REPEAL OF THE DISUNION. REPEAL OF THE DISUNION.
A STRIKING difference between well-meaning Tories—" Tories," as the Times calls them, " through prejudice or fanaticism, but, according to their lights or blindness, honest withal"—and the Liberals generally, is, that the former are always looking hack, the latter forward. Dr. SOUTHEY imagines • that the poli- tical condition of England was perfected by the Revolution of 1688, and that it remained perfect up to the death of Lord LON.— DONDERRY. He would carry us back to the glorious days of High Church security, aristocratic power, and Pitt profusion. On the contrary, HENRY BROUGHAM (for the Lord has not yet fully declared himself), immeasurably a more useful, though not a more sincere friend of his country than Dr. SOUTHEY, considers the death of Lord LONDONDERRY as marking an 'epoch in our political improvement ; which he supposes may not reach perfec- tion for a long, long while to come. He therefore looks forward in politics ; and weul(1, no doubt, bring us at once, were that pos- sible, to the happy state of things Which England May present when his infant schools and other noble works in the cause of universal education shall have produced their fruits. . With a view to the happiness of England, we adhere to thceez who look forward ; but, for curing the misery of Ireland, the Le- gislature must anxiously look back. What was done by King JOHN with the Barons, by King JAMES with the Bishops, or• by King WIL- LIAM with the great Lords of the Revolution, may be not worth a thought in respect to the future good government of England. Not precedents, whether for .example or avoidance, but princi- ples, well defined and generally understood, will be the guide of England in her now rapid progress towards the end of all govern- ment—" the greatest happiness," as Mr. BENTHAM quaintly ex- presses it, " of the greatest number." But as to Ireland, a thorough knowledge and constant recollection of the past are in- dispensable to the adoption of sound measures for the future. For, be it remembered, England preponderates greatly in the joint Legislature ; and it is England, therefore,. rather than 'Ireland, which. has' to mike laws for Ireland. A people • may be so thoroughly acquainted with their own present circumstances and wants as to run no risk of mistake by looking to the future with but little' regard for the past ; but it is next to impossible that any people should be so intimately acquainted with the cir- cumstances' and wants of another people, as to legislate for 'it wisely and Well, merely by the guide of general principles. - In this latter case, the present can be understood and provided for only by tracing the consequences of past events. As between England and Ireland, the retrospect is long and painful.
The question is—how may Ireland be united to England so as to become as much part of the empire as Kent or Rutland? And, in the next place, how do past events bear on this question ? •
The history of the' past is , shortly this. England and Ireland were separate and independent nations. England conquered Ire- land, drove her inhabitants into the interior, and planted the'saa. coasts with colonies of English and Scotch. The native Irish became, like the inhabitants of Candy, in Ceylon, a nation apart from the inhabitants of the coast : between the two nations there was a state of nearly constant and most barbarous war, until, by slow degrees, the colonists, always aided by the great power of England, overran the whole country, subjected the natives to their rule, confiscated nearly the whole of their lands, and, destroying their religious establishment, founded a new one in its place.
It is difficult to exterminate a whole people ; and though, in the conquest of Ireland, more millions were destroyed, by fire and sword and famine and pestilence, than ever lived, at any one time in Ireland, the Milesian race continued to exist in a state of suli jection to the colonists: They were held in subjection by PENAL LAWS.
Here a circumstance presents itself which deserves. espec:al nOi tice. By the time that Ireland became .wholly subject to the colo- nists, England and the colonists had changed their religion. The Irish did not change theirs. Thus religion became the pretext or those severe laws by which the colonists monopolized the land and the government of Ireland. The most cruel measures *ere pursued towards the native Irish under the name of Catholics; and, in time, the words Colonist and Irishman were exchanged for Protestant' and Catholic. But for this circumstance, it is probable that the Irish and the Colonists would long ere now have been amalgamated as one people. . . The constant Object of the penal laws against the Irish Catho- lics, was tO maintain the general confiscation of the landed-pro- perty of Ireland, and to preserve to the comparatively few colo- nists the whole government of the country. Perhaps the history of the world does not present any thing more iniquitous than the system of cant and cruelty by which England preserved her con- quest of Ireland, • The simple and undisguised tyranny of 4 Ni. cnordt.s or a MIGUEL would have occasioned far less suffering to the conquered people. But, slowly, as.public opinion in England improved with the progress of civilization, the penal laws against the Catholics were relaxed. Enough of them, however, was pre- . served, even up to the year 1829, for preserving to the Protestants their monopoly of the government of Ireland, including the church revenues.
