§ The EARL of CARDIGANrose, in pursuance of the notice he had put upon the paper, to put a question on the subject of abolishing the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and assured their Lordships that he would not have presumed to obtrude himself on their notice for the purpose of originating a discussion on such an important subject as this, even by asking a question; but the ground of his justification for rising at present was, that the subject was not new to their Lordships, it having been brought under the notice of both Houses of Parliament one or two years since by a measure which was then introduced for the abolition of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland by the noble Lord who at present occupied the office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord John Russell); and he found that on several occasions the House of Commons had come to divisions on the subject, and that there was invariably a large majority in favour of the measure introduced by the noble Lord. He found also, that it was not at all considered as a party question, for he saw the names of Gentlemen of all parties—Sir Robert Peel for instance—in the majority. Before he put the question, he was anxious to make one or two observations on the subject. It appeared to him that the noble Lords who were selected to fill the important post of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, were placed in a very equivocal, painful, and anomalous position. He (the Earl of Cardigan) had had the honour of paying 171 his respects in the course of the last few years to several of those whom, without meaning to use a harsh expression, he would call mock kings, or, if they liked it better, fictitious kings; and he could not help observing that he had often admired the great good humour with which they carried themselves through the difficult task which had been imposed upon them, although he must confess there were some occasions on which he had witnessed a want of tact and quickness in assuming oval habits and demeanour, which, perhaps, was hardly to be wondered at, considering the newness of the position, and the fact that its duties must have been foreign to the previous habits of many of them. He was perfectly aware, however, that some of the noble Lords who had been placed in that position had rendered great and essential services to the country while holding that office. There was, for instance, a noble Earl on the other side (the Earl of Clarendon), who in a time of serious public disturbance exhibited a great deal of decision, talent, and judgment, in suppressing that disturbance, and had thereby rendered great and important service to his country; and there was another noble Earl, who, if he had been present, would have been sitting on his side of the House (the Earl of Eglintoun), who by the sound judgment, discretion, and tact which he evinced during his period of office, had obtained a universal and well-merited popularity. But he (the Earl of Cardigan) did not believe that, had the noble Earl opposite not occupied the position of Lord Lieutenant at the critical period to which he had referred, the result would have been very different from what it was; that the British Empire would have been dismembered, or, that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland would have ceased to exist. He certainly felt, however, that any noble Lord who undertook to occupy the position was exposed to great difficulties. Let their Lordships just observe the course of a Viceroy. He would suppose that a noble Lord of unblemished and highly respectable character, though perhaps not of transcendent ability, young in years, and younger and lower still in the list of the Peerage, was selected to pass over to the other side of the water to fill the office of Viceroy in that part of Her Majesty's dominions. He arrived in the country amidst a great parade of troops; he then proceeded to take the oaths, and immediately afterwards held a 172 number of levees and drawing-rooms, at which he has to undergo the task of saluting 300 or 400 ladies; an amusement very innocent in itself, but it appeared to him very extraordinary that any one of their Lordships should be placed in a position where he had to undergo such a ceremony as a point of duty. These were followed up by several great fêtes and dinners at the Castle, which were, no doubt, very agreeable both as acts of hospitality and as an encouragement of trade; but it ought to be recollected that it was not necessary that any one should assume Royal habits in order to enable him to give those entertainments. At those fêtes and dinners there appeared a numerous and splendid staff, and various high officers of the household, such as a Chamberlain, a Controller, Treasurer, and a Master of the Horse. He believed that one of the principal duties of the staff officers on such occasions was to carve the massive joints on the vicegeral table. The Master of the Horse had a high salary for superintending an establishment of some eight or ten horses; and probably knew as much about the selection of these horses as some other Masters of the Horse in other countries. But there was another serious objection to the system, and that was, many of the Household officers held appointments in the Army, and, although away from their military duties, retained their full pay in addition to their salaries, largo or small, as officers of the vicegeral household. He must say that that was a very objectionable system. In addition to giving fêtes and dinners, it was also necessary that the new Viceroy should go to the theatre, on which occasion he proceeded through the quiet streets of Dublin attended by a cavalry escort. At the theatre he had an opportunity of showing himself off to his admiring subjects; and he must say that he was in general well received by the good-humoured and versatile inhabitants of the Irish metropolis. At the theatre there must of course be a representation; and if it happened by chance to be the well-known farce of King Charming, the Viceroy might see not a very unfaithful representation of his own very equivocal and somewhat ludicrous position. Did their Lordships really think that in this 19th century, when genius, talent, education, and instruction were making such rapid advances, a little common sense on the details of the Government of this great country should not be allowed to go 173 along with them? It appeared from experience that the maintenance of the office of Lord Lieutenant, so far from tending to expedite business, was exceedingly inconvenient. In the first place, it led to irresponsibility—for one great inconvenience was the difficulty on the part of persons who had occasion to transact Irish business in finding out where the responsibility lay—the officials in Ireland, when applied to, declaring that they could give no decided answer in the matter, as it was one which must be settled by the Imperial Government; and the Imperial Government, when applied to, declaring that they could do nothing without the advice of the Lord Lieutenant. Then came the inconvenience of the frequent changing of Lords Lieutenant with every change of Government, which were not unfrequent since the Reform Bill, and to all appearance not likely to be less so. A Lord Lieutenant might get tired of the round of ceremonies which he had to go through; and they had known cases where a Lord Lieutenant had preferred being a Secretary of State to his mimic royalty. Nor was it possible with such changes duly to administer the laws, and especially those for the repression of, crime and irregularities. Great inconvenience also arose from the frequent changes; because it unfortunately happened that each Viceroy was in the