SUPPRESSION OF THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION.
The first thing to be done was the vindication of the laws: laws which had been long trampled beneath the feet of the Catholic agitators. In pursuance of the recommendation in the royal speech to suppress the Catholic Association, on the 10th of February Mr. Peel asked leave to bring in a bill for that purpose. The general outline of the measure which he proposed was briefly this. It was his intention, he said, to commit the enforcement of the law to one person only; and to intrust to him, who was fully cognizant of the state of affairs in Ireland, and who was also responsible for the tranquillity of that country, the new powers with which the house were now asked to invest the executive government. He proposed to give the lord-lieutenant, and to him alone, the power of suppressing any association or meeting which he might deem dangerous to the public peace, or inconsistent with the due administration of the law; together with power to interdict the assembling of any meeting, of which previous notice should have been given, and which he should think likely to endanger the public peace, or to prove inconsistent with the due administration of the law. In case it should be necessary to enforce the provisions of the law by which these powers would be conferred, it was proposed, by Mr. Peel, that the lord-lieutenant should be further empowered to select two magistrates for the purpose of suppressing the meeting, and requiring the people immediately to disperse. Finally, it was proposed to prohibit any meeting or association which might be interdicted from assembling, or which might be suppressed under this act from receiving and placing at their control any monies by the name of “rent,” or by any other name. In conclusion Mr. Peel said, that he was of opinion the act should, like that of 1825, which had been intended to suppress the Catholic and other associations, be limited; and he proposed to limit it to one year, and the end of the then next session of parliament. The bill passed both houses without opposition; for although its provisions were somewhat arbitrary in their nature, the friends of the Catholics voted for it as part of a system which was to result in Catholic emancipation. The associators, however, rendered the act unnecessary; for before it was completed, their dissolution was announced. They had gained their point, and for the present they were satisfied; they had demanded emancipation, unqualified emancipation, and nothing else; and when this was promised, when government submitted to their imperious demands, they put up the sword of defiance into its scabbard. The government boasted that they had suppressed the Association. But such a boast, as it has been justly observed, was as if a man should boast of his victory over a highwayman to whom he exclaims, when the pistol is at his breast, “Down with your pistol, Sir, and you shall have my purse and my watch:” the robber would have the best of it, and so had the Association.