generality of the public, he expected that the melancholy state of things would have compelled even the Whigs to originate something more stringent and effective. Nor need we be surprised, that his gratitude overcame his discretion. This was but natural, even though it exposed him to the lash of his more circumspect rival. We have waded through the entire debates on the state of Ireland, from the schoolboy puerilities of Mr Adair, to the coldblooded per centages of Sir George Grey, and we have discovered nothing which would lead us to anticipate the adoption of such measures, or of such a system of government, as would ensure the pacification, and, as a consequence, the prosperity of that unhappy country. Enough there is of the cuckoo cries of "developing resources," "introducing capital," 66 creating domestic manufactures," &c. &c.; but we would ask those holiday declaimers how resources are to be developed, or capital introduced, or manufactures fostered, in a country where property has no rights, and where life has no protection?

Whoever ventures to propose for the government of Ireland a system, stringent and effective enough to secure the enjoyment of the fruits of industry, and the preservation of life, is at once met with the cry of, "you have tried coercion long enough, and it has failed-try a conciliatory policy now, and you must surely succeed." But the truth is, that although both systems have been tried, neither have been judiciously applied; and it is to the shuffling and changing of successive administrations, that all the evils which now curse the land are mainly attributable. "You tried coercion for centuries," the Irish patriot will exclaim, "and what are you the better for it ?"

It is true, that in former days, the Irish peasant was ground to the dust, and trampled on, when he was faithful, trustworthy, honest, and submissive. It is true the Popish priest was persecuted, and a price set upon his head when he was intelligent, educated, loyal, and pious. But it is equally true, that when the Roman Catholic layman was placed upon a full equality with his Protestant fellow countryman, and the Roman Catholic

priest was recognised by the law, and protected in the discharge of his duties, another and an equally mischievous course of policy was adopted towards both. A sort of political saturnalia was allowed the emancipated slaves, and they were taught to riot in the enjoyment of newly acquired liberty. They were misled and corrupted by cunning and designing demagogues, while the government, which should have enforced submission to the laws when they had removed all just causes of complaint, remained passive, until the minds of the people were poisoned by false representations. Then first was yielded to political combination as a matter of expediency, that which, if conceded at all, should only have been granted as a matter of right. And when, by intimidation and violence, the representation of the country was vested in the heads of agitation, it became an object of the last importance to each of the political parties who rule the country to procure the popular support; and, to accomplish this, no sacrifice of principle was considered too great, and no concessions to democratic principles too exorbitant. The Whigs, after they had coerced with success, were obliged to abandon their protective policy, because they were denounced as base, brutal, and bloody;" and then, adopting the other tack, they boldly launched their bark on the sea of conciliation. The lowest, and least intelligent class of men, and those who, from their callings and station in life, were most exposed to intimidation, were placed indiscriminately on the criminal jury lists. The right which the Crown enjoys of challenging improper jurors, was forbidden to be exercised, and, to consummate the glorious triumph of liberality, "the beloved Normanby" commenced his tour of grace, and, in the plenitude of his mercy, liberated those malefactors who had been consigned to the restraint of the gaols by the vindicated laws of their country. The Peel government followed in the same course as to the administration of the law, established the poor-houses, issued the land commission, and suggested the principle of tenant-right. They permitted the most unbounded liberty

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of speech and of action; they allowed hundreds of thousands of men to unite in military array, for the purpose of dismembering the empire; they endowed Maynooth, founded the godless colleges, and recognised the temporal rank of the Roman Catholic prelates, by placing them in royal commissions above the heads of temporal peers. They complimented O'Connell on his patriotism, after they had been compelled by his boastful menaces to prosecute him for sedition, and connived at his escape when they had procured his conviction. And after all those conciliating measures, may we not ask, what has conciliation accomplished? The answer is obvious: its result is to be read in the list of crimes which have annihilated all law in Ireland-it is to be heard in the wailings and lamentations of those who have been made widows and orphans by the system of assassination which it has generated and protected.

