13 NOVEMBER 1847, Page 3

IRELAND. The adjourned meeting of Peers, Members of Parliament, and

Landhold- ers, was held on Saturday, at the Rotunda, with an attendance consider- ably less than on the first day. Lord Cloncurry presided. The fourth resolution was discussed. It recommended that a selection be made of the unfinished public works to be completed under supervision; that every facility should be given to reproductive employment on land, the inherit- ance being charged with the expense; and that loans should be given for the construction of railways, as well as a more simple machinery introduced for acquiring the land necessary for railway purposes. In conclusion if/ called upon Irishmen to promote native industry by encouraging lksh manufactures. An amendment on this last recommendation was moved, and carried, after considerable discussion—to the effect that Irish manu- factures should be used only when they were as good and cheap as those of other countries.

Lord Miltown proposed the fifth resolution, setting forth the expediency of such an alteration in the law of landlord and tenant as should secure tee the tenant the property in all improvements made by him. On this reso. lotion an amendment was proposed by Mr. Mitchell, of the Nation de. scribing the tenint-right of Ulster, and recommending its extension through- out all Ireland. The meeting adjourned before the discussion had closed; and it was re4 snmed on Tuesday. But on that day the attendance was lamentably 404 &dent; scarcely any landlords were present; and Mr. Ferguson, one of eft

Secretaries, in noticing their absence, threatened the defaulters with leav- ing them to their fate. Mr. Ferguson spoke in opposition to Mr. Mitchell's definition of the tenant-right of Ulster. Mr. Geoffery Browne accounted for the absence of the landlords, by stating that they did not like the ex- cited expectations which the discussion would create, where an adjust- ment seemed impossible.

Mr. Sharman Crawford defined the nature of the Northern tenant-right, ir's a speech which created a visible impression. His address was to this effect. In Ireland, the improvement of the land by draining, planting, building, &c., is all effected at the cost of the tenant. While this practice exists, the tenant creates in the land by his investments in improvements a permanent title beyond the right to a maintenance, of which the landlord has no right to deprive him, and on which he can have no claim. This title or property is perfectly distinct from the landlords' claim to the fee; and this distinct property, thus created by labour, capital, and industry, constitutes tenant-right. Where the improvements are made at. the land- lord's expense, Mr. Crawford admitted that no claim of tenant-right could wise.

At the conclusion of Mr. Crawford's speech, the meeting adjourned till Thursday.

A speeial meeting of the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland was held on Thursday sennight, to further the advancement of Lord Clarendon's plan for the improvement of agriculture by means of local instruction in husbandry. The Earl of Erne filled the chair. Mr. G. A. Hamilton, M.P., brought up a report of the Sub-Committee. It stated that the contributions amounted to 4501., and recommended that a balance of 35W., remaining unemployed out of a sum of 5001. given by Lord Heytesbury in 1845 for the encouragement of thorough-draining, should be applied in aid of the Lord-Lieutenant's plan; for which 800/ would thus be available. The report went on to indicate seven districts to which practical instructors should be sent, and named three candidates re- commended for immediate employment: they were Mr. James Moore, for the West Riding of Cork; Mr. Timothy Gleeson, for the West of Limerick; and Mr. Thomas Martin, for the Mayo district. A letter having been read from Lord Heytesbnry, sanctioning the diversion of the balance of his dona- tion, the report was adopted.

The Wexford Association of Landlords and Tenants had a meeting on Thursday sennight, and adopted an address intended to stimulate the class of proprietors to find employment for the people. For this purpose it -.suggests a combined action on the part of the landlords and tenants—

"If the yearly rates to be required for out-door relief were estimated in each electoral division of Ireland, and apportioned to the different landlords and tenants therein according to their liability thereto, and if each proprietor would advance his portion of such rate, employing the idle labourers in the improvement and cul- tivation of Ins' estate, and use his influence with his tenants to give additional work to the same extent on their own lands, the poor-rate would be converted into a reproductive agent, which in a short time would engross all idle hands, besides adding daily to the fertility of the soil, the food, and the means of the kingdom. By such a course as this being universally followed, the ruinous absorption of the capital of Ireland by poor-rates would be arrested, and the rate itself become a source of profit and independence to every individual engaged in this regenerating work, bringing peace and plenty for poverty and starvation. If adopted by the landlords, this most desirable and healing measure could easily and promptly be put into practice and realized throughout Ireland, by appointing a committee in -each electoral division, to ascertain the individual liability of the several proprie- tors and their tenants to the rate, and the amount to be advanced, in work, by each of them, with a registry of the labourers out of employment, for allocation amongst them."

There are further accounts of outrages in Roscommon, and of threaten- ing notices served on some proprietors in the district where Major Mahon was murdered.

