust never unnecessarily, intruded myself; and should in this instance, claim a more than ordinary indulgence, I trust they will reflect that it is no ordinary occasion which compels me to do so. The discussion must, I know, be dull and tedious; for whilst the promoters of Repeal have abandoned to its opponents all the details and calculations, they have engrossed to themselves all the romance and poetry of the question; but the issue of this debate will, at least. prove to the Irish people, that an Imperial Parliament is not disposed to postpone the useful to the ornamental elements of an inquiry, or to be hurried away by declamation, whilst they can proceed with greater safety by facts and by evidence.
1290 The main proposition urged by the hon. member for Dublin seems to me to be, that Ireland before the Union enjoyed an interval of unprecedented prosperity, and that this prosperity was attributable to the legislative independence of her domestic Parliament, from which follows the natural inference that the present evils of Ireland have been caused by the dissolution of that independent Parliament; and consequently, that nothing but its restoration can relieve them. Now, I on the contrary, maintain, not only that the evils which now afflict Ireland had their origin and existence for centuries before the Union was enacted, and consequently cannot be traced to the operation of that measure,—but that the Irish Parliament not only never was, but, consistently with the interests of the kingdom, never could have been independent, and therefore that the prosperity thus attributed to it either never existed at all, or, if it did exist, must be referable altogether to other causes;—and, secondly, that Ireland has experienced a degree of national prosperity and improvement, as well as of national dignity and importance, since her incorporation with Great Britain, which she never did, and never could have enjoyed, under any other circumstances.
It has been the lot of Ireland—whether good or bad is not for us now to inquire—to be placed by nature in a position with regard to other countries, in which their interests have been inseparably connected with her fate, and her fortunes dependent upon their policy. Had she, instead of having risen from the waters within 60 miles of the coast of Britain—instead of lying within the common reach of countries which ages of hostility had taught to regard one another aa "natural rivals"—had she been situated far off in the bosom of the Atlantic, and remote from the contending States of Europe—however different might have been her measure of advantage, no question such as the present could ever have arisen, and her importance to the rest of the world being comparatively trifling, she might have been quietly abandoned to her own resources, and her own unaided and distinct independence. But situated as she was, innumerable causes have conspired not only to make a close political connexion between her and England essential to her welfare and prosperity, 1291 but to render a union of interest between the two countries, a community of fortune, an identity of object, and a co-operation in action, indispensable to the power, the prosperity, and security of the British empire. England, awakened to a consciousness of the importance of this object, did not fail to pursue it, and the result was the conquest of Ireland by Henry 2nd. The connexion thus imperfectly commenced; there were, without a Union, but two expedients whereby to perpetuate it—first, by force and coercion; or, secondly, by such a modified constitution as should leave to England a controlling check over the Irish Legislature. The first system continued, through succession of massacres and civil bloodshed, for which the hon. and learned Member has invoked all our posthumous resentment, from the 12th to about the 17th century, when Ireland got the shadow of a Constitution, with one Crown, one Executive, and a Legislative openly and avowedly dependent upon England.
The object of this policy seemed to be to draw off the minds of the Irish from rebellion and violence, by amusing them with the farce of legislation—or rather of debating, for legislation they had confessedly none. Not only did England exercise a power of passing laws in her own Parliament to bind Ireland, which was not represented there, but, by an Act of Henry 7th, called Poyning's Law, no measure could be introduced for discussion in the Irish Parliament which had not first received the sanction of the English Privy Council. It was evident that this system, so degrading to Ireland could continue only so long as she was unable, from physical weakness, or unwilling, from mental debasement, to contend against it; and accordingly it gave way in 1782, when the Irish people—not the Irish Parliament, observe—with arms in their hands, took advantage of a moment of England's debility to demand, and obtained an amelioration of their condition. This is the great event from which we are accustomed to hear the independence of Ireland dated; the British Parliament having then resigned the right of making laws to bind Ireland, and, by repealing the obnoxious Poyning's Law, done away with the appearance of dictating to the Irish Parliament what laws they were to enact. This, then, became the "era of Irish independence," the 1292 "golden age of Irish prosperity," when, as we are told, for a brief space, "she soared into the dignity of a nation before sinking ignominiously into the insignificance of a province." I confess I heard last night, with no little surprise, from the hon. and learned Gentleman. (Mr. O'Connell) the assertion, that the Irish Parliament had, by this bloodless revolution, obtained "full legislative and judicial independence;" but I do not hesitate to say, that nothing could be more unreal than the pageant of this boasted independence. It for a moment dazzled and deceived even the acuteness of those who had struggled most ardently to obtain it; but it had scarcely been secured when it exhibited in practice all its emptiness and insufficiency; and when it was discovered that English interests were as fully and as effectually represented in the Irish House of Commons, during this lauded era of her "independence," as Irish interests are at this present moment represented in this.
The Legislature, in fact, remained as fully under the control of the English Ministry as before; and even the boasted repeal of Poyning's Law turned out at best to be but a specious delusion. By that law, as it previously existed, the British Cabinet could exert its control over the Irish Parliament in the shape of an approval at the originating of a measure, and, by the settlement of 1782, that power was continued in the form of an assent on its conclusion. The Minister resigned the privilege of opposing the introduction of an Irish Bill, but he retained the equivalent power of a veto when it had passed; thus bringing the legislative portion of the Government completely under British control. The Act which wrought this effect was introduced in the Irish Parliament in 1782, and was generally known by the title of Yelverton's Act: by it it was enacted that no bill should pass into a law in Ireland, unless returned under the Great Seal of Great Britain. At the very moment when the Irish Legislature asserted their independence, on the principle that the King governed Ireland in right of his Irish Crown, and not as a portion of the realm of England, it actually passed a law by which its Acts were thus subjected to the control of a foreign Cabinet. If the King of England formed the third estate of the Irish Constitution, in right 1293 of his Irish Crown alone, why was not the Great Seal of Ireland to be considered as the test of the Royal assent to an Irish Bill? But, so far from this being the case, it was enacted by this independent Irish Parliament, with the consent of the Irish people, that the Great Seal of England was to be appended to each Irish Act at the discretion of an English officer of an English Cabinet, amenable to, and unimpeachable by, an English Parliament, if any Act so allowed to pass in Ireland were to contain matter which could in any way injure the empire, be incompatible with English interests, or tend to separate Ireland from it.
The House will perceive also that there was here no line of distinction drawn between Acts of any one description and another—between local Acts and public Acts; all were alike to be submitted to the same ordeal; and the veriest legislative matter affecting the interests of Ireland—a Bill for a road or a turnpike, for a canal or a bridge, for a tax, a duty, or a police regulation, was alike subjected to the control of the British Minister; and yet to this humiliation Ireland submitted without a murmur, and called her condition "independence!" The Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, in the very speech in which he opposed the Union, and contended for the preservation of this miscalled "independence," had the inconsistency to admit, that this power of the British Cabinet, as conferred by Yelverton's Act, amounted to a direct control over the third estate of the Irish Parliament—"that it produced a theoretic difference between the Constitutions of the two kingdoms, which rendered that of Ireland inferior; but that it was an inferiority which was necessary from her situation in the empire, and one with which Ireland was content, as it secured her union and connexion with England on a firm and lasting basis."
But not only on these measures on which the Irish Parliament was at liberty to legislate at all, was it thus completely amenable to a superior power, but, besides this humiliation, the same independent Parliament was totally excluded from one of the noblest fields of legislation that can, possibly, give dignity or importance to a country. Though permitted to deliberate on her own local concerns, Ireland was completely excluded from all external legislation, even in matters in which her 1294 own interests were most nearly concerned. Mr. Fox, who had been himself a strenuous supporter of the great measure of 1782, was most clear and explicit in declaring, in 1785, this fact of her incompetency. He admitted the full right of Ireland to internal legislation but "that external legislation was, in reason and in policy, annexed to the British Legislature; it was a right of prerogative and supremacy which could never give umbrage to any portion of the empire, if it were exercised only for the public good." In the great and important questions of war and peace, Ireland was, therefore, compelled to follow the dictates and register the Acts of Great Britain, however burthensome to her resources, or prejudicial to her interests. Treaties with foreign powers, offensive or defensive—if policy or commerce—she could not presume to enter into; she could send no Ambassador—appoint no Consul—plant no colony; she could make or hold no conquest, seek no confederacy, and conclude no alliance; and yet, with all these restrictions, she flattered herself with the title of independence!
But what rendered all this even the more galling was, that in theory she was all she claimed to be, but in practice she dared not exercise her lights. The Irish Parliament was actually in its essence independent; it possessed the undeniable right of dissenting from the general policy of the empire; it might counsel war when the interests of England were pacific, or it might exhort the King to peace when the necessities of the empire demanded war; it might protest against treaties, and refuse to ratify commercial articles; all these were in theory the constitutional rights of independent Ireland; but dared she practically to assert her privileges in opposition to Great Britain?—the result, had she attempted such a step, would have been instant ruin—separation, and possibly hostility with England. However opposed to her views of policy, however adverse to her interest, she was compelled in every instance to submit implicitly to the dictation of England, and liable for her compliance to be taunted with subserviency; taunts which never failed to be applied, and which finally rendered Ireland impatient of that very connexion which was so vitally essential to her prosperity and preservation.
Such was virtually the humiliating 1295 position of the Irish Legislature during this golden era of her annals; with all the outward pomp and parade of "independence," she suffered all the inward and mortifying consciousness of dependency. In concerns which affected most closely her internal prosperity, she was habitually liable to the control of the British Cabinet, and matters in which her interests were most intimately involved she was debarred from interfering with, from a dread of running into collision with English policy.
Nor was this all: not only was the Legislative Body of Ireland thus tied down and submissive but what was, if possible, of greater moment and importance still, her Executive was totally independent of her, and at the absolute control of a foreign Parliament. Montesquieu had observed that this country can never be ruined till its Legislative has become more corrupt than its Executive; that is, till it has ceased to exercise its constitutional check and control over it,—an observation which applied with equal force to Ireland: the constitution of the two countries being identical. And at this very period the control of the Irish Legislative over the Executive was literally annihilated; such a control being absolutely beyond the reach of the Irish Parliament. The Irish Legislature had nothing whatsoever to do with the selection or appointment of the Irish Viceroy, who was appointed by a British Cabinet, subject to the instructions of a British Ministry, and in every way responsible for his administration to the British Parliament; and so perfectly was he independant of the Parliament of Ireland, that, in 1789, in the case of the Regency, Lord Buckingham actually refused to carry to the Prince the Addresses of both Houses of the Irish Parliament, on the ground of his being prohibited from discharging his duty to them by his oath of office to the English Government! To crown all, with a Legislative thus openly trammeled, and an Executive avowedly above its control, the Parliament of Ireland contained no one element of free representation. Of its 300 Members, 116 were actually placemen, and 216, on the showing of Mr. Grattan, "the representatives of boroughs, and manors, and nominees of patrons, returned without the exercise of the shadow of elective right by the people." Mr. Grattan, in 1296 fact, described the body accurately in one pithy sentence, as "an assembly whose restricted constitution excluded freedom, and whose servile compliances had collected upon the country an accumulation of calamities."
Now, Sir, I do not allude to these facts, for the purpose of casting any posthumous slight upon the Irish Parliament or the Irish people of this period. I do not recapitulate these circumstances for the purpose of diminishing the dignity of her present position by a comparison with her past situation; but with all these facts before us,—facts to which I challenge contradiction,—I would ask the supporters of the proposition of the hon. and learned member for Dublin, how they come to denominate a political imbecility such as this—"national independence?" or how they can possibly trace national prosperity—supposing such to have existed,—to the independence of the Irish Parliament? "National independence," as Burke observes, "can be regarded as beneficial to a country only in two points of view—as conferring external dignity, or promoting internal prosperity and happiness;" and can it be said, that any one of these objects was secured by the independence of Ireland, such as it was? Could a country be said to be regarded by the other countries of Europe as commanding the dignity of a nation, which could hold no legislative intercourse with them, unless through the intervention or by the permission of an adjoining and more powerful state? Could a country be said to enjoy the dignity of a nation which possessed neither the means of defence nor security, except through the interposition and protection of a neighbouring kingdom? Could a country lay claim to national respect which, though it could help to raise an army, could not use it for its own purposes; and though it could equip and man a fleet, had not the power of commissioning or commanding a single vessel? In short, could a country be said to enjoy the dignity of independence which could neither declare war nor conclude peace, repel any injury or avenge an insult? Yet such was the position of Ireland in this boasted period, from 1782 to 1800!
It is not mere distinctness as a people that constitutes independence, for in this respect the Esquimaux, or the New Zealanders, are more a separate people than 1297 the Irish; but it is the power of maintaining that distinctness without the dread of external assault, or the failure of internal resources, free from the control and assistance of any other country, whether political, physical, or financial. Now, as to internal resources, Ireland at this period relied upon British credit for the security of her supplies, and was dependent upon English liberality and justice for the very sufferance of her trade, which she could at any moment have extinguished; and when enabled to enjoy and extend it, she was indebted to a British navy for its protection, and to British treaties for its extension. She was actually compelled by her position to render Britain services, which, whilst they maintained her dignity, did not contribute in the slightest degree to advance her own. She was dragged headlong into every war in which England was engaged; she shared their costs, and incurred their hazard, whilst England alone gained by their success. Territories might be won by her regiments, and conquests made by her seamen, but, independently of England, Ireland could hold no territory, and claim no conquest. She might help to plant and people colonies, but they were the colonies of England, and apart from her; Ireland could neither trade with them, legislate for them, nor govern them. She had, in short, on every occasion, the mere honour to hunt with the lion, but England in all had the lion's portion of the spoil. All these were grievances felt, and keenly too, by Ireland; yet she was compelled to smother her feelings, and to profess, with all her mortifications and disabilities, that she still enjoyed the dignity of "independence." In a word, without enjoying the dignity of being a separate State, she suffered all the inconvenience of being a separate people.
But dismissing this question of external dignity, on which there can be but one opinion, let us see how far the independence of Ireland contributed to the other grand object—that of internal prosperity. Situated as Ireland was, with a young and delicate commerce to foster and encourage, and a superabundance of agricultural produce to export, her manifest interest was to cultivate a close connexion with England, who could not only afford her an ample home market for the one, but also introduce her to foreign intercourse for the extension of the other; in fact, the importance of this connexion 1298 cannot be overstated, when it is borne in mind, that the traffic of Ireland with England and her colonies alone formed four-fifths of her entire trade before the Union, and has amounted to even a greater proportion since. Now, as to the internal prosperity of this period, it was a matter of notoriety, that from the year 1782 till 1785, Ireland suffered most keenly from extreme commercial and manufacturing depression and distress. "Her artisans," to use the words of Macpherson, in his Annals of Commerce, in referring to Ireland at this epoch, "were distressed, discontented, and turbulent, and her manufactures starved for want of capital." She was at this time so completely undersold by British merchants, not only in the foreign trade, but even in her own market, that, in the distraction of her extremity, she had recourse to the celebrated non-importation resolutions against England, which gave rise to the tumults of 1784.
The difficulties of her commercial position at this time led to one of the most singular events in the annals of her independence—namely, the Commercial Propositions of 1785, the debates on which, and the ultimate fate of the measure, served most unequivocally to demonstrate the incompatibility in the case of Ireland of perfect independence, with the full enjoyment of her commercial opportunities, and to finally satisfy both nations of the necessity of a Union to save one or both from ultimate ruin. Notwithstanding the liberal concessions of England in 1799, when she had granted the right of free trade to Ireland—that is, permission to trade unrestrictedly with every foreign port to which her ships had access, Ireland still laboured under severe restrictions, especially in her colonial and her coasting and channel trade; restrictions which, as they were kept up by the rivalry of the two countries, fell with extreme severity on the weaker one; and the Irish Parliament soon discovered that, without some adjustment between her and England relative to the commerce of the two countries, the constitutional acquisitions of 1782 were likely to prove but an empty honour; and accordingly, in 1784, both Houses addressed the Viceroy and the Throne, praying that the case of Ireland might be taken into consideration, with a view to such an adjustment of their commerce, as would preserve to each its interests, and relieve the necessities of Ireland.
1299 This prayer was acceded to by England, and an adjustment proposed on such a scale as nothing but the munificence and resources of a great nation could either have proposed or afforded. Propositions were submitted to the Irish House in 1785, by which the entire trade of England, foreign and colonial, was to be thrown open to Ireland; she was to participate freely in all the benefits of the British Navigation-laws, and the home-trade was to be placed on such a footing, that whilst Ireland retained all her existing advantages in the English market, Irish and British produce were to be placed precisely on the same footing as regarded the market of foreigners. These propositions were so manifestly favourable to Ireland, that they were at once violently opposed by all the trading interests of England, who declared, that so evident were its advantages to Ireland, that British capital would forthwith be removed thither, where it could be much more effectually employed. And Mr. Fox, in this House, denounced the propositions as "a tame surrender of the trade and commerce of Great Britain." In Ireland, on the contrary, they were received with a rapture proportionate to the splendid prospects which they held out to her; and so important was their adoption considered, that the Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer declared his conviction, that the rejection of them would threaten the destruction of British connexion, and the utter ruin of Ireland. "Things," he said, "cannot go on as they are; commercial jealousy is aroused, and will increase with two independent Legislatures, if they do not mutually declare the principles whereby their powers shall be separately employed for the direction of trade. Without an united interest in commerce, in a commercial empire, Political Union will receive many shocks, and separation of interest must endanger separation of connexion, which every honest Irishman must shudder even to look at as a possible event. If this measure be rejected," said he, "Ireland will receive a more solid evil than ever yet befel her. It is vain for gentlemen to think we can go on as we have done for some years, or expect to cope with England in a destructive war of bounties. Our situation must become every day more difficult, and it is impossible to foresee all the ruinous consequences that may ensue." This, then, is the picture of Irish pros- 1300 perity during this era of her independence, drawn by the Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, and contained in the very speech from which the hon. and learned Gentleman has adduced a garbled extract, to prove to the House her unparalleled improvement! Surely, in furnishing us with the one quotation, it would only have been candid to have laid before us the other.
