House in return, that it was deeply impressed with the importance of the subject, and that it would take it into immediate consideration. The Bill was then brought in and passed, with little opposition, in the House of Lords. It was then sent down to that House, and it had hitherto been the invariable practice of the House to give a Bill so introduced a first reading. He did not contest the right to oppose the first stage of such a measure; he was only considering whether the Government would have been justified in letting a Bill of such importance as the present lie upon the table without further notice. As to the injurious surmise that Government had interposed this measure for the purpose of getting rid of their measure on the Corn Laws, it was enough for him to say, at present, that the lapse of time, and many intervening events, had confirmed the impressions on which he had originally proposed the final and permanent adjustment of the Corn Laws. Events had proved to him that the restrictions which he once believed to be only impolitic, were now absolutely unjust; and his colleagues and himself were perfectly prepared to certify by any public act the sincerity of their convictions on that point. He then proceeded to an explanation of the reasons which had induced the Government to propose a measure of this harsh character towards Ireland. And for this purpose he endeavoured to establish three facts: 1st, that from the extent, frequency, and nature of the crimes committed, a necessity for a change in the law existed; 2ndly, that all the powers of the existing law had been tried and exhausted; 3rdly, that there was reasonable ground to hope that the present Bill would be

effectual for its object. He then proceeded to justify in detail the various clauses of the Bill, and to show that they were even more necessary for the protection of the poor than for the protection of the rich. He believed, that when the Bill was once passed, the knowledge of its existence would almost operate as a cure of the present disorders. He believed that now, as formerly, its dormant energies would be sufficient for the repression of crime, and that the publicity given to its powers would enable the Executive to dispense with the exercise of them at an early period. It would be delusive to propose this measure as a panacea for the disorders and grievances of Ireland, and he therefore at once admitted that it was an unmitigated evil and no remedy for them. He refused to discuss, on the present occasion, the various measures which had been proposed for the permanent relief of Ireland, for each of them deserved a separate discussion. With regard to the introduction of the principle of the English Poor Law into Ireland, he observed that there were many reasons which ought to induce the House to pause before it adopted in Ireland the principle that the unemployed poor had a right to relief from the land. Upon this topic he dilated at considerable length. Appealing then to the owners of property, he said, he would tell the members and landlords of Ireland, that he thought that they relied too much on the assistance of the Executive Government, and too little upon themselves; and that it was in their power to do more good for Ireland by their own exertions than any Government could do for them. If they would only meet together and

consider the condition of their country, the obligations of property, and the consequences of a harsh exercise of the powers which property gave them, they might, with a little liberality and forbearance, confer inestimable blessings on their country. He called upon them to follow the example of Lord G. Hill, who had converted 18,000 acres of waste land into a valuable property, and who, by a constant attention to his duties as a landlord, had conciliated to himself the goodwill of those who stood to him in the relation of tenants. By such conduct they would draw together the relations of rich and poor, and would ensure a confidence in the impartial administration of justice, which could not be accomplished by any direct efforts of legislation. There were obligations on property which laws could not instil or control, but which were essential to the good order and maintenance of society.

At length, on the 1st of May, this protracted discussion came to a close; the concluding debate con tained scarcely anything at all novel or remarkable. The speakers were numerous. Mr. Colquhoun, the Attorney-General, Mr. W. R. Collett, Captain Fitzmaurice, and Major Beresford, advocated the principle of the Bill; Mr. Patrick Somers, Mr. Maurice O'Connell, Mr. Timothy O'Brien, Mr. Sharman Crawford, Mr. Bellew, Mr. Henry Grattan, Mr. Roche, Captain Layard, and Colonel Rawdon, spoke with much freedom against it; and Colonel Sibthorp closed the debate, in a speech in which he declared his intention neither to support nor oppose the Bill. It was so weak, futile, and inoperative, that he could not give it his sanction.

Majority.

