It is not, we presume, contemplated that land should be held without payment of any rent, save what the tenant may see fit to give the owner of it, after he has secured from the produce of his farm enough for his own "comfortable and independent subsistence." Neither do we suppose that government will sanction a law, by which the tenant in possession shall remain so in perpetuity, subject to the payment of such surplusage of his profits as he shall find it convenient to bestow upon his landlord: yet those are precisely the doctrines laid down at the tenant-right demonstrations, and any thing granted short of these will be considered as a blinking of the question, and treated as an attempt to delude and deceive the people.
It has been said that the well-conducted tenant has no security of tenure, and consequently that he will not labour, when he is not guaranteed the just remuneration for his toils. Now, it is a curious circumstance, and ought to show the groundlessness of their complaints on this head, that at the great popular demonstrations of Holy Cross, Cashell, Kilmakthomas, or Wexford, not one single case was brought forward where tenants have been deprived of their land, or despoiled of the value of their improvements, so long as they honestly met their engagements. There was abundance of declamation. "The tenant might be turned adrift after improving the condition of his land," but there was not a single fact adduced to show that he had been so treated. We have gone fully into this question, for the purpose of disabusing the minds of the ministry, and of showing them, that if they hope, by the concession of a landlord-and-tenant bill, (founded on the demands of its parliamentary advocates), to effect a change for the better in the conduct and condition of the Irish people, they will find themselves grievously disappointed. Every step which the present government have taken to meet the wishes of the popular party in Ireland, has but led them still deeper into the mire of social disorder. They repealed the Arms Act, and by that most reprehensible proceeding, mainly produced the state of anarchy and confusion which now exists; and within one short year they are themselves compelled to pronounce condemnation on their own imprudence. They most recklessly squandered the public money on useless or mischievous works, sooner than expend it on the improvement of the land, lest by benefiting the Irish proprietor they should displease their patrons, the priests. They created a spirit of insubordination and idleness amongst the people, by giving employment on public works where no return was exacted by their numerous and overpaid staff for the wages which were given, and where multitudes were employed who did not require it, on the nomination of the priests, while many who did were excluded from its benefits; and, to complete the climax of their blunders, they conceded out-door relief, at a time, and under circumstances, which must render such a measure not only a curse to Ireland, but a grievous burden on the other portions of the British empire. It has been declared by the minister that in twenty-two unions the rental twice over would not be sufficient to support the pauper inhabitants; while many of the popular Irish members maintain that there are three times that number of unions placed in similar circumstances, and in which the means of subsistence must come from the Imperial treasury.
But are the Whig ministry sincere in their declarations against Irish crime, and is incompetency their only fault?—alas! we cannot believe it. There are amongst them shrewd and sensible men, who must have perceived that they have been hitherto acting in error, and there can scarcely be one so besotted or ignorant, as not to see that to the policy they have pursued is to be attributed the ruin of the country. But at the same time, they well know that they must obey the dictates of their task-masters the Irish priests, or surrender their power; and they yield themselves bound hand and foot, sooner than abandon office which they have made so many and such shameful sacrifices of principle to obtain. Thirty-seven Irish members are completely in the hands of the priests, and this is a political power which Lord John Russell's cabinet has not the courage or the strength to defy.
While her Majesty's ministers and their supporters draw the most appalling pictures of the state of society in Ireland, and recount horrors which are enough to curdle the blood, they one and all abstain most scrupulously from attributing those evils to the causes which have really produced them—they studiously avoid touching the sore spot. It is admitted that priests denounce men from the altars, and that such persons become immediate victims. "Did you denounce this man from the altar?" asked a coroner the other day of a reverend gentleman who was giving evidence at an inquest. "I did." "And he was murdered immediately after?" "Yes, he was murdered at five o'clock on the same day." Now here is a palpable admission made by a man on his oath. He does not seek to screen himself from the consequences of his act; he seems rather to pride himself on the speedy execution of his decree. Henry the Second exclaimed, "Have I no friends to rid me of such a torment?" and Becket was sacrificed; a Roscommon priest, from the altar of God, and on his holy Sabbath, cries to his infuriated auditors, "This man is worse than Cromwell, yet he lives," and Major Mahon is savagely slaughtered! Is there any notice taken of the conduct of those men by the law-officers of the Crown?—any condemnation pronounced upon it by her Majesty's ministers? Not at all: although the crime of the one is admitted on his oath, and the truth of the accusation against the other is undenied—both, though in the eyes of God and the law equally criminal as the wretch who executed their commands, are "honoured and at large;" and while such things pass before our eyes, we are told, that "to the wonderful and praiseworthy exertions of the Roman Catholic priesthood," we are mainly indebted for not having the country in a worse condition than it really is!