Notwithstanding these manifest advantages in adopting—notwithstanding these solemn warnings of the dangers attendant on its rejection—that measure was finally defeated in the Irish Parliament, and defeated on the open, on the avowed, the acknowledged ground of the impossibility of entertaining it compatibly with the dignity of Irish independence. The propositions, on being first submitted to the Irish House, were received with readiness, and passed in a division in which the tellers had actually no "noes" to tell. They were returned to the British Parliament, with an address to the King from both Houses, returning his Majesty the thanks and gratitude of Ireland, in beholding the blessings which were opening upon them under his benign auspices. The British Parliament, after long discussion, agreed to the propositions, but added, among others, one, the bare notification of which in Ireland created an instantaneous and fatal revulsion against the whole measure; and what was this fearful addition? Why, simply this—a resolution that Ireland, on being admitted to a full participation in the advantages of British commerce, should pass such laws for the protection of their common trade, for the suppression of smuggling, and the regulation of navigation, as had been found indispensable for these purposes by England.
Now, I would appeal to any reasonable man, whether there was any thing unreasonable in this proposition?—whether it was not, in fact, the only condition on which England could possibly make the proposed concessions, since, while it extended to Ireland a share in the commerce of another nation, it merely sought a security, that that commerce was not to be destroyed, or England injured by her generosity? This very view of the proposition was not attempted to be controverted in the Irish Parliament; but, I nevertheless, the entire plan was objected to, on the grounds that this was a return to the old system or England dictating to 1301 Ireland what laws she was to enact; it was converting the commercial into a constitutional question, and that on such grounds that, however advantageous the proposal, Ireland was bound to reject it. Mr. Grattan, who but three years before, on the settlement of 1782, had drawn up and carried an address to the Throne, in which the Irish Parliament assured his Majesty, "that no constitutional question between the two countries could any longer exist, which could interrupt their harmony," was compelled now to admit, that contrary to all his assurances and expectations, a constitutional question had arisen—a question which, though it involved the very existence of Irish commerce, could not be entertained, since it clashed with her constitutional dignity. It was a question in which, to use his own words, "the idea of protecting duties, and all commercial details, must vanish." So great was the difficulty between these contending interests of commerce and constitution, that he even assured the Irish Parliament that, whatever might be the consequence, it was then impossible to devise any plan for the regulation of Irish commerce which would be compatible with national dignity. "It was laughable," he said, "to suppose, that Mr. Orde, (the Irish Secretary, who had introduced the propositions,) could then devise any plan which would be acceptable to the two countries;" an opinion which was re-echoed by Mr. Flood, who added, "that if a demon from hell had wished to place eternal separation between the two countries, he could not do it more effectually than by the resolutions that had passed in Great Britain." In consequence of this bitter opposition, although the resolutions eventually passed by the Irish House, it was by so small a majority that the Government did not think themselves warranted in grounding a bill upon them, and the whole measure was eventually abandoned in disgust.
Here, then, was an avowed and obvious dilemma, in which it was candidly admitted, that the extension, nay, the very existence, of Irish trade, was incompatible with a high degree of Irish independence. It was admitted, that our legislative distinction was an insuperable barrier to our commercial advancement, and, in the madness of the moment, the watch-word of Irish patriotism became, "Perish Commerce, but live the Constitution"! 1302 What in this dilemma was the simple and self-evident remedy? A Union: a Union which, by identifying the interests of the two countries, would destroy the jealousy of concession on the one hand, and by incorporating their Legislatures, do away with the imputation of dictation on the other. It was these commercial propositions of 1785, as I have already observed, that first effectually opened the eyes of England to the necessity of this unavoidable alternative; and in the petitions against them, from the manufacturers and merchants of Bristol, and other trading towns, they expressly stated, that, as "no system could be permanent or equitable which did not prescribe a participation of burthens as well as of benefits, a complete and perfect Union was the only means to ensure harmony and good-will between the two nations." A Union, in fact, was discovered on all hands to be the only expedient to reconcile English apprehensions with Irish advancement, and to combine the commercial prosperity with the constitutional rights of both countries.
But to revert from this instance of the prosperity of Ireland being retarded by its independence, let us return to the question of how far it was actually promoted by it. Notwithstanding this rejection of her proffered benefits—notwithstanding this inward display of wayward vanity—England was induced, at a subsequent period, to make some of those concessions which Ireland had spurned in 1785—at least such as she could without risk to her general interests; and Ireland was then content to make by parcels those very legislative regulations which her dignity had formerly rejected in the gross. The beneficial effects of these concessions were soon visible in the improvement in the trade of Ireland. I have reason to think, that the statements on both sides, with regard to the quantum of Irish prosperity at this era, have been much exaggerated; one party describing her condition as absolute destitution, and the other emblazoning her improvement as a positive political phenomenon. So far as I have been able to ascertain the real facts, I am satisfied that Ireland did make a considerable advance from 1782 to 1800; but I am likewise satisfied, that that advance bears no proportion whatsoever to her progress since. In order, however, to render this fact of her improvement available as an argument in favour of her 1303 independence, two previous steps are indispensable. It must first be shown, that her progress was more striking, after obtaining her independence, than it was before it; and this I consider utterly impossible; her improvement within the previous period, from 1750 to 1780, being totally unprecedented, and greater than it had been even in a century before: the value of her linen-trade alone having, according to Mr. Young, increased during those thirty years from 500,000l. per annum to 1,500,000l., and this, too, the House will observe, even before the free trade concessions of 1799. And, secondly, it must be shown, that her progress was attributable directly to her constitutional freedom, and was not referable to a general tide of prosperity which carried her along in common with the rest of the empire. Now, it is a notorious fact in the annals of British commerce, that the half century which immediately succeeded the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, was a period of the most unexampled prosperity; but more especially the latter portion of it, (this very space from 1782 to 1800), during which the whole empire made the most extraordinary advances. This was attributable, in a great degree, to the various trading treaties then entered into with foreign powers; with France, with Spain, and with Russia; but more particularly to the improvement of the Navigation-laws, and the extension of our fisheries, as well as to the Commutation Act, and the settlement of the East-India trade. Now, during this period, Ireland, possessed of a free trade, and the same Constitution with Great Britain, boasting herself also coequal and independent, would naturally be expected, as enjoying the same advantages, to exhibit the same improvement; and on this principle alone, we could readily account even for the most extraordinary progress. But it is a remarkable fact, as illustrating the real value of her independence—a fact which every investigation goes to confirm—that whilst England and Scotland during this period made the most surprising progress in every department, Ireland, under precisely similar circumstances, exhibited comparatively but a very inconsiderable improvement. Proofs of this are so abundant, that the only difficulty lies in selection. I will not detain the House by entering into any minute details, but will allude only to one or two 1304 results which established the fact beyond a question. The increase and decrease of the quantity of shipping belonging to a commercial country may, I think, be assumed as a pretty safe test of the fluctuations of its trade; and, judging by this standard alone, Ireland, from 1782 to 1800, so far from giving any evidence of improvement, would seem to have been actually on the decline. The amount of her shipping, in 1782, I have not been able to ascertain, but we may safely infer, that it was less than six years afterwards; and, according to statements laid before this House, the number of ships and amount of tonnage belonging to Ireland were, in—
Exhibiting a positive decrease, whilst that of England advanced from—
Ships. Tonnage. 1788 1,016 60,776 1790 1,134 62,336 1795 1,099 58,778 1800 1,003 54,262 The one country thus falling off in her shipping, whilst the other, during the same period, and under the same circumstances, nearly trebled its tonnage. This statement is again checked and corroborated by a similar return of ships built and registered during the same period, and which exhibits even a more striking result. There were built in Ireland, on an average of—
1780 753,977 1788 1,365,138 1790 1,404,960 1795 1,040,296 1800 1,924,042 Showing a decrease of one-half in number of ships, and one-third in amount of tonnage. By taking any one branch of Irish trade during this era, and contrasting it with a similar department of the other two countries, their comparative advancement will appear more prominently. Thus the exports of the three kingdoms were—
Ships. Tonnage. 4 years to 1787 233 9,227 5 years to 1795 193 8,447 5 years to 1800 111 6,456 Thus, whilst the exports of England were trebled during these thirty years, and those of Scotland nearly quadrupled, those of Ireland in the same space had only advanced by one quarter from what they had been at its commencement. I am well 1305 aware how dull and uninteresting these arrays of figures are to the House, and, without pursuing them further, I will merely observe, that the results of a comparison in any one branch of revenue—the post-office, the stamps, or the customs of Ireland, all lead to the same result, and exhibit either a decrease or a scarcely perceptible improvement, whilst the rest of the empire was advancing by the most surprising strides to the pitch of prosperity.
England. Scotland. Ireland. In 1783 12,624,372 653,709 3,077,446 1800 43,152,019 2,346,068 4,015,976 Whatever progress Ireland made, she owed it in fact, not to her internal constitution, but altogether to external causes, the general current of improvement, or the generous concessions of England; her mere abstract independence could not of itself add one shilling to her revenue, nor cause one blade of grass to spring up in her fields; it could only enable her to avail herself of those opportunities which external circumstances presented to her. Thus her independence enabled her to enter freely into foreign trade; but what was the result? Even with this permission, Ireland was either so deficient in capital, in shipping, or enterprise, in this era of her prosperity, that instead of availing herself of the foreign trade thus thrown open to her, instead of employing her own shipping in its carriage, she actually imported from Great Britain in 1799, one million and a half of foreign produce—produce which England allowed her to have with a full drawback of all duties, and on which she afterwards raised 350,000l. of revenue, by subjecting it to taxation at her own ports.
Such were the instances of British liberality to which she is really indebted to her condition before the Union; and it surely cannot be said, that her independence could have extorted this, any more than it could have caused the opening of the British ports to her agricultural produce and her linens, of which latter England received, on an average of three years, to 1798, no less a proportion than 35,000,000 yards out of 40,000,000, which she exported; and not only allowed her a bounty of thirty-five per cent on these, but actually secured to her the British market, by subjecting the linens of all other countries to an import duty of twenty-five per cent; thus taxing itself about 65,000l. per annum to support the Irish linen trade. The whole trade of Ireland with England, at this period, did not amount to more than one-ninth of the 1306 entire trade of Great Britain with the rest of the world: yet, so far from her contributing one-ninth to the British revenue, her contributions were not one hundred-and-fortieth in proportion to her commerce; the whole Irish duties, in 1778, amounting to but 47,000l., whilst those of other countries were nearly 7,000,000l. Such are a few of the causes to which, in reality, Ireland owed any prosperity she enjoyed in this celebrated era; she owed it to English connexion, and to English generosity, and not to her empty constitutional dignity, or the hollow independence of her Parliament; and, with all these advantages, I defy the enemies of the Union to show, that Ireland, during this period, increased her resources by more than one-half; nay, I would say, by one-fourth; whilst the capital and revenues of the rest of the empire were augmented four-fold during the same space.
But there remains one other inquiry still: if independence did not secure to Ireland external dignity,—if it failed to promote internal prosperity, did it ensure to her domestic tranquillity and happiness? A nation may be reconciled to mediocrity of rank: it can be happy in the enjoyment of moderate wealth, provided, in the absence of ostentatious splendour, it can have "the consolations of obscurity, peace, contentment, and tranquillity." Did Ireland enjoy these under her domestic Legislature? I do not mean to allude to the distant years of her history, when her Parliament was trammeled and fettered. I do not allude to the Whiteboy outrages of 1763, or 1776, for these occurred before the constitutional era of 1782; but did her independent Parliament secure the country against the recurrence of such fearful outrages? On the contrary; so far from this being the case, we had, in 1785, the Right Boys of Munster, and in 1786, an actual Civil War in the county of Armagh, under the very eye of the independent Parliament, which lasted till it had rooted out the Roman Catholic population, and sent them abroad to disseminate disaffection against a Government which permitted such outrages. In 1792 and 1793, in Louth and Meath, in Limerick and Roscommon, in Leitrim and Westmeath, there were perpetual risings and disturbances, whilst, during the same period, various bands ruled undisturbed in various other districts, under the name of Hearts 1307 of Oak and Hearts of Steel, Houghers, and Carders, Peep-of-day Boys, and Defenders, spreading terror and dismay over whole provinces, and exhibiting, though on a minor scale, the atrocities and bloodshed which political agitation has again revived in the Whitefeet and Ribandmen of the present day. For nearly twenty years we manned the navy with our malcontents, and peopled New Holland with our Irish outcasts, and, to crown the whole,
—Last scene of all which endsThis strange eventful tragedy,we had the sanguinary and destructive Rebellion of 1798,—a Civil War, in which were perpetrated some acts of fierce barbarity, for which the annals of human ferocity can scarcely afford a parallel. Such were the symptoms of our domestic happiness under a domestic Legislature. A contemporary writer, in alluding to this very subject, at the time of the Union, has remarked,—"that, with all her advantages, commercial and political, her free trade and unrestricted agriculture, her Habeas Corpus Act, and Constitutional Parliament, the growth of Irish discontent more than kept pace with the growth of Irish prosperity; discord increased with wealth; and conspiracy and rebellion shot up with national improvement."Now, if it be evident that every species of connexion between England and Ireland, previous to 1800, failed of its object,—if it has been found that each was untenable in its nature, or inefficient in its operation,—if even the most liberal constitution which could be conceded consistently with the preservation of connexion by Great Britain, that which most nearly approached to perfect independence, failed in promoting the legitimate objects of free government, external dignity, and internal happiness, the question forces itself upon us, by what fresh expedient was that connexion to be maintained? As to perfect and distinct independence, I leave that altogether out of the question, for I believe it to be perfectly impossible to preserve the connexion between two countries of unequal power and resources, such as Great Britain and Ireland, without sacrificing, in some degree, the independence of the weaker one. Between two countries on a perfect political equality in every respect, to whom union or separation might be equally a matter of choice or convenience, we can conceive the idea of 1308 such a junction continuing, for a time, compatibly with the perfect independence of both; but, in the case of two nations, of different powers, compelled by their mutual necessities to form a connexion, that connexion must always be, in a greater or less degree, one of patronage on the part of the most powerful, and of dependence on that of the weaker State; of dictation on the one side, and of acquiescence on the other. In order to lead to disunion, it is not necessary even to presume an hostility of interests between the two confederates; for even whilst they concur in the same object, so various are human intellects, that they may differ as to the means; and with whom, in such a case, is the decision to rest, unless with the most powerful of the two?—whilst interest at once points out the propriety of compliance, and a sacrifice of opinion on the part of its companion. Is such submission, then, consistent with the idea of perfect independence? And how long may we suppose that a Government such as this which has been proposed—this political abortion of one Government with two Legislatures—this
Most delicate monster with two voices,—how long could it exist in the present state of feeling in Ireland? May we not conclude, with her jealousy of all dictation, her impatience of all control, that, in some moment of spleen, of passion, or possibly of caprice or delusion, under the influence of some vociferous patriot, she might conceive it incumbent on her dignity, not only to express, but maintain her opinions, and thus precipitate a separation, and possibly hostilities, between the two countries. Ireland, we know, submitted reluctantly to the dictation of England for nearly seven centuries, but it was during a period when her spirit was unformed, and her resources as yet undeveloped; but can we suppose that, with her present excited feelings, she would calmly submit to it now? And yet, render the two countries distinct to-morrow, and I maintain that the continuance of the connexion is impossible without such submission on the part of Ireland.We all know how very nearly, in more than one instance, the proceedings of the Irish Parliament hurried the countries to the verge of separation, when thus imperfectly conjoined before. Ireland had scarcely obtained the concession of free trade, in 1779, when one of its first fruits 1309 was a motion, in the Irish House of Commons, to declare war, single-handed, and apart from Great Britain, against a country not only at peace, but actually in alliance, with England, for an alleged injury to her commerce! I refer to the case of Portugal, which has been already alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Rice), which, in 1781, refused to admit Irish produce into her ports, though, by the Methuen treaty, she was bound to do so. The interposition and remonstrances of England were of no avail; and, on a positive refusal of the Portuguese Government to yield, Sir Lucius O'Brien proposed, in the Irish House of Commons, to send an armament at once to chastise her, in order, as he said, to show to the world, that Ireland "had vigour and resources to maintain all her rights, and to astonish all her enemies." This blustering proposition was rejected; but is it not a possible case that it might have been carried in that assembly, and that Ireland, a confederate part of the British empire, might have been placed in the singular position of declaring war against a country at peace and in alliance with the rest of the kingdom?
