NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Irish Members have possessed the House of Commons this week, and have been very successful in hindering the progress of public business. Two whole nights were devoted to the second reading of the District Coercion Bill ; which Sir George Grey has further explained and strengthened. Mr. John O'Connell led off the ball, with one of the most characteristic speeches on record. His father had unbounded iteration, and so has the son ; only what he reiterates is never striking, even at the first time of utterance. His father used to read documents, and so does the son ; only they don't apply. He bores the House to the verge of endurance; he pours forth niaiseries the most trivial and vapid in substance, the most emphatic and ferocious in manner. The House would be amused if it were not wearied. His own de- liberate tediousness extorts yawns, and laughter, and audible disgust ; and so he accuses the House of endeavouring to " crush " what he calls, with involuntary humour, " Irish dis- cussion." This " Irish discussion " consists in repeating, every time he opens his mouth, something about the failure of the potato crop, and the consequent loss of eighteen millions ; in making assassination a debateable question of right; in reading whole columns from old newspapers ; and in naked demands for " money." An entire evening was devoted to this kind of stuff; though not without some relief to the sameness : two Repealers, Mr. Henry Grattan and Mr. Dillon Browne, marked their defec- tion from O'Connell the Second by supporting the Government bill. There was much of the same stuff all over again on sub- sequent nights; but at last the bill was read a second time, on Thursday.
In both Houses, a question has been raised respecting the power of the law to make certain accessories before the fact answerable for complicity in murder : Lord Farnham was the querist in one House, divers Members in the other : they asked whether the priests who deal in denunciations from the altar could not be called to account? Lord Lansdowne, Lord Campbell, and Sir George Grey, reply: the sum of their statements is, that Roman Ca- tholic priests are answerable, as well as English clergymen are, for what they utter in public ; that if they incite to murder and mur- der follow, they may be indicted whether the actual murderer be tried or not, and if the facts be brought home, they may be con- victed of felony, and executed ; but that the difficulty is to find evidence which will bring the facts home to them. A contem- porary shows that there are other difficulties, of a technical kind as respects the indictment—doubts respecting the construction of language so laxly reported as the altar harangues are likely to be, or of founding charges of specific malignant exhortations to murder from generalizing and turgid oratory. There can be no doubt of one fact, that the priests in Ireland are morally answerable for much that the people do. We say this without the slightest thought of imputing the crimes of a few to the ecclesiastical body at large. But the priest, if he does the duties of his office, cannot re- main ignorant or neutral in the midst of crime. Through the con- fessional, he has at least the means of knowing the crimes of the guilty, and of exhorting to peace and order. There can scarcely be a question that if the priests chose, they could prevent the murder which is a custom of their spiritual sub- jects ; they could prevent it by the spiritmil coercion of refusing absolution, or even of excommunicating those who are hardened in guilt. It is not for official persons to dictate these priestly func- tions : but neither can the fact be ignored that such a duty IS among the priestly functions, and is too commonly neglected ; a fact made manifest by the results. But the priests are dependant
for subsistence on the murderers ; another fact which explains much. As so many of their body, then, waive functions for which they claim toleration from the State, it becomes the more [LATEST EDITION.] necessary to control them when they are themselves guilty of fla- grant complicity in crime. It cannot be denied that there is a very general feeling in England, that it would be salutary to " make an example" : "Hang a priest or two," it is generally re- marked, "and you will stop these denunciations from the altar." Or if the priests will not use their power on the side of order, it may be used in their despite. A correspondent of a daily paper relates a significant story. Thirty years ago, assassination was frequent in a regiment at Malta, chiefly composed of Irish ; and at length a culprit was detected, and sentenced to death : at the place of execution, the priests attended, and the man, on his knees, prayed that he might not be despatched from this world without absolution : the Governor answered, he had sent his comrade out of the world unabsolved ; so the assassin was shot, unshrieved : the assassinations ceased. At all events, if the Irish priests will not perform their duties as citizens, and will not aid the enforcement of order, they will hasten the day in which the law which they neglect or evade shall be super- seded by a law more stringent and manageable. An evening was devoted to the idle subject of Irish Repeal. Mr. Feargus O'Connor, with a long speech about Ireland and himself, her wrongs and his own virtue, took the word out of the mouth of the Irish Members ; being himself an Irish Member for an English borough, or, as he called it, an English Member for an Irish borough—it is all the same The debate became what is classically termed a " shindy " between the Irish Members. Mr. O'Connor declared that he was not jealous of the Mr. O'Con- nell; implying that he condescended to succeed that individual in the service of Ireland. Mr. John O'Connell protested that he was not jealous of Mr. O'Connor; only the motion was ill- timed. However, he honoured it by pouring. forth some yards of the usual Repeal tissue. Mr. O'Connor had uttered certain reckless criticisms on the leading Liberals of Ireland in the last generation ; which drew forth the son of the libelled Grattan with heated retorts. One gentleman of ultra Hibernian tedious- ness was coughed down. Mr. Walter reproached the Irish Mem- bers for their waste of the public time ; and they tried to stop his mouth—to crush that discussion, by appealing to "order"; but they themselves became obnoxious to rebuke from the Speaker for breach of order. At last, Mr. O'Connor retired into the lobby, with a small party of pledged Repeaters and one or two eccentric Englishmen ; and honourable gentlemen went home to reflect on the perversities of Irish Members, wondering whether these men really represent the Irish people—whether they are to Irish pau- pers and assassins what English Members are to English elec- tors, that is, real representatives, picked men of the same mould. Much is to be said in excuse for the Irish Members. Their perversity is not altogether intentional or of malice prepense : much of it must be imputed to congenital weaknesses—inconti- nence of tongue, and of brain. The successors of O'Connell, bred to the profession of agitators, are like most young men who have not been brought up to any common honest calling ; like children who have grown up in the daily care of beggars, they cannot buckle to in any profitable industry, or cast off the professional whine. We should remember these facts when we are disposed to blame; and in wishing Ireland worthier representatives, we may abstain just now from trying the representatives of her men- dicancy by standards of too rigid a respectability.
Connected with the perpetual topic of Ireland, is Mr. Chisholm Anstey's bill to abolish Roman Catholic disabilities. The bill consists of two parts,—one to wipe out of the statute-book certain obsolete pains and penalties, which are at least offensive, and might be abused in some brief reign of tyrannical opinions ; and the other, to amend the Relief Act of 1829, and certain other statutes not inoperative, which restrict the free performance of Roman Catholic ceremonies and the free exercise of ecclesiastical functions. The bill was read a second time, and stands to be overhauled in Committee after the recess. It is most unfortu- nate that every infelicitous recognition of the Roman Church cannot be abolished once for all. Why retain invidious laws
which only exasperate our fellow subjects, without adding a
single prop to the safety of the country ? It is not any enactment whatever that keeps this country free from subjugation to Rome.
On the contrary, the mild martyrdom under such petty persecu- tion as modern manners allow, only serves to endow adherence to the Roman Catholic faith with a certain picturesque and roman-
tic semblance of adversity, that is worth any money in these days of dull impunity. Let us efface all penal distinctions of creed from our statute-book, and commit the public safety to laws levelled against encroachment on civil and temporal authority.