Let it be observed here, that one relaxation of the penal laws permitted Catholics or Irishmen to become owners of land in Ire- land ; but that, nevertheless, the law of primogeniture and a sys- tem of strict entails have prevented the Catholic or Irish majority from acquiring, by purchase, any but a very small proportion of the land of their country. At length the English. Government, tired of holding Ireland as a colony, sought to make the two countries one, by. means of "the. Union." The English High Church party prevented the Union from being gradually rendered complete, as was intended by those who brought that measure -about. The NEWCASTLES and BOUTHEYS of another day caused the Union to be a mere name . —and worse, a mockery ; for, notwithstanding the Union, they maintained great part of the penal code. 'Finally, however, all the penal laws were repealed at one blow, by the famous Relief Bill of
1829. •
The Highest Church party of England has nicknamed the WEL- LINGTON and PEEL Cabinet "the Apostate Ministry." WELLING- "-TON and PEEL were not apostates. They were forced, much against their will, to repeal the penal laws of Ireland. Public opinion, and the spirit of the age, strongly demanded that conces- sion, being violently opposed to the only alternative—an. Irish rebellion and a massacre of the Catholics. The WELLINGTON Ministry, seeing that they had to choose between concession and civil war, preferred concession ; though there can be no doubt 'that, "all their opinions remaining unchanged," they disliked con- cession per se. The repeal of the penal laws being an act of mere expediency, or rather necessity—having no object but to prevent -an immediate civil war—not being founded on any comprehensive view of the peculiar state of Ireland, and being, moreover, vigor- ously opposed by strong parties in Ireland and in England, with which parties there was reason to fear, even during the progress of the measure through Parliament, that the King would side,—it was not to be expected that the Ministry, so reluctantly just, so alarmed, pressed, and harassed, should cautiously provide for the State of affairs which the Relief Bill was to create. The present embarrassments are owing to this, their neglect or misfortune. The repeal of the penal laws deprived the Irish Protestants of all real power over the Catholics ; but it left them a legal pro- perty in great part of the land and all the tithes of Ireland. Blind, however, must have been the -Ministers who did not foresee that the Irish Catholics, the great majority of the Irish people, becom- ing equal in other respects to the Protestants, would become doubly discontented with the state of landed property and church property. Here we have the secret of the present agitation—the proof of the existing Disunion between England and Ireland. Ab- senteeism, which expresses in one word the constant removal of a large portion of the produce of Ireland to pay the rent of land obtained .by. confiscation and possessed by the descendants of English colonists who reside out of Ireland,—and tithes, with the Tents of church estates, enjoyed by the ministers of a religion which (we state only a plain fact) is not the religion of the coun- try,=these are the grievances peculiar to Ireland—grievances which the naked Relief Bill was calculated to aggravate—griev- ances which must be redressed before Ireland and England can be united on the only sure foundation, that of similar circumstances and mutual interests.
