more especially, indeed, of the noble Earl the Secretary for the Colonies-a grievance incomparably greater than the rest, yet far more difficult, for me at least, to approach even in argument. For, my Lords, I well remember when a noble Friend of mine, not now in his place, a Catholic Member of this House, now holding an honourable situation in Her Majesty's household I well remember when that noble Lord ventured to express it as his opinion, that for the peace and security of the empire there should be a redistribution of the property of the Established Church in Ireland. I well remember with what vehemence a noble and learned Lord (Lord Brougham), whom I have not now the pleasure of seeing in his place -though sitting on the same side of the House as my noble Friend, and, as I would fain believe, holding the same opinions with him I well remember with what vehemence the noble and learned Lord fell upon my noble Friend, and taunted him with the oath he had taken at your Lordships' table. My Lords, I am quite willing to admit that they who impose the oath have a right to its interpretation; but till that interpretation be formally defined in a contrary sense, I contend that we have a right to the largest interpretation it will bear-an interpretation fully recognised by the Lower House-to that in which we take it, namely that it nowise disqualifies us from any act or opinion which any one of your Lordships has a right to do or to hold as a member of the Legislature. Still, to enable us fully and freely to discuss that most vital of all questions, the Irish Church, without let or hindrance, my opinion is that the oath should either be altered or abrogated; so that no one's religious professions should, by any possibility, prove a disqualification to the full and free expression of his senti ments. Whilst I am on this point, allow me, my Lords, one word more; for there are others also interested in this matter; and, if report speak truly, we are at this moment deprived of the presence of at least one Irish Peer in consequence, therefore is it especially applicable to this present case. My Lords, there is a portion of the Protestant oath to which Protestants object, and which, I think, ought to be expunged. It is also objectionable to Catholics. The noble Lord below me swears that the Pope neither hath nor ought to have spiritual jurisdiction within these realms. Now, my Lords, I am quite willing to swear precisely the contrary; I am quite willing to swear the affirmative of the noble Lord's negative; I am quite willing to swear it, not only as an article of faith, but as a matter of fact-as a great, palpable, and notorious fact. Can any thing, then, be more preposterous than to make such a test as this the qualification for the exercise of the same functions? My Lords, so far from considering these religious differences and distinctions as a benefit either civil or religious, every day's experience convinces me more and more of the fallacy of that notion. My Lords, religion and liberty, in the words of a very celebrated political character of the day, are sisters who ought to live well and happily together, leaning on each other for support. Yes, my Lords, these religious differences and distinctions, and inequalities, are the bane and curse of this empire; they are the primary cause of all the miseries and of all the misgovernment of Ireland, and the sooner we get rid of them the better. To take but one, but a very remarkable and a very apt illustration—an illustration of a state of things which, if it had not existed, there had been no occasion for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act-I allude to the trial of Mr. Meagher. My Lords, on the jury which tried Mr. Meagher there was but one Catholic; but because he was a member of a religion which for centuries had been persecuted with fire and sword, and which was still degraded and insulted, oppressed and tormented, that one individual rendered your law a nullity; he set the whole power of the Government at defiance, and impeded the whole course of your administrative policy in Ireland. To prevent a similar result in the case of Mitchel, you were compelled to exclude every Catholic from the panel, so that his conviction instead of good only produced evil; it only earned an additional meed of odium to the Government, and of hatred to the antagonistic and ascendant Church. My Lords, you may occupy, but you cannot govern, a country upon such a system. My Lords, I verily believe there is nothing which has so provoked the cry for repeal in Ireland, and so militated against the social improvement of that country, as the continued refusal to reduce that Church within her fair and legitimate proportions. My Lords, I have no hostility to the Establishment as such-none whatever; but I am bound to regard it as a matter of jus tice and policy: yet even in that point of view, I am sure its destruction is by no means to be desired; its reconstruction would be a benefit to itself and others. Nor can I see any other means-any legitimate means - by which this question can be settled; for, there being property enough for both, it would be manifestly unjust to levy a tax for the purpose on England, Scotland, or even Ireland. The noble Earl's proposition-the noble Earl's opposite, who some ten days since made some very pertinent and excellent remarks on this subject-the noble Earl's (Earl of Ellenborough) proposition would certainly form a very desirable accessory. Four millions and a half devoted to glebes would be a very nice arrangement, and some small compensation for past delinquencies. The plan, too, has the merit, I think, of being very feasible, and probably the only method of recovering the amount. For, the money being already settled upon the land, the value might be taken in kind, and thus prevent all further trouble and dispute. At all events, somehow or other, this question must be settled; for, in respect to the Catholics of Ireland, emancipation, without the settlement of the Church question, was only toleration, and a toleration which does not satisfy