I would not allude to the oft-repeated case of the Regency, in 1789, but that on this point, as showing the tendency to separation, I go even further than the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Rice) who has so ably discussed it. I maintain, that there was not only a tendency to a separation in this event, but that, for the time, it produced an actual and literal separation of the two kingdoms. The facts are well known. Ireland, during the temporary mental aberration of his Majesty, George 3rd, decided on the choice of a Regent with unlimited prerogative; whilst England was deliberating on the appointment of one with extremely restricted powers. Now, at that period, the only bond of union between the two countries was, their common Executive. The King of England was, in his capacity, ipso facto, King of Ireland; and consequently, his representative, the Regent of England, by a parity of reasoning, Regent of Ireland also. But the Regent, in a legislative point of view, represents, not the person of the King, but his executive authority; and to alter the nature of that authority, as represented in the two countries, was, therefore, to destroy the identity of the representative; so that, by this proceeding 1310 of the Irish Parliament, Ireland was actually in a state of separation from England for some weeks; during which the authority of the King was actually denied there, till the restoration of his Majesty relieved the country from the necessity of a Regency altogether. I know that the ordinary reply to this statement is, that the two countries, in the choice of a Regent, decided upon the same person; but it must be perfectly evident, that the same latitude which enabled them to elect the same individual with different powers, would have enabled the two Parliaments to select two different persons with the same powers, or even with different powers; thus rendering the separation of the two countries inevitable.
The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. O'Connell), in connexion with this topic, has introduced another argument, the principle of which I do not conceive to be very favourable to the prospect of continued connexion with two independent Parliaments. "The King of England de facto," said he, "is de jure King of Ireland," and, almost in the same breath, he continued, that "if the English nation were to elect for their monarch the present king of the French, the Irish people would be bound to resist him to the death;" and where, then, I would ask, is the de jure authority of the Monarch over Ireland, if it is to be at all times dependent on the taste or opinion of the inhabitants?
If, then, all bonds of union between the two countries, however modified between total subjection and perfect independence, have been found to be but uncertain securities for the permanence of their connexion, what other expedient remained to ensure its preservation, than a thorough incorporating Union? "There hath been put in practice," says Lord Bacon, "these two several kinds of policy in the uniting and joining together of States and Kingdoms,—the one to retain the ancient form still severed, and only conjoined in sovereignty, the other to superinduce a new form, agreeable and convenient to the entire estate. The former hath been the more usual, but the latter is the more happy." This sentiment of Lord Bacon has been reiterated in the proposition of Lord Minto. "When two countries are so circumstanced as mutually to require connexion, the only mode of connexion which can perfectly remove the evils of 1311 separation, and fully confer the benefit of union, is a perfect identity and incorporation of the Governments. All other relations of a mere partial and imperfect nature are subject to many inconveniences while they subsist, and are, besides, of limited duration. By limited I do not merely mean precarious; I consider their separation as not merely possible or probable, but certain." A union, in short, was found to be the only expedient to preserve the connexion, and secure the prosperity of both countries; and it is a fact, all mention of which is sedulously avoided in the present agitation, that Ireland was herself the first to propose an incorporating union of the two countries, and that, for nearly two centuries, England perseveringly rejected it. Independently of the circumstance of Irish Representatives having sat in the Parliaments of Edward 1st and Edward 3rd, and the disposition manifested towards a union in the time of Cromwell, it is a matter of record that, in the reign of Charles 2nd, in a Report of the Board of Trade to the Privy Council of Ireland, it is expressly recommended, "that endeavours should be used for the union of the kingdoms under one legislative power, proportionably as had been heretofore done in the case of Wales." This Report is said to have been drawn up by Sir William Petty, who, in his "Anatomy of Ireland?' written some years subsequently, confirms the same view by the expression of his own individual opinion.
The suggestion of the Board of Trade was, of course, disregarded then; but again, in 1703, at the moment when the Scottish Union was in contemplation, the Irish Parliament petitioned, and petitioned in vain, for a similar incorporation, the English Ministry being resolutely opposed to its concession. A Committee of the Irish House of Lords, appointed at that period to inquire into the state of the nation, embodied the following passage in their Report:—'That, upon doe consideration of the present constitution of this kingdom (Ireland) such an humble representation be made to the Queen of the state and condition thereof, as may best incline her Majesty, by such proper means as to her Majesty shall seem fit, to promote such an union with England as may best qualify the states of this kingdom to be represented in the Parliament there.'
1312 Four months after this the Queen vouchsafed an answer in the negative; and again, in 1707, the Parliament renewed their entreaties, but with similar success. An Address was then, as before, presented to her Majesty. It congratulated her on the accomplishment of the Scottish Union, "that great and glorious work," and concluded with this prayer:—'May God put it in your royal heart to add greater strength and lustre to your Crown by a still more comprehensive union.'* These efforts were, however, still unavailing; there was, in fact, a jealousy existing at that time in England of the proceedings of the Irish Catholics, and their well-known attachment to the dethroned monarch, James 2nd; and, as England had not, as yet, become sufficiently enlightened to prefer union to compulsion, the Protestant party of Ireland, who entered fully into her sentiments, failing to induce the Queen to join in their views of a union, had no other alternative against the designs of the Catholics than to co-operate with the Crown in adopting another expedient for their own protection,—namely, the enactment of the Penal Laws; and, as was stated by Lord Clare, in the Irish House of Commons, in 1793, on the discussion of the Roman Catholic claims,—"It was not till the attempt to unite the Parliaments of both countries had proved abortive that the great code of the Popery-laws was enacted." As these apprehensions of England wore away, and as she adopted, by degrees, a more enlightened policy, the Penal Laws were gradually relaxed, and an incorporate Union was proposed, and adopted by both countries;—and now comes the question,—has this Union realised the intended object? Has it (to try it by the same test) secured the external dignity, or promoted the internal prosperity of Ireland?
As to the question of national dignity, I shall, of course, be here met by a direct negative; for there could inhere no dignity in a nation which is stated, by the opponents of the Union, to have been utterly "annihilated" by that measure. Ireland was, we are told, annihilated and extinguished by the Union, inasmuch as it then ceased to be a distinct kingdom. But, on the same principle, Scotland must likewise have been "annihilated," when
* Journals Irish House of Commons, 111, p. 638.1313 she, in 1707, ceased to be a distinct kingdom, on being incorporated with England; and, by a parity of reasoning, if the mere fact of incorporation by destroying distinctness involves extinction, England herself must have been annihilated when she became incorporated with the other two. So that, according to the doctrine of the Repealers, the whole empire must, at this moment, be ideal, and exist, like the universe of Berkeley, only in the imagination of its inhabitants! It is a delusion, however, to assert, that when two nations unite, they surrender or annihilate their rights; they do not surrender, but, on the contrary, they interchange and combine them. Such, at least, is the opinion of the highest authority whom I can quote on this subject—that of Grotius:—"Si quando uniantur duo populi, non amittantur jura, sed communicabuntur: * * * idemque censendum est de regnis, quœ non fœdere, ant eo duntaxat quod regem communem habeant, sed vera unitate junguntur." "Nations," says he, "which form confederacies, communicate, but do not destroy their common privileges; and this principle holds good whether they be conjoined by an ordinary league, or by the circumstance of having one common monarch, or whether they be connected by a mutual incorporating union."But this assertion, with regard to annihilation, is based on a fallacy so worthless that it scarcely repays the trouble of exposure. The question is one, not of theory, but of experience. Does the inhabitant of any Irish province lose aught in individual dignity by being enabled to say, that, in addition to being an Irishman, he is likewise a citizen of the most enlightened and commanding nation of modern times, not admitted by courtesy to a participation of its wealth and resources, but enjoying them as of right and inheritance? Is it no accession of dignity to an Irish member of this House that he sits here to legislate, not merely for the concerns of his own little island, but for the interests of the most opulent and powerful empire in the universe,—interests which are his own, in common with every inhabitant of Britain? Mr. Burke, in one of his most eloquent passages, has described it as the great and leading enhancement of a seat in Parliament, that it gives its occupant an opportunity, on an extended scale, "of doing good and of resisting 1314 evil." How immensely, then, has this field of senatorial ambition been expanded and increased to every Irish Representative, by the measure which gave him a voice in the councils of this huge monarchy! What a proud gratification must it have been to every Irish Member who conscientiously gave his support to the Bill of 1329, which conferred upon the hon. and learned member for Dublin and his Roman Catholic colleagues, the distinction of a seat in this House; that he was enabled, by the Act of Union, to contribute his aid to that great measure of national and political justice,—a gratification which he could never have enjoyed a a mere member of a local Legislature! Did the hon. and learned Member himself (Mr. O'Connell) feel no emotion of warrantable pride when he, two years ago, lent the aid of his powerful talents to restore the Constitution, and reform the abuses which time had inflicted upon the representation of this House; and did it never strike him, that this was a triumph winch he never could have experienced as a Member of an Irish Parliament? Nor is it, that the influence of an Irish Representative has been extended to a control over the concerns of this kingdom alone; but, by the Act of Union, he has been enabled to become the advocate of the rights of the whole human race, and to co-operate in extending the reign of liberty from hemisphere to hemisphere. For my own part, I shall never fail to regard it as a proud distinction, that I have myself been enabled, during the course of the last twelve months, to contribute, by my own humble vote, to extend the blessings of freedom from the confines of India to the remotest shores of the Atlantic; to liberate the Hindoo, and to strike off the fetters of the African. These are triumphs beyond the reach of a "Local Legislature,"—these are trophies toward which the highest ambition of an Irish Parliament could never soar; these are honours which enable us, whilst we pride ourselves upon our birth-place, as Irishmen, to add to our distinctions the glory of being Britons.
I need not ask, whether Ireland has experienced an increase of prosperity since the Union? This is an admission, which, not merely the intelligence, but the experience, of every uninfluenced man, capable of forming an opinion, must compel him at once to make; and, after the thorough exposition which this point has un- 1315 dergone during the last three years—above all, after the comprehensive and conclusive statements of the right hon. the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. S. Rice), it is totally a work of supererogation to attempt to enter into any further proofs upon a subject where every circumstance is an evidence, and every aspect an argument. This, at least, is a department of the inquiry in which declamation and sophistry are of no avail against calculations and figures. Every statement which can be looked upon as authority, concurs in the same representation, and affords us the fullest evidence that, during the last thirty years, the prosperity of Ireland has been the greatest in any interval of her history. During this space her shipping trade has been doubled:
Her imports and her exports have been increased in a like proportion,—
1801. 1831. Inwards 711,242 tons 1,420,382 Outwards 703,717— 1,073,545 Her cotton trade has been actually created since the enactment of thu Union, whilst its rival, her linen trade, instead of decreasing, has been nearly doubled:—
1801. 1825. Imports 4,621,344 tons 8,596,785 Exports 4,064,545— 9,243,210 Her exports of corn have been increased sixfold:
1800 36,112,361 1830 57,947,413 And that of live stock no less than tenfold:
1800 379,679 quarters. 1826 2,226,774— Nor, with these evidences of external traffic, have we less conclusive testimony of the growth of internal comfort in the home consumption of the country. The importation of coals, since the Union, has risen from 360,000 tons, to nearly 900,000. The consumption of wines and spirits, and of tea and sugar, has been more than doubled:—
1800 19,891 head. 1826 196,807— And that of coffee has been actually twelvefold increased:—
1800. 1830. Wine and Spirits 4,295,499 gals. 9,137,015 Tea (in 1828) 2,773,070 lbs. 3,887,955 Raw Sugar 226,936 cwt. 342,701 1316 I may be pardoned, if, in concluding this topic, I adduce, as an example of the benefits of the Union, the instance of the town from which I have, on a previous evening, presented so important a petition—the town of Belfast. It affords, perhaps, the most striking, though by no means an insulated example, of Irish commercial advancement, as promoted by the Union. Population, and its increase in agricultural districts, can scarcely be relied on as an unerring test of prosperity; but, in trading towns, where the means of support are dependent on the extension of traffic, its increase or decrease is an unquestionable evidence of the rise or the decline of prosperity. Now, the population of Belfast was, before the era of Irish independence—that is, in 1779, about 13,000; during twenty years, it increased but one-fourth, and was, at the time of the Union, in round numbers, 19,000. In 1816, it was 30,720; in 1829, 55,158; being an increase, since the Union, of more than four-fold. The quantity of shipping which entered the port in 1786, amounted to 761 vessels, of 38,421 tons burthen: at the Union, in 1800, they were 856 in number, and the tonnage 67,855, an increase of about one-third. There were, last year, 2,600 ships, with a tonnage of 264,377, being an augmentation, since the Union, to triple the amount in number, and quadruple in quantity. At the time of the Union, there was not a cotton nor a flax mill in Belfast, and the cotton trade alone now gives occupation to upwards of 10,000 looms; and, taking the receipts of Customs and Excise as a fair test of the produce of home manufactures and foreign trade, they afford a most singular evidence of the comparative influence of union and independence. The Custom-house receipts were, in 1782, 60,000l.; twenty years after wards, in 1800, when we had had a full experience of the influence of a free constitution, they were 62,668l., showing an augmentation of but one-thirtieth in all that period. The Union took place in 1800, and five years afterwards they were 228,645l.; they were, in 1820, 306,263l., and are, at this moment, upwards of 400,000l.; showing that the trade of the north of Ireland, has actually doubled in every period of five years since the Union. I say the trade of the north of Ireland, for, although I do not mean to generalize this instance over the whole kingdom, Belfast 1317 is certainly the emporium and the depot of Ulster, and I have sufficient evidence to show to the House, that the improvement in the entire of that province has been uniform and immense. I hold in my hand a return of the produce of stamps in the Antrim district since the Union, by which it appears that, from 1800 to 1814, when the proceeds were diminished by the reduction of the rate of duty, the gross receipts for stamps had risen from 6,198l. to 20,604l.; that of advertisement duty, from 567l. to 2,275l.; insurance duty, from 448l. to 1,445l. (and it was last year 2,944l.)—and the total revenue in these departments, from 6,766l. to 35,163l.; and though, owing to the reductions in 1814, it has been considerably decreased in amount, it is at this moment nearly 20,000l. per annum. These, Sir, are our proofs of prosperity—these are the considerations that render us attached, and warmly attached, to British connexion—these are the blessings that we have derived under the Union—and, looking to these, all we ask from the hon. and learned Gentleman is, in his own emphatic phrase, that he will "let us alone."
1800. 1830. Coffee 73,370 lbs. 898,363 —"We seek no change,And, least of all, such change as he would bring us.But, whilst I contend for this singular increase of national prosperity, I by no means assert, that the Union is its direct and originating cause; I do not say, that, because the two were concurrent, the one is consequential. I cannot suppose that there is any thing talismanic in the mere abstract fact of a Union, any more than in the mere abstract state of distinctness to generate wealth, or to originate prosperity. I do not conceive, that the Union is in itself prosperity, merely because it promotes and diffuses it, any more than I believe that a lens is light, because it collects and concentrates its scattered rays. The Union is not the cause of the prosperity of Ireland—it is only the medium through which she has received and enjoyed it. The source of her prosperity has been British connexion, and the participation of British resources. It is a singular fact, connected with the trade of Ireland, which I have omitted to mention, that the increase of her imports and exports has been confined to her commerce with England alone. In her foreign trade, Ireland has hardly advanced a single step since the Union, but through her intercourse with 1318 England her progress has been immense; her British imports having increased, in thirty years, from three millions to seven millions, and her exports from three-and-a-half millions to nearly nine millions, whilst her foreign traffic has been almost stationary.With proofs such as these before us of our utter dependence upon British connexion, and upon admission to a participation in British resources, the question of Union resolves itself, in my mind, into one simple, and, I think, incontrovertible proposition. In what position will England be most readily inclined to benefit Ireland, and assist her in her progress—as her partner or her competitor—as her rival, or as an incorporated portion of her own empire?
