§ Mr. Leaderrose to present a Petition from part of the county county payers, in the important barony of Duhallow, in the county of Cork. The petitioners were the cess payers of the northern part of this district, and in which there had been no resident gentry for many years. They stated, they had paid a large amount of county cess, and had never received a remunerating shilling, in the way of presentment, with in the district of their residence, while the other part of the barony, in which the Grand Jurors generally resided, was cut up into ornamental and circular roads. At the same time the charges to which the petitioners were subjected were increased annually by new valuations, and enlarged charges, without the smallest attention being paid to the honest expenditure of the sums raised for the benefit of the barony in general. The petitioners stated, That the applications to Magistrates at the Petty Sessions was a mockery; that their applications were sometimes passed at such Petty Sessions, but were regularly cashiered by the Grand Jury; that the mode of nominating Grand Juries was degrading to the administration of justice, as it led to a corrupt, partial, and wasteful expenditure of the public money; that some material changes ought to be made in the manner of appointing Grand Juries if such persons were to continue to have the irresponsible power of disposing of funds raised for the benefit of the public generally. The petitioners suggested, that if such large sums were to be annually raised, the cess payers ought to have the election of those by whom they were so severely taxed, and that, while the great county and barony roads were maintained by trusts or public Boards, the parishes should have the laying out of their own money; under the control of government engineers. The petitioners proceeded to illustrate the hardships of their situation, by shewing the severe local injuries they had endured, from the corrupt and improvident manner in which their funds were managed, which were so great, to use their own words. "that the neglect, oppression and injustice of the system were 136 calculated to drive them reluctantly to insubordination, and almost to compel them to acts of riot and disturbance." This petition was signed by several hundreds of respectable occupiers of land, and its prayer was fully corroborated by what had been stated at a meeting of the county-rate payers of Tyrone. They stated, "That the Grand Juries of Ireland are nearly permanent, and virtually self-constituted bodies. That in the county of Tyrone the great and influential majority of the Grand Jury now are either the same identical men who constituted the Grand Jury five-and-twenty years ago, or the heirs or successors of such of them as have, since that time, either died or been removed, holding very nearly the same places respectively on the panel, from year to year, to the present time; and that such is the constitution of Grand Juries throughout the kingdom. That bodies thus constituted are altogether beyond the reach of efficient control, and, like all oligarchical and irresponsible bodies, have a natural tendency to disregard trust, neglect duty, blink the public weal, and to co-operate, confederate, and combine with one another, to advance their own interests, and to protect their own creatures, for the purpose of screening their own corruptions. That the Grand Juries throughout the kingdom are generally composed of the second class of landed proprietors, and the agents of the great estates whose principals are, for the most part, absentees. That the parties to a Grand Jury presentment are most commonly the following description of persons: first, the head Overseer, who is almost always the agent for, or owner of, the premises through which any old road has been passed, or any new one is intended to be passed. This gentleman receives the money presented, from the county Treasurer, but makes no affidavit whatever, nor does he otherwise appear ostensibly in the undertaking. The person next in consequence to him, is the accounting Overseer, an inferior person, who is to the road jobbers in a county what the tithe proctor's viewing and valuing Bailiff is to him in the parish. To this man's conscience is intrusted the principal affidavit required by the law. Next downwards in the scale of degradation, are two persons, called by the county treasurers, applicants, and who are, in point of fact, persons still lower in degree than the accounting Overseer, and, generally speaking, his dependants. To these two last-mentioned personages, as the law now stands, is intrusted the initiation of all road presentments, and 137 all other matters and things connected with roads in Ireland. That these two last-mentioned agents are set in motion by the head Overseer and accounting Overseer alluded to, or one of them, is what ought not to be disputed, and cannot be denied with truth. They are the first persons, however, who make their appearance in any presentment, and are supposed by the laws to act voluntarily, and for the public good. They appear—imagine the utility, limit the direction, and estimate the whole expense of every newly-projected road. Each makes an affidavit before certain Magistrates at the road sessions, of the truth of his estimate, &c. Upon this rotten foundation rests all the presentments for new roads made in Ireland. In practice, there is now no inquiry instituted, either as regards utility, expense, or direction, by the Magistrates, at the road sessions; and, if the Grand Jury to whom the application is referred do not throw it out, the work goes on under the inspection of the accounting Overseer, who never fails to swear, that the work has been duly executed according to the estimate, and that all the money presented has been duly expended on the work." Such were the opinions of the landed proprietors of the county of Tyrone, and what was the result of such a system—why, that clubs were actually formed for the redress of local grievances, such as road jobbing, and all other misapplications of the county cess, and the Tyrone Independent Club was compelled to enter into large subscriptions to do what Parliament had evaded doing, namely, to redress the local and almost intolerable grievances of the Irish people. What were the facts disclosed in the appendix to the reports of the Select Committee on the State of the Poor, page 63, and the report of the Committee on Grand Jury Presentments of 1827, page 4. Before the Union, the presentments were 400,000l. annually; in 1810 the Grand Jury presentments were 632,693l.; in 1820, 741,829l.; and in 1829, 888,932l. Such was the enormous increase. To this must be added the great charges on the account of tithes made by the Church. He implored the House to attend to the fact, that previous to the Union, the whole government of Ireland, civil, military, and naval, including local improvements, was carried on by a local legislature, for a million per annum, and part of that was raised by a lottery. At present the cost was double that sum, and the charge was so large, that the industry of the country was wholly weighed down by it. In such a state of things, it 138 was easy to account for clubs, and unions, and associations, when prosperous harvests only tended to aggravate the sufferings of the people. He felt it to be his bounden duty to press these considerations upon the attention of the House, for no Government could ever give satisfaction in Ireland while there were so many grievances arising from local taxation and oppression.
Sir John Brudgessaid, there was one observation of the hon. Member which he felt it necessary to notice, that was, that the amount of tithe had increased of late years; but that evidently arose from the increase of agriculture, growing out of the prosperity of the country. He thought the attack on the Church, therefore, unfair, and he regretted to observe, that such attacks were at every opportunity brought forward.
§ Mr. Leadersaid, as the manufacturers of Ireland had been sacrificed, that country had now nothing but agriculture to support her people, and he felt it his duty, therefore, to watch with unceasing care, that the charges upon that were not increased unnecessarily to add to her misfortunes and sufferings.
§ Petition to be Printed.