Au attack has been made on the Tralee Workhouse, similar to that at liauturk. The Guardians were on the 4th instant to arrange for the com- mencement of ontdor relief to the infirm. On Monday, however, a large mob, with a black flag, broke open the gate, using violent language, and de- manding work. The Magistrates and Guardians tried in vain to reason with them; they would not disperse even on the appearance of the police And military, uutil four of the ringleaders were captured.

Signs are not wanting that Government are at length about to act with 'vigour in repressing the widespread lawlessness and bloodshed. The Evening Mail announces the forthcoming of a proclamation warning the people against the commission of crime, and denouncing those who harbour criminals. An "arms act" of extreme stringency is spoken of as one of the measures to be submitted to Parliament on its meeting.

The subjoined remarks have appeared in Saunders News-Letter, in the form of a letter to the editor: but they are so judicious, and so well-timed, that we are desirous of extending their circulation.

" The address of the Catholic Prelates to the Lord-Lieutenant, and his Excel- lency's reply, are documents of deep interest and great import to the future wel- fare of Ireland; but I do not think they have yet been commented upon in the manner they deserve; and, as I am not a party man, I venture to address the fol- • lowing remarks to you. "That those who possess spiritual influence over a religious and devoted popu- lation should tender their advice and cooperation to the civil Government at a crisis of great difficulty and danger, is a course of proceeding creditable to them and beneficial to the country. There has been too long a period of alienation, not far removed for part of the time from downright hostility, between the spiritual guides and the political rulers of the Irish people; and this had, necessarily, the evil result of rendering the Government jealous of the spiritual power, and the re- ligious teachers suspicious of the law. The late Bishop Murphy of Cork fre- quently lamented the _separation between two sets of authorities, each of which sought the same ends—the preservation of tranquillity and the promotion of the prosperity of the country. He believed that the Government could facilitate the duties of the Hierarchy by the diffusion of sound knowledge unaccompanied by sectarian perversion; and that the Catholic clergy could essentially aid the Go- vernment by teaching the great duty of obedience to the law, and the sin of con- niving at crime by being parties to its concealment. It is sad that alienation Should so long have existed where harmony was so desirable, and even so essential. We therefore rejoice to see the Catholic Prelates frankly communicating their sen- tinients to the Government; and we also rejoice to find that their communications ve been received in the most friendly and conciliatory spirit. "Lord Clarendon hes had experience of the evils arising from disruption between ,the spiritual arid civil Authorities in another land: Spain would not now be pros- ,Z the Constitutionalists and the clergy had not pushed their opposing pre- to eh extreffies as to render compromise impossible. Lord Clarendon abenslandy the evils which arise when, the spiritual guides of a ' people endeavour to become the political directors of the state, and when civil rulers endeavour to wrest from the clergy that influence which ever mast attach to the character of religious instructors. He who had in Spain protected the persons of the Catholic clergy, their privileges, and their property, from the ex- cessive reforming zeal of the more violent Liberals, was naturally ready to receive the advice of those Prelates whose vocation gave weight to their words, and whose peculiar opportunities established an authority for their statements. "It is not surprising, under all the circumstances of the case, that the address partook too much of the nature of a manifesto,—that it seemed designed less for the instruction of rulers than for influencing the opinions of the multitude; and that it has, in consequence, too little of the logic of statesmanship, and too mach of the rhetoric of agitation. The piety, the learning, and the philanthropy of the eminent Prelates who signed the address are undeniable; but these qualifies do not confer that knowledge of statistical and economic science which has become the chief element of modern statesmanship; while habits of declamation, necessarily acquired during years of controversy, are injurious to that severe accuracy of style desirable in a document set forth to the world to be consulted and quoted as ;au authority. One unhappy phrase in this document reveals an erroneous thought which pervades the entire, and which if allowed to pass uncorrected would be of most dangerous consequence. "The address speaks of the indefeasible right of life.' There are no such rights: the right of life, like every other right, is given by God to man only con- ditionally; we hold life only by the tenure of making exertions for its preservation. It was in the sweat of his brow' that man was promised to eat bread '; it is only the labourer' that is declared 'worthy of his hire': the rights of life cannot be disconnected from the duties of life; to speak of such rights as indefeasible or in- dependent of the conditions assigned to them by the Creator, is an inaccuracy which might be pardoned in an eloquent speech, but which ought not to appear in a state paper. "This unhappy preconception was the dominant thought in the mind that pre pared the address: he fixed his whole attention on the rights of the labourer and the duties of the proprietor: he ought to have remembered that the labourer has duties and that the proprietor has rights. This simple reflection would have saved the address from the error of speaking of the rights of property as antagonistic to the rights of life. They are not so. Without rights of property, rights of life can have no secure existence. The sacred axiom quoted in the address= the labourer is worthy of his hire'—is an assertion of a right of property, not a right of life; for toil is the property of the labourer, and hire is the price by which that property is purchased. It is stall times perilous to speak of rights independent of their corresponding duties; and it is particularly so at a time when the rights of men to subsistence are insisted upon so strongly, that the duties of providing for subsistence seem in danger of being forgotten. Lord Clarendon justly observed- ' I am sure your Lordships will agree with me, that the full amount of exertion which duty prescribes has not yet been made here; and that without it, in jus- tice to others, no general claim ffir assistance can be established.' "The error to which we have referred, the unstatesmanlike separation of rights from duties, has given a vagueness and uncertainty to the recommendations con- tained in the address, which we could hardly have expected to have escaped the notice of the venerated Prelates. They ask that the people should be repro- ductively employed, without offering any suggestions as to how ' or whom.' Reproductive employment is only possible on property, and caa only be given uni- versally by a government where that government is the universal proprietor, as is the case in some Asiatic despotisms. It is probable that the Prelates meant that Government should stimulate and aid the proprietary to give such employment; and this has been done: for the Poor-law is a sharp stimulus, and the improve- ment loans are of considerable aid. We could have wished that the Prelates had promised their co5peration in carrying out these great measures, and declared themselves ready to fulfil their own share in accomplishing those objects which they desired the Government to undertake. "It is hardly necessary to make any remark on the taste that introduced the dissolution of monasteries; or the consistency that praised such institutions and condemned gratuitous relief in the same breath. It is of more importance to no- tice the cordial invitation to more frequent and confidential communication be- tween the Government and the Catholic Hierarchy; which, we doubt not, meets a hearty response from most if not all of the Prelates. We indeed regret to see something like a menace of an appeal to the Queen if Lord Clarendon should not fulfil the expectations formed of him, though he has not yet been told what are the exact objects he is expected to accomplish. We presume not to dictate to the venerable authors of the address; but we beg of them not for their own sake alone, but for the sake of the country, to consider carefully the wording of any future address, especially one intended for an English audience. Our declaimers have in- jured the intellectual character of Irishmen all over Europe; and this evil injures us not merely in a literary but in a political point of view; for when people per- severe in proposing impossible remedies, they lead others to suspect that the evils of which they complain have no existence."