1801. 1830. Imports from foreign ports £1,350,294 £1,547,849 from Great Britain 3,270,350 7,048,936 Exports to foreign ports 256,819 711,854 to Great Britain 3,537,725 8,531,355 I have but one other point to allude to, and have done with this inquiry. I admit it is the most painful and the least satisfactory. Has the Union succeeded in producing peace and tranquillity in Ireland? Unfortunately, as yet, the answer must be in the negative. It would be interminable to enter into the causes which have produced this failure, or to trace the means by which the factious and the vile, the disaffected and the corrupt, have succeeded in operating on the crude minds of the Irish peasantry, so as to thwart and defeat every project for her happiness and welfare. The means by which, whilst the Creator has designed Ireland for a paradise,
Man enamoured of distress,Has marred her into wilderness.The causes are innumerable; the remedy is contained in one single sentence—relieve the destitute, and educate the people. It is to this expedient we must come at last, when bayonets and violence have failed of their object, and when Insurrection Acts and Bills of Coercion have become but a dead and inoperative letter. It is the destitution of the Irish poor, and the ignorance of the Irish people, that exposes them as a ready prey to the dominion of priestcraft, and the delusions of demagogues. It is their ignorance that inclines them "to listen with credulity to the statements of every adventurer who can declaim of patriotism, and the deceptions of every impostor who, at whatever 1319 risk of detection, can promise to them an improvement of their condition. Educate the people, and you raise them at once from this foul degradation. Enable them to examine and judge for themselves, and you liberate them from the thraldom of the political priest and the delusions of the trading agitator. This is the only expedient to restore Ireland to peace and to happiness, and this alone can possibly bestow on her that thorough and absolute independence of mind, not less than action, to which the hon. and learned Member for Dublin has taught her to aspire.But I have understood from the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. O'Connell), that it is not total independence which he seeks to secure for Ireland by the Repeal of the Union, but a sort of dependent connexion—"a federal Union," as he calls it; a power to deliberate of her own authority, for her own local affairs, but to leave all matters of external and national legislation to the British Parliament. Now I would appeal to the House, to the country, to the speeches of the hon. Gentleman himself, whether the plan he has here proposed be commensurate with the object for which he has taught his countrymen to clamour, or whether it would be a realization of the hopes which he has encouraged them to cherish? Every patriotic Repealer in Ireland professes, that his object is to render Ireland an independent nation, and no longer a subordinate province. "If I were asked," said Lord Minto, "to describe an independent nation, I should say it was one which can make war and peace, which can gain dominion by conquest, plant colonies, and establish foreign relations; and if I would describe a subordinate and dependent province, I should say it is one which must contribute her quota to all the wars of a neighbouring kingdom, incur all the risks, and partake all the disasters, while all that is acquired by success falls to that country, with which it nevertheless claims to be co-ordinate and co-equal." Granting, then, the full measure of Repeal for which the hon. and learned Gentleman has asked, I would leave it to the most simple-hearted advocate of the measure in Ireland, to say which of his Lordship's definitions would apply to Ireland in her new capacity;—whether that of an "independent nation" or a "subordinate province?" Is Ireland in this new form of Government, to have 1320 any discretion in matters of war or peace, or is she not, as before, to follow implicitly the dictates of England? If she is not, separation, I contend, must inevitably follow sooner or later; and if she is, she is, of course, to be dragged in as heretofore for her share of all the costs and expenditure. Is she to have any control over the services, the number, or the pay of the very army which is to protect her, although she must, of course, bear her proportion of the expenses, however vast may be the armies of England? Is she to have any authority over the navy of the empire, its numbers, or its equipments? No, but she must, in this case also, bear her part of the burthen. Her commerce is at the present moment dependent exclusively upon her intercourse with Great Britain and her colonies. Is she to have such a power vested in her Parliament as will enable her to legislate independently for her own interests in either of these departments? Is she to have any control over the affairs of the Irish Church, its revenue, or its appropriation? This, at least, she will not attempt, constituted, as her Parliament would be, of Roman Catholics, or their adherents, to arrogate to herself.
If, then, she is to have no authority of herself in matters in which she is most nearly interested, in war or peace, alliances or treaties, commercial, colonial, or ecclesiastical arrangements, I would ask, whether this be the full national independence for which the hon. and learned Gentleman has taught his countrymen to insist? And will the Irish peasantry be so dull as not to discover the cheat?—will they not demand from the hon. and learned Member, whether this be the independence they were taught to struggle for?—whether it is for this subordinate rank they have been holding their tumultuous meetings, and signing their petitions, deserting their peaceful industry, and robbing themselves and their families of the very necessaries of life, in order to raise 15,000l. a-year for the hon. and learned member for Dublin? No doubt the hon. and learned Gentleman's eloquence will be sufficient to avert their indignation; but even should it fail with a few, he will still have the consolation of an amiable character in Horace—
Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo,Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplar in arcâ.1321 This, then, at length, is the hon. and learned Member's plan for getting rid of the "Sassenach" and the "Stranger." It is thus he proposes to liberate Ireland from the thraldom of "the Saxon Parliament"—this is his notable expedient to render Ireland once more—Great, glorious, and free,First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea.Sir, I know the ardent and susceptible temperament of the Irish people; I know how deeply the love of country and of freedom is engrafted in every Irish bosom, and how every appeal to these wins its way to the heart; and is it not a cold-blooded tampering with the feelings and passions of the nation,—is it not a seething of the lamb in its mother's milk,—thus to controvert the best affections of a people into instruments wherewithal to delude and to plunder them? But we have at least learned this by the present discussion,—that the hon. Member's object in the Repeal of the Union, is not to render Ireland an independent nation, but to establish a sort of federal connexion between her and Great Britain. I remember, Sir, a very striking description of that kind of connexion given by the Irish Speaker, Mr. Foster, in the year 1800. "It must ever be the dearest interest of Ireland," said he, "to be an unalienable and inseparable part of the British empire, not joined together by the nonsense of a federal union, a connexion which hangs on a thread, exposed to all the attacks of party, and all the effects of accident; and unfortunate, indeed, would it be for us if Ireland were held by a connexion of the mere person of the King." And it is with this "nonsense" of a federal Union with which the hon. Member now comes forward to appease the excited imaginations of the deluded people of Ireland!Against such a species of connexion we have not only all the arguments of theory, but all the practical experience of history to warn us. Its inherent and fundamental defect is, that with an external appearance of identity, it tends to cultivate a feeling of distinctness: distinctness in individuals is but too frequently synonymous with opposition, and in nations it is often a convertible term for hostility, and always for rivalry. There is in every confederacy of this kind not only a distinctness in the interests of the two nations, but even in 1322 the separate interests of each; each has its private and its public interests, its imperial and its local interests. These distinctions invariably and inevitably lead to jealousies and competitions, more especially, as in the case of Ireland, where there is a manifest inequality in the power of the confederate parties. All these are feelings and passions which do not fail to exhibit themselves even in moments of common danger, and which all tend, sooner or later, to one common goal, and that goal is separation. Have we not existing examples of these facts at this very moment? Have I not described in these very terms the present condition of the United States of America? America, I admit, is a bad example for either party, because it is an imperfect example; its Union is too recent to form an illustration for my opponents, and too green, too unripe, to afford a satisfactory argument to myself. But I conceive that it must be evident to every individual who knows the condition of that country; the jealousies of the northern and southern States; the distinctness of interests on which each is dependent, and the disunion in feeling which already exists and is rapidly gaining head amongst them, that before many years have elapsed—so soon, at least, as they have strength to warrant them in making the attempt—we shall have more than one Carolina preparing to repeal the North American Union.
The whole range of history cannot furnish us with an example in which these species of confederacies, from their internal weakness and the defects of their constitution, have not fallen an easy prey to foreign enemies, or dropped asunder by their own rottenness. The instance of Spain and Portugal is in every respect a perfect illustration of the proposed federal union between Ireland and this country. Philip 2nd of Spain claimed the throne of Portugal in right of his mother, and in 1581 the two kingdoms formed a federal union under one crown, on the express stipulation that Portugal was to continue a distinct kingdom. How long did this connexion last? Not sixty years. The jealousy of the weaker country could not brook the connexion, and, in 1640, Philip 4th was expelled, and John of Braganza seated on the independent Portuguese throne. And what has been the result of that independence? Would any Irishman wish to see his country placed on a foot- 1323 ing with either nation of the Peninsula to-day? Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, formed a similar federal union, in 1397, by the Treaty of Calmar. It lasted scarcely three generations; being dissolved by the revolt of Gustavus Vasa, in 1523; and the union which now subsists between Sweden and Norway, I have good authority for saying, has no other effect than, by the mutual jealousies of the two nations, that of subjecting both to the intrigues and influence of Russia.
Internal enemies have ever found such alliances the most favourable to their schemes of conquest and subjugation. It was, by attacking independent Ireland that the enemies of England have ever sought to aim a fatal blow at her. Witness the expedition of the Spaniards, in the reign of Elizabeth, and afterwards in 1717; the efforts of the Pope, in the time of the Common wealth; and of the French at Carrickfergus, in 1760; at Bantry, in 1796; Killalla, in 1798. Had the seven provinces of Holland been incorporated into one nation, instead of hanging together by a thread, each State possessing a negative on the general will of the confederacy, could they have been overrun, in nine days, by the French, in 1795? In Holland, too, we have lately had a "repeal of the Union," and what does it promise for either country? It has left Holland a shattered and decaying trunk, and Belgium a reed shaken by the wind, and both, in all probability, likely one day to fall before the ambition of France, or some other continental neighbour. Germany and Switzerland have each in turn felt the weakness of federal alliances against external aggression, and, in short, the, whole range of history can furnish forth no one precedent of such an alliance being either prosperous in its condition or permanent in its duration. If we would form a conjecture of the probable duration of power in any dominion, we have, in fact, only to inquire whether its subjects be united and identified, like those of China, or divided and independent, like the hordes of Arabia and Tartary.
One fact we have learned beyond a question or a doubt, from the experience of seven centuries in Ireland, that whilst British connexion is indispensable to the well-being of both countries, that connexion can never be secured unless by the thorough union or the thorough subjection of Ireland to Great Britain. Every 1324 intermediate system has been tried in vain, and the nearer the terms of connexion have approached to independence, the nearer have we invariably approached to total separation. Witness the rebellion of 1798; when, in the very midst of her enjoyment of an independence of which Ireland boasted with even childish vanity, the whole country was deluged with the blood of a civil war, entered en avowedly with the intention of a final disruption of connexion with England, and the establishment of an Irish republic in alliance with France. Had such a project succeeded, the first duty of England must have been a second conquest; the safety of every coasting town from Cornwall to the Hebrides must have demanded it. Could British trade be carried on with safety? Could British merchant vessels pass in security through the Irish Channel, whilst a French or Irish navy lay at anchor in the Irish harbours? To leave Irish interests out of the question altogether, the interests of Britain demand that Ireland must be either her friend or her dependent—the alter ego, or the subject of England. Every approach from subordination to independence is an advance towards separation. It is, in fact, striking off link by link the ties by which the superior country retains the weaker one, and entire independence is only attainted by breaking the last thread which holds the kingdoms together. The only expedient which can ensure, and which has achieved, perfect independence coupled with indissoluble connexion, is an incorporating Legislative Union—a Union which, by placing the liberties of the two countries on the same basis, ensures a community of laws, and, by identifying their power, destroys the struggles of competition and the sense of dependency.
Not only do I consider that Union, as it at present stands, to be sound in its nature and beneficial in its results, but, what is of almost equal importance in the present position of affairs, I believe the reflecting portion of the two nations to be so fully satisfied of its advantages, as it exists, and of the ruin which must inevitably ensue from its repeal, that I look on the accomplishment of that measure as utterly and absolutely impracticable, and its present agitation to be fraught at once with mischief and delusion. There is one feature in the present discussion which the multitude at least seem totally to 1325 overlook. We are not now deliberating the propriety, in case no union had ever existed, of establishing it, but the expediency of its abolition now, after its having existed for four-and-thirty years; and when the hon. and learned Gentleman stated last night that, by the repeal of the Union he sought merely "to place Ireland in the same situation in which she had stood before the enactment of that measure," he appeared to overlook altogether one material element which should enter into his calculation; he forgot altogether that other measures of the utmost constitutional importance have been passed in the interim, and are even now acting upon; and looking at the matter in this point of view, there are two insuperable obstacles which have in the mean time erected themselves against the Repeal of the Union—two barriers which, taken together, are in my opinion insurmountable, and those are, Roman Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform.
Sir, I should be the last individual to introduce sectarian prejudices in this House, or to give utterance to language here which might tend to perpetuate sectarian distinctions beyond it; but as I look upon this topic as vitally and inseparably connected with the present question, I shall not hesitate to deal with it unreservedly; I know that in doing so I shall expose myself to slander and misrepresentation elsewhere, and I know that I shall incur the risk of being again denounced in Ireland, as I have already been, by the hon. and learned member for Dublin, in that strain of mingled filth and eloquence which, out of this House, is so peculiarly his own. I am, and ever have been, a friend to the emancipation of the Roman Catholics; but, in common with almost every liberal Protestant with whom I have spoken on the subject in Ireland, I have been compelled at last to question, not the justice of that measure—for that I have never for one moment doubted—but the existence of the contentment and moderation which we were led to hope would have been exhibited by the Roman Catholics after that measure should have passed. Their own proceedings during the last three years have compelled us at last to alter our opinions of the objects of the Roman Catholic body and their leaders; and if I am less liberal in my opinion of them to-day than I was twelve months ago, I can safely say 1326 I owe my conversion, in common with thousands in Ireland of similar sentiments, to the proceedings of the hon. and learned member for Dublin and his associates. Let him (Mr. O'Connell) pursue his present career but a short time longer—let him continue to arouse the passions and the jealous ambition of the Roman Catholics of Ireland—and before twelve months shall have elapsed every Protestant in the country must, for the preservation of his property, become in his own defence a conservative.
I consider it, Sir, as a circumstance not a little extraordinary, that the Roman Catholics, who are now the exclusive friends of Repeal, were, in 1799, if not the active promoters, at least the silent advocates of the Union. Their motives, in both instances, are simple and obvious. They supported the Union as the only expedient through which they could ever hope to obtain the remission of the penal laws. The obstacles to their emancipation by the Irish Parliament were insurmountable, because, being in that country the majority, their admission to a share in the Legislature, with their known hostility to Protestantism, would have been certain destruction to the Established Church, and the other Protestant institutions of Ireland. It was evident, therefore, that an Irish Parliament never would, because with safety it never could, admit their claims; but it was equally evident that a united Parliament might, because the Protestant party of Ireland being then incorporated with that of Great Britain, the two united would form as great a majority, in proportion to the Roman Catholics of the kingdom, as the latter, taken in a separate state, did to the Irish Protestants.
Mr. Hutchinson, and other strenuous advocates of emancipation, did not fail to state in the Irish House of Commons, in 1799, that they advocated the Union mainly on the ground of it being the only possible avenue to the enfranchisement of the Catholics. Mr. Pitt, in introducing the question of the Legislative Union to this House arrived at the same opinion; and at the very moment when he confessed himself friendly to their claims, he admitted that 'no man could say, that in the present state of things, and whilst Ireland remained a separate kingdom, full concession could be made to the Catholics, without endangering 1327 the State, and shaking the constitution of Ireland to its centre.' Nor was this feeling peculiar to the friends of the Roman Catholics alone: it was entertained in an equal degree by their bitterest opponents. The celebrated Dr. Duigenan, a man who owed his notoriety in Ireland to his furious hostility to their claims, admitted, long before a union was seriously proposed, and published it as his opinion, that if that measure were once carried, his hostility to emancipation would be at an end, and that no further pretext could exist to the continuance of the Penal Laws. "If," said he (Dr. Duigenan), in his answer to Mr. Grattan's address, in 1797, 'we were one people with the British nation, the preponderance of the Protestant body of the whole empire would be so great that all rivalries between Protestants and Romanists would cease for ever, and it would not be necessary for the safety of the empire at large to curb the Romanists by any exclusive laws whatsoever.' This sentiment was again and again expressed, both by the friends and the opponents of the Roman Catholics—both in this House and in Ireland, by Mr. Addington and Lord Castlereagh. Lord Sheffield and Lord Minto, by Lord Clare, and Lord Yelverton, and the argument of course had all due weight with both parties. By the Protestants, the Union was accepted as a safe and satisfactory guarantee for the concession of emancipation, and by the Catholics it was looked on as the best and most honourable security which they could offer to their brethren of the established religion—and hence their support of the Union in 1799.