is of little worth. the victims of our misgovernment crying to heaven for vengeance. If failure it was to be, that failure would impart fresh life and vigour to the resuscitated spirit of Parliamentary reform, and a truer representation of the desires, and feelings, and opinions of the people would come forth to carry them on to a triumphant issue. But the course now pursued only drives liberty into licentiousness, and hope into despair; and if we are to credit statements said to have been made in another place, that same course is to be pursued still; that is, bit by bit ameliorations, far too tardy in their operation, and none of them of sufficient efficacy for the case. My Lords, no doubt there have been faults, and very great faults, upon the other side too. Had the Irish, more particularly the clergy-of course I speak only of those who had joined the repeal movement, for there were always many, great, and honourable exceptions, and even many honourable exceptions amongst the repealers themselves-had they known when to desist; had they striven against the evil principle in its germ, as they have now striven against it in its maturity; had they abandoned that wretched system of political agitation, and had confined themselves to safe and wholesome methods of seeking the social improvement of the Having said thus much, I will only country, it seems morally impossible they trouble your Lordships with a very few should not have attained it. But a moral concluding observations. My Lords, I do force agitation for repeal was a solecism in not accuse the Government of a breach of politics; it was a contradiction in terms; faith-I accuse them of a want of courage; for repeal was a question which never could I accuse them of a want of confidence in enlist the sympathies of those on whom their own views. If those views were that agitation was to take effect. It was sound, as they must have believed them sure to result in physical force to delude to be, they should long since have been the people, to excite the worst passions of reduced to practice. If they were sound the multitude, and to arouse the worst in 1844, they were still sounder in 1848. principles that ever were propounded. Of If the late Government justly deserved re-this, my Lords, I ever felt sure and cerproach at their hands for having so long neglected to carry those views into execution, surely that same reproach must attach still more strongly to themselves; for they, at least, have ever been their most strenuous advocates. My Lords, I am sure it is their duty to make the attempt even at the risk of failing; for, if they failed now in attempting that which was absolutely necessary for the peace and security and prosperity of the empire, other means would very speedily be given them for the accomplishment of that great necessity. Of that necessity neither they nor any man can doubt it is a necessity once more written in characters of blood, and with tain, nor did I ever shrink from the open avowal of my opinions; but hence the danger and the misery of so long delaying those remedial measures for want of which that agitation was maintained. For their want of sense and prudence was no excuse for our folly and injustice; and surely the greater the evils arising from past misgovernment, the greater the obligation of applying a remedy now; but that remedy cannot be-it is impossible it can be-it is not in the nature of things that it can be-in mere coercion and restraint, in the continuance of a government of force, instead of the establishment of a government of opinion. I have now only to express the most fervent hope that we shall hear from the Government some consolatory announce ment. My Lords, it is painful to me to speak | relations of property; but, assuming that thus; but feeling so strongly as I do upon it is not only advisable but practicable, these questions-feeling as an Irish Peer, what, I ask, is the object of this Bill? as one intimately connected with that coun- It is to create inducements to improvetry both by descent and alliance, though ment; to invite capital to enter the counnot possessing any landed property there try; to give not merely to the landlord, -feeling as a Catholic, and also as an but to the lowest tenant, a confidence that Englishman; for, if rightly understood, he will reap the fruits of his industry, and this is to the full as much an English as become, if that industry continues, rich in an Irish question-feeling all this, I could the possession of his improvements. But not rest satisfied that I was doing my duty how can that Bill be carried into operation without thus publicly protesting against without the capital which is introduced into the continuance of a system of government the country being placed under the protecwhich has made Ireland our weakness in- tion of law? My noble Friend, referring stead of our strength-an outrage upon to another question which is surrounded humanity, and a scandal to the world. with difficulties, and which has engaged the attention of many able minds, says, "Cultivate the waste lands, and the bogs of Ireland, which you have neglected. Here, again, I ask, how can you do this The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE: Al- without capital? And how can capital though, my Lords, my noble Friend the come into the country without the protecnoble Earl who has just sat down has not tion of the law? Then my noble Friend opposed your Lordships' going into Com says, "Improve the franchise and the mittee upon this Bill, or intimated his in- municipal corporations." These municipal tention of offering opposition to any part rights are to be highly estimated; but if of it, he has made some observations con- they are to be exercised under a tyranny, nected with the general state of Ireland of what value are they? They are to be which require that I should offer some ge- created, my noble Friend will recollect, in neral remarks. In the outset, I must state a country where faction is enabled to rule, to my noble Friend that I protest against and to declare to almost every individual, this