But if we find that neither unreasonable persecution on the one hand, nor unjustifiable concessions on the other, have been productive of good, is that a reason why we should not now have recourse to temporary measures which are indispensable to secure the action of the law, and the lives of the Queen's Irish subjects? What is coercion, after all, but an extraordinary means to enforce the law, and to support the constitution, when the ordinary means have failed? In England, the law is respected and obeyed, and the people have sense and discrimination enough to perceive that their own welfare and safety are identified with its maintenance. But in Ireland, the case is widely different; we think it was Swift who said, “that what was considered morally wrong in other countries was considered morally right in Ireland," and if the Celt be not enlightened enough to appreciate, he must be taught to respect, the blessings which the British constitution confers upon him.

The utter inefficacy of the measures for which the Whig administration now seek the sanction of Parliament is not all that we have to deplore. On reading the debate, there will be found in the tone of the ministerial speeches, in their promises, and still more in their

omissions, much to be lamented. Instead of boldly insisting on the vindication of the law as the primary object to be accomplished, they, to use Sir Robert Peel's expression, "hold parley with the assassins;" and instead of denouncing with firmness, they palliate, as far as decency will permit, the conduct of the Irish conspirators, and studiously avoid all allusion to the transgressions of the priests. Crime, they say, must be repressed, but "a sop is thrown to Cerberus" at the same time, and an additional stimulus is given to agitation by the announcement, that a landlord-and-tenant bill is under the consideration of the government. Now we tell her Majesty's ministers that they never laboured under a greater delusion, than to suppose that any measure which they or any other administration can venture to propose to Parliament, on this subject, will be sufficient to meet the views or satisfy the wishes of the Irish peasantry; and furthermore, that even although they did apparently succeed in accomplishing this object, by other means than a transfer of the property of the land from the present proprietors to their tenantry, they would be just as far as ever from effecting the pacification of Ireland. The visionary and prosy Mr Scrope, or the egotistical Mr Crawford, may occupy themselves in talking and attempting legislation on a subject which the one does not understand, and the other is incapable of explaining; but any man of common sense who comprehends and considers the question, must at once perceive that great danger must attend on any attempt to legislate for the exercise of private rights, and that in this instance it would be an utter impossibility to satisfy the wishes of one party without absolutely sacrificing the just rights of the other. And, after all, what is this mysterious measure of "tenant-right," which like the wand of Aladdin is at once to restore peace and establish order, and to which the prosperity and happiness of the Protestant north is so often and so erroneously attributed? If it be what the advocates for its universal adoption represent it,-namely, "The right of the occupying tenant to dispose of the interest derivable from the improvement of his farm, should he fall

into arrear or wish to emigrate, and the possession of what remains of the purchase-money after paying all rent due, as a recompense for his labour, skill, and expenditure,"-we at once answer that nothing can be more reasonable, unexceptionable, or just ; but is any man so silly as to suppose that such a measure, if carried, would satisfy the desires of the Munster peasant? As Mr O'Connell used to say, he would cry "Thank you for nothing," he is much better off at present than he could be under any such arrangement; he in reality not only makes the want of tenant-right an excuse for his indolence and dishonesty, but he uses it as a cloak for his meditated spoliation.

Mr Griffith, the government valuator, stated in his examination before Lord Devon's commission, that his valuation was based upon the market price of certain articles of agricultural produce, which, at the time he commenced his proceedings, were ten per cent higher in value than they were at the time when the act which authorised his valuation was passed; and that, consequently, being restricted to the respective values attached to each article in the schedule of that act, his valuation was in the first instance ten per cent under what it would have been had he not laboured under such a restriction. He further says, that while in the north the rent actually paid amounted in most instances to from thirty to fifty per cent above his valuation, in the western counties it was not much if at all more than the value he had put upon the land; and yet, he adds, the peasantry in the north, paying those high rents, were industrious, prosperous, and happy, while those in the west, who held better land on so much more reasonable terms, were steeped in misery and crime. It is then manifestly unjust to attribute the poverty of Connaught to the exorbitance of the rents, or the prosperity of Ulster to the moderate price exacted for the land. But then the northern tenant is secured remuneration for his toils if he wish to dispose of his tenantright:-admitted, but the southern and western tenant has still the advantage, for he sells or is compensated where he has never made any