habit of reversing the acts of his predecessor. For instance, the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Clarendon), when helding the office, thought proper to remove a noble Earl (the Earl of Roden) from the high position he held in the magistracy of his county; and it appeared that the noble Lord who had just gone over had offered to reinstate the noble Earl in his old position, but had made the offer in such an offensive way that the noble Lord scorned the proffered boon. There was also the strong case of Mr. Kirwan, the stipendiary magistrate, who, for a serious offence, received from the late Lord Lieutenant the lenient sentence of six months' suspension from office; and it appeared that the Lord Lieutenant who had just gone over had reversed that decision, and would not allow that moderate punishment to be carried out, but had instantly ordered Mr. Kirwan to be reinstated in his post. Such changes must necessarily lead to great uncertainty in the administration of justice. There was still another, which he alluded to a few evenings ago—he meant the Six-mile Bridge affair, in which there were two most 174 important points before the Government, namely, the prosecution of the soldiers and of the Roman Catholic priests. He maintained that the office of Lord Lieutenant was quite unnecessary, now that the communication between the two capitals of England and Ireland was so close and constant. There were at present no fewer than three mails each day from London to Dublin, and two back, besides an electric telegraph to Holyhead, and a submarine telegraph from Holyhead to Dublin, when it was in working order, yet nothing was known here respecting these two points by what was called the Imperial Government; and it seemed as if the local Government was still floundering about in uncertainty and indecision. He trusted that nothing he had said would be so misunderstood as to raise any doubts as to his perfect loyalty and veneration for genuine Royalty in all its forms. He was happy to believe that the people of this country generally were loyal; but he had a double right to have his own loyalty unquestioned; for an ancestor of his, of the same name, had suffered a long imprisonment for his devotion to the first Charles, and his family had been amongst those most noted for their fidelity to the Crown for the last two hundred years. But when it came to a question of bowing the head and bending the knee to one of their Lordships' House—he thought, without any disrespect to their Lordships either collectively or individually—he must say that he found the superabundance and overflowing of loyalty, and love of royalty, and all its forms, and all its etiquette, began on such occasions considerably to evaporate. The proposition to abolish the viceregal court might well fill up the interim which would elapse before the production of the great Government measure for the reform of the national representation, and might therefore be useful to the Government. He did not know whether that great measure was framed or created; but it was pretty clear that, unlike other creations, it would take much more than nine months to bring it into the world. If the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs again brought forward his measure, he (the Earl of Cardigan) had no doubt it would meet with the support of many Members of this House. He should certainly accord it his own, though he was afraid it would be almost the only vote he should give to the Government—that "happy family," composed of persons of 175 every political faith and creed, the most directly opposed to each other that human ingenuity or the mind of man ever devised. The question he wished to put to the noble Earl was, whether Her Majesty's Government intended to carry into effect the announcement made by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, when First Lord of the Treasury, of his intention to do away with the Office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland?
§ The EARL of ABERDEENsaid, that, in answering the question of the noble Earl, he should not think it necessary to enter into an inquiry of how far it might be expedient to abolish the office of Lord Lieutenant, nor should he inquire into the various agreeable duties which the noble Earl had assigned to that official. No doubt the subject to which he had alluded had occupied the attention of the Parliament; hut with respect to his noble Friend (Lord John Russell), to whom the noble Earl had alluded, he believed he might say with truth that, whatever might have been his opinion, his intention of abolishing the office of Lord Lieutenant had been abandoned before he gave up the office of First Lord of the Treasury; for it had been found, whatever reasons might have induced the proposal, that it would be received with so much aversion in that country, that all the advantages which the noble Earl had described, even including the abolition of fêtes, dinners, and processions, would not compensate for the ill-will and opposition which it would occasion. Therefore it was that his noble Friend had abandoned that intention before he quitted office. The noble Earl, who had given notice of his intention to put a question only, had made a speech upon the whole state of Ireland. He was afraid, even at the risk of losing the solitary vote which the noble Earl had promised him, that he should not be able to give him a satisfactory reply. No doubt, the reasons which the noble Earl had urged, and which unfortunately had no weight with him, might have had much weight with the noble Lords opposite, and he could not see why last year the noble Earl should not have urged all those reasons which he had now offered. However, as the noble Earl had asked the intention of Her Majesty's present Government, he could answer without any hesitation that they had no intention of abolishing the office of Lord Lieutenant.
The EARL of WICKLOWwas very 176 much disappointed at the reply which had just proceeded from the noble Earl near him. Whatever objections might have existed to the abolition of the office hitherto, were now removed by the facilitated intercourse which existed between the two countries. He thought it would be highly beneficial that the proposed change should take place. In an economical point of view it would be very desirable. At all events, if the Lord Lieutenant were to continue in that country, he ought no longer to possess the prerogative of mercy; an event which had recently occurred had given an additional reason why that prerogative should be reserved to the Crown itself.
The EARL of DESARTfully acknowledged the anomaly of the present system, which he admitted to be more suited to times of weekly or monthly intercommunication than to the present. But when a great change was to be made in an office which had lasted for five centuries, some stronger reasons should be given for it than those advanced on the ground of economical reform. As far as he recollected the statement of the noble Lord the present Secretary for Foreign Affairs on the subject, he did not admit that the change would be any saving of expense. While he could see no advantage from the abolition of the office, he thought he could point out the benefits that had resulted from the viceregal power. He could not forget the patriotic services of Lord Besborough in 1846, nor those of the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Clarendon) in the troubled years of 1847–8, nor the simplicity and firmness that characterised the administration of the Earl of Eglinton; qualities not only calculated to command the respect, but also the affection, of the Irish people. These things should make them pause ere they attempted to destroy so ancient an institution.