Again, as long back as 1835, Lord John Russell, on a Motion of Mr. O'Connell's for an inquiry as to the means by which the Union was effected, declared that he thought the Irish people had a good cause of complaint in the Irish Church. He hoped the noble Lord at the head of the Government would think fit to introduce a measure for the removal of this grievance, and that this would be done speedily-for many measures, when adopted, by long delay lost their good effect. When an evil was allowed to continue for a long time it caused other evils to arise, which would not have occurred if a change had been made at the proper time. He contended that it was the duty of the House to consider this question, and to relegate whatever was unjust, and when they had done what was right and just they must leave the rest to Providence. He trusted that on that evening they would have from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or from some other Gentleman who sat on the Treasury Bench, an assurance that the Government was about to introduce some measure with reference to the Irish Church calculated to satisfy the just claims of the people of that country. A late distinguished leader of the House of Commons-a man who had received nearly as much support from Gentlemen on the opposite as on his own side of the House-used very remarkable words with reference to this subject. In a debate on the Maynooth Grant in 1845 Lord Palmerston said-. MR. MAGUIRE: Sir, before addressing myself to the subject under the consideration of the House, I desire, at the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue), to make an explanation on his behalf, inasmuch as it is not in his power to reply to the observations of the Attorney General. My hon. Friend wishes me to state that he did not express any condemnation of Fenianism, for this reason-that, had he done so, such condemnation might be interpreted to mean, either that no cause for disaffection existed, or that the people of Ireland were bound to submit to an eternity of misrule. The hon. Member for Tralee said that he spoke in no anti-English spirit, and the Attorney General remarked thereon that that statement of the feeling of my hon. Friend would not make him popular among the Fenians. Now, I can inform the right hon. Gentleman and the House that my hon. Friend was not popular among the Fenians, and that he has, in the strongest and most marked manner, been assailed by the leaders and the organ of that movement. More than this I do not think it necessary to say on the part of my hon. Friend. For my own part, I rise in no anti-English spirit, but I do rise in an anti-Fenian spirit. I do not say this with the contemptible object in view of obtaining a momentary applause; for in my own country, in my own city, in the midst of a population deeply discontented and widely disaffected, I have done my utmost to impress upon my fellow-countrymen the folly, madness, and mischief of that insensate movement; not only at the risk of loss of commencement, but I do conjure them not to delay. popularity, but at the more serious risk of I conjure them to lose no time in bringing forward grave misapprehension. But although I those other measures which I am convinced they oppose Fenianism, as injurious to the best must have in their minds as a sequel to this Bill interests of my country, I am not here to about Maynooth."-[3 Hansard, lxxix. 1305.] say that there are no real causes of disIt was evident from those remarks that it content, or even disaffection-at least, for was then believed that Government was that state of the popular mind which leads about to follow up the Maynooth Bill by a to disaffection. Did I say that no cause comprehensive measure, which would de- for discontent existed in Ireland, I should prive the Irish Establishment of the entire state that which I do not believe. Before possession of the funds devoted to religious referring to some of the causes for dispurposes in Ireland. Unfortunately, that content which unhappily abound in Ireland, had not been done then; it was not, how. I would offer a suggestion to my hon. Friend ever, as yet too late to do it; and while, the Member for Tralee. I would advise on the one hand, he did not believe that him to add his Amendment to the parathe adoption of such a measure would re- graph in the Address, rather than move it move all cause of complaint-would make as a substitute for that paragraph. But Ireland like England-he firmly believed if my hon. Friend press his Motion to a that it would go far to remove the dissatis-division, I will certainly vote with him, as faction and disaffection which undoubtedly I prefer the terms of the Amendment to did exist at present in the former country. the paragraph in the Address; for while "I conjure the Government not to be deterred by any of the difficulties into which this measure has brought them from going on in the path of which they have announced that this is only the Colonel Greville the paragraph in the Address thanks Her | supposing, for the sake of illustration, that Majesty for informing the House of that such a thing were possible as that the with which the House is already thoroughly movement could be successful, I should acquainted, the Amendment opens up a deplore it as one of the most terrible caquestion of the most pressing importance, lamities that could befall my country. I and which it is absolutely necessary to say, suppose an armed insurrection, aided press upon the earnest consideration of by a foreign Power at war with this counParliament and the country. try, to be successful, what would be the immediate as well as the ultimate result? I shall not attempt to describe the horrors of the struggle, or the consequences of success; but I can imagine a state of things even more awful still more terrible and disastrous to my country when, at the close of the war with the foreign Power that had assisted Ireland to achieve a momentary independence, Ireland would be handed back to the mercy or the vengeance of England. Than such an insurrection, than such a momentary triumph, I can imagine no greater calamity, no more fearful disaster to my country. If, then, I regard Fenianism with apprehension, it