Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843

With this prefatory explanation, called for, perhaps, by the unequal importance of the points reviewed, we shall now rehearse the heads of this speech. It is a speech that, by anticipation, we may call memorable, looking before and after; good, as a history for half a century gone by since our union with Ireland; good, we venture to hope, as a rule and as a prophecy for the spirit of our whole future connexion with that important island. We shall move rapidly; for our rehearsal will best attain the object we have in view by its brevity and condensation.

I.—Mr Roebuck had insisted that Ireland was made the victim of our English parsimony; not once and away, but systematically. This happens to be a charge peculiarly irritating to all parties—to the authors of the parsimony, and to its objects. And, says Sir Robert, I am told to avoid it as secondary; but observe, it is quite substantial enough, as others say, to justify "an impeachment." This is the honourable barrister's word; and a "soft" impeachment it will turn out.

a. By the Act of Union, it was provided that, in voting the civil estimates for Ireland, whatever sum it should appear that Ireland had averaged for six years before the Union, in her own votes for a particular purpose, annually that same sum should be voted for a period prescribed by the United Parliament. The purpose was, internal improvement in Ireland, and any national uses, whether pious or charitable. What, then, had been the extent of the Irish vote? We neglect small fractions, and state that it had averaged seventy-three thousand a year. For the first twenty years, therefore, the obligation upon the Imperial Parliament had been, to vote twenty times that sum, or L. 1,460,000. This was the contract. What was the performance? Five millions, three hundred and forty-eight thousand pounds, or three and a half times the amount of the promise.

b. Another extraordinary vote in the Irish Parliament, previous to the Union, had been upon the miscellaneous estimates. This vote, when averaged on the same principle, had produced annually one hundred and twenty-eight thousand pounds. To the same sum the United Parliament stood pledged for the first period of twenty-eight years succeeding the Union. The reader will see at once that the result ought to have been little more than three and a half millions. That was the debt. What was the payment? Something beyond five millions.

c. Upon another comparison, viz. between Scotland and Ireland, as to another class of extras and contingencies, it turns out—that, during the last period of seven years, to Scotland had been voted six hundred and sixty thousand pounds, to Ireland two million, two hundred, and sixty thousand; to Scotland, that is, less than one hundred thousand per annum; to Ireland, more than three hundred thousand.

In the same category stands the relative taxation. Ireland was to pay two-seventeenths of the whole imperial burden. That was the bargain, which we are not called on to reopen. But, as extras, as a liberal bonus upon this bargain, Ireland has been excused from paying for windows—for assessed taxes—for soap. At this moment, in addition to these liberal discounts, she has no national share, as Ireland,16 in the Income Tax: and she may be said, in one sense, to receive her letters gratuitously, for the postage yields nothing to Government, all being absorbed by the Irish post office. It is little, after this, to start possibilities of unequal contribution as regards the indirect taxation: this could not be separately apportioned to the three great limbs of the empire without disturbing the great currents of commerce. It is enough that by exemptions upon the direct taxes, so far as concerns three of them—window, assessed, and income—Ireland receives a large indemnity.

II. Connected with the last head is the reproach made to Great Britain upon the subject of railway encouragement. What encouragement? By money? Yes, says Lord John Russell, whose experience in office (as one of a cabinet plagued in the way that all cabinets are by projectors and scheming capitalists) ought to have taught him better. Have we given any money to our own railways? No: but England is rich. True: and Ireland is not suffered to be so rich as she might be by her Irish "friends." But rich or not rich, is no question here. If schemes of profit are not profitable in this country, we do not encourage them. If they are profitable, they want no encouragement. Still, it is said, might it not be prudent to feed the railroads in Ireland, not with any view to the scheme for itself but considered as a means of development for the circumjacent country? No, replies Sir Robert, that is an error: railways may benefit by the country: but the country through which they race, is rarely affected by them more than the atmosphere aloft by the balloons. The great towns on the route, or at the extremities, doubtless benefit; but in too small a degree, unless they are manufacturing towns, to warrant the least thoughtful of ministers in assisting them. However, to make a beginning, and as a topic to be borne in mind, how much would be wanted? A matter of ten millions, says Lord John. Olli subridens, replies the minister, "What! only that?" But, returning to business, he reminds the house—that, even for so small a sum as ten millions sterling, the nation would perhaps expect security. Who is to give it? Are the counties traversed to be assessed? But they will disown the benefit arising. And, says Sir Robert, take a miniature case—a sum little more than one-tenth of ten millions was advanced by this country on account of the Irish work-houses, and for a time there was some advantage gained to the industry of the land. But that soon passed away, and then two evils arose at once. The money was to be repaid, and the employment was at an end. But this latter evil was worse than it seemed, for it did not act as a simple privation of so much good; the extra stimulation of the national industry, as invariably happens, and as at this moment we see in England upon the cessation of a ten years' demand for iron, on account of our own railways, brought about a corresponding, exhaustion for the new Poor Law, tending violently to civil tumults. The repayment of that advance will yet cost Ireland many a groan.