The question is, whether England shall now put down Irish dis- content by force, or remove it by such further concessions as would make Ireland as much part of the empire as Kent or Rutland? The Duke of WELLINGTON did not—let us say that he dared not—try force. Yet before the Relief Bill, force would probably have succeeded, as it had so often done ; because then England had constantly in Ireland, as the instrument of her power over the Irish, from two to three hundred thousand armed Colonists or Protestants,—brave men, hating the Irish or Catholics, knowing well the country and the enemy, deeply interested in the mainte- nance of the penal laws, and therefore wholly devoted to the policy which England so long pursued for holding Ireland as a half- colonized conquest. But the Relief Bill extinguished the armed Protestants of Ireland, as instruments in the hands of England for keening down the Catholics. Nay, more: these Orangemen, as they used to call themselves, became, as Brunswickers, the ene- rnies, instead of the grateful and devoted servants, of the English Government. They furiously opposed the Catholic Relief even to the extent of threatening, like some bodies of our West India Colonists to assert their independence of the mother coun- try, in case the Parliament sitting in London should enact the emancipation of Irish slaves. They detest the very names of WEL- LINGTON and PEEL, because of the great act of justice which those Ministers unwillingly performed. They havelost their monopoly of the government of Ireland ; and if we May 'judge from many indications of their present temper, a majority of them have dis- covered, that the exportationof Irish rent is aS injurio.uS to the de- scendants of colonists who live in Ireland, as to the native. Irish. This portion of the Brunswickers seem inclined to join _in. O'cosr7 NELL s proposal of a tax of "seventy-live 06- Cent, on the exported rents of absentees. True, they are still interested in maintain- ing the Irish Protestant Church establishment ; but when did not the wrath of a disappointed tyrant get the better of his discretion ? These angry fools, whom the Times calls "the bold yeomanry of Ireland," and whom he appears desirous to halloo on to battle with the grumbling Catholics, are ready to punish themselves rather than not punish those who have offended them, and to give up all because they were not allowed to keep all. Or, at any rate, the English Governmeilt can no longer confidently depend on them as its instrument !Or govern- ing the Irish people by force. Consequently, the Cabinet of St. James's is brought into immediate contact or collision With "the seven millions." No observant man can doubt this fact, or fail to appreciate its vast importance: every friend of Ireland must rejoice at it. If the Duke of WELLINGTON dreaded to use force in the government of Ireland, by how much the more dangerous would be an attempt at force on the part of Lord GREY I—and then, the Colonist governing faction being out of the case, an hu- mane and enlightened English Ministry may now take justice only for its principle of conduct- towards Ireland.- Justice requires that the remaining grievances of Ireland should be redressed. Justice and good policy equally demand that the condition of Ireland should, as much as possible, be assimilated to that of England. The main grievances of Ireland are—first, the property in the soil by absentees, who, as there are no poor-laws, have an in- terest (even though the breeding of men like rabbits be no longer useful for electioneering purposes) in the greatest possible compe- tition for land ;—and secondly, the establishment for maintaining exclusively a Protestant church, which is the church only of the Colonist or Protestant minority. For the redress of these griev- ances, it has long since appeared to us, that three acts of Parlia- ment ought to have accompanied the Catholic Relief Bill, and ought to be passed without delay. First—An act, giving poor-laws to Ireland ; so that the Irish landlord and tenant should, like the English landlord and tenant, have constantly in view a penalty, as the certain and immediate consequence of promoting excess of numbers in the competitors for land and labour.
Secondly—An act, permitting the trustees of entailed estates in Ireland to sell such estates, and invest the purchase-money in real or Government securities in England ' - whereby the only check to the gradual transference of the property of absentees into the hands of resident Irishmen would be removed. One who knows Ireland welt—a-did with whom we have often discussed this proposal, suggests that absentee owners of land in Ireland should be compelled to sell their estates to the Govern- ment by valuation ; the Government raising a loan for the purchase of such estates, and liquidating the debt so incurred, by the gradual sale of the land to resident Irishmen. Thirdly—An act to bestow a considerable 'portion of the Church revenues of Ireland on the Catholic or Irish clergy. . Strict. jus- tice, and perhaps the soundest policy as distinguished from jus- tice, require that the division of the ecclesiastical revenues of Ireland between the two churches should be made according to the numerical proportions of the Protestant and Catholic flocks. It would take a bold Minister to propose such measures, and especially the last of them, to Parliament. But the probable al- ternative—civil war, and civil war, too, which could end satisfac- torily only by the adoption of those very measures—would be the choice not of a bold, but Of a crazy Minister. Great purposes can seldom be effected otherwise than by great actions : the union of England and Ireland will not be brought about by any paltry ex- pedients; but paltry expedients might very soon sonvert the exist- ing Disunion into Separation.
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