TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE MORAL OF THE IRISH DEBATE.
Tux nine-days debate is on record, and it has yet to be turned to one use—to be read by the future historian. It is not given to us in 1'844 to tell how the present may appear to the thinker removed by a century from the din and passion of the time, with the scope of his view proportionately enlarged ; but a guess may be hazarded as to the position which will be assigned to the chief actors in the scene.
O'Corestenn, the leader of the Catholic Irish, encouraged by the success of his efforts for Catholic Emancipation, and finding it
necessary to his state as the " Representative for Ireland," and perhaps to his fortunes, to achieve some still greater enterprise, committed himself to the task of repealing the Union. Having served the uses of the Whigs, he had been comparatively neglected by them before they left office. With the English and Scotch Liberals he had little that was really congenial in his own opinions and aspirations when calmly and closely considered. With the Tories, in whatever part of the kingdom, he had waged implacable war. He had therefore nothing to work with but the Irish them- selves—the Irish, the Catholic and Celtic population least in- fluenced by English intercourse. It was necessary to give them a factitious importance; and he attempted to do so in a way most suitable to their nature, while yet he did not close the door against renewed alliance with the English Liberals. He stimulated the passions of the Irish appealed to the sympathy of foreign peoples, especially the two Irish; and American, considered by the Eng-
lish most formidable. Ever striving to keep within the letter of
the law, he brewed such a storm of excited passion in Ireland— now raised, now moderated, such an active and equivocal sympathy abroad—that at any moment, according to the turn of events, were England invaded, he could have placed Ireland at the disposal of the invader ; were there revolution in England, he could at one instant's notice have decreed revolution in Ireland; or he could have sold Irish subsidies to England for " concessions"; or if all failed, he could motion his Irish armies to disperse, put on a plea- sant laugh, and say that it was all a joke. To a temper so conve- nient for his purposes, the genius of O'CONNELL appears actually to have brought his country.
The debate exhibits the Whig actors in a light worse than equi-
vocal. Ostensibly, they engaged in it to propound measures for the salvation of Ireland from " Tory misrule" : their actually pro- posed measures are not worth enumerating—collectively inferior to the rival measures with which they were met by the Tory misrulers; and their proposition really amounts to nothing more than a re- storation of themselves to office and a revival of their "policy." What is the policy, as it may be gathered from themselves ? In office, while responsible, they discountenanced the Repealers, and O'CONNELL was positively a slighted man. Out of office, no longer responsible, extremely solicitous to return, defeated in all their attempts to return on grounds of English policy, they once more resort to the Agitator. Luckily for them, he had adopted the Whig dogma that it was "impossible for the Tories to govern Ireland." They now promise a new version of their " concilia- tion " policy—to wink at all his indiscretions, all equivoques be- tween loyalty and treason, if he will fulfil the prophecy and make it "impossible for the Tories to govern Ireland." If the Tories cannot succeed in governing an integral portion of the United Kingdom, of course they are ipso facto excluded from office. In the debate, inordinately eager tor that result, the Whigs could not help betraying that they had nothing else in view—they love Ire- land because they believe the rival party cannot manage it. O'CONNELL is not a mere place-hunter; but it needs not be left out of sight, that the return of the Whigs to office, especially after the new compact, would open the sluices of patronage for many a subscriber to the various Irish " rents."
In such posture of Irish affairs, the turn of events in England
places Sir ROBERT PEEL in power : it is an incident of his elevation in England that he must govern Ireland. He appears to have en- tered upon that compulsory task with a determination to make it as easy to his embarrassed party-relations as possible, by sticking to the strong holds of honesty and justice. The long and keen party-debate failed to expose one single act of oppression, injus- tice, or slight put upon Ireland by the Conservative Minister. The diffieult:es arising from the heated passions of the party in Ireland analogous to the English Conservative party, and acting with it, were mitigated as much as possible by a policy of great moderation. There was no aggression, though numbers were anxious to provoke it. But aggression on the other side could not be prevented. Ire- land was brought into that state when it might be used for inva- sion, revolt, or civil war : still the Minister was cool and forbearing. The functions of got ernment were usurped: still the Minister was parsimonious of counter-advances. At length the array of war was openly announced : now came the fulness of time for inter- ference; and the Agitator was abruptly called from his dangerous dalliance with treason to account before the tribunals of the or- dinary law.