is not because I anticipate an armed insurrection, or that I contemplate the possibility of its success, but because it is fraught with the worst possible consequences to Ireland herself. Not only is it calculated to keep Ireland in a state of chronic excitement, fatal to every healthful attempt at improvement; but if it be Sir, I believe no man who knows anything of Ireland will deny that the present crisis in Irish affairs is one of a really grave and serious nature. Certainly, the Government will not venture to represent it in any other light. They cannot pretend to say that the Fenian movement is not one of great importance, or that it is not ramified extensively through the country, or that the sympathy felt towards it is not wide-spread and general. If it be not a movement fraught with serious danger to the peace of the country, how comes it that two Judges of the land have been solemnly engaged for nearly three months in trying persons charged with conspiracy against the Crown and authority of the Queen?-why have some thirty-six men been sentenced to various terms of imprisonment and penal servitude-a punishment only less terrible than that of death? -why is it that regiment after regiment is being poured on the shores of Ireland, until the island is crowded with troops ? not suppressed-and the power of the law why is it that proclamations are spreading over county after county, until the whole kingdom threatens to be placed under the ban of the law?-why, in a word, has the Government put forth its utmost strength to crush this conspiracy and punish its leaders? Why all this if the movement is not one alike serious and full of danger? In making these remarks I desire not to be misunderstood. I speak in no tone of menace; and should any English Gentleman so understand me, I can only say nothing is further from my thought or intention. I desire to deal seriously with a subject of great gravity. I also, in order that there can be no misconception of my meaning, desire to express my own views, clearly and distinctly, in reference to this movement; and in doing so, I only repeat what I have expressed elsewhere, and with a far deeper sense of personal responsibility. I believe, then, that no wilder, more absurd, or more desperate notion could be entertained by my countrymen, either at home or abroad, than that of endeavouring to overthrow the mighty power of England by the efforts of an unarmed, an undisciplined, a divided people. I go further, and alone is unequal to do this-it will be a scandal and disgrace to England, and a source of weakness and embarrassment to the entire Empire. It is in this spirit that I desire to speak of Fenianism to this House and to the people of this countryas something grave and serious, and therefore to be inquired into in an enlightened and generous spirit. The Attorney General seems to think that if my hon. Friend's Amendment were adopted, it would be as if Parliament were to parley with traitors, and negotiate with those who had arms in their hands against the authority of their Sovereign. I deny that the terms of the Amendment can be fairly strained to bear any such construction. The noble Lord who moved the Address (Lord Frederick Cavendish), and the hon. Gentleman who seconded it (Mr. Graham), spoke in the very spirit in which the Amendment of my hon. Friend is conceived. The hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Graham) almost went over the same ground as that taken by the hon. Member for Tralee. He indicated the existence of certain grievances, and he said that the Government and Parliament should inquire into their existence, and that, if proved to exist, they should provide a remedy for them. In the present condition of Ireland Irish Members would have neglected their duty if they had not raised this discussion, and called the attention of Parliament and the country to what they believed to be the causes, or some of the causes, of the state of things which as Irishmen they have every reason to deplore. One of the causes of discontent-of that state of feeling which leads to disaffection -has been the fatal policy adopted by the Government of ignoring the existence of distress and suffering in Ireland. The late Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, from his naturally easy and amiable nature, was ever inclined to take the most hopeful view of public affairs, and desired on all occasions to present the pleasant side, and that alone, to the view of the English public. From time to time, during years of great and wide-spread distress in Ireland, I brought the condition of that country before this House. Sometimes I was met by derision, sometimes by incredulity, sometimes with positive denial, and even expressions of anger and condemnation. On those occasions English Members naturally turned to the Government to learn from the responsible Advisers of the Crown what was the truth with respect to the real condition of the Irish people; but, unhappily, the Government rather led astray than enlightened the mind of Parliament as to the state of Ireland. Not only did they distinctly declare that no serious distress existed in that country, but they boasted, on the contrary, that she presented the most marked symptoms of progress and improvement. What is now proved to have been the fact? What is now the property of the historian? That in the years '60, '61, and '62, some £30,000,000 of agricultural property were lost by a people almost wholly dependent on agriculture by successive bad harvests. On Tuesday night there was much lamentation in this House because the cattle plague had, in a rich country, destroyed property to the amount of £1,500,000; but when £30,000,000 of property had been destroyed in a poor country, the statements of that country's distress were either derided or denied. That was not wise statesmanship on the part of the Government; for if they could not have applied a remedial measure, they might, at least, have given some kind and consolatory assurance of their sympathy. There is, or rather was, a cause for dis content and dissatisfaction created by the Mr. Maguire tone adopted by certain public writers against Ireland and Irishmen; and I am the more free