Bill not being considered in the strict- "You shall not vote as you like, but as est as well as in the largest sense a reme- we like." They are functions of the highdial measure. I think I could prove to est value when duly employed; but when your Lordships, if I were to follow my abused they become obstacles to the atnoble Friend into detail, that as to every tainment of the very objects which it is one of those measures to which he has their aim to establish. I need not tell called the attention of this House, and your Lordships it is not by conferring mere which he implored your Lordships to pass paper rights that the happiness of the without delay for the benefit of Ireland, people of Ireland can be advanced. that I have a right to turn round upon my have seen throughout Europe enough of noble Friend, and say, that the delay paper constitutions, professing to be foundoriginates in Ireland, and not in this ed upon the principles of individual freeHouse. My noble Friend has adverted to dom; but I will ask your Lordships what particular remedies, not as remedies to benefit has, in many instances, been dewhich this or the other House of Parlia-rived from them? None to the individuals ment have been inattentive; but, on the composing the community, none to that contrary, to remedies which, being difficult independence which is the greatest blessing in their nature, have engaged the perpe- men can enjoy, because in those countries tual attention of both branches of the Le-factions were enabled to deprive the people' gislature. One of them, for instance, was of the whole benefit of the constitution so an attempt extremely difficult in its nature, conferred upon them; and while they hung because it was an interference with the out the flag of public freedom, they were in relations between man and man, to alter fact an organised tyranny, depriving the relations as between landlord and tenant. people of the benefit of the constitution. I I am not prepared to pronounce here an say, then, before you move in any one of opinion upon a question not now before the those questions, and to confer the franchise House-the question of the degree in on men who have hitherto not possessed it, which such interference is advisable or you must take care to provide that the practicable without affecting the existing public law which protects the due exercise You The DUKE of WELLINGTON: The Bill received the Royal Assent to-day. of that franchise shall be maintained. But | ferent Governments-I may say during my noble Friend says, "Do not govern by the whole of the last century—to show that force, but by opinion." I admit you must there has prevailed one constant, though consult opinion; but I say no Government not always successful endeavour to improve can be carried on without the fear of the the condition of Ireland. Look at the use of force, and that what there is of measure relative to the eviction of tenants. force must be upon the side of the Govern- I need not remind my noble Friend that ment. If there is a conflict between the within the last few weeks, and amidst all forces of Government and any other, be- the existing difficulties, a Bill has been fore you proceed further you must deter- passed, after being altered in this House mine which force shall put down the other. and in the other, the effect of which will I, therefore, again submit to my noble be to prevent these evictions being attendFriend that this is a remedial measure, in- ed with those fearful consequences to which asmuch as it removes that which is a bar my noble Friend alluded. to improvement, that which resists the progress of those other remedial measures which are not withdrawn, but which were necessarily suspended during the period of such an agitation as that which has been unfortunately allowed to prevail in Ireland. I cannot agree with my noble Friend that there has not been more or less of success in proceeding with remedial measures. They have certainly encountered more or less of difficulty; but there has been a disposition in Parliament, above all in late years, to examine all those remedies, with a view to their adoption, and to the correction of evils which have been pretty generally admitted upon all sides of the House, but which, let me remind my noble Friend, are also admitted to be subject to great differences of opinion as to the mode in which they ought to be remedied. Even upon those very questions to which my noble Friend adverted, I have seen very little of harmony and uniformity among the representatives from Ireland, for whenever any of these measures have been brought forward, immediately there has been a difference of opinion among them. I am not surprised at it, from the difficulties that arise in all cases where you come to interfere with the existing relations of society. The moment you propose to interfere with them, difficulties arise, which might have been anticipated, perhaps, but which Gentlemen do not anticipate in the first instance. They show the difficulty of legislation upon these subjects, and in none more than in those to which my noble Friend has adverted even among the representatives from Ireland-differences which do not lead me to anticipate the greatest unanimity in a Parliament sitting in College-green. These, therefore, are difficulties which it requires time to subdue and time to remedy. But, my Lords, I need only appeal to the proceedings of your Lordships and the other House under dif The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE: And, as I am truly reminded by my noble Friend the gallant Duke at the table, this Bill received the Royal Assent this day. I need not remind my noble Friend, relative to the improved condition of property of which he has spoken as so desirable for Ireland, that we have taken the most practicable measures for promoting it by passing the Encumbered Estates Bill, which has also received the Royal Assent. I believe, in the opinion of my noble Friend himself, this measure is one of the most practically beneficial that could be produced, without injustice, for the due