A great outcry is at once raised, and the nine-days orators
who advocate the Repealer's cause complain of oppression. First, they say, the prosecution was delayed, to entice the Agita- tor further in his course, and to entrap him at last. Entrap O'CON- NELL! He had boasted that he could drive a coach-and-six through any statute; he had been making his calculations and steered by the card; he told the people to trust in his law ; he de- fied the Ministers "to go to law with him ; he made his election to have the fight on that ground ; he had free choice of time, place; and weapons. O'CONNELL was as little "entrapped " as an Old Bailey attorney is entrapped when one of his manceuvres fails. But the beaten boy always cries out "Unfair!" The greatest semblance of reason is in the complaint that it is hard, under this law of " conspiracy," to impute to one the acts of all the rest—acts perhaps of which he really disapproves. Sir THOMAS WILDE made the most of that complaint ; but the learned Sergeant's speech, effective and zealous as a pleading before a jury, was hardly the thing to guide the judgment of legislators in a question of constitu- tional law. Where a great combined movement for one object is charged as "conspiracy," to prove the nature and bearing of that combination as it affects the public, every separate kind of acting must necessarily be adduced : the whole is made up of the parts ; and in so far as each conspirator has entered into the combined movement, he is justly answerable to the public for the conse- quences of the movement as a whole. But when it comes to a question of individual retribution, the whole, we apprehend, must be analyzed again, and each individual be accounted with for his share, in the award of punishment, so that each shall answer for his own act alone and none for the act of his fellow. The analy tical nature of the verdict in this case seems to show that the Jury con- templated such a process; or if they did not, we conceive it to be the bounden duty of the Judges so to deal with it in passing sentence. Whatever considerations of expediency, or of mercy for an aged though erring public servant, may be involved, belong to an ulterior stage and a higher authority. As against O'CONNELL, then, and as a litigant with the Whigs, Sir ROBERT PEEL stands exonerated. But there is another party, as to whom the issue of the debate gives him no full quittance— Ireland. What has he done to satisfy the just claims of Ireland ? In Opposition, he did not scruple to impede measures of which his own imitation is a retrospective approval—he sanctioned
a perverse obstruction to those claims. The "meliorating measures" may have been offered for party purposes ; hut, in
fighting faction with faction, he injured Ireland. Ile now, in his practical measures, makes a very small and inadequate re- cognition of her claims—which he totally neglected last year. The debate leaves that stigma on him, in common with pre- ceding statesmen. He has not been worse than they, but not to have been better is strong condemnation. Had statesmen earlier grappled with the difficulty presented by the conflict of Churches, that huge obstruction to peace might by this time have been dimi- nished. As it is, popular opinion is still far behind even statesmen as cautious as Sir ROBERT PEEL: the sectarian bitterness of Dis- senters is reflected in the intolerant bigotry of old Churchmen; and those who help to keep alive animosities by heated appeals, whether Tory or Liberal, have no right to blame him who cannot effect a settlement while no party will come to terms. A very bold Minister might do much to settle it by the sheer force of an indomitable will. But we have no such Minister—no such Member of Parliament. Failing in that, it is only by keeping steadily, however gently, ahead of opinion as it is gradually led forward, that English statesmen can draw any nearer to the settle- ment of the Irish Church question. But were it settled tomorrow, the grand, the rooted disease of Ireland remains untouched—her poverty. Theoretical opinions differ little about the causes and remedies of that : practical activity may expend its utmost energies, and yet not be embarrassed by too great an advance on halting opinion: in the great enterprise of Ireland's physical improvement, the honest and conscientious statesman, mortified by defeat and misconstruction in every other service for that ill-fated country, may find a refuge. There is none, not even Sir ROBERT PEEL, but has to render a strict account why party-conflicts should be suffered to distract attention from so paramount a duty.
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