such an avowal would be interpreted as an Ituating fortunes of nations would certainly acknowledgment of incapacity, might pro- bring forth. This dislike to English rule duce unfavourable notions in the minds of pervaded the whole island, except a few foreigners as to the efficacy of British in-districts, the inhabitants of which, influstitutions and the stability of British enced by sectarian animosity, believed that power, and that, above all, it would ne- the slaughter of all who differed from cessitate the renunciation of certain poli- them in creed was the first step towards tical maxims and the adoption of such a acquiring religious ascendancy. To what, policy towards Ireland as, in the presence then, was this disaffection attributable? of the party exigencies to which he had Was it to be ascribed to the labours of the referred, might lead to unpleasant con- apostles of Fenianism within the last few sequences. Indeed, among all British years? Most certainly not. They found statesmen he knew of none, except the everything ready to their hands, and all late Sir Robert Peel, who adopted an Irish they had to do was to establish in a few policy regardless of party exigencies. The localities a kind of military organization. reasons he had just stated justified him in Fenianism must be ascribed to disaffection asserting that, in the ordinary course of events, it was not easy for the House to obtain a clear perception of the state of Ireland, and consequently to deal fairly with the country. But this Parliament possessed advantages for dealing with this subject which preceding Parliaments had not enjoyed. Within the last few months extraordinary events had occurred which, he thought, must satisfy every reflecting Englishman that the state of Ireland was very different from that of his own happy and flourishing country, that the grievance-mongers had some justification for their grievances, and that those who, possessing full sources of information, told a different tale were in reality the false prophets, and that the sunny pictures of the Treasury Bench were the imaginary creations of men who either deceived themselves or who for some purpose deceived others. Those events had shown Ireland as she really is. They had enabled hon. Gentlemen to judge for themselves and, he would add, had imposed upon them, as the representatives of the English people, the solemn duty of endeavouring by a just and courageous policy to make Ireland a prosperous, contented, and loyal appendage of the British Crown. At the present moment, from one end of Ireland to the other, among the masses of the people, both in town and country-mained, so long the people would continue among millions-there was a feeling of to regard those who endeavoured to overdisaffection towards English rule which throw that rule as true friends of theirs had only been kept from breaking out into and true lovers of their country. The open insurrection by the manifest hopeless- true cause of the disaffection in Ireland ness of contending with the vastly supe- was the impression upon the minds of the rior power of England. This hopelessness, people that all the evils that afflicted them however, had by no means taken the shape were the consequences of English rule. It of despair-it influenced only the action was utterly fallacious to imagine that this of the hour, and had settled itself into a impression was the work of those who had resolve to wait for the favourable chances been denounced as "agitators, "demawhich, it was believed, time and the fluc-gogues," and "rebel conspirators." The The O'Donoghue

not disaffection to Fenianism. By the masses Fenianism was looked upon as a kind of insurrectionary experiment, for which they had been long prepared by what had passed in their minds-by the events which had occurred within their memory, by the history of other countries, and by the national traditions. They had not accepted Fenianism, because the Fenian Society, being secret and oath-bound, was condemned by the Catholic Church, and because they could not persuade themselves that Fenianism was adequate to attain the end it proposed, and because they were keenly alive to the consequences of failure. But that man would grossly deceive the House who, from whatever motives, should assert that the sympathies of the vast majority of the Irish people were not on the Fenian side. The Fenians might be dcscribed by some as intending only robbery and murder. They might be denounced at quarter sessions and by Puisne Judges, and anathematized by persons higher in authority. But all in vain. The denunciation and anathema only recoiled upon those who uttered them by impairing their influence, for the people of Ireland felt that their country was not what she ought to be, that she was pressed down by many grievances, and that English rule was a cause of them all. So long as this re

people themselves saw the result of Eng- of Legislature from Dublin to London had lish rule in the poverty from which they placed the Irish Members beyond the reach suffered, and the precarious nature of their of Irish public opinion; that it had inposition. Surely nothing more was neces- creased absenteeism, and that it had disorsary than the evidence of their senses to ganized Irish society and had weakened the convince them of their thorough and home sympathies of the higher classes, by complete dependence on the will of others. making them virtually English, socially Their estimate of the value of English and politically, and by imbuing them with rule was derived from the incidents of the notion that, while they could count their daily lives. They knew that the upon the support of the strong arm of laws and institutions under which they England, they need pay little attention to lived were English, and when they found the goodwill of their countrymen. The that those laws and institutions failed to people also were well aware that the exinsure them a comfortable existence and penditure of the surplus funds of the secure homes, they reasonably and logically public revenue without any appreciable condemned those laws and institutions, and benefit to them, that the possession of all held Englishmen responsible for the failure. ecclesiastical revenues by the Church of If O'Connell were living to-day with un- the minority, and that the exhaustive diminished popularity, and were to appeal drain of absentee proprietors all combined to his countrymen to accept their position to inflict upon them, year by year, heavy and be content with it, they would turn pecuniary loss. Some of these effects of away from him as a traitor to their inte- English rule must co-exist with the Union; rests. The question then naturally suggested but some, and perhaps the more important, itself-Was the disaffection of the Irish were wholly independent of it. They people based upon just grounds, or could affected, more particularly, the trading, English rule be fairly held accountable for artisan, and labouring classes, and the the grievances of which they complained? floating population generally. But there He, for one, thought these questions must was another and far more influential class be answered in the affirmative. He passed whose dislike to the English rule supplied by, as unworthy of consideration, the oft- life, hope, and inexhaustible resources to repeated assertions that these evils were the disaffected of every other class-he beyond the reach of legislation, and that meant the agricultural tenants. England legislation had done all that could be having taken upon herself the duty of done by legislation for Ireland. He would governing Ireland was responsible before say to the House, "That you are account- God and the world for the grievances of able for the state of Ireland is incontro- this class, whose voice had been so often vertibly determined by this fact, that you heard in that House, and who by petitions have deprived the Irish people of the power had so often implored those who governed of self-government, and have taken upon them to pass laws which would save them yourselves the duty of governing them. from the cupidity and still worse passions That is your duty under the Act of Union." of their landlords. At this moment there No lengthened argument was needed to was silence in the homes of the peasantry, show that 105 Irish representatives could as if they were listening for the first sounds do nothing which was opposed to the views of a mighty tempest, foretold by strange of the 500 and odd Englishmen with whom signs and threatening clouds. They made they were associated in that House, who, no manifestation of political feeling; but in the natural order of things, would on to learn what they felt, we must look all occasions, as had been illustrated in the across the Atlantic at the attitude of their course of that very debate, look first to the brethren-from whom they might be said requirements of their own country. He to have only just parted, and for whom would not dwell upon the fact of the Union their hearts were still lonely-marshalling having been carried by force and fraud, in hundreds of thousands, proclaiming that and of its never having, through continued the day of vengeance was at hand, and misgovernment, been approved by the Irish calling out to their fathers and brothers nation, but he would refer to the disad- in the old home to keep aloof from English vantages to be traced to it. The Irish party squabbles, and never more appeal people knew that the mere arrangements for justice to that Parliament which had so for the carrying out of the Act of Union of often spurned their petitions. The moral necessity impoverished their country; they of these demonstrations had penetrated to believed that the transference of the seat the highest hill and the remotest valley,