to refer to it now as, happily, the tone of the English press is sensibly and beneficially changed towards both. The slashing leaders of the great journals representing, or affecting to represent, Englishmen, and helping to form English public opinion, and their small imitators throughout this country, have done more to sow the seeds of hostility between the two countries, and exasperate the people of Ireland, than even vicious legislation could have accomplished. It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the effect of this vitriolic rhetoric of the desk upon the minds of a sensitive and suffering people; and I have reason to know that it inflamed the ardent and high-spirited youth of the country with sentiments of the bitterest hatred and hostility. Happily, a better, a wiser, and a more patriotic tone pervades the public press of this country; and instead of gall ing taunt and irritating sneer, we now see evinced a readiness to deal with Irish interests in a kind and conciliatory spirit. It has been said to-night, as it has been said before, that Irish Members have proposed no measures of redress; while, on the other hand, my hon. Friend the Member for Tralee has been blamed for having proposd too many. For instance, my hon. Friend has suggested a tax upon absentees. With the justice of such a tax I cordially agree, for I would, were it possible, punish men for their neglect of their duties to their country; but I leave it to the wisdom of Parliament and the nation to say whether they should be so taxed or not. But, coming to a grievance which is not only practical, but capable of legislative redress, I say-and I speak with authority when I do so-that the state of the relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland is at the very root of the mischief. I admit that the Catholics of Ireland, who constitute more than two-thirds of the people of Ireland, are insulted by the enforced maintenance of a dominant Church, supported by the State with all its power and influence, for the sake of the one-tenth of the population. And the feeling of bitterness and discontent with which this standing insult is regarded is aggravated by the opinions expressed during last Session from the Treasury Bench. The present distinguished leader of the House then stated, at least in substance, that, viewed in the abstract, the Irish Church Establishment had not, argumentatively speaking, a leg to stand on. ever. They simply ask that if a tenant be evicted from his farm, he shall be entitled to receive full and fair compensation for the substantial improvements effected by his industry and capital on or in the land. What can be more rational than such a proposition? Its principle has been admitted over and over in this House and in its legis lation. In 1860 it was fully admitted in an Act which, being devised in a timid spirit was so complicated, so restricted, so miserably small in its inducement to improvement, that it fell still-born, and has been disdained by the tenants of Ireland. For more than twenty years different Governments have made solemn promises to the people of Ireland to treat Ireland as an exceptional case, and deal with it by exceptional legislation; and those promises have never up to this hour been fulfilled. Therefore, if there be cause for dissatisfaction, disaffection, or even Fenianism, in connection with this unsettled land question, I must charge my Lord Derby, the late Duke of Newcastle, and every successive Administration for the last twenty years, with being the prime movers of discontent. On the part of the tenant, I advocate no legislation which would deprive the landlord of any right which he ought to exercise; but when landlords expel, or attempt to expel, their tenantry from their native soil, I would compel the landlords by law to give their tenants such substantial compensation for improvements as would either deter them from carrying out their intention, or if they did carry it out, would at least save the evicted tenantry from being driven forth as beggars on the world. That is not a revolutionary but a just and rational proposition. Another thing the Legislature should do is to devise some means by which landlords would be It cannot be defended in argu- | tainly no. ment. The continuance of such a wrong naturally exasperated and alienated from the Government, which sustained while it condemned it, a large class of the highspirited Catholics of Ireland, who felt it to be an insult to their creed and their consciences. But I repeat my confident assertion that the land question is at the root of the evil. There are hon. Members here who affect to think that this is an imaginary grievance. To show that it is no imaginary grievance, I give for their information one of the latest cases that has occurred. This happened in Tipperary about a month since. A gentleman who had lately become the owner of a certain property in that county evicted-in other words, turned out on the road-side-thirty families, consisting, it may be, of 200 persons. Why were they thus dealt with? Were they disloyal? Were they Fenians? Were they declared enemies to the Crown and authority of their Queen? Were they idle? Were they dissolute? What crime had they committed? None-none whatThe amount of their guilt may be tested by the fact that they owed no rent, and that they offered to pay to the last farthing whatever rent the new proprietor would wish to impose upon them; but the purchaser under the Court of Incumbered Estates, which was to effect such a happy revolution in Ireland, turned out these innocent and unoffending people simply because he wanted to clear them off the face of the land. These 200 people are, perhaps, already on their way to America; they either are or will become emigrants and am I to be told that their migration is the natural result of the necessary operation of certain economic laws, as has been intimated this evening by a speaker who did not seem to possess a remarkable know-induced to give leases. Leases are, in my ledge of the state of things in Ireland. I mind, essential not merely to the security say such migration as theirs is the result, of the tenant, but to the prosperity of not of the natural