It was the conviction of its safety, as insured by the Union, that operated with the Protestant Parliament of 1829 to pass the Roman Catholic Relief Bill. If, then, that Union be now repealed—if you cancel the only guarantee which the Irish Protestant conceives he now holds for the security of his private property and of his public institutions, what other are you prepared to give him in its stead? On the faith of the Union he surrendered the security which he held on the Penal Laws; if you deprive him of the one, are you prepared to re-enact the other? To repeal the Act of Union now would he precisely to place the Irish Parliament in the same position in which it would have stood had Emancipation and Reform been carried 1328 before the incorporation of the two countries. The effect of such a measure then was thus described by a Member of this House, Mr. Douglas, who was afterwards Lord Glenbervie:—'I have no scruple to state my opinion,' said he, 'that any attempt to grant what is called Catholic emancipation, whilst the local Parliament of Ireland remains, would excite such a struggle between property and numbers as would greatly aggravate many of those mischiefs which now exist in Ireland, tending to revolution and separation, through the medium of a civil war of the most destructive and ferocious kind.' I may be told, Sir, that Lord Glenbervie, though friendly to the Union, as a step towards Catholic emancipation, was in reality no friend to the Catholics. I shall, however, quote to the House one other opinion on this subject, to which this objection cannot lie. The author of a popular work, which was published in Ireland during the debates on the Union, thus speaks of the effects which Reform and Emancipation together would have had on an independent Irish Parliament. 'Reform the Irish House of Commons,' said the writer, 'and you have democracy—the consequence is unavoidable if the alteration be on a very capacious scale; repeal the distinguishing laws—good; but you cannot by your Act of Parliament reach the spirit of distinction;—the tendency to disunion will still subsist with all the irritating circumstances which accompany that temper If many Roman Catholics get into Parliament, they will form a Catholic opposed to a Protestant faction, precisely as in the last century, when the parties ran at length into civil wars, in which one was reduced to a pitiable state of subjugation.' This was the prophecy of no Protestant bigot, no exclusive churchman; these are the words of a distinguished Roman Catholic barrister, Mr. Theobald M'Kenna, who was himself, I believe at one time the official organ of the Roman Catholic Association in Ireland. Such, then, on the showing of one of their own body, would be the result of restoring the Irish Parliament, constituted, as it would now be, of a large proportion of Roman Catholics; for observe, this author does not say that it would require even a majority to produce this jealousy and discord. To leave Protestant institutions and the Protestant Church out of the question altogether, 1329 would Protestant property be secure amidst the contentions of these Protestant and Catholic factions? Nine-tenths of this property had been confiscated at various times from Roman Catholic insurgents—unjustly confiscated, as their descendants contend; no prescription, it was known, can amend a defective title, and would these descendants fail to reclaim their rights? We are told, to be sure, that they have no such intention, that the title of the public will be respected; but we should never forget, that we have fallen upon days when men do not blush, even in this House, to ridicule the "cant of public faith." It is not without cause that anxiety and alarm were felt for the present political movements of the Catholics in Ireland; their want of candour destroyed all reliance in their sincerity; they seemed constantly to act with two objects—one ostensible and the other concealed. They advocated the Union in 1799 with a view to Catholic Emancipation; and now the hon. member for Dublin tells us, that he only advocated emancipation in order to get rid of the Union! After the most solemn assurances, reiterated throughout thirty years, that Catholic emancipation was all that was wished or wanted to quiet the country, we are now unblushingly told that those professions were a mere ruse de guerre, and that so far from emancipation being the end of their desires, it was only sought for as the "means to the end." When, then, are we to get rid of this jesuitical agitation—when are we to learn the real end to which the hon. and learned Member is looking? When the Roman Catholic priesthood, in 1829, were rebuked for their interference in political agitation, and reminded that such employments were unbecoming their sacred profession, what was their reply? "We agitate," said they, "for our religious rights, for the independence of our Church; we consider ourselves called on to do so in right of our profession; grant us but this, and we will at once retire to the bosom of our flocks, and leave political agitation to laymen." Now, have they kept those promises? have they retired from the political arena? On the contrary, are they not at this moment the active agitators in almost every Irish parish? Are not the chapels the theatres of political discussion? And do they not collect round their very altars the miserable pittance of the peasant, 1330 which is to form at once the stimulant and reward of agitation? Are they not at the present moment the most active agents of one-half the elections in Ireland? Is not the elective force of one-half the constituencies which send Members to this House marshalled and officered and directed by Roman Catholic priests? Should this create no alarm in the independent Irish Members of this House, whom a Repeal of the Union would send single-handed to contend with this gigantic influence—an influence which we see every day and every hour becoming more firmly grounded, and more openly and unreservedly exerted? Do the priesthood of Ireland exercise no undue, no unconstitutional authority, when they arrogate to themselves the choice of representatives to be sent to this House; when their dictum is the fiat by which a Member is to be returned, and their displeasure a final and fatal sentence that he be returned no more? Is their influence to excite no alarm when we see, month after month, Members of this House denounced to their constituents for their conduct here as traitors to their country, and enemies to Ireland? Must not their influence be unprecedented and resistless, when even the hon. member for Dublin—he, who in his own person possessed more Parliamentary patronage than any ten Boroughmongers swept away by the Reform Bill—when even he found it expedient, in order to secure his election for Clare, to fall prostrate before a passing priest, and to address him in that attitude, at least, if not with homage, which freeborn man reserves for his Creator alone. To Repeal the Union now, would be to hand over Ireland to the control of men such as those whose influence we know, and whose ambition we have every reason to dread. That influence, and that ambition, have been hitherto controlled and rendered harmless; first by the penal laws, and next by the Act of Union; and, though I should be the last individual in existence to tolerate a return to those unjust and impolitic laws, I repeat, that on every principle of fairness and justice, in the event of the repeal of the one guarantee, the Irish Protestant can only be confirmed in his security, by the re-enactment of the other.
The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. O'Connell) has dwelt long and powerfully on the historical evidences of the atroci- 1331 ties and corruption by which the Union had been carried. But however revolting and opprobrious these facts must be, and no man is more willing than I am to admit their enormity, I confess that I am unable to discover how these external circumstances can possibly afford internal evidence of the merits or demerits of the Union. Suppose all the circumstances to which the hon. and learned Gentleman has alluded to be conceded, still I cannot conceive that he has made one single advance towards convincing the House of the iniquity of the object, by simply reprobating the iniquity of the means. But, besides this, I think the question of corruption is an unfortunate topic to be broached by the hon. Member (Mr. O'Connell). If it prove anything, it proves merely this;—that in the brightest era of Ireland, in the high and palmy days of her independence, she was liable to be seduced, and actually was seduced, by the resistless force of English influence. Is she in better condition to resist it now? Is her virtue more incorruptible, her patriotism more stern, to-day, than in the days of Grattan and of Ponsonby, of Flood and of Charlemont? Are we to suppose that the Parliament of 1799, under the leadership of such men as these, was less sterling in its purity than an Irish Parliament would be in 1834, under the guidance of the hon. member for Dublin? But if we had paid and purchased advocates of the Union in 1799, have we no paid opponents to it now? If the argument is worth anything in the one instance, it is equally good in the other, and if the introduction of money can throw a suspicion over the enactment of the Union, must it not equally cast an imputation on its repeal? The hon. and learned Gentleman may discover a salutary warning for himself, in his own eloquent denunciations of his predecessors. If the touch of gold has cast a shadow over their reputation, will his own go down to posterity mote pure and unspotted? or will not the hard-earned pittance of the Irish peasant cling to him like the silver of Naaman to the servant of Elijah, entailing on his memory the taint of avarice, and on his motives the leprosy of suspicion?
The hon. and learned Gentleman has alluded to the evils of absenteeism, and the miseries which it had inflicted upon Ireland; but he does not surely mean us 1332 to infer, that absenteeism, is an evil which has had its growth since the Union. He must surely be aware, that centuries had elapsed since it was denounced as the curse of Ireland? He must certainly remember, that it was computed by Prior to drain off nearly one million and a-half of her specie, so long since as the middle of the 17th century, and that nearly a century later it was proposed by Lord Hardwicke to the Irish Parliament in 1773, to restrict it by an onerous tax? All this was before the Union, before the Parliament was removed from Dublin to England. But has the residence of the Parliament in this country exempted England from absenteeism? Has a local Parliament had the effect of detaining in this country the hundreds of thousands of Englishmen who swarm in every continental city, from the Rhine to the Tiber? And will there be any magical attraction in an Irish Parliament, when even the allurements of a British Court have failed to arrest the fugitives? Sir, it is not the absence of a domestic Parliament, but the absence of domestic peace, which has increased the band of Irish absentees, and it is the restoration of tranquillity, and not the restoration of her Legislature, to which we are to look for their return. I would trust that his Majesty's Ministers will not rest content with the mere issue of this discussion, in exhibiting the delusions, and demonstrating the impracticability of repeal; but, in pursuance of the suggestions contained in the petition which I had last evening the honour to present from my constituents, I would hope, that they will adopt such legislative enactments as may put "a speedy and a final termination to its agitation—an agitation which is alike dangerous to the prerogative of the Crown—to the influence and authority of Parliament—and to the peace, prosperity, and greatness of the empire." It was an observation of Cowley, as applied to Cromwell, that when the Almighty in his vengeance, saw fit to visit Egypt with his wrath, he sent not upon her the lion or the tiger, the fierce and lordly monarchs of the forest, but the toad and the reptile, the fly, and the creeping thing. The inference applied with less force to Cromwell than it does to Ireland at the present day, when Heaven, in its anger, has cast upon her a worse than Egyptian plague; it has selected as its scourges, as the instruments of its chastisements, not the noble and the 1333 illustrious, but the base and the indigent of the land. They are not the men of rank and of intelligence, the opulent or the influential, who, at the bidding of the hon. and learned Gentlemen and his associates, disturb the tranquillity and retard the improvement of every Irish hamlet; but the needy, the adventurous, the turbulent and the unprincipled—men, who have all to hope for, and nothing to risk, by agitation and tumult. How, long, then, were those petty despots to be permitted to reign and to riot unrestrained? Have not the Irish people a right to look to this their Parliament for protection from their outrage, and a release from this domination?
Whilst I feel, Sir, that I have trespassed longer, much longer, than I had any pretensions to do on the attention of the House, and whilst I am unable adequately to thank them for the patient hearing which they have vouchsafed to me, I cannot but feel regret that, after having said so much, I shall still be compelled to leave so much unsaid. I shall conclude, however, with the forcible and impressive declaration of the ill-fated Lord Kilwarden on the same subject—'That I regard the Union with Great Britain on the terms of equal laws and equal commerce, of mutual trade on equal principles, and taxation proportioned to the abilities of both countries, as essential to the stability of the empire, the preservation of the religion, the independence, and the tranquillity of Ireland. I am on the point of giving my vote upon this momentous question, and I do most solemnly declare that I think the vote I give is for the preservation of my country, its laws, and its religion, and for the peace, the happiness, and the prosperity of all its inhabitants; and were it the last word I was to utter, I would say—Content.'
§ Mr. Feargus O'ConnorIf the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Spring Rice) with his acknowledged talent and long experience, was entitled to the indulgence of the House, I trust, that in rising to speak on a question of the greatest magnitude and importance that has ever been discussed within these walls, I do not ask too much in requesting the fullest measure of indulgence; and although I undertake an awful and arduous task, yet do I not shrink from its performance, feeling as I do that the cause which I now advocate is based on wisdom, justice, and true policy. That this discussion 1334 ought now to take place, no man will deny. Perhaps some of the friends of this Motion properly doubted the propriety of bringing it forward last year, when the public mind was irritated by the Coercion Bill, and misrepresentations of different kinds. Again, if the question had been brought forward at that time, it would have been deprived of much valuable support. Many hon. Gentlemen were then ready to support his Majesty's Ministers, believing that it was likely that the benefits of a Reformed Parliament would supersede the necessity of domestic legislation. But all their hopes on that head have been blasted, and the question has now assumed another and a more important character. It is now no longer to be considered a mere deformed monster of faction; its shape is changed, and the question which we are now to decide upon is, whether Ireland shall henceforth be an independent kingdom, the right arm of Britain, or whether she shall be a coerced and impoverished province, a disgrace to herself, a shame to her representatives, a drag-chain on British industry, and a beggar at Britain's gates. Had any ameliorating measures been brought forward for Ireland, we should have had to contend for repeal under greater difficulties than now. Had his Majesty's Ministers shown even the slightest disposition to ameliorate the condition of the people of Ireland, a sound and valid reason against this discussion would have been afforded to many hon. Gentlemen, who now feel themselves compelled to support the measure. I am perfectly aware that we cannot hope all at once successfully to contend against long prejudices, predetermined opinions, and deep-rooted national pride. But we will hold onwards—we will proceed in our virtuous and noble course, and depend upon it, to a moral certainty, that sooner or later justice will triumph over bigotry and intolerance, and Ireland will again be a nation. In discussing this great question, I shall follow rigidly the advice of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. I shall not enter into a discussion of seven centuries of oppression to which Ireland has been subjected. Would to God the infidelity and cruelty of Britain towards that country could be altogether erased from the annals of our nation. Ireland if we could forget these things, would be in a better position than now. I shall not recall the religious persecution, the mental 1335 coercion, and the bodily torture inflicted upon our forefathers by the despotic hand of Britain. Laying these aside, I shall follow the advice, but not the example, of the right hon. Gentleman. I shall forget that I have constituents; but I shall never forget, as he has done, that I have a country. I cannot be expected to follow the right hon. Gentleman through his labyrinth of financial details. I cannot enter on the subject of Ireland's independence with the cold-blooded feeling of an arithmetician. But, however, in the outset, I must caution the House against listening to the monstrous proposition of the right hon. Gentleman—namely that a transfer of some pounds, shillings and pence to the Irish treasury is a good set off against Irish wretchedness, beggary, starvation, and inducement to the commission of crime. I trust I shall follow his advice to the letter. It never has been my manner to give offence; and I venture to assert that, throughout this night, I shall not use the slightest expression that shall give offence to any individual living. I wish that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. Emerson Tennent) had followed that advice. He stated, when commenting upon the description of the advocacy of the hon. and learned member for Dublin, that it was a mixture of filth and eloquence. I reject the hon. Gentleman's filth, and shall try to find if there be a single argument beaming through his eloquence worthy of being answered. I am happy, very happy, that the lot fell upon such an individual to second this amendment. It bids fair for the future success of the cause of repeal, that this resolution has been seconded by one who attributes the whole agitation of the question to priestcraft, and who did his utmost to rake up the ashes of religious discord and dissention, by invoking the spirit of Protestant Ascendancy to aid him in resisting the Motion of the hon. and learned member for Dublin. I regret, however, that he did not, at all events, give his argument more weight by enforcing it more modestly. But why did not the hon. Gentleman compare notes with the right hon. Secretary opposite, before he made his speech? It is to be lamented that that speech was framed before the right hon. Gentleman delivered his; because nothing is of more importance than that two persons, speaking on the same side of the argu- 1336 ment, should agree in their facts. But, I ask, is there not a vast difference between the statements of the hon. Member and those of the right hon. Secretary? The hon. Gentleman states, that such was the poverty of the Irish people previous to the Union, that up to a certain period, they had not a home-market for the sale of their surplus produce; whereas, last night, the right hon. Gentleman told us that it had cost us many millions to import English corn into Ireland. The hon. Gentleman also stated, that the consumption of wine in Ireland, since the Union, had considerably increased; while the right hon. Secretary admitted, that the consumption had decreased forty-five per cent. Now, I ask, are not these inconsistencies sufficient to induce this House to give the question a fair hearing, to argue it fully, and not decide upon it until after due and impartial consideration? The hon. Gentleman spoke of Norway; but he forgot that, in the year when his Majesty's Ministers were sitting on this side of the House, they recommended the Government of that day to dissolve the Union, and to leave the two countries in a state of amity and good fellowship, as they did with regard to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. The hon. Gentleman has gone to Belgium for an illustration. Now, I care not who is on the throne of Belgium, but I ask whether Belgium is not more prosperous, and her people more happy now than at any former period? The hon. Gentleman has also been very loud in his denunciations of every democratic principle, and has declared, that the salvation of the empire depended upon this House becoming the conservatives of Ireland. I know, that it is the custom now to treat high authority as fulsome trash; but I will, nevertheless, take the liberty of quoting a speech made by an individual. 'When men will ask us what we wish to accomplish by reform, let us point to the achievements of a Washington. Let us show them a country free from that insidious remnant of a darker age—a pampered prelacy, and a domineering Church Establishment. Let us shew them men who scorn to intrust their liberties to the guardianship of hereditary Legislators, who have cut off from their constitution the incubus of a second estate, and who can protect their property without the assistance of a race of— 1337
