XXXVI. 1837. CHAP. cial manner to them. "I want not," said he, "to taunt you with reaction or conversion; but I say, if you adhere to the sentiments which you professed in 1830, it is here you should come. You consented to a reform, to which you were invited in a speech by your sovereign, expressly on the condition that it should be according to the acknowledged principles of the constitution. I see the necessity of widening the foundations on which the defence of our constitution and our religious establishments must rest. But let us come to the main point, for I do not wish to conciliate your confidence by hoisting false colours. I mean to support the national establishments which connect Protestantism with the State in the three countries. (Loud cheers, the whole company rising.) I mean to support, in its full integrity, the House of Lords (loud cheers), as an essential and indispensable condition to the maintenance of the constitution under which we live. Do you also concur in that expression of opinion? (Loud acclamations.) And if you do, it is a timely declaration of it. The hour has arrived, when, if these are our feelings, we must be prepared to act upon them. The disturbing influence of foreign example has diminished, the dazzling illusion of the glorious days has passed away; the affections of the people are visibly gravitating again to their old centre,-full of a respect for property, a love of rational freedom, and an attachment to longestablished institutions. From these walls, I trust, a spirit will go forth to animate the desponding, and to encourage the timid. I look abroad from the spot on which I stand, to the moral influence of that opinion which constitutes 'the cheap defence of nations'-I look to it for the maintenance of that system of government which protects the rich from spoliation, and the poor from oppression. I look to that spirit which will range itself 1 Ann. Reg. under no tawdry banner of revolution, but unfurl and rally round the flag that has the battle and the breeze.'1 1837, 16, 17. braved a thousand years Yes! I feel not a shadow of doubt that it will continue to float in triumph, and that the constitution, tried as it has been in the storms of adversity, will come forth purified and fortified in the rooted convictions, the feelings, the affections, of a religious, a moral, and a patriotic people." CHAP. XXXVI. 1837. Parliament met on the 31st January, and so painfully 57. Parliament. evident had the weakness of Ministers become from the Opening of events of the two last sessions, that it was confidently ex- Jan. 31. pected by all parties that before the session closed a change of government would have taken place. This, however, was prevented by one of those events which betray the subjection of human affairs to a higher power, and the frequent disappointment of what appear at the time the most well-founded anticipations. The operation of the act permitting the establishment of joint-stock banks, and "the difficult but pressing question of establishing some legal provision for the poor in Ireland," were specially recommended to the attention of the legislature. Warm debates took place on the Address, but no division in either house. The chief point dwelt on by the Radicals was the want of earnest purpose and vigorous conduct in the Ministry, who were described by Mr Roebuck as "even worse than the Tories ;" and their whole policy, both foreign and domestic, was made the subject of severe vituperation by the party which had so recently 1837,25-28; convulsed the nation with declamations in their favour as xxxvi. 1-44. the authors of the Reform Bill.1 1 Ann. Reg. Parl. Deb. porations The first party move made in this session was the rein- 58. troduction of the Irish Municipal Corporations Bill, which Irish Corwas again brought forward in the House of Commons by Bill. Lord John Russell. The only difference between this bill and the preceding one was in the nomination of sheriffs for the municipalities, in regard to which it was provided that a list of six names should be furnished by the town-council to the Lord-lieutenant, and if he rejected the whole, the nomination was to rest with him. The bill, after three nights' debate, passed the Commons by a 1837. CHAP majority of 302 to 247, or 55.* When it went up to the XXXVI. House of Lords, symptoms of a compromise appeared. The Duke of Wellington, after observing that this was one of three bills recommended to their consideration in the Speech from the Throne, the other two relating to the Irish poor and the Irish tithes, moved that the consideration of the question should be postponed till the other measures came before them. This was carried by a majority of 77, the numbers being 192 to 115. So indignant were the Radicals at this renewed instance of independence on the part of the House of Lords, that Mr Hume said the same night, in a committee of supply in the House of Commons, that as the Lords were resolved to stop all reform, the Commons had better put a bar to all supplies; and he therefore moved that the chairman should leave the chair, and sit again on the 9th of June. This extreme proposal was received with loud. cheers from his own side, and only withdrawn upon the 1 Ann. Reg. Chancellor of the Exchequer assuring the House that the money was absolutely required to discharge the obligations of the State.1 1837, 51, 55, 59. The next subject introduced was that of the poorlaws in Ireland; and so urgent was the case, and so startling the facts which Mr Nicholl's valuable report Mr Sheil, in the course of this debate, gave vent to a striking