What he had spoken he conceived to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He had spoken with reluctance, because he knew that what he had to say would be disagreeable to those

and had sunk deep into the souls of the | he had no anti-English sentiment; the peasantry, who were profoundly touched hon. and learned Member for Sheffield by the constancy and devotion which, far (Mr. Roebuck) might laugh, but he did away, amidst the new associations of Ame-not mind that. He repeated that he had rica, still made common cause with them.no anti-English sentiment; he deemed it No matter how we regarded the thousands scarcely possible that a man who had had of banded Irishmen now parading their much intercourse with Englishmen should numbers as a menace to England in the be anti-English. Yet it did not follow States of the Western Republic, by the vast from this that he must approve England's majority of the agricultural population of treatment of all nations subject to her Ireland, by the millions of the Irish people, rule. Perhaps it would be found, before these banded Irishmen were loved and the Parliament was much older, that Engtrusted, and every indication of their grow-lishmen themselves did not know that. ing strength was hailed with delight. All this might afford pleasant and wholesome food for journalists and satirists if, unfortunately, it were not too true that the peasantry had ceased to look to Parliament for the redress of their grievances. If things["No, no!"] with whom it was his amwere as they ought to be, the House could bition to stand well, if he could only do almost afford to laugh at the idea of a so consistently with truth and without foreign force landing on the shores of sacrificing the interests of his own counIreland, because then the whole popula- try. He could not tell them that Irishmen tion would be prepared to fight for the were loyal and contented, because he knew maintenance of the laws and institutions of the contrary to be the fact. He could their country. What would happen now, not tell Irishmen that they ought to be if a force came, no matter whence, having loyal and contented, when he saw they the avowed intention to overturn English were denied justice. He repeated that it authority and abolish the hated land-law? was a ridiculous doctrine that loyalty Would the landlords be able to appeal to could exist without a cause, that it could their tenantry in defence of insecurity of exist notwithstanding continued misgotenure and high rents-in defence of a vernment; and it was an equally untensystem which allowed one man to sweep able and ridiculous assertion, that the disaway the inhabitants of a whole country- affection of Ireland had any other cause side (as was recently done in Galway by save and except misgovernment. He did Mr. John George Adair), and even placed not need to come to her Majesty's Gothe Queen's troops at his disposal to assist vernment to learn the state of Ireland. him in exterminating the Queen's subjects, He knew there was disaffection-widein defence of a system which recognized spread disaffection-in Ireland, the result, no more right in the tiller of the soil, in- as he maintained, of just causes; but he dependently of the will of his landlord, knew, besides, that if Her Majesty's Gothan it did in the beast which draws the vernment declared it. was their intention plough? It was this system which had to do all that could be done to remove made it true, as a right hon. Gentleman these causes, and gave proof of honesty of had remarked in that House, that "Every purpose towards Ireland, that spirit of man in a certain rank of life who leaves disaffection would subside; that same Ireland is an enemy of England." If a spirit which now was threatening to break hostile force came to Ireland, no matter out in an insurrectionary movement, and whence, we should have to contend for which possessed, beyond all question, the the dominion with that force, sustained by popular sympathy, and which made the peothe whole agricultural population, to say ple of Ireland formidable, no matter how nothing of the sides which would be taken they were laughed at or ridiculed. What, by the trading, artisan, and labouring | then, was to be done? Would the Governclasses. No doubt they were indisposed ment persevere in a policy which had proto credit his words; they might think that he exaggerated for a sinister purpose, either to lower their reputation before the world, or to encourage their enemies by giving proof of internal weakness or to gratify an anti-English sentiment. No!

The O'Donoghue

duced the deplorable results to which he had borne testimony - a testimony he would not alter if he thought that were the last moment of his life. If that policy was persevered in, it would please the mass of those who contemplated the overthrow of