Tenth transmitters of a foolish face.Let us point out to a people who spurn the idea of impoverishing nine younger brothers to confer a name and an inheritance upon the tenth who can boast of no other precedency than the accident of priority at his birth—a people who own no distinction of blood, and who worship no aristocracy save that of virtue and talent.' Whose words were these? They were the words of the hon. Gentleman who last addressed the House. This was his own speech before his constituents—these were then his conservative principles. But if he will not be indignant at the association, I will take leave to place his authority beside that of Lord Clare, Lord Plunkett, Bushe, and Saurin, and will treat it as the hon. Gentleman has treated those high names by throwing it overboard as "vulgar trash." But now I come to the question itself. I will first advert to the principle upon which it is based; and then, for a brief space, address myself to the details. Last night the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Spring Rice) said, that I was not the counsellor of my country, but its advocate. There is but little difference; and as its advocate, then, I now call upon the House as a jury, and ask for their verdict. It may be presumption for me to say it; but whatever little character I have, I stake it upon this proposition, that if the verdict of this House be given according to fact and according to principle, the fallacy of the right hon. Gentleman's whole scope of argument will stand proved. It is an arduous undertaking; nevertheless I am bold to meet him on his own ground, "shoulder to shoulder, and foot to foot." I hope he will not treat mere numbers, as on one occasion he did, when answering a statement of the hon. member for Oldham, telling that hon. Member that the difference between 95l. and 995l. was so trifling, that he could afford to make him a present of it. I also hope that he will not state, as then he did, that there is no difference between a baronet or a peer paying a voluntary fee for promotion to a title, and an apprentice being obliged to pay a stamp duty. However much the manner in which the Motion of the hon. and learned member for Dublin was proposed may be objected to, my objection to the Amendment is, that it is arbitrary and despotic. What does the right hon. Gentleman do? He says that the Motion 1338 should not be met by a direct negative. But what is to be the effect of this Amendment? Is it not an appeal to the House of Commons to put their judgments, their sentiments, their discretion, and their opinions into the keeping of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues? Some of the friends of Ireland, in another place, once called the Union a union of parchment, and one which could not exist. Is this, then, the parchment shield which the right hon. Gentleman means to oppose to the wishes of a whole nation? If so it will be futile indeed. The right hon. Gentleman, when opening his case last night, reminded me of the manner in which the lives and liberties of Irishmen were frittered away last year. It was merely necessary for him to mention, emphatically, the name of the hon. and learned member for Dublin, to create one general cheer throughout the House. Why, I tell him that had it not been for one expression used by that hon. and learned Member when stating his case, I should have objected to the form of the notice placed by him upon the books of the House. But he said, that it was merely a preliminary step, for afterwards taking into consideration the grand question of—repeal or no repeal. But I ask the House if it is fair that the liberties and interests of a whole country should be thus set at nought in consequence of wounded feelings, and an antipathy, whether just or not, to an individual? If that hon. and learned Gentleman were here, I would tell him, without the slightest disrespect, that it is not in the power of him or of any other individual, to elevate or debase Ireland. This question has taken too deep a root in Ireland now to he eradicated. No doubt the cause would lose much support if the hon. and learned Gentleman abandoned it; but, for one that should so abandon it, 500 would rise up as its advocates. The right hon. Gentleman is anxious to get rid of the question without inquiry; but he cannot—I will not say with all his dexterity—but he cannot with all his ingenuity, so get rid of it. The hon. Gentleman, the seconder of the Amendment, has alluded to the Committee of 1825. He knows that up to that period hostility to Catholic Emancipation was unrelenting. He well knows that the House of Commons and the people of England were altogether ignorant of the state of Ireland; but by 1339 the evidence taken before that Committee, so much knowledge poured in upon them, that they instantly came to a different decision, and from that moment forwards Catholic Emancipation was argued in this House with calmness, with temper, and with consideration. I ask, then, if, upon his own showing, I have not made out a justifiable reason for all the Irish Members of this House calling for an investigation of this question, which excites much more sympathy in Ireland than any question that was ever agitated in that portion of the empire? Have I not shown the great advantages that result from inquiry, and will his Majesty's Ministers refuse inquiry, and interpose the strong arm of the law between his Majesty's subjects and the Throne? Are they going, despite the wishes of the people, who are even so much unacquainted with this House, as to overwhelm it with their petitions? Are they, I ask, going still to prevent these discussions, and to tell the people that their petitions are so much waste paper, for that both Houses of Parliament have determined not to consent to their prayer? I would implore them to pause before they assent to so monstrous a proposition. The right hon. Gentleman told us last night of the vast benefits which we had received from this House since the passing of the Act of Union. It was painful to hear the right hon. Gentleman labour through the details to prove this assertion. But what after all did he show? Why, that all the benefit which the Union had conferred on Ireland was, to provide gaols and bride-wells for criminals and bankrupts. Oh! that there should be no person who felt for Ireland whilst the right hon. Gentleman was making his exposè of the extreme wretchedness of her people! The whole burthen of the right hon. Gentleman was to show how the public money had been expended in building gaols and bridewells, and in erecting bridges for the exclusive benefit of the aristocracy of the country. When your gaols, instead of being a terror to the guilty, become a refuge to the destitute; when the lot of man is so miserably cast, that the laws of nature compel him to violate the laws of his country, what can come of your moral compact, or of your penal code? The right hon. Gentleman should have taken some other course to convince the House that the question was 1340 not necessary to be advocated at all. In arguing this question, I shall, as I said before, pass over the events in barbarous times, which are only subjects fitted for the historian; nor shall I stop to inquire whether the Union was valid or not. My question will be (in order to suit the convenience of hon. Gentlemen opposite) whether or not the Union ought to be continued for the benefit of the two countries. But there is one observation, in passing, which I must make. The right hon. Gentleman, when speaking of the Irish Parliament assembled in College-green, being under the influence of the Volunteers of the City of Dublin, said, that if the Union were repealed, the law of sticks would again become predominant, and reason would be prostrated before a rabble democracy. He should not speak of club-law. He should recollect when he and his associates admitted that law to be very influential, and gladly availed themselves of its support. But I will now proceed to consider the question, which is more likely to catch the ear of this House than any general reasoning upon the subject of Repeal. I mean the question, whether or not Ireland is more prosperous now than she was before the Union? and if not, then we have to consider, whether or not this is attributable to the Union. I shall take up the period of Irish history from the year 1782 down to the passing of the Union, slightly touching upon the years 1793 and 1798. I shall then consider the reasons why, and the means by which, the Union was established. I shall consider if the conditions of that Union, whether just or unjust, have been complied with; and lastly, I shall take a very brief review of the present state of Ireland, so far as it is affected by the Union with Great Britain. First, then, I shall consider the situation of Ireland from 1782 to 1797, that being the period when the scheme of legislative incorporation first entered the mind of Mr. Pitt, that is, with any hope of success, for no doubt the Regency Question, and the French Revolution had each a powerful influence with regard to the Question of the Union. In 1782, then, Ireland had established something like independence. When I make use of the word independence, I mean it only in a comparative point of view; for as long as the Roman Catholics, the great mass of the population, were excluded from the representation of the people, so long was it impossible 1341 that the acts of the Legislature could be viewed otherwise than with jealousy and suspicion. The Act of Adjustment of 1782 was a full and entire repeal of the Act of Henry 7th, called Poyning's Act, which made the Irish Parliament a complete tool in the hands of the British Administration; and now, even from that period up to the moment of its self-destruction, I am quite ready to go the fullest length in condemning that Parliament as corrupt and treacherous; but I must also request hon. Gentlemen, who make use of its corruption as an argument against Ireland having any Parliament at all, to bear a few facts in recollection, namely, that from the passing of Poyning's Act to the year 1782, Ireland should not be considered as having any Parliament; secondly, that even in 1782, the Parliament could not be considered as the fair representation of the people, who were altogether excluded from any participation in its concerns; thirdly, that from 1782 to 1798, was but a short period in the history of a country, and more especially of a country which was called upon to undo bad legislation before it could proceed with improvements; and fourthly, that your boasted House of Commons of England was obliged, in 1832, to declare itself corrupt, and unfit to do the business of the State. So that, whilst improvement was marching through Europe with rapid and gigantic strides, and above all, while the science of legislation was beginning to be studied and understood in every other country, Ireland was alone to close her ears against modern and approved doctrines; and a nation remarkable for the sagacity of her people was to flee knowledge and court ignorance. But, notwithstanding all impediments, we find the Irish Parliament, after 1782, setting itself to work in good earnest; we find that, notwithstanding religious differences and political animosities, such was the force of public opinion and self-interest, that more service was rendered to Ireland in a few subsequent years, than had been for centuries before. We find the revenues and resources of the country steadily increasing. We find a surplus in the public coffers after disbursing the demands upon the State. Let any hon. Gentleman open the Statute-book, and there he will find, Session after Session, works executed for the benefit of the capital, for the improvement of trade, commerce, 1342 and agriculture, bounties upon inland navigation, the population in full employment, works of great magnitude undertaken, which remain to this day unfinished, no beggary, or even want, except that occasioned by a failure of crops, and even that could be remedied without being obliged to apply to our kind English neighbours for relief—no passing of paupers from parish to parish—no necessity for coercion; in short, we were rapidly hurrying on to the goal of national prosperity and importance, when a faction, jealous of our promised greatness, sent discord through the land, under the pretence of protecting us from French dominion, but avowedly, and indeed, as confessed by Mr. Canning, for the purpose of keeping up Protestant pre-eminence, and for that purpose English gold was poured into the country. What was refused to that English gold was enforced by a cruel and licentious soldiery, commanded by officers who were taught to consider cruelty as a virtue, a fair deed in the eyes of God, and a sure road to honour and promotion from the ruling despot of the day. These were two powerful engines directed against a poor, unarmed, defenceless peasantry, whose only crime was in having borne oppression too long and too tamely. Now, with regard to the reason assigned for establishing an Union between the two countries. Those reasons will be found in his Majesty's Message, delivered to the House of Commons by Mr. Secretary Dundas, in January, 1799, and which Message I shall take the liberty to read:—'His Majesty is persuaded, that the unremitting industry, with which our enemies persevere in their avowed design of effecting the separation of Ireland from this kingdom, cannot fail to engage the particular attention of Parliament; and his Majesty recommends it to this House to consider of the most effectual means of finally defeating this design, by disposing the Parliaments of both kingdoms to provide, in a manner which they shall judge most expedient, for settling such a complete and final adjustment as may best tend to improve and perpetuate a connexion essential to their common security, and consolidate the strength, power, and resources of the British empire.' By this Message, we find that the principal object for establishing a Union was to prevent a connexion be- 1343 tween France and Ireland; but we have a right to go further into this question. We have a right to see, whether it was from a preference of French connexion, or from an abhorrence of English persecution, that Ireland sought what I shall unhesitatingly designate so destructive an alliance. But if Ireland had been in full possession of that liberty (I do not mean liberty in the sense in which hon. Gentlemen are sometimes pleased to interpret it); I mean liberty tempered by reason and discretion; if Ireland had been in the possession of such liberty, would she then have sought any foreign connexion? No, she would not; and, even circumstanced as she was, I shall deny, to the last moment of my existence, that in 1798, the well-judging part of the community sanctioned the introduction of a foreign force into Ireland. No; it was the Catholics of Ireland, who were out of the pale of protection, that had a right to complain of Protestant domination; and yet, out of nearly 100 State prisoners, there was scarcely a Catholic to be found among the number; but if the Catholics had joined in the Revolution, would they not have been in some degree excusable. They were excluded from any participation in the Government of the country, and was it wonderful that they should have tendered their allegiance to a country professing that religion, for continuing in which the Irish people were suffering pains and penalties—that they should have looked to that country for relief, which had promised to set an example of practical liberty to the civilized nations of Europe? Although I should have opposed the landing of the French at the expense of life itself, being convinced that French protection would have ended in systematic and bloody persecution; that the will of the new and rapacious conqueror would have been substituted for the better law which did exist; yet it was almost excusable that a people, out of the pale of protection in their own country, should have felt and rejoiced in the shock of the great political earthquake which then shook Europe to its very centre. What injury could they have sustained by the change? What cruelty could French invention devise, that English inhumanity had not by anticipation imposed upon them. But, again, the Catholics had a particular right to protest against this Union the moment their fetters were burst asunder. Yes, I do 1344 contend that, although not a voice had been raised against the Union up to 1829, the Catholics had a right then, at least, to look into their affairs. Up to that period we should consider them as minors—emancipation made them of full age, and their rulers were called upon to render an account of their long and much abused trust; I contend for it that Catholic emancipation should have had a retrospective as well as prospective consideration; and what then? Why I shall prove, by the words of Mr. Canning, that the Union was considered by the Protestants as tantamount to a further Penal Code, and if sanctioned by any portion of the Catholics, it could have been only from a justifiable dread of an augmentation of religious persecution, and, therefore, without Repealing the Union, Emancipation is incomplete, for it was the fullest and most oppressive Penal Code. In order to elucidate and prove my argument, I shall read an extract from a speech delivered in this House by Mr. Canning upon this point: 'Here, therefore, said Mr. Canning, we have the creed of the Protestant party. It appears that they are willing to adopt an Union, or in failure of it, to continue a struggle for everything that was dear to them in right and pre-eminence, and in religion. Ask now the other, the Catholic party, and what is their answer? Why, "let us have a Union or a continued struggle for that which you have hitherto denied us—namely, a Repeal of the remainder of the Penal Code."' Now I ask the House, after hearing such an avowal from a Minister of the day, whether or not the contract was made between the two countries at a time when each was free to act for itself? Are we not bound then to consider the situation of the contracting parties at the time of the passing of the Act, and if either acted from intimidation, coercion, or whilst under duress; shall I be told that an agreement thus executed, is to be considered the voluntary act of both countries? Surely not. When the Act of Union was established, Ireland was coerced, all honest sentiment was banished from the councils of the nation, men stood horrified at the total subversion of all law—exertion was paralysed; the rack, the scaffold, and the dungeon were still fresh in the recollection of unprotected Irishmen—and was it at such a time that such a change should have been forced upon a coerced and un- 1345 defended people? Unions should be established for the mutual safety, security, and honour of the contracting parties, and if fairly acted upon, kingdoms would become more powerful, treaties would be mutually guaranteed against violation, and individuals would mutually give effect to that which was considered for the benefit of the State; but Unions which exist under other circumstances, must have been effected whilst one of the parties was under intimidation, and therefore illegal, and could be only perpetuated by the superior force of the stronger over the weaker party. Then have we derived any one of those benefits from our Union with Great Britain; as a nation are we more powerful; as citizens, are we better protected against violence; and as individuals, have we a fair and equal share in the enactments of those laws by which we are bound, and by which we hold our lives, our liberties, and our properties? To all I answer no; and why? because it was not Union; because the people were not parties to the damnable violation; they were divided, entrapped, and sold in their manacles; the slave-merchant was sent amongst them, backed by English gold, and, robed in personal audacity and falsehood, he basely sold his country for ideal honours. And is this the Union to bind me? No; never. Let the right hon. Gentleman point out one distinct benefit which the measure has conferred upon Ireland. Has it increased her prosperity; has it given energy to her people; has it given stability to her trade? He has witnessed our destruction, with one sudden transition from national independence to provincial degradation; he has witnessed the green ivyed towers of our deserted noble mansions; he has witnessed the vast uncultivated, yet genial, wastes of Ireland: and all this whilst he may behold, at each market place, each cross road and bye-way, a kind of slave mart, where the aged, the infirm and the sturdy youth, do, in one common mass of misery, implore a blessing upon him who would bestow, as it were, 8dx. for twelve hours' hard labour—and one-tenth of even this miserable pittance must find its way into the coffers of the luxurious shepherd, of whose flock, although branded with the mark that he may be sheared, he is not numbered as one, nor is he nourished in the fold. I shall now consider this subject in another point of view; in reference to its 1346 bearing on the character and constitution of society, and in respect to those different relations by which man stands connected with man. I shall compare the state of Ireland in this respect with that of England, and examine whether the social and moral duties are better discharged in the one country or the other. In England the landlord is the natural protector of the tenant; in England the agent is the just mediator between the landlord and the tenant; in Ireland he is a factious mischief-maker, mixing up political animosities with the duties of his station, and generally acting as both landlord and agent. His object is to wring the last farthing from the unfortunate tenant; his situation is generally so lucrative, that large sums are given for it; the land of which he has the superintendence is generally encumbered with mortgages, and it is his object to depreciate it as much as possible; so that, when the opportunity arrives, he may foreclose the mortgage. In England the Courts of Law are a little too expensive, but no religious distinctions find their way into them; the parties are only known as plaintiff and defendant. In Ireland, the administration of the law is obscured by religious animosity; which, though driven from the mind on ordinary occasions, rallies in the Jury-box. In England, the tenets of the established religion correspond with the religious feeling of the people; in Ireland, they have been forced upon the people at the point of the bayonet. In England, you complain of taxation; in Ireland, we are told that we are not taxed at all. Yet, in Ireland, we hear of nothing but beggary and starvation. When the right hon. Gentleman tells us, that our produce, on its arrival here, is admitted without being taxed; will he tell us, that if he could obtain one guinea more from us, in the shape of taxation, he would omit to require it,—even from his beloved Limerick? It is because we are deprived of a domestic Legislature, that we suffer so grievously from the evil of absenteeism. Every Member sent to this House is an absentee. The members of the legal profession are obliged to come over here to your Inns of Court; our artists are compelled to resort to this country; and our publishers must come hither too, because they cannot publish at home. All this takes place, because our gentry reside away from their estates. There is not a single article that is not taxed; the 1347 only advantage extended is bestowed on the absentee himself. He alone meets with favour; if he possesses estates in Ireland, of the value of 20,000l. a-year, he derives from them, while residing in Piccadilly, a greater benefit than the man who possesses estates of an equal value in this country, burthened with the poor-rates. The right hon. Gentleman spoke with great pomp of our linen-trade; but does it not happen, day after day, that petitions are presented, declaring the falling-off in that branch of trade? He refers to the high authority of Arthur Young, one which I respect greatly. But he himself said, that when a part of a book be read, the whole of it becomes evidence, and may be read throughout. I ask him, did he peruse the whole of Arthur Young's work? No, he did not; if he had, he would have found that that individual speaks of the resident gentlemen looking into the affairs of their tenantry, competing with their tenantry in the pursuits of agriculture, and setting them a bright example of industry and morality. But all this he has omitted to notice. We are told, that this question is not to be met by a direct negative. The hon. Gentleman, who seconded the Amendment, goes further; he says, that this House is bound to declare, that it is an unjust interference with the prerogative of the Crown,—that it is an act of treason. He knows not what treason is. Treason broods in darkness, loves the night, and shuns the light; but surely this is open and unconcealed, and it is acknowledged. For if a never-ceasing wish and anxious desire to see our own Lords, and our own Commons, sitting in our own houses, in our own capital, in our own kingdom, legislating for our own people, be treason—if love of country, be treason—then do I glory in being a traitor.It would require more dexterity and ingenuity than the hon. Gentleman possesses, to convince the House that this is a fair mode of getting rid of this question. He must know, that the people of Ireland have, in spite of his best endeavours to smother it in this House, made up their minds on the subject. I tell him, that the people of Ireland are determined no longer to live in a state of beggary and starvation—that a long array of figures is no set-off against beggary and starvation—and that, however justified in imposing the Union on 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 of uneducated people; the question now is this—whether 1348 it is prudent to attempt to preserve that Union, at the price of the dismemberment of the empire. I deal fairly and frankly with this question: I have devoted much time and much pains to it, and I solemnly declare, that if it were not my conviction that the Repeal of the Union would be beneficial to Ireland, I would not court an ignominious popularity by advocating it, though I believe, with the hon. Gentleman, that there are some individuals in this Rouse who do make use of it as stilts to help them to other objects. The right hon. Gentleman taunted us with not being the Representatives of the Aristocracy. My pride is, that I do not represent the barren surface of the soil, but that I represent those persons who cultivate the soil, and make it available and valuable to its owners. Are the luxurious classes of society alone to be represented in this House? I wish them joy of his advocacy. I cannot, however, congratulate the right hon. Gentleman, and those that are with him on that side, on their Whig Reform: for we are now taunted with this—that all our benefits have arisen from the Tory, not the Whig Administrations. Emancipation was surrendered to Ireland by the great captain of the age, and justly surrendered, when he found it would be madness any longer to withhold it. During, the entire period of nearly a century, for which the Tories held the reins of this Government, they never ventured to pass such laws or enactments as have been brought forward by the Whigs—they have ever been open, although determined in their hostility.