III. If Ireland, then, is not ill-treated as to her taxation, or her public improvements, is it true that she is ill-treated in the persons of her children? That also has been said; but Sir Robert disperses that fancy by facts which are as conclusive as they are really little needed at this day. Sculptors had been appointed by members of the cabinet, police commissioners, &c.; and, as will easily be believed, with no question ever mooted as to their birth, whether English, Scotch, or Irish. Subsequently, however, it had turned out as a blind fact, which is useful in showing the entire indifference to such a point in the minds of public men, that the larger proportion of successful candidates were Irish. This was an accident certainly, but an accident irreconcilable with the least shadow of prejudice pointing in that direction.

IV. Of social grievances, grievances connected with the state of society, there are but too many in Ireland: relations between landlord and tenant for instance; but these are so little caused or aggravated by Parliament, that they cannot even be lightened by Parliament. What little is possible, however, says Sir Robert, we will attempt. The elective franchise is another case; yet, if that is now too much narrowed, why is it so? Let Ireland thank herself, and the growing indisposition amongst Irish landlords to grant leases. Might we not, then, transfer to Ireland our English franchise? But that, applied to Irish institutions and arrangements, would narrow the electoral basis still further than it is narrowed. Not, therefore, against the Irish, but in their behalf, we withhold our own unsuitable privileges. It is a separate question, besides, whether the moral civilization of Ireland is equal to the exercise of our English franchise. Education of the people again, if there is an obstacle at this time to its movement in Ireland, where does it originate? We all know the great schism upon that subject existing amongst the Irish Protestants, and how embarrassing the Government has found that fend—how intractable and embittered, for the very reason that it rested upon no personal jealousies which might have relaxed or been overruled, but (for one side at least) upon deep conscientious scruples. Reverence those scruples we must; but still the Irish are not entitled to charge upon ministers a public evil of their own creation. In all these calamities, or others of the same nature, oppressing the state of society in Ireland, and derived as an inheritance from ancient times, the blame too notoriously, in no part of it, rests with the English ministers; and the proof is evident in this fact—that, except by one monstrous anti-social proposal from a very few of the opposition members, as a remedy for the land-occupancy complaints—a proposal strongly disavowed by the leaders of the party, no practical flaw was detected, either of omission or commission, as affecting the ministerial policy. The objections were pure generalities; and even Lord John Russell, who adopted the usual complaint against the minister, that he brought forward no definite plan, and whose own field of choice was therefore left all the wider, offered nothing more specific than the following mysterious suggestion, which is probably a Theban hieroglyphic—that, like as the "celebrated" Cromwell, in times past, did appoint Sir Matthew Hale to the presiding seat on the bench of justice, even so ought Sir Robert Peel to–. But there the revelation ceased. What are we to suppose the suppressed apodosis of the proposition? Was it to disarm Mr O'Connell, by making him an archbishop? Little propensity have we to treat a great national crisis with levity; but surely every man is entitled to feel indignant, that when the burden of attack upon Government, is for their silence with regard to specific measures, (which, to be effectual, must often be secret,) those who have the good fortune to be under no such restraints of secrecy, find themselves able to suggest absolutely nothing. National resources were not locked up in the treasury—the particular choice may be secret, but the resources themselves lie open to the whole world—to us, to Lord John Russell, who have no power, quite as much as to Sir Robert Peel, who wields the thunder. And we cannot but remind the reader, that one reason, beyond the policy of concealment, which made it hard for Government to offer suggestions absolutely new, was the simple fact, that such as were fit to be published they had already acted on. The remodeling of arrangements for the army, the bill for intercepting the means of arming a rebel force, and the suppression of insurrectionary magistrates—these three measures were clearly the first steps to be taken. One only of the three is still lingering; whom, have we to thank for that? A ministry to which the Duke of Wellington belongs, is not likely to talk first and act afterwards. By the time it became necessary to talk, their work, for the present, had been done. But some few significant words there were from leaders in both Houses, which convince us, that, upon any important change of movements on the part of the Repealers, the silent menaces of Government will begin to speak in a tone such as no man can misunderstand.