It may be said that government cannot punish priests for such monstrous conduct—"there is no law which will reach the offenders." Be it so; but why is not such a law enacted now, with the full knowledge of the facts which we have stated, and of many equally criminal instances of priestly aggression which must have been reported to them? The ministry introduce measures for the repression of crime, without the slightest allusion to this practice of denunciation, which may be considered as the very source of it. They propose to punish the peasant who commits the assassination, "but they grant entire immunity to the priest who points out the victim and counsels the act." We are told, however, by an authority which seldom errs, (The Times newspaper,) that there is actually in existence a law fully competent to deal with those transgressions. And we are the more inclined to coincide with the opinion given in The Times, when we see, by proceedings lately taken in the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland, that there is on the Statute-Book a law rendering those who conceal a murderer liable to be indicted as accessories after the fact. Now, perhaps, in the whole range of legislation, nothing could be hit upon more likely to stem the torrent of crime than such an enactment; and yet we find that owing either to the ignorance of the law-officers of the Crown, or the connivance of the government, it has been allowed to remain a dead letter, and is only dragged from its hiding-place, when the Viceregal power has been intrusted to a man of more political honesty than his predecessors.
But though Lord Clarendon may enforce the law against the peasant, dare he put that which would punish the priests into operation?—Their influence in the House forbids the supposition.
Mr O'Connell managed the power which he had created with his well-known skill and discretion; but since the sceptre has fallen into the hands of his feeble successor, the real props of agitation have openly assumed the position which they have long, though secretly filled. To them every "ruined rascal" who betakes himself to the "last resource" of patriotism must now address himself. Formerly, the candidate was expected to pay (say £2000) for his seat; now, it may be secured by the utter abandonment of principle, and unbounded submission to the will of the Donors; then, aspirants with some appearance of propriety and decency of conduct were required; now, both qualifications may be dispensed with. The more degraded the man, the more fit he will be considered "to do those acts which the less vile refuse to execute;" he may be a blackleg, a swindler, or an open adulterer, and it will be no bar to his advancement in the eyes of the Roman Catholic bishops, who, while they profess to admire virtue, have no objection, if it secure their purposes, to patronise vice; and who, while they preach peace and good-will, tolerate, if they do not approve, the encourager to murder. In what other country in the world could men have acted as it is admitted those priests have acted, without being reached by the strong arm of the law? of what other Christian church than that which is ruled over by the "bigoted M'Hale," and the "vulgar and vindictive Higgins," would they have been allowed to continue members?
The Irish Roman Catholic priests are said to have unbounded influence over their flocks, and we believe it: yet can a more conclusive evidence of their unworthiness be adduced than the state in which we find the people subjected to their spiritual care, and who are so fatally obedient to their dictates? A dignitary of the church, Archdeacon Laffan, contrasts the pusillanimous conduct of the cowardly Saxon, who bears his sufferings with patience because "he can do nothing like a man," with the gallantry of his true-hearted Tipperary boys, who remove those who inconvenience them by the bullet! Can we then be surprised at the criminal conduct of the unfortunate persons consigned to such teaching? When such men are placed in authority over those who proclaim God's word, can we be astonished to read the account given by the priests' own organ, The Tipperary Vindicator, of the posthumous honours paid by the well-instructed and Christian people of Tipperary to the memory of departed worth? What a testimony do the facts recorded bear, to the zeal and efficacy with which his doctrines have been promulgated and enforced by the meek and christian Laffan!
