“Mr. Crawford anticipates, as the probable result of refusing self government to Ireland, the growth of secret societies, the influence of agitation, and the necessity of resorting to force in the government of the country. He touches upon the question of private bill legislation, of a reform of the grand jury system, of county government. He points out that the creation of county councils, without having a central body to control them, is not desirable. And he suggests the creation of a local legislature for Irish affairs, combined with representation in the Imperial Parliament, as the true method of preserving the Union, as the surest bond of the connection between the two countries, and as essentially necessary to tranquillity in Ireland.
“He refers, among other measures, to the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and the reform of the relations between landlord and tenant, as being pressing.
“The arguments against his views are met and answered. One would think he had read some of the speeches lately delivered, so apt is his reply.
“It is curious to note the length of time Ireland has had to wait for the reforms he thought urgent, and it is sad to reflect how much suffering has been endured and how much blood has been shed because the men of his time would not listen to his words.”
Should my surmise be correct, and I have never doubted for forty years that it is so, great results have flowed from the inhuman treatment of a child. Had little Brontë been left in the luxury of his father’s home, it is not likely he would ever have been shaken up to original and independent thought; but the iron of cruel wrong had entered into his soul, and he felt that all was not well. He owed no gratitude to the existing order of things, and had no compunction in denouncing it; and having thought out and formulated a new theory, he proclaimed it with the strong conviction of an apostle who sees salvation in his gospel alone.
The daring character of Hugh Brontë’s speculations in their paradoxical form, combined with the fierce energy of his manner in making them known, secured for him an audience and an amount of consideration to which, as an uneducated working man, he could have had no claim. Indeed, Hugh Brontë’s revolutionary doctrines were known far beyond his own immediate neighborhood, and while many said he was mad, some declared that he only saw a little clearer than his contemporaries.