Give me the avow'd, the erect, the manly foe,Bold, I can meet, perhaps may turn his blow;But of all plagues, good Heaven! thy wrath can send,Save, save, oh! save me from the candid friend!The Tories never promised us anything—they did not give us much, to he sure, but they did not promise more than they gave. But the Whigs have never given to the people of Ireland anything which they have promised. The Whigs carried Reform with the assistance of the Repealers. The Whigs created a revolution in this country. They promised everything—they have performed nothing;—they have violated every pledge they made to the people of Ireland—and they say, that we are keeping that country in a continual state of agitation—they are always telling us:—"Wait a little longer, and you shall have all that you wish for." But we are told, that the existence of the Union is kept up at the expense of one-third of the property 1349 of the landed gentry of England, and that yet they are determined to uphold the continuance of it. I speak on the part of England, and let the people of England be told, that their landed gentry are deprived of this portion of their income. What is now the practice of the Irish labourer? He leaves his country to reap the harvest of the English agriculturist,—he locks his cabin door, and leaves his wife and family dependent on the public charity—he returns to Ireland with the little money which he has procured in England, and instead of expending it in his own country, he by these means, procures himself the common necessaries to support him on a voyage to America. I ask hon. Gentlemen, whether, if Ireland were sending 300 Representatives to a domestic Legislature, the individuals who formed that Parliament, would not be selected according to the good works they had rendered? Would not every agitator be set at defiance? Would they allow Acts of Parliament, destructive of the rights and liberties of the people, to be passed? Would they not court an honourable, instead of an ignominious popularity? Would they not set an example of industry and morality? Would they not, in fact, disseminate comfort and happiness throughout the country, instead of beggary and starvation? We are told, day after day, that the healing measures which are in contemplation for Ireland, would be instantly carried into effect, provided there was a cessation of crime in that country. Is the taunting of the hon. and learned Gentleman who seconded the Amendment, with the performance of a religious duty in prostrating himself before a clergyman, if he thought proper to do so, the way to procure peace and repose for Ireland? This is the way to keep prejudice alive—this is what the right hon. Secretary of the Treasury seemed to regret—he spoke of the dissension and disunion which had been kept up for centuries in Ireland, having prevented the introduction of good and salutary laws—he told us, that the Irish people had always been anxious to be admitted to the privileges of Englishmen—that we had been refused because we were poor; but that the moment we became rich enough, we were admitted. Now, if the fact is, that we are so bad, so necessitous, so adventurous, the sooner this country gets rid of us altogether, the better. We have characters to support, 1350 as dear to us as that of the hon. Gentleman may be to him; and I take leave to tell him, that however much his speech may have raised him in the opinion of the House, his calling any body of Gentleman political adventurers, and not Representatives of the people, has not raised him in my estimation. I tell him, that there is more virtue, honour, and independence at this side of the House, than dwells within his breast; and I ask the hon. Gentleman, if he thinks that he is acting fairly by his Majesty's Ministers, if he tells them that he conscientiously believes, that this will retard the progress of the Repeal Question in Ireland, for that can be his only object in having seconded the Amendment; or does he not believe, that it will increase tenfold a desire for Repeal? This is an important question—one of great magnitude—one which I will desert only with life itself. This House may pass enactments—may fill volumes with enactments—but, so long as I have life, I will agitate the Repeal of the Union. No threat, even of death—no act of the United Parliament shall ever prevent me from standing by the question. If there is not another man to be found to agitate the question of the Repeal of the Union, I will do so. It may be treason in Ireland; and if so, I shall glory in being a traitor. I am aware, that my advice will not be taken by his Majesty's Ministers,—that they will go on in their own course, heaping insult on insult, oppression on oppression, until (as I before said) they legalize rebellion, and make revolution a virtue. So long as there was any hope or reliance to be placed on this House, so long did the people of Ireland petition for other measures which they thought would have been conclusive without repeal. But when they were met in the first Session of the first reformed Parliament by contumely and insult—in the second Session with an acknowledgment by his Majesty of their grievances, of their great poverty and distress, accompanied by a resolution to stand by the darling object of Government to the last, what had the people of Ireland to expect? The question we are called on to decide is, whether Ireland shall be an independent kingdom and the right arm of England, or an enslaved and degraded province—a disgrace to herself and her representatives—a drag-chain on English finances—and a beggar at England's door? We apply to you for the Repeal of the Union on principle—we 1351 tell you that you do not know the situation of the country, and that our complaints are treated as so much waste paper. Will the people allow you to continue to legislate for Ireland? I say no. You may despise the power of the people, but recollect that public opinion has repealed many of your statutes and your laws, and that there are others which you dare not carry into effect. Will you despise the united voices of 8,000,000 of people? I have no hesitation in saving that every Act of the present Government is giving power to the agitators of Ireland; that it is reconciling men of every class and creed. But let the noble Lord not mistake me; I never will breathe a single doctrine, nor give sanction to an Act that would lead to the shedding of one drop of human blood. I would rather remain fettered and chained during the remainder of my life, than consent to an Act which would be productive of a civil war; but I am willing to deal frankly, and tell him that the agitation which we find it necessary to maintain, may lead to a demand which the noble Lord dare not refuse. I ask, again, any man to compare the acts of a resident with those of an absentee landlord. I may be told, that there are absentee English landlords, and that the same consequences are not witnessed in England; but it is because the numbers of the resident landlords predominate. In Ireland there are also resident landlords, but they are so few, compared with the mass of wretchedness amidst which they are placed, that they are utterly incapable of giving it any efficient alleviation. Each feels that if he attempts to relieve all who apply to him, he will at last become a beggar, and he is obliged, therefore, to close his purse. But hunger is powerful, and prevents the arrival of tranquillity among the people. You know not the power of Ireland. We have fallen an easy conquest to your great wealth, your power in arms, and our dissensions. The last are dying away, and the good sense of the English people, who are now beginning to make common cause with the people of Ireland, will prevent your employing the two first against us. The English people find that their grievances and poverty are, in a great measure, to be attributed to our grievances and poverty. You have made the people ask for relief, and relief they will have. I address myself particularly to the Secretary for 1352 Ireland. I can assure him that no man respects him and his good intentions more than I do. That he is thwarted in the Cabinet I have no hesitation in saying, and that he would do good if allowed to follow the bent of his natural disposition, I verily believe; but I caution him not to be made a tool of, not to give his sanction to Acts of Parliament which it is easy to pass in this House, but which it is impossible to carry into effect in Ireland. I tell him that those negative qualities for which he was so lavishly praised at the beginning of the Session, will not do for an Irish Secretary. We want a man of decision, a man of courage, a man who can think and act for himself, and I tell him that if he makes himself a stepping-stone for others to mount to power, he will cover himself, as others have done, with disgrace and ignominy. Sir I have done, and am content with the cause I have advocated, for in the words of the most noble and generous of men—"The cause of freedom is the cause of God."
§ Mr. Littletoncommenced by observing that any one, however conversant, argumentatively, historically, or financially, with the present question, would feel, he thought, some difficulty in following the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down; for although he was very willing to allow the learned Gentleman that merit which generally characterised all that fell from him, of frankness and fairness, he must say, that he had been as little argumentative on the present occasion, and as discursive and declamatory as any Gentleman who ever spoke within the walls of that House. The hon. and learned Gentleman by whom this important subject was introduced to the consideration of the House, founded his Motion on statements of a financial, statistical, commercial, and historical description; and his right hon. friend the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Spring Rice), in that extraordinary and powerful speech in which he followed the hon. and learned Gentleman, controverted, as he (Mr. Littleton) thought irrefragably, every one of that hon. and learned Gentleman's statements; but the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, although at the commencement of his speech he announced his intention to answer the speech of his hon. friend, not only left the thread of his argument, but every one of his minuter details, intact and unbroken. The great 1353 powers evinced by his hon. friend in that speech to which he had alluded would long be acknowledged by every gentleman who had the good fortune to hear it—and this he would say—that it would be referred to hereafter as a manual on the subject by all who should be disposed in future generations to examine the question, as one of historical interest. His right hon. friend had so materially narrowed the ground over which it might be necessary to go in speaking on this question, that he felt himself absolved from the necessity of offering to the House many arguments to which otherwise he should have been disposed to invite its attention. He had been prepared with, and but for his right hon. friend's judicious observations, he would have requested the attention of the House to some details which he had collected, illustrative of the condition of the manufactures and commerce of Dublin, and of Ireland generally previous to the Union. He might have called its attention to something he had collected, illustrative of the services of the Imperial Parliament to that country since that period; he might have invited its attention to many extraordinary errors and delusions which, unintentionally no doubt, had been practised on the people of Ireland by the hon. and learned Gentleman by whom this question had been brought forward; he might have adverted to much which had been said on the subject of absenteeism; he might have quoted the various enactments which were to be found in the Irish statutes in different periods of the history of their domestic legislature; he might have referred to the efforts of Mr. Flood, of Mr. Grattan, and the motion of Mr. Vandeleur—for the purpose of showing that the evils of absenteeism had been the subject of constant complaint; and indeed he really believed, that if any gentlemen acquainted with the subject would give his mind patiently to its elucidation, he would find that absenteeism had been as severely felt and was of even greater amount before the Union than since. He might, he said, on each and all of these topics have addressed some observations to the House, but he had been so fortunately forestalled by his right hon. friend, that it would be wrong in him to go over ground which had already been so ably explored. At an early part of the Session, on the day on which the Address was debated, he 1354 had taken the liberty of expressing his opinion to the House, that the sentiment of Repeal was not of natural growth in Ireland. He had stated then, and he now repeated, that it was a sentiment conceived only at a late period—conceived for the purposes of agitation—and agitation, he was bound to state, of a selfish and most unjustifiable description. If such was not the fact, was it not most extraordinary that from 1800 to 1832 the question of Repeal was never once mentioned within the walls of the Imperial Parliament? For the purpose of creating the cry in favour of Repeal, the hon. and learned member for Dublin, whose absence he very much regretted in common with every other Member who had spoken on the question, had employed on every occasion in addressing numerous auditories in Ireland, a variety of arguments, absurd in the extreme, as they would be thought in this country and in that House, which, nevertheless, had produced a powerful and most unfortunate effect on the people in Ireland, but which, from motives of policy best known to himself, that hon. and learned Gentleman had taken care to keep in the back-ground in the course of the present discussion. He felt it his duty to call the attention of the House to some of the hon. and learned Gentleman's observations on this point, to some of the promised fruits of Repeal, and the measures he had pledged himself to introduce, when the hon. and learned Member had obtained his domestic legislature for the regeneration of Ireland. The people of that country had indeed been sufficiently amused with vague generalities; they had been promised, as his hon. friend the member for Belfast (Mr. E. Tennent) had said in rhapsodical rhyme, all that would make Ireland
—Great, glorious, and free,First flower of the earth, first gem of the sea.But they had been promised something more in plain intelligible prose. A threat of confiscation had been held out. They had been promised a tax of seventy-five per cent, on the absentee landlords—they had been promised something still further; and had been told, that if there were landlords who refused to be dragged thither, and to hold their estates on such terms as those, they were to be made still further amenable to the tender mercies of a domestic legislature. Accordingly, on the 28th of November last, the hon. and 1355 learned Gentleman at one of the many meetings which he attended, informed his numerous hearers that "he no longer proposed to have recourse to a tax of seventy-five per cent, but he would prevent any man who had an estate in Ireland from having another in any other country." This was one of those expedients which the hon. and learned Member would devise for bringing capital into Ireland. "The passing of a measure of that kind was one of the first effects he looked for from a domestic legislature." The speech of which this was an extract was reported in the Pilot as the climax of the peroration of "a very able speech" which the hon. and learned Member concluded by proposing a Catholic Prelate's (the Bishop of Maronia) health at the Clondalkin dinner, a distinction which was due to the Prelate. He did no more than justice to Dr. Murray, Dr. Doyle, and all the other Prelates of the Roman Catholic church, when he informed the House, that there was but one individual belonging to that respected body who had ever placed his name to paper in favour of a repeal of the legislative union. The threat he had already mentioned was repeated on another occasion, in a speech delivered at a parish meeting in Dublin on the 19th of December, when the hon. and learned Member said "No man who has an estate in Ireland shall have one elsewhere;" and although it was to be remembered such arguments were extremely absurd in the ears of intelligent men, yet in Ireland that hon. and learned Gentleman was well aware they had their weight, and that was the reason he had for at present obtruding them on the attention of the House. The sentence which followed, too, was not, as one would be led at first to suppose, spoken by him ironically. "You never can have such a law passed except by an Irish Parliament." "Hurrah, then, for repeal!" This was one of those measures which were to render Ireland "great, glorious, and free." It put him in mind of a story told of a countryman of the hon. and learned Gentleman, who, to impair the credit of a bank, destroyed its notes. There was an extravagance in the proposition which was eminently absurd—but was it as certain, should the hon. and learned Member ever have the misfortune to succeed in having a domestic Legislature in Ireland, that the proposal and adoption of such a measure 1356 would be impossible. Was it not, on the contrary, clear, that, the same means by which the hon. and learned Member had raised this popular outcry, he would still be compelled to employ in order to maintain his dominion over the populace, and that (although he believed that hon. and learned Gentleman had already become wearied and impatient of the burthen), in order to keep the road of popular favour, he would still be compelled to run before popular demand. This restriction on the possession of property therefore would be a measure of pure and unqualified justice, in comparison of many which such a Member would speedily be under the necessity of propounding in his domestic Legislature. But let the House for a moment consider what would be the effect of it.' The bond of property, one of the strongest links which held together the people of the two countries, would soon be entirely destroyed; the ties of a common interest would soon cease to exist altogether, and whenever it should please the domestic Legislature of the hon. and learned Gentleman to decree the separation of the two countries, he would not be obstructed by the interested clamour of any man who might be unpatriotically apprehensive of the loss of his property in England. But the hon. and learned Gentleman said, he was for a federal union, and that he was not a separatist. Let the hon. and learned Gentleman say so. For his part, he must say, that the man by whom measures of that description should be carried would be a separatist in practice, and that the man, on the same principle, by whom they should be proposed, was a separatist in theory. But they were told that no evil effects would ever ensue, because it would be requisite that all measures, if an independent Parliament were to sit in Ireland, should be submitted to both Houses, and must receive the Royal Assent. True, such was the theory of our Constitution; but to what extent was it meant that such should a practically be true in Ireland? He appealed from the hon. and learned Gentleman's declaration that he was no separatist, to the whole context of his speeches s and his conduct, and he maintained that separatist he must be, if he were in his senses. Shylock did not demand the life of his debtor, he only demanded a pound of his flesh, near the heart; and in like manner the hon. and learned Gentleman 1357 did not demand separation; he only demanded measures which should render separation inevitable. But the House had not yet heard all the advantages which were to ensue from a domestic legislature. He regretted extremely, that the hon. and learned Gentleman was not now present, as he was most anxious to have directed his attention to an extract of a speech which was reported in the Pilot newspaper as having been delivered by him at the dedication of the new Roman Catholic Church at Kildare. "How," asked the hon. and learned. Gentleman, "how can the men sitting in London know our wants and our wishes, or what is right to be done in the internal conduct of our affairs? How can you let them know your desires? Why, if the Parliament were sitting in Dublin, and your representatives were doing wrong, you could take your short sticks in your hands some fine morning, and go up and tell them to vote honestly and rightly." The hon. members for Cork and Drogheda applauded that recommendation. He was extremely glad they did so. This was said to be one of the great and principal advantages of a domestic Legislature, and yet in the same speech in which the hon. and learned Gentleman gave them this advice, he deprecated violence, and talked about "the red arm of God's vengeance being for ever lifted up against the man who sheds a fellow-creature's blood." One argument was worth a thousand rhetorical flourishes—"Take your short sticks in your hands, and go up and tell them to vote honestly and rightly!" If there was any Gentleman present, and peradventure there might be a score or too, who were pluming themselves on the idea of having seats in the hon. and learned Member's domestic Legislature, he would beg most sincerely to tender them his cordial congratulations on the brilliant prospect before them of their parliamentary independence. But while to intelligent, rational, and sober thinking men, such propositions were extremely uninviting, he could perfectly well understand how to the great mass of ignorant deluded Irishmen, they would be extremely captivating as a Parliament exclusively Irish, consulting none but Irish interests, to which the welfare of Ireland would be exclusively dear, and established only on Irish predilections; but he would have them bear in mind, that if a Parliament exclusively Irish sat 1358 in College-green, Dublin, a Parliament exclusively British would sit in Westminster. Already the country had been told by Mr. Sharman Crawford, when insisting on the necessity of a local legislative body in Ireland, "the principle which now actuates England is not kindness to Ireland—no, it is kindness to herself. She indulges the vain hope, that the cries of the starving peasants would no longer reach her ears—that their incursions would no longer be the means of reducing the wages of her labourers and mechanics." Such was the language of an advocate for repeal. God forbid that the hope so unnecessarily imputed to us should ever be realised. God forbid, that the ears of England should ever be closed to the cries of a starving Irish peasantry.—But this he would say, that such an unhappy state of feeling could not be more effectually promoted than by that exclusive system of legislation which they were endeavouring to establish. He warned them that there did exist on the part of the labouring community of this country a strong feeling, that their interests were injuriously affected by the incursions of the Irish peasantry; and if the views of the hon. and learned Gentleman were unfortunately realized, the Table of that House might soon be laden with petitions, praying for protection against the competition of the "stranger," to use a favourite expression of the hon. and learned Gentleman—and that the Irish might be shut out of England altogether; nor would it be very difficult to foresee the result of such appeals in a Parliament exclusively British, consulting only British interests, founded only on British predilections, and in which not only the eloquent advocacy of the hon. and learned Gentleman would be wanting, but in which not a favourable voice would be raised, however feebly, by any one connected with Ireland by property, or by any obligations of honour or interest inclined to promote the welfare of that country. In the speech which the hon. and learned Gentleman delivered the night before last, there was no point which the hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to labour more assiduously to establish than the purity, importance, and usefulness of the independent House of Commons, as it existed in Ireland in 1782; and he was ready to admit, that if the hon. and learned Gentleman had proved 1359 that Parliament, as then constituted, could have been productive of any advantage to Ireland, one position of great importance would have been made out; but in one of his speeches, that hon. and learned Gentleman declared, that his new domestic Legislature should not be like the last. If indeed the views of the hon. and learned Gentleman were ever carried into effect, it would resemble no body of men who had ever aspired to the views and situation of a deliberative assembly. No mockery was more pitiful, no spectacle was more contemptible, than that of a body of men decked in all the trappings of eloquence, and assuming the name and bearing of a deliberative assembly, while crouching beneath the terrors of an armed constituency, impelled by the hon. and learned Member. He believed, that the profligacy of the Irish Government, acting, as they necessarily did, in connexion with the Irish House of Commons exceeded all belief. The Pensionlist twenty years before the Union exceeded £85,000, which was more than half the amount of the customs at that day. The most undisguised traffic in places and pensions was carried on; the Crown was permitted by the House of Commons not only to retain all the hereditary revenues, but to prostitute them to the most unworthy purposes—the whole of the establishments of the country were brought forward on the most extensive scale of prodigality; the spirit of corruption pervaded every department; in short, it might be said that the conduct of the Irish Government acting always of necessity with an independent Legislature in Ireland, was not more scandalous in its treatment of the Irish peasantry than in every department of the civil service. Anterior to the Union there existed no knowledge of great public rights; there was no kind of respect for political purity, and no reverence for sound constitutional principles of Government—the state of the representation was so bad as to make the late Lord Londonderry a radical reformer; the oligarchy mocked at popular rights, and even sought self aggrandizement at the expense of the country. In the struggle for a free trade with Great Britain it fortunately happened, that the interests of the proprietors were advanced with those of the people, and the principles of justice and reason for a time incidentally were adverted to; but in 1360 vain would they look throughout the whole range of parliamentary history for any clear and sustained recognition of those sound and constitutional principles which alone ought to actuate the Government of a free country. If to all this they added the evils resulting from a wretched, demoralizing system in the management of property, hon. Members would have before them a picture which certainly would not till them with any very high expectations as to the great advantages to be anticipated from the re-establishment of such a domestic Legislature as had been described. Those evils were not merely historical; they actively displayed themselves up to the present moment. Still, however, they were not the natural growth, nor did they originate in the peculiarities of Irish character—they were inseparably connected with a Government which was obliged to manage its movements through the instrumentality of such a domestic Legislature. And he believed, if it were now again re-established, in times of broil and emergency, when the exigency of the occasion seemed to justify the means, Ministers, it would be found, would not be backward in availing themselves of the facilities which were afforded, and a system of corruption would again secretly and silently become the settled system of their Government in that country. He had thought it his duty in the first place to bring into the present discussion some of those arguments which the hon. and learned Gentleman who originated the present motion had constantly been in the habit of advancing and urging in Ireland with melancholy effect, and which had produced a most malignant spirit in that country, but which, from motives best known to himself, had been kept entirely in the background on this occasion. He did not wish, as indeed he had no right, to question the purity of that hon. and learned Gentleman's motives in having introduced this question. He was as willing as any man to admit, that up to the period when complete religious toleration had been accomplished for Ireland, that hon. and learned Gentleman had conferred on his country the greatest possible benefit; but he must be permitted to say,—and from the official situation in which he stood he was entitled to speak with some degree of weight—since that period the hon. and learned 1361 Member had proved a most unfortunate obstacle to the social happiness of Ireland and her progressive improvement. He did trust, when that hon. and learned Gentleman had witnessed the result of the solemn adjudication of both Houses of Parliament on this proposition, he would see the prudence, if no higher motive influenced him, of abstaining from the re-agitation of it in Ireland—and at all events, if his prudence did not prevail, the united voice of the people of this country would join with all that was intelligent, worthy, and respectable in Ireland, to support Government, by all the means in their power to maintain public peace and the existing free institutions of the country.