Government has offered a reward of 1001. for the discovery of the murderers of Major Mahon. The Coroner's Jury which sat on the body has returned a verdict of" Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown." The later particulars of this crime add a deeper dye to its atrocity. Toshoot their victim, the assassins did not hesitate to imperil the life of another gentleman, against whom there does not seem to have been even a supposed cause of com- plaint. This was Dr. Shanley, the medical practitioner of Strokestown : he is beloved by the poor of the neighbourhood, for his active benevolence in his pro- fession; and he had travelled the most disturbed districts with impunity, as his missions were those of charity. "About six in the evening, Major Mahon was returning to his own residence in an open carriage. At his side was Mr. Shanley; behind the carriage was seated a servant. As they arrived at the Kyber Pass,' a shot—supposed by the survivors to have been from a blunderbuss—was fired into the carriage. The Major received the great mass of the charge in his right side and chest, and never spoke after: his death was instantaneous. Mr. Shanley was wounded by a swan-drop or slag in the fore-arm." "A few yards further on, a second gun or blunderbuss was levelled at the carriage, but burned priming; and the two assassins were seen running away. Within about one hundred yards of the scene of this terrible onslaught are three houses inhabited by the tenants of the victim." It is said that the emigrants whom Major Mahon sent out to Arne- rice, last year, suffered dreadfully by fever on their voyage and after landing; and many of the evil-disposed at Strokestown attributed the sufferings of the emi- grants to the landlord A man has been murdered near Nenagh, while endeavouring to aid a family whose house had been invaded by a band of ruffians. Six or seven armed men went to the house of Harding, a farmer of Loughorna, and demanded his gun. He said he had lent it; they struck him down senseless, and then began to search the place. Devitt, a neighbour, came in; an assassin aimed at him, but the gun missed fire, and Devitt captured the ruffian; the prisoner called to his compa nions, and one of them fired a gun into Devitt's right side. The murderers then deliberately walked away: this was done in the afternoon. Two men who lived next door to Harding, and who bad arms, calmly looked on I

Mr. J. H. Mason, an assistant accountant to the Dublin Beard of Works, has been committed to prison on a charge of embezzling 8,0001. of the public money. Six weeks ago, his leg was fractured by the overturning of an omnibus, and the limb had to be amputated; daring the patient's absence from business, the defal- cations were discovered. They extend over a period of several years. Mason is accused of forging the signatures of the Commissioners to some checks, while in

others the amount was altered; thus a draft for 1411. was altered to 4411. The funds pillaged were those appropriated to the improvement of the Shannon navi- gation. The prisoner is in a very delicate state of health from the operation on his leg.