improvements at all. There is no absolute law to protect the right of the tenant in either case: but whereas custom, a due regard to justice, and we may also add, to his own interests, induce the northern landlord to consent to a sale which will secure not only his rent, but a thriving instead of a failing tenant, intimidation and violence compel the southern landlord not only to forgive all rent due by a defaulting tenant, (and that in most cases amounting to three or four years) but also, after he has been put to heavy legal expenses, to compensate him for leaving his house a wreck and his land a wilderness. Under such circumstances, can it be supposed for a moment that any landlord would refuse a tenant the right to sell, thereby avoiding the loss of his arrears; or that he would prefer to evict at a heavy legal expense, and then in the end remunerate, in order that he might conciliate the outgoing tenant, and thus escape being shot ?

Tenant-right is as really, though not so ostensibly, enjoyed in the south as in the north; and if we hear of sales of tenant-right in the one and not in the other locality, the difference arises from the fact that the northern tenant having improved his land, advertises his interest in it and sells, while the southern tenant having deteriorated, instead of having improved his farm, compensates himself for his right of possession" by mulcting his landlord, and levying a species of black mail under the name of

"good-will" money from his successors. Is any man weak enough to suppose that, if the southern tenant was secured by law a right to sell that which his indolent and lawless habits will not permit him to make, (improvements on his farm) such a contingent right would in any wise reconcile him to his condition, or render him more obedient to the law? Before the emancipation act passed, it was said by the leaders of the people, "Grant us this, and you secure peace and tranquillity to the land;" and the same has been said with regard to every other concession which they exacted. Peace was to follow the abolition of the tithes, the enactment of the Reform Bill, and the recognition of the right of the

destitute to obtain support from the land: but what has been the consequence? Each successive triumph of the Popular Party has but imboldened their pretensions, and confirmed them in the doctrine which they have been assiduously taught that "to succeed they have only to combine:" and so it will be with tenantright; give them what their advocates profess to ask for, and you will have them clamorous for more. This tenant question has been adopted as a sort of safety-valve to secure an escape for the leaders of repeal, now that the delusion on that question can no longer be upheld; and its agitation is prosecuted with vigour by the priests, because, by means of it, they hope not only to strike down their hated rivals, the landlords, but to secure the overthrow of all those legal rights by which the possession of property is guaranteed.

It is not, we presume, contemplated that land should be held without payment of any rent, save what the tenant may see fit to give the owner of it, after he has secured from the produce of his farm enough for his own comfortable and independent subsistence." Neither do we suppose that government will sanction a law, by which the tenant in possession shall remain so in perpetuity, subject to the payment of such surplusage of his profits as he shall find it convenient to bestow upon his landlord: yet those are precisely the doctrines laid down at the tenant-right demonstrations, and any thing granted short of these will be considered as a blinking of the question, and treated as an attempt to delude and deceive the people.

It has been said that the well-conducted tenant has no security of tenure, and consequently that he will not labour, when he is not guaranteed the just remuneration for his toils. Now, it is a curious circumstance, and ought to show the groundlessness of their complaints on this head, that at the great popular demonstrations of Holy Cross, Cashell, Kilmakthomas, or Wexford, not one single case was brought forward where tenants have been deprived of their land, or despoiled of the value of their improve