arrangement of property founded upon legal bases, and the introduction of capital and improvement. On the subject of Catholic disabilities, I need not state to your Lordships how different is the state of the Catholic in Ireland, now, from that which it was formerly. Have we not for a series of years been endeavouring to improve the condition of the Roman Catholics in that country? My noble Friend may perhaps think we might have carried our efforts still further. I may be disposed to think that in some respects they might; but because I think they might in some respects, I do not shut my eyes to the improvements which have been made in the condition of the Roman Catholics, to the condition of independence which enables them to participate in, and to influence, the counsels of this country-a condition which is as much at variance with what it was half a century ago, as the condition of the negro slave in the West Indies before emancipation, and the condition of an English freeman. Only within the last twenty-four hours I happened to meet with a newspaper of the year 1773, which showed to me the condition of the Roman Catholics of Ireland at that time under an Irish Parliament. In 1773 the Roman Catholics of Ireland, not being at that time able to hold any property whatever either in fee-simple or under lease, some bold and liberal spirits conceived the idea of enabling them to hold a little, not in fee-simple, but under lease only. They were not, however, bold enough to suggest an unlimited lease; it must therefore be for a limited period, a term of years, and only be for fifty acres; and even then it was stated fifty acres were too much in the neighbourhood of towns. It was consequently inserted in the Bill that in the neighbourhood of towns the Roman Catholics might be enabled, without danger to the constitution, to hold forty perches of land. Such was the limit to the liberality of the Irish Parliament at that time towards the Roman Catholics. When I first took up the paper I expected to have seen that this, at least, would have been carried. But no Member after Member, orator after orator, got up on the point of the extreme danger of forty perches of land being held by Catholics near towns; and the result was, that Bill, leases, and perches of land were thrown out altogether. Thus it was thought right in Ireland that three-fourths of the people should remain prohibited from holding land by lease or purchase. Yet we are told we have neglected remedial measures, in first admitting, as we did, Roman Catholics to the benefits of the social system of Ireland; and, finally, under the auspices of the noble Duke (the Duke of Wellington), practically to all the political benefits of the constitution. But although these great steps have been taken, I will not draw from thence the conclusion that nothing remains to be done; but I do draw the conclusion that, in the judgment of every candid mind, it is impossible to assert that there has not been a disposition on the part of Parliament to improve the condition of Ireland. Why, we are actually engaged in that process now. We have been, in this very Session, pursuing that course; and the only main difficulty and bar that has arisen beyond the difficulties arising out of the complication of each particular case, has been the unfortunate disposition to rebel in Ireland against all law, which, till the empire of law be established, cannot be otherwise than ruinous to all the best interests of the country. I am, therefore, confident that my noble Friend will not only show no disposition to oppose this Bill, but attached, as I know him to be to the cause of law and order, I submit to him that the best mode of advancing that cause would be to establish law and establish order, and then resume, as I trust we shall, the consideration of all those great questions which will engage the attention of Parliament as well as the Irish part of Her Majesty's subjects. The DUKE of WELLINGTON: I have been anxious, my Lords, to give my support to the Bill introduced by the noble and learned Lord upon the woolsack; and I should have given that support before, if I had been in the House. I rose with my noble Friend the noble Marquess to support it; but as he is a Member of Her Majesty's Government, I felt it to be my duty to give way. I rose, my Lords, also to make some observations upon the speech of the noble Earl, which was to the effect that previous to this measure, which is the complement of those introduced by Her Majesty's Government, in order to put down open rebellion, remedial measures should be adopted. That the noble Earl should have stated a list of Irish grievances, and of remedial measures that ought to be adopted previous to such a Bill as this which is proposed by Her Majesty's Government, is perhaps perfectly natural; but the question before your Lordships is neither more nor less than this-whether this measure is not necessary in the first instance. This Bill is a Bill to amend and continue different Acts of Parliament, having for their object to put down secret societies in Ireland-secret societies which were known to prevail, and to have been the means of arming, promoting, and carrying on the open rebellion which took place in that country fifty years ago-secret societies which again prevailed in that country forty years ago, and were the grounds and causes of that Act of Parliament which is now proposed to be continued-secret societies which again prevailed at different subsequent periods, and required an Act of Parliament, having for its object to put them down. And now, my Lords, in the reign of the existing Sovereign, laws have to be passed to put down these same societies. We have them now in a new form-in the form of clubs-prevailing all over the country, which clubs, it is very obvious, my Lords, are or may be the means of bringing in invaders, and of carrying on war against Her Majesty's Government in that country. These clubs can only be put down by means of the Bill proposed by the noble and learned Lord upon the woolsack; which Bill will enable Her Majesty's |