274

125

149

Sir Robert Peel then named the 25th of May for the second reading. Other measures, however, occupied the time of the House, and the Whitsuntide recess intervening, it was not till the 9th of June that the debate on the second reading commenced. The contest was now again resumed, with the same vehemence and determination as before, on the part of the opponents, and with equal prolixity on both sides; the debate being repeatedly adjourned, and continuing at intervals for many nights between the 9th and the 25th, when it was finally closed. It will suffice to select the most prominent speeches, a summary of which will indicate the positions assumed by the different parties in the controversy. It will be seen that while the liberal section of the Irish members adhered to their former grounds of hostility, the views of the English Whig party were considerably altered with respect to the Bill since its first reading. Upon the order of the day for the second reading being moved on the 9th of June

Sir W. Somerville rose to move as an amendment, that it be read a second time that day six months. He had hoped that, after the time which had elapsed since the introduction of this measure, and after the successful issue of the last debate in convincing the people of England that it was utterly inapplicable to the state of crime in Ireland, Her Majesty's Government would have abandoned it. He would not enter into the particular demerits of the present Bill, for those demerits had been

sufficiently exposed already. It was the same Bill which had been repeatedly passed during the last half century; and yet the House was again called upon to apply it as a panacea to the disease incident to the body corporate of Ireland. Could they hope that it would be more successful now than it had been formerly? No; they must go to the root of the evil. The body of the Irish people was full of wounds, and covered with putrid sores and ulcers, and the disease under which it was labouring was a dislike to the law of the land. Until they made them love that law, by rendering it impartial, there would be neither health, nor peace, nor contentment in that country. It had been said that the cessation of crime, which had recently occurred in Ireland, was owing to the debates which had recently taken place in that House. He implored the House not to deceive itself with that notion, for the people who committed these crimes knew little and cared less about the debates of Parliament. He then called the attention of the House to the slow progress of this Bill through both branches of the Legislature. The Queen's Speech, in which the frequency of assassination in Ireland was a prominent feature, was delivered on the 22nd of January. No Bill for the prevention of assassination was introduced into the House of Lords till the 16th of February, and the Bill which was then introduced was subsequently discharged on the 20th of the same month. The present Bill was introduced on the 23rd of February, but was not read a third time till the 13th of March, nearly two months after the meeting of Parliament.

On the 15th of March it came down

to that House, and was ordered to be printed. On the 30th of March it was ordered to be read a first time; and now, when it was nearly five months since the opening of Parliament, they were called upon to read it a second time. He contended that, in allowing this delay, if the Bill were necessary, the conduct of the Government was without excuse. Supposing that similar crimes had been prevalent in Yorkshire or Durham, would English Members have allowed a Bill like the present to have hung up for five months, as a subject for the Government to play fast and loose with at its pleasure? He reminded Lord George Bentinck that on the 22nd of March he had stated, on behalf of his party, that if there was not an urgent and immediate necessity for passing this Bill, that party would not support it, because they admitted it to be most unconstitutional. Now, did this delay of five months show an urgent and immediate necessity for this Bill? If it did not, then he called upon Lord George Bentinck, without regard to its merits, to call upon his friends to reject this Bill, on account of the extraordinary conduct of Ministers, who, if their pretexts. were true, ought not to have lost a moment in converting it into law.

Mr. Bernal seconded the amendment.

After some other speeches against the Bill in a very thin House, Mr. Osborne contended that Her Majesty's Government were treating the Irish people with the most insufferable contempt in rising to reply to the speeches which had just been made against this Bill. He was particularly severe on Lord Lincoln for his silence, and called on Sir Robert Peel not to permit an important debate like

the present to terminate in so unsatisfactory a manner.

The Earl of Lincoln exonerated himself from the charge of having intended to treat either Ireland or the Irish Members with disrespect, by the silence which he had hitherto observed on this subject. He assured the House, that however ignorant or incapable he might be on Irish affairs, he had always intended to speak upon this Bill, and to explain his own views and those of the Government with respect to it; but when an attempt was twice made within ten minutes to count out the House, and when there were only three or four Irish Members in attendance, he thought that he should be showing greater respect to the people of Ireland by endeavouring to postpone to a later hour of the evening those observations which he wished to address to it as Secretary for Ireland, than by making them at an hour when so thin an audience was present. He then proceeded to defend the Government from the inconsistent charges which had been preferred against it. The Government had been accused by one party of having introduced this measure prematurely, and by another party of having delayed it too long. He