burst of eloquence in reference to the epithet of " Aliens," which, during the debate on the same subject in the Upper House, had been applied to the Roman Catholics of Ireland by Lord Lyndhurst. "The Duke of Wellington," said he, "is not a man of sudden emotions; but he should not, when he heard that word used, have forgotten Vimeira, and Badajoz, and Salamanca, and Toulouse, and the last glorious conflict which crowned all his former victories. On that day, when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance, when the batteries spread slaughter over the field, and the legions of France rushed again and again to the onset, did the 'aliens' then flinch? On that day the blood of the men of England, of Ireland, and of Scotland, was poured forth together: they fought on the same field; they died the same death; they were stretched in the same pit; their dust was commingled; the same dew of heaven fell on the grass that covered them; the same grass sprung from the soil in which they reposed together; and is it to be endured that we are to be called aliens and strangers to that empire for whose salvation our best blood has been shed?"-Parl. Deb. xxxvi. 936. In bursts of fervid eloquence of this description the Irish genius is often superior to either the English or Scotch. XXXVI. 59. Bill, which out a division. brought out on the subject, that, strong as was the dispo- CHAP. sition on both sides to make Irish questions a party 1837. struggle, the bill brought in by Ministers received the concurrence of the House of Commons. Lord John Rus- Poor-law sell introduced the subject on the 13th February; and his passes withproposal, as is generally the case when the dreaded topic go of an assessment is broached in a popular assembly, fell Feb. 13. very far short indeed of the real necessities of the case. He proposed to establish 100 workhouses, each to contain 800 inmates, which would provide for 80,000 persons, and as their cost was only estimated at 1s. 6d. a-week each, the entire expense would be only £312,000 a-year! Mr O'Connell, while he expressed, contrary to his former assertions, a qualified assent to the measure, justly exposed the utter fallacy of supposing that a measure which proposed only to afford the wretched pittance of 1s. 6d. a-week to 80,000 persons, could afford any real relief in a country where, according to Mr Nicholl's report, there were, for more than half of every year, 585,000 heads of families and 2,300,000 persons dependent on them, in a state of utter destitution. Inadequate as the measure was, however, it was a mighty step in advance in Ireland, because it laid the foundations, at least, of a more extended system, and established a set of functionaries throughout the country in connection with Government, to whom the wants of its inhabitants would become known, and their necessities communicated to the proper quarter. Great alarm was expressed at the proposed assessment of £312,000 a-year, which only showed the happy ignorance of Ireland of direct taxation at that period; for the rental on which it was to be levied was £13,000,000, so that the rate on an average was only 70; Parl. 21 per cent.1 It was a striking proof how little the real 454, 518. state of Ireland was understood at this period, and how ignorant the statesmen of Great Britain were of the real extent of the social evils under which Ireland laboured,2 xxxvi. 496. that in the course of this debate Lord Howick stated it 1 Ann. Reg. 1837, 69, Deb. xxxvi. 2 Parl. Deb. CHAP. XXXVI. 1837. 60. Irish Desti as an extraordinary and alarming circumstance, that in the last year the emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland of Irish birth were 39,000 ;-fifteen years afterwards they reached 368,000 in one year. The immense importance of the introduction of a poorStatistics of law into Ireland, on however inadequate a scale at first, tution. was soon apparent. Commissioners were appointed to work the act, and they made a report the following year. In a debate which took place in the next session of Parliament on an amended bill, introduced on the same subject, Mr O'Connell, appealing to the report of the PoorLaw Commissioners for the facts he stated, made the following striking observations: "There are in Ireland 585,000 heads of families in a state of actual destitution during the greater part of the year. This will imply between them and their families nearly 3,000,000 persons, for a large portion of whom relief must be provided ; and it cannot be estimated that less than £1,000,000 a-year will be required. It is a singular circumstance that in Ireland there are more agricultural labourers than in Great Britain, there being in the former country 1,131,715, and in the latter only 1,055,982. But in Great Britain there are 32,250,000 acres under cultivation in Ireland only 14,600,000. In the former country the money value of the agricultural produce is £150,000,000 a-year-in the latter, raised by a greater number of labourers, only £36,000,000. Thus, though the quantity of cultivated land in Ireland is within a fraction equal to half that of Great Britain, the value of its produce is less than a fourth. The cause of this dis1838, 109; parity is the want of capital; and yet, in order to attract capital to the cultivation of land, it is proposed to put a heavy additional tax upon it.' 1 Ann. Reg. Parl. Deb. xl. 572. "Another test of the poverty of Ireland is to be found in the finance returns. From these state papers up to January 5, 1837, it appeared that the total gross revenue of Great Britain for the preceding year was £55,085,000, |