and inevitable operation landlords, tenant, and country. From the of certain economic laws, but of the con- want of this security, which is felt by the tinuance of a law which should not exist, tenant-at-will- and tenure-at-will is the and of a power which no law should allow tenure of the country - the energy of any human being to exercise against his the tenant is paralyzed, improvement is fellow men. If, as I may fairly suppose, comparatively at a standstill, and the these evicted tenants, these guiltless people, agriculture of Ireland is what it has been are now on their way to America, what represented as being by Judge Longfield, must be their sentiments towards the Go- in his evidence last Session-in a very vernment and the institutions of a country backward state. Let those who doubt the under which a landlord is permitted to ex- testimony of that eminent man believe the terminate without mercy or compunction? evidence of their own senses. No one can Do the Irish people demand anything im- pass through the country-a country of practicable, unjust, or revolutionary? Cer-natural fertility and mild climate-without being impressed with the extreme back-leave from the same causes; and carrying wardness of its agriculture, and the general away with them such feelings as are depoverty it presents to the eye; and this scribed by Dr. Keane. I am right when I state of things exists in spite of the fact say that such an emigration is alike dangerthat Irish farmers are frugal, thrifty, and ous to the present and future peace of Irelaborious, whenever they have security for land, and to the strength and stability of the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, this Empire. It behoves Parliament to energy, or capital. The House may not inquire into the causes of Irish poverty pass a law compelling landlords to give and discontent, and endeavour, by wise leases-that I do not expect they will do, legislation, to change the feeling which now while I am certain such a law would be exists, from one of hatred to one of amity. beneficial to both; but Parliament might I do not mean to say, for I do not believe take from the landlord the power of dis- it to be the case, that anyone has left Iretress unless in case his tenant held by land because of the existence of the Church lease. I assert, Sir, that the great griev- Establishment in that country; but I say ance of Ireland, the main cause of its dis. it is a cause, and a just cause, of bitterness content, is the existing state of the rela- and discontent. There are those who assert tions between landlord and tenant. This is that in seeking to abolish the temporalities what has given the most powerful stimulus of the Established Church, the motives of to emigration, which is still pouring forth priests and people are not pure-that, in in strong and mighty volume. The noble fact, they only want to have their share in Lord who moved the Address told the House the spoil of the Establishment. It is well that these hundreds of thousands of emi- that there should be no possibility of misgrants left the shores of Ireland with a feel- take on this head. I solemnly believe that ing of indomitable hostility to England. The the Catholics of Ireland, priests and people, noble Lord was strictly accurate in his state- would not touch one farthing of the revement. It is scarcely necessary to corrobo- nues of the Established Church-would not rate that which is notorious; but I shall call apply one farthing of them to the support a witness of unimpeachable veracity, and of the Catholic clergy, or their church. one who speaks with the fullest knowledge Any attempt to appropriate any portion of of the feelings of the Irish people. I refer the spoils, as they are so called, would be to the Right Rev. Dr. Keane, the Roman dishonour and disgrace alike to priests and Catholic Bishop of Cloyne, a distinguished people. The motives of Irish Catholics prelate of his Church, one who, while seek- are pure with respect to this question, ing to obtain redress for the real grievances which, though not of the greatest magniunder which the people suffer, stands firmly tude, is one that affects the state of public between them and evil counsels, and who, feeling materially. Some persons, groping as a priest and a patriot, uses every in- blindly in search of the causes of disconfluence to dissuade his flock from rash and tent, are weak enough to imagine that the ruinous courses. When examined last Ses- ills of Ireland could be cured by the paysion before a Committee of this House, ment of the Catholic clergy. Sir, in my Dr. Keane used these wordsopinion, such a proposition is utter madness and folly; but could it be carried out, it would be fatal not only to the dignity of the Catholic Church, and the honour of the Catholic clergy, but to the peace and tranquillity of Ireland. It has been even proposed to restore the 25 per cent taken from the tithes in 1832, and out of the whole to carve two great portions-one for the Catholic Church, and one for the Protestant Church. In answer to this absurd proposition, let me ask one, and in my mind important, question-how is it that the Catholic clergy have had such power to aid the authorities in checking the Fenian movement, and to a certain extent baffling the hopes of the Fenian leaders? Because they are independent of the State, and intimately connected with their flocks by ties "I may state to the Committee that I never knew a period in which there was more estrangement, more dissatisfaction, more disaffection to the Government under which they live, than there is at the present moment. Amongst those that go away, there are expressions on their lips of burning hatred against what they complain of the neglect and misrule of the English Government." And his Lordship again remarks "I do not think I could overrate the amount of discontent that is in the very depths of their souls." When such feelings exist, is it to be wondered at that the Fenian conspiracy has been so largely adopted in Ireland? Some 100,000 of the Irish people annually leave the shores of their native country for America, where they join their brethren, the majority of whom have been compelled to Mr. Maguire |