A few months ago, we read the following description of the proceedings which took place at the funerals of Fogarty, Rice, and Hayes, the executed murderers of the late Mr Clarke. There was no doubt of their guilt, no declaration of their innocence, and no grounds whatever to question the justice of the verdict which condemned them to die. They were not men roused by oppression to execute "the wild justice of revenge." No; they were regular matter-of-fact men of business; hired bravos, ready to perpetrate any murder they were paid for committing, and who had never been injured by the person they deprived of life. In other countries, the carcasses of such wretches would have been shunned; contact with them would have been considered a pollution; and assisting at their obsequies as little better than participation in their crimes: but not so in "virtuous and moral Tipperary," the vineyard consigned to the spiritual labours of the venerable and apostolic Laffan. "The bodies of the unfortunate men," says The Vindicator, "were conveyed in funeral procession to the homes of their respective relatives.... They were laid out and waked as if they had not been strangled by the rope of the hangman. They were surrounded by those who mourned for them with as keen a sympathy, and as tender an affection, as if they had died each on his humble pallet of straw; hundreds flocked around the corpse-houses from all directions; and we shall leave others to conjecture whether the sight was calculated, in the present alleged state of the country, by the advocates of a Coercion Bill, to induce tranquillity, or to rake up the fires of desperation and revenge. They had funerals. The funeral of Fogarty took place on Saturday. It was attended, we understand, by some thousands, who followed his remains to the grave in crowds more numerous, with feelings more interested, than if he had otherwise gone out of the world.... Hayes and Rice were buried on Sunday. There were forty cars, a strong body of equestrians, and a vast crowd of pedestrians accompanying the former. The latter was attended by one of the largest funeral processions remembered for a long time in the district through which the remains were conveyed." What a lesson are we taught by those revelations! "Funeral honours paid to convicted murderers!" and the demoralisation so wide-spread, as to induce the attendance of even the more respectable class of farmers, whose presence was attested by the "forty jaunting cars and the large body of equestrians," who swelled the ranks of the admirers of assassination. Some say that the Irish criminals are few, others, that the mass of the population is tainted with the fatal leprosy: in either case the conduct of government should be to repress crime with a strong hand, and with a celerity which would strike terror into the hearts of the malefactors. The government have to deal with a revolutionary priesthood and a demoralised people, and it is not by such paltry expedients as their present measures, that the one can be checked in their career, or the other awed into submission; and to enact remedial measures while all laws are openly set at defiance, would be but a ridiculous farce. The ministry must be aware, although they have dishonestly concealed the fact, that the same spirit of outrage which is evinced by acts of assassination in the five counties they have alluded to, is prevalent in all the other midland and western counties, and is rapidly extending itself towards the north. Neither are those outrages now perpetrated solely against those who transgress the agrarian code in respect to the management of their estates. Assassination is found a safe, ready, and efficient remedy for every violation of the popular will. Mr Baily was shot, because, as chairman of a board of guardians, he refused indiscriminate out-door relief. Mr Hassard, because he prosecuted a steward for theft; a widow had her brains beaten out because she was about to marry another husband; and a man named Burns was murdered at Belturbet, merely because he thought fit to change his religion. There is a spirit of anarchy abroad, which nothing but strong and decisive measures can arrest, and which nothing short of martial law will enable the executive to cope with.
Our space will not permit us to comment as fully as the importance of the subject would require, on the other remedial measures suggested for the benefit of Ireland by men who argue that, because such would be beneficial in other countries, therefore they must be well adapted for that apparently incomprehensible island. We will merely say that it is an error to suppose that the waste lands of Ireland can be cultivated with success by the state, or with any degree of advantage as regards the location of the superabundant population. The expense of their reclamation would amount to much more than the price at which the very best ground can be purchased; and it would be manifestly absurd to undertake, at the public expense, such an immense and profitless work, while three-fourths of the richest soils in the country are in a state of semi-cultivation; and where, by judicious advances, which are sure to be repaid, an equal amount of employment may be afforded by the landlords without any loss to the state. Neither do we conceive that the location of the peasantry on properties under the control of the government is at all judicious; experience teaches us the reverse. On the estates of the Crown in Roscommon, agrarian outrages in that county had their origin. From mismanagement or other causes which we have not heard explained, the tenants on the Crown lands were permitted to run many years in arrear; and now they refuse to pay any rents whatsoever, on the ludicrous pretence "That Queen Victoria never took out administration to King William the Fourth!" And thus they have been allowed, by their successful resistance to the Crown, to encourage others in a similar course of conduct towards her Majesty's lieges, who are, in their eyes, but the subordinate owners of the soil.