§ Mr. Barronsaid, this question had already been most ably discussed by the hon. Members who preceded him in the debate; yet he felt it due to himself and to his constituents shortly to state the motives which induced him to give his support to the measure proposed by the hon. and learned member for Dublin. Ireland had for some time been afflicted by one of the greatest evils which could befall any country, that of absenteeism. It had been stated by the right hon. Secretary for Ireland—and he (Mr. Barron) did not mean to deny the fact—that there had been a great number of absentees before the Union; but if that had been felt as an evil before, it had become a tenfold greater evil since that period. In fact, the Union had greatly increased the number of absentees; and he knew of no good which could compensate for the absence of the nobility and large landed proprietors of that country. A resident nobility and gentry not only set the example, but afforded to their tenants the means of industry and improvement, and greatly advanced the civilization and wellbeing of those around them. How, he asked, could any country be expected to prosper when the great mass of the nobility and gentry were absent from it, being, as they partly were, drawn from it by the necessity of attending to their legislative duties. Almost all the nobility and gentry of Ireland had absented themselves from it since the Union; he would not say all, but certainly three-fourths, of them had. The consequence was, that more than 5,000,000l. annually were drawn from the sweat and labor of the people of Ireland to be spent in this 1362 country, and this he conceived to be mainly owing to the Legislative Union of the two countries. He was not one of those who wished to charge upon the British Parliament, that they were not willing, or that a majority of them were not willing to legislate fairly for Ireland; but let them be ever so willing and ever so anxious to deal fairly and justly by that country, it was impossible that they could make good the loss which had been sustained—that they could restore the link which had been broken—that they could fill up the void which had been created by the absence of the nobility and gentry of that country. He would go further and say, that he never expected that Ireland would be happy and contented, until that nobility and gentry were restored to her, and the most effectual way, the only way of restoring them, would be by the Repeal of the Union. If this were once done, and an Irish legislature established, they would, ex necessitate, have a great portion of the Irish nobility and gentry residing on their estates for a great part of the year, and looking to the occupations, and watching over the interests of their tenants, and directing and encouraging such improvements as would be of equal advantage to both. He maintained that that House, in legislating for Ireland, was acting, he would not say willingly, but in error, to the injury of that country. They were mistaken when they undertook to legislate for Ireland—a poor impoverished country—upon the same principles by which they were actuated in legislating for England. He would not impute malice, or ill-will, or prejudice, to them in doing so, but he would say, that they acted under mistaken notions. They should remember, that the one was a rich and powerful country, abundant in resources, and which had been blessed with free institutions for several centuries, while the other was a poor distressed country, which had been crushed and broken down under ages of oppression and misrule. It was not his intention to follow the right hon. Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. S. Rice) in his very long and elaborate speech of last night; but he would advert shortly to a topic or two touched on by him. The right hon. Gentleman told them, that the fisheries of Ireland were under the protection of Government; but he should have recollected that the fishery bounties were withdrawn 1363 in 1829. The great object of those bounties was to give employment to a large body of fishermen; and by the withdrawal of them, a great portion of these poor persons were left without employment. He held in his hand a resolution, agreed to at a meeting at Balbriggan, at which Mr. Hamilton, a gentleman not at all a Repealer, presided, in which it was stated that, from 1822 up to 1829, the fisheries had thriven, and the number of fishermen employed had increased from 36,000 to upwards of 56,000; but that, since the bounties had been withdrawn, the fisheries had declined, and the number of persons employed had decreased in a much greater ratio than they had increased previously to 1822. This was a statement, not got up for the purpose of agitation, but upon a conviction of the emergency of the case. It showed, that the deepest distress prevailed amongst these people, which the few gentry who lived in the neighbourhood, were quite unable to relieve. Large bodies of men had been thrown out of employment, in consequence of the withdrawal of the bounties by Government. And what was the consequence of this altered state of things? A vacancy occurred in a southern borough, and the fishermen, to a man, agreed to give their votes in favour of a man, who was a stranger to them, and who had nothing to recommend him to them but that he advocated Repeal; and the fishermen voted against a man who was their near neighbour, who had ever done what he could to relieve them. Although that gentleman was a relative of his own, he might be permitted to say, he was as honest, as honourable, and as good a man in public and private life as existed. They did this because they were actuated by a feeling, that they had been neglected and overlooked by the Legislature, and they supported the man who they thought would assist them by advocating the principle of a domestic legislature. He could point out various other places, in which instances of a similar feeling were manifested by this distressed class of persons, to the injury of the interests of the legislature in Ireland. He would mention another case, which he considered worthy the attention of the House. There were established in Waterford, before the Union, large manufactories of linens and woollens, serges, stuffs, and glass. The first three of these had totally 1364 disappeared; the fourth could hardly be said to exist; and as to the glass manufacture, it was very low indeed—it was nearly ruined, owing to English competition, and the parties being unable to find any other market which offered a compensation for the loss occasioned by this competition. Of 28,000 persons in that city, between 5,000 and 6,000 persons were one half the year out of employment, and during the other half they were paid at a rate far below that at which the most humble individual in England was at any time employed, or with which he would be satisfied. There was a Mendicity Society established in Waterford, by which 500 or 600 individuals were employed—at what rate did the House suppose? No more than three halfpence a day; and, if the present distress were to continue, it was impossible to foresee to what extent the misery and destitution of the poorer classes would extend. At present, there was not any country in the world in which distress and suffering existed to so great a degree as in Ireland. Although the right hon. Secretary had thought fit to represent Ireland as being in a prosperous state, he felt it his duty to state these facts to the House; glad would he have been to be enabled to tell a different story. He did not pretend to speak of Ireland generally; he only spoke of those facts which had fallen within his own knowledge; and so satisfied was he of their truth, that he would willingly put his signature to every word he uttered on that occasion. He would grant the statement of the right hon. Secretary for Ireland, that there were large exports taking place from Waterford; but was this any answer to the claims of the starving thousands who crowded the quays? Would it do to say to them, "You must be prosperous, because two millions' worth of exports have been sent from your city last year." It was, indeed, true, that 2,000,000l. of exports had left Waterford; but then the exports were provisions—provisions to the amount of 2,000,000l. could be sent away; and yet the people of Waterford were starving. What these distressed persons asked for was, employment, food, or the means of purchasing food, and this they expected to obtain on the return of the nobility and gentry on the Repeal of the Union. Millions, hundreds of millions, might be exported, without giving employment to very many persons. From 1365 Waterford, there had been exported 4,000 head of cattle, 4,200 sheep, 32,000 swine, 13,900,000 weight of butter; but this did not give employment to the great mass of persons who were starving—who were literally in a state of destitution in Waterford and its neighbourhood. Let him ask, was this a state of things which could be expected to last? Was it not natural, that a people so circumstanced should be discontented, when they looked about them and saw the people of England happy and contented, with their agriculture and manufactures flourishing around them? Let it not be imagined, that the acts or conduct of any individual had reduced Ireland to this miserable situation, to this mass of poverty and destitution. No; it was caused by the absence of her leading nobility and gentry, and could only be removed by their return. He would not at that hour enter into a subject which had occupied so much of the time of the House during this debate, the financial arrangements made with Ireland at the Union, the grants in aid of public works since, and England taking upon herself the responsibility of the Irish debt. He found, however, in looking over a debate which took place sixteen years after the Union, that an hon. Member of sound talent, great experience, and undoubted integrity—he alluded to Sir John Newport—had said, "This is a debt contracted on a false estimate of the resources of Ireland." He had the statement of Mr. Plunkett to the same effect; that Gentleman stated, that "the scale of contribution laid down for Ireland was utterly disproportioned to her strength." Since then, the taxation of Ireland had gone on increasing more rapidly and permanently than that of England, and it was capable of proof, that, within twenty years, the taxation of England had increased two-fold, while that of Ireland bad increased five-fold. The debt charged upon Ireland had been imposed under false pretences. They kept Ireland plunged in debt, until they found that she was bankrupt; her debts had been contracted for her, and were disproportioned to her means, as had been justly stated both by Sir John Newport and Mr. Plunkett That debt had been contracted, after the Union, for British purposes. But had they left Ireland exempt from debt? or had they not rather made her equally responsible with England for the whole 1366 800,000,000l. of debt contracted by this country, and one-half of it, at least, contracted before the Union? and yet Ireland was at this moment equally responsible with England for the whole amount. He would not, however, dwell any longer upon this part of the subject. He would ask, whether Ireland had not been for centuries governed, either directly or indirectly, by England? Whose fault was it that she was involved in misery? Who was it that caused her poverty and distress? If he were inclined to taunt, he would say to England, "the fault is with you." But he said not so. He felt, that they were bound to come to the discussion of a question of such great importance with calmness and temper; and even when he heard his country taunted he wished not to throw back the taunt, as he felt, that it only tended to do injury on both sides. There were three points which appeared to oppose themselves to the Motion of the hon. and learned member for Dublin. The first was a dread of a Catholic ascendency in Ireland. The King of England was the King of Ireland. That Monarch must, by the form of the Constitution, be Protestant. There was, however, now no pretender, no Catholic, seeking to deprive him of his Throne; and no man, not even the wildest theorist ever heard of, had talked of removing the Throne to Ireland. Next came the Lords. Now, it was known that there were not more than five or six Roman Catholic Peers in Ireland, not forming one-twentieth of the Irish nobility. Thus there were two out of the three estates essentially Protestant. He next came to the third estate, the Commons. It was acknowledged that several Roman Catholics had found their way into that House—a greater number, he believed, than would again be found there in the event of a Dissolution of Parliament to-morrow. But if the Irish nobility and gentry were to return to their estates was it not natural to suppose that they would have their due influence with the tenantry, and that the latter would follow them to the hustings with respect and confidence? The influence which had been lost by absence would be restored, and he would venture to say, that the Protestant influence would predominate greatly at elections. Here, then, they had the King, Lords, and Commons, all essentially Protestant, and it would be idle to say, that 1367 anything like a Catholic ascendancy was for a moment to be apprehended. If an attempt were to be made to secure a Catholic ascendency, he, though a Catholic, would side with the Protestants. These sentiments were not new with him. He had uttered them not only amongst his private friends, but at the hustings, where nineteen-twentieths of the persons present were Catholics, and in doing so he had obtained their votes and their applause. Away, then, with these idle fears—these futile objections to the Motion; they could not for a moment stand the test of the plainest argument. He next came to the question urged that a Repeal of the Union would lead to a separation of the two countries. This, it appeared, was said in a spirit of prophecy, for it had no fact to support it. Why should the people of Ireland wish for a separation from England? Was it not their interest to continue upon the closest intimacy, the most friendly footing with this country? The people of Ireland knew—they thought, they felt this; they knew that the English markets were open to their produce; they knew also that the skill and industry of the English gave manufactures to Ireland at a far cheaper rate than she could get them elsewhere. These articles had become to Ireland as the necessaries of life. There were no articles sold in her shops that were not the manufacture of Manchester, or Birmingham, or some other manufacturing English town. The Irish then must be mad, more than mad, to reject these advantages. But it would be hardly supposed that the Irish could be so foolish as to reject the market where they could buy cheapest, and sell their produce to most advantage. Let the House bear in mind that it was not Acts of Parliament that bound together nations, neither were they held in amity by political systems. Their Union was only to be secured by their mutual interests—and the House might depend upon it that the Irish would be the last people on the face of the globe to seek or desire a separation from this country. It would be the interest of Ireland to have the British Navy to protect her commerce; and who more fit to man that navy than the hardy fishermen of Ireland? Who more fit to supply her armies in war than the people of Ireland? Ireland had ever been the right arm of England in time of war, and long might she so continue. She had shone 1368 bright as was the lustre of the British Crown, the fairest gem in the whole circle of its radiance, and long he hoped, after many distant possessions had separated themselves to follow a new destiny, would Ireland both strengthen and adorn the imperial greatness. The glory of Ireland was bound up with that of England, but she shrunk and withered for want of the fostering care of a local Legislature, if that were once restored, it would, he felt convinced, be a source of increased power to England, and of incalculable benefit to Ireland. But whatever might be the fate of this Motion, however it might please the House to dispose of it, he trusted its introduction and discussion would leave no angry feeling on the minds of English Members. He trusted that all irritation (if any existed) would be laid aside, and that Gentlemen would bear in mind that Ireland had many other grievances to complain of and pray for redress. Ireland was now at their Bar, praying for permission to legislate for herself; they might, perhaps, say, "No; we will legislate for you!" Let him beseech them, then, to consider the distresses of that country—let him implore theta as Christians, let him implore them as men, let him implore them as Englishmen, to look at the miseries, the sufferings, and the wrongs of Ireland, and not to turn from them until they were redressed.
§ The debate was, on the Motion of Mr. Ruthven, again adjourned.