ments, so long as they honestly met their engagements. There was abundance of declamation. "The tenant might be turned adrift after improv ing the condition of his land," but there was not a single fact adduced to show that he had been so treated. We have gone fully into this question, for the purpose of disabusing the mines of the ministry, and of showing them, that if they hope, by the concession of a landlord-and-tenant bill, (founded on the demands of its parliamentary advocates), to effect a change for the better in the conduct and condition of the Irish people, they will find themselves grievously disappointed. Every step which the present government have taken to meet the wishes of the popular party in Ireland, has but led them still deeper into the mire of social disorder. They repealed the Arms Act, and by that most reprehensible proceeding, mainly produced the state of anarchy and confusion which now exists; and within one short year they are themselves compelled to pronounce condemnation on their own imprudence. They most recklessly squandered the public money on useless or mischievous works, sooner than expend it on the improvement of the land, lest by benefiting the Irish proprietor they should displease their patrons, the priests. They created a spirit of insubordination and idleness amongst the people, by giving employment on public works where no return was exacted by their numerous overpaid staff for the wages which were given, and where multitudes were employed who did not require it, on the nomination of the priests, while many who did were excluded from its benefits; and, to complete the climax of their blunders, they conceded out-door relief, at a time, and under circumstances, which must render such a measure not only a curse to Ireland, but a grievous burden on the other portions of the British empire. It has been declared by the minister that in twenty-two unions the rental twice over would not be sufficient to support the pauper inhabitants; while many of the popular Irish members maintain that there are three times that number of unions placed in similar circumstances, and

and

in which the means of subsistence must come from the Imperial treasury.

But are the Whig ministry sincere in their declarations against Irish crime, and is incompetency their only fault?-alas! we cannot believe it. There are amongst them shrewd and sensible men, who must have perceived that they have been hierto acting in error, and there can scarcely be one so besotted or ignorant, as not to see that to the policy they have pursued is to be attributed the ruin of the country. But at the same time, they well know that they must obey the dictates of their task-masters the Irish priests, or surrender their power; and they yield themselves bound hand and foot, sooner than abandon office which they have made so many and such shameful sacrifices of principle to obtain. Thirty-seven Irish members are completely in the hands of the priests, and this is a political power which Lord John Russell's cabinet has not the courage or the strength to defy.

While her Majesty's ministers and their supporters draw the most appalling pictures of the state of society in Ireland, and recount horrors which are enough to curdle the blood, they one and all abstain most scrupulously from attributing those evils to the causes which have really produced them--they studiously avoid touching the sore spot. It is admitted that priests denounce men from the altars, and that such persons become immediate victims. "Did you denounce this man from the altar?" asked a coroner the other day of a reverend gentleman who was giving evidence at an inquest. "I did." "And he was murdered immediately, after?" "Yes, he was murdered at five o'clock on the same day." Now here is a palpable admission made by a man on his oath. He does not seek to screen himself from the consequences of his act; he seems rather to pride himself on the speedy execution of his decree. Henry the Second exclaimed, "Have I no friends to rid me of such a torment?" and Becket was sacrificed; a Roscommon priest, from the altar of God, and on his holy Sabbath, cries to his infuriated auditors, "This man is worse than

Cromwell, yet he lives," and Major Mahon is savagely slaughtered! Is there any notice taken of the conduct of those men by the law-officers of the Crown ?-any condemnation pronounced upon it by her Majesty's ministers? Not at all: although the crime of the one is admitted on his oath, and the truth of the accusation against the other is undenied-both, though in the eyes of God and the law equally criminal as the wretch who executed their commands, are "honoured and at large;" and while such things pass before our eyes, we are told, that "to the wonderful and praiseworthy exertions of the Roman Catholic priesthood," we are mainly indebted for not having the country in a worse condition than it really is!

It may be said that government cannot punish priests for such monstrous conduct-"there is no law which will reach the offenders." Be it so; but why is not such a law enacted now, with the full knowledge of the facts which we have stated, and of many equally criminal instances of priestly aggression which must have been reported to them? The ministry introduce measures for the repression of crime, without the slightest allusion to this practice of denunciation, which may be considered as the very source of it.

And

They propose to punish the peasant who commits the assassination, "but they grant entire immunity to the priest who points out the victim and counsels the act." We are told, however, by an authority which seldom errs, (The Times newspaper,) that there is actually in existence a law fully competent to deal with those transgressions. we are the more inclined to coincide with the opinion given in The Times, when we see, by proceedings lately taken in the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland, that there is on the StatuteBook a law rendering those who conceal a murderer liable to be indicted as accessories after the fact. Now, perhaps, in the whole range of legislation, nothing could be hit upon more likely to stem the torrent of crime than such an enactment; and yet we find that owing either to the ignorance of the law-officers of the Crown, or the connivance of the government, it has been allowed to