TOPICS' OF THE DAY.
THE RECONQUEST OF IRELAND.
THE Ministerial measures for the pacification of Ireland may be decreed in Westminster, but it is on the other side of St. George's Channel that they will be tested. It is not any particular " bill" --whether it be an Arms Bill or a Coercion Bill—but the degree to which the law is enforced, that is the cardinal question. Pos- sibly the common law might suffice if it were thoroughly worked; perhaps more power expressly declared by statute may be conve- nient; but we await a sight of the Ministerial bills with far less anxiety than we watch for Ministerial action. There have been bills enow already, and to spare. A ruling will is the thing wanted now. Cromwell is ever in the mouths of the Irish : he misused his will, but he had it, and to this day the Irish retain the impress of it : Cromwell is their bugbear; yet they invoke a will like his, for their own purposes, as Mr. Henry Grattan did on Tuesday. It is "civil war" in Ireland—so says Lord Stanley, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Brougham ; Mr. John O'Connell describes a war of landlords on the tenantry ; Lord Roden and Mr. Staf- ford, a war of tenantry on the landlords : in name or in spirit, all agree that it is civil war ; and there is need of a strength ade- quate to cope with civil war. Some say, indeed, that crime is strictly "local "—that it is limited to "live" or " six " counties. We have a difficulty in un- derstanding what is meant by this limitation, since we find re- corded in our own columns, within this instant November, or in the Irish papers of the week, acts of outrage indicating a lawless spirit in nearly twenty counties,—Carlow, Limerick, Roscommon, Galway, Tipperary, Longford, Kilkenny, Clare, Fermanagh, Down, King's County, Queen's County, Sligo, Tyrone, Louth, Antrim, and some others. We say Antrim, because the three days' turbulence incited by the " Irish Confederation " in Belfast ex- hibits as dangerous a proneness to defy the law as more san- guinary outrages have done. We have no desire, however, to put harsh constructions on the state in which Irishmen suffer their country to remain; though the simple fact that they do so is difficult to comprehend. Lord Stanley, an Irish proprietor, and a statesman not altogether ig- norant of the country, broadly asserts that "in Ireland it is safer to violate than to obey the law " ; undoubtedly the general belief in England is the same; and if it is true that there is a large majority of the Irish people among whom the law is revered, their apathy in permitting a worthless minority to bring upon the whole nation an unfounded calumny of the most disgraceful kind, is as monstrous a fact as any in Ireland. But if the asser- tion is true, assuredly the Irish people will at once exonerate themselves from the reproach. Why they have not done so hitherto, is past comprehension. It cannot be sheer cowardice ; because, whatever appearances may be in Ireland, we remember the gallantry of Irish soldiers in our army. It cannot be that the whole nation is overawed ; because the lawless, as we now learn, are so paltry a fraction. It cannot be that the majority sympa- thize with the lawless. We remember a story, indeed, of a consul- tation in Dublin, between the Executive and the Judges, as to the best mode of putting down some former disturbances, which would seem to bear on the present state of affairs. An English Lord Chan- cellor suggested that the usual proceeding was to call out the posse comitatus ; on which an Irish Chief Baron wittily said that the posse comitatus was the very thing that it was desirable to keep at home if the country was to be pacified: but we now learn that that libellous dignitary was sacrificing his country to his joke. Marvellous and incredible as it may seem to down- right English understanding, Ireland is disposed to order, reveres the law, and is quite willing to control herself: so say all the Irish Members, and some of our Ministers seem to sanction the assurance.
We will not venture to contradict it. Perhaps the measures successfully taken by Mr. Grace, Representative and resident of the disturbed county of Roscommon, in arming his tenantry as a kind of defensive militia, is the practical beginning in the new social polity of Ireland. His effort deserves the attention of the Executive. We make no great account of the facts that Mr. Grace is of an old feudal family; that he is a Constitutional Whig, and not a Repealer. We only say that if a like spirit of order and energy is general, it will at once show itself, not only in Parliamentary speeches and assurances, but in acts,—in honest verdicts to vindicate the law ; in a manly promptitude to aid the victim against the assassin ; in a zeal to support constituted au- thority, Wore any other questions of legislation and improvement are attended to. A time of "civil war" is not the best time for bucolic speculations. If Irishmen are bent on restoring order, they will set about it without delay, and new statutes of "coer- cion " will be superfluous. Should it happen that these assurances are all a mistake—that the peaceable Irish majority have not the zeal, the courage, or the energy, to enforce law in their own land—their very love of order will prevent them from being either surprised or grieved at any measure for effecting their wish—even to the appointment of a Dictator.
But at all events, and at all cost, the law must be maintained somehow. Ireland is a province of the British Empire ; and if the Irish themselves cannot maintain respect for the law, it Must be done by the Imperial forces. The safety and dignity of the empire demand no less. To speak it out, there is a very general feeling, among all classes in England, whether Liberal or Conservative, that the turbulent Irish have too long been suffered to trifle with the law ; that the British Government and empire are disgraced by tolerating so base and bloodthirsty a levity ; and that if the ordinary machinery of the country will not suffice to insure a better behaviour, the Government must not hesitate to use the last resort—maim-1AL Esw in the districts that require it, on the summary proclamation of the Lord-Lieutenant.
Previous page