V. Patronage.—Has that great instrument of government been abused by Sir Robert Peel in the management of Ireland? This question might have arranged itself under either of the two first heads; but we choose to bring it forward in an insulated form. For we believe that no administration of any day has ever made the avowal, or had it in their power to make the avowal, which Sir Robert Peel made to the House of Commons in the speech we are now reviewing. He read two separate extracts from his own official instructions to Lord De Grey, which actually announced his resolution (unfettered by the slightest reserve) to renounce the entire church patronage of Ireland as an instrument of administration. The Lord-Lieutenant was authorized to dispense this patronage with one solitary view to merit, professional merit, and the highest interests of Ireland. So noble an act as this, and one so unprecedented in its nobility, needs no praise of ours. It speaks for itself. And it would be injurious to spend words in emblazonry of that which, by a spontaneous movement, both sides of the House received with volleying cheers. That kind of applause is as rare and as significant as the act itself.

VI. and VII. Finally, however, all other questions connected with this great crisis, sink in importance by the side of the one great interest at stake upon the Union—is that to be maintained? And, as the Union could not possibly survive the destruction of the Protestant Establishment, is that to be protected? Are we to receive, at the hands of traitors, a new model for our glorious empire? and, without condescending to pause for one instant in discussing consequences, are we to drink of this cup of indignity—that the constitution and settlement of our state, which one hundred and fifty five years ago required the deliberations of two ancient nations, England and Scotland, collected in their representatives, to effect, now at this day are to be put into the furnace anew by obscure conspirators, and traitors long since due to the gallows. Say not, with Sir James Graham, "that this all-conquering England would perish by the consequences." If that were endured, already she has perished: and the glory of Israel has departed. The mere possibility that, by a knot of conspirators, our arch of empire could be dismembered, that by a bare shout of treason it could be thrown down for ever like the battlements of Jericho at the blast of trumpets, would proclaim, as in that Judean tragedy, that we stood under a curse of wrath divine. The dismemberment itself would be less fatal than the ignominy of its mode. Better to court the hostility of foreign nations, better to lay open our realms to a free movement of that wrath against us which is so deeply founded in their envy, than to perish by the hands of poltroons, of thieves, of conspirators. But this fate is not ours. Many times our Government have repeated that assurance. But, as in the expressions of our affection to the Sovereign, this assurance is rightly renewed from time to time, and occasions are sought for renewing it, let the ministers be assured—that, on this point, we are all sound at heart. All of us are with them from shore to shore. In this island there will be no faltering. It is shocking, undoubtedly: it is awful, and at such a moment, to hear three lords of old official standing—Lords Palmerston, Howick, and John Russell, taking occasion to propound ridiculous and senseless modifications of a plan essentially rebellious, the plan of partial confiscation, or of partial degradation, for the Protestant Church. Patience hardly can keep pace with the deliberate consideration of the contradictions which would follow—whether from tampering with the Church, or with the political settlement of our nations. Sir R. Peel has traced both. From the one case must follow an independent army, for Ireland an independent government, an independent war as often as the popular will should speak loudly. From a participation of Protestant property, or Protestant dignities with the Roman Catholics, would follow instantly the transfer of Protestant churches, already few enough, the translation of Popish priests (that is, of selected traitors) to our senate. The very hint is a monument to the disgrace of these noble lords; fatal to all pretences of earnest patriotism; but still in them accounted for, and perhaps a little palliated, by the known necessities of party. As respects the general mind, there is no such imbecility abroad; no such disposition to traffic or go halves, temporize or capitulate with treason. One only error is prevalent: it has been noticed by Sir R. Peel, who indeed overlooked nothing; but it may be well to put the refutation into another form. The caballing for dissolution of the Union, why should that be treasonable? Is the Act of Union more than an Act of Parliament? Is not every act of Parliament open to objection, petition, annulment? No. It is dismemberment, says Sir Robert Peel, of the state. We add this—How, and in virtue of what law, does the house of Brunswick reign? By the Act of Settlement—an act of Parliament—an act about a hundred and fifty years old. That is but an act of Parliament. Is it open, then, to any of us, or all of us, to call a meeting for rescinding the Act of Settlement? But all will now advance to a rapid consummation; Mr O'Connell pursues only his old movement—then he is lost by the decay of the enthusiasm. He adopts a new one—that which he has obscurely announced. Then we are as sure as we are of day and night, of his treason, as of British power to crush it, that the suspended thunderbolt, now raised aloft by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, will put an end to him for ever.