showed that both accusations were unfounded; but admitted, that if the Government were to be found guilty of either, he would prefer that it should be found guilty of the last. He thought, however, that the charge preferred against the Ministers for delaying the progress of the Bill, after it came into the House of Commons, proceeded with a very indifferent grace from the lips of Sir William Somerville, who, if he recollected rightly, had moved the postponement of the first reading of it to a distant day,

and he thereby made himself a partner in the misconduct, if such it were, which he had attributed to the Government. He acknowledged that the Bill might be unconstitutional; but he contended that he was justified by a stern and unbending necessity. He denied that it was an infringement on the liberty of the subject; and maintained that it was a Bill, not so much for the coercion, as for the protection of the well-disposed citizen. The only liberty which it infringed was the liberty to commit outrage and murder; for in the five counties to which it was intended to apply there was no liberty for the peaceful and orderly. He then proceeded to refute Mr. O'Connell's assertion, that the outrage and murders which this Bill was intended to check were agrarian disturbances, traceable to the practice of depopulating estates, and other circumstances connected with the existing relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland,--by reading a mass of criminal returns from the five counties to be affected by this Bill, which showed that, though in their origin many of the disturbances might have been connected with land, that was not the case at present; and that, in point of fact, there was no social or domestic relation in life which was free from the system of terror now enforced on individuals in Ireland. He also proved, by a comparison of the amount of crime committed in those five counties, during the last five months of the present, and the corresponding months of the last year, that Mr. O'Connell was in error when he stated that crime had diminished in Ireland since the introduction of this Bill. Sir William Somerville

had assumed the same fact in his speech of that evening, but he was deeply grieved to be compelled to undeceive both gentlemen on a point which was of the greatest importance in the consideration of this matter. He argued from these circumstances, that the necessity for this Bill was completely made out, and that it had not been resorted to until every means of repression provided by the existing law had been tried in vain. As futurity was incapable of proof, he could not by any train of argument undertake to demonstrate that this Bill would be efficacious for the objects which it was intended to accomplish. He would, however, express his belief that it would be successful; and one of his reasons for that belief was the success which had attended a similar measure, proposed, in 1835, by the Whig Government. He then proceeded to defend the present Bill in its various details; and in the course of his defence called upon Lord John Russell to explain how he reconciled it to himself to reject it altogether, after voting as he had done for its first reading, and after declaring that he intended to amend several of its clauses in committee. He denied that the Government had introduced this Bill without accompanying it with corresponding measures for the amelioration of the social condition of Ireland, and referred to the Bills which had been already passed this session, and to those of which he had given notice for an early day, as a proof that Government was not inattentive to the wants of the people of Ireland in their present

emergency.

Mr. M. J. O'Connell observed that, if he could look upon this

Bill as a measure for the protection of life, no party considerations should prevent him from supporting it, but hitherto he had heard nothing which could induce him to look upon it in that light. Referring to the measures by which this oppressive Bill was to be accompanied, he expressed a hope that the Landlord and Tenant Bill, which Lord Lincoln was about to introduce, would be well digested and carefully prepared, for a good Bill on that subject would tend more even than a permanent Coercion Bill to put down agrarian disturbances and every other disorder of Ireland.

Lord George Bentinck observed, that it would be in the recollection of the House that shortly before the Easter recess he had given notice, that whilst he and his friends were prepared to support this measure, provided the Government, by their conduct in pressing it with all due haste through the House, proved their sincerity, they were not prepared, on the other hand, if Ministers allowed matters of less importance to prevent its progress, to give them assistance in carrying so unconstitutional a Bill through Parliament. Now this Bill had come down to the House on the 13th of March-it was not read a first time till the 1st of May-and no step, till now, had since been taken to forward it a single stage. Consistently with the course which he had announced before Easter, he now declared that the casus fœderis had arrived, on which his friends could no longer give their support to Her Majesty's Government. They had, however, graver reasons than these for opposing the Government. They refused to trust it with the custody of any unconstitutional powers. The