ASSEMBLING OF A NEW PARLIAMENT.
In consequence of the public distress in Great Britain, the famine in Ireland, and the disturbed state of that country, it became necessary for parliament to assemble sooner than had been customary. Accordingly, on the 18th of November, the first session of the new parliament began; Mr. Shaw Lefevre was re-elected speaker. On the 23rd, the Marquis of Lansdowne was commissioned to read her majesty’s speech. That document referred with hope to the state of commercial matters in Great Britain, and with gratitude to Providence for a bountiful harvest. Her majesty expressed her sympathy for Irish suffering, and her abhorrence of Irish crime. She expressed her pleasure at the alacrity showed by all classes to relieve the destitute in Ireland; and recommended her parliament to take measures for repressing outrage, and preserving the public peace in that country. She expressed her regret that civil war had broken out in Switzerland, and her readiness to use her influence to heal those distractions. The speech announced a treaty with the republic of the equator for the suppression of the slave-trade, and avowed confidence in maintaining the general peace of Europe. The navigation laws, the health of the metropolis, and the revenue, were also subjects to which she called the attention of her parliament.
In the debate upon the address, in the lords, Lord Stanley was unreasonable and virulent; Lord Brougham, always in opposition to somebody, refuted the conservative leader. He “praised the government for calling parliament together so soon; justified the interference with the bank charter, recorded on another page; declared that Ireland stood in a shameful and hateful pre-eminence of crime, and trusted that effectual measures would be taken to disarm the people, and protect life and property.”
The debate on the address, in the commons, was chiefly remarkable for the boldness and extent of Mr. John O’Connell’s demands upon the Treasury for the relief of Ireland. Sir Benjamin Hall made some very foolish replies to Mr. O’Connell, and added to the bitterness of the debate. Mr. Maurice O’Connell made the startling declaration that not more than one-fifth of the sum voted for Ireland had ever reached that country.
A Roman Catholic archdeacon, named Laffan, at a public meeting in Cashel, had made a very inflammatory speech, which had excited the indignation of the public, and was the subject of animadversion in parliament. Mr. Mahon, an Irish member, was chairman of that meeting, and the mode in which he palliated the atrocious speech of the archdeacon caused murmurs of disapprobation in the house. Ireland appeared to great disadvantage in this debate, and the tone of English members was not so generous as it ought to have been. The dreadful crimes perpetrated in Ireland had produced a state of feeling in England which was almost resentful, notwithstanding the compassion entertained for the sufferings of the Irish poor. There could be no doubt, as Mr. Stafford O’Brien reminded the house, that some of the best of landlords had been assassinated. There appeared to be a relentless thirst for blood among the Irish peasantry, prompted by fanaticism, famine, and despair, which was calculated to destroy the sympathy of the representatives of Great Britain.
The address in the commons was ultimately agreed to after a most acrimonious debate, protracted by the Irish members and their opponents far beyond the limits usual on such occasions.