ART. VIII.-Speech of the Earl of Mulgrave on the State of Ireland, in the House of Lords, Monday, 27th of November, 1837. 8vo: London. the Tories understand how materially their chances of regaining power would be damaged were the people of England once possessed with the belief that the experiment, now in course of trial, of governing Ireland upon liberal principles, has thus far been successful, is evident from the untiring energy with which they labour, as well in Parliament as out of it, to produce the opposite impression. The Tories themselves, therefore, teach us the importance of placing the result of the present system of administering Irish affairs clearly and repeatedly before the public; and the advantage which the general interests of the empire must derive from the wide diffusion of such information. There cannot, then, be too much discussion upon every question connected with Ireland; but Parliamentary discussion is, of course, the most desirable, from the superior attention which proceedings in Parliament command, and the opportunities there afforded to the members of the Government to defend their measures; not to speak of the general advantages which, in all oral discussion, accrue to the side of justice, from the prompt exposure which calumny meets with, and the summary punishment inflicted upon absurdity or falsehood. The Tories should, in prudence, reserve their attacks on the Irish administration exclusively for their Journals; for a newspaper fiction, however ludicrous or monstrous, has always a day to live, and is sure, in some quarter or another, to find an open ear. In debate it is another thing; for there, the moment an untruth is hazarded, truth starts up and grapples with it; a preposterous statement is scarcely made, when ridicule pounces upon it, and makes it the public sport. Assertion will not suffice; charges require to be specific, which is often found inconvenient; this species of conflict invariably terminates in the discomfiture and disgrace of the party opposed to truth; and, worse than even the defeat is the quantity of good ammunition wasted; for a falsehood once knocked on the head on the floor of Parliament, requires considerable rest and nursing before it is again fit for duty. The late debate in the House of Lords, provoked by the motion of the Earl of Roden, strikingly illustrates the gross error in Tory tactics to which we allude. That debate has scattered an army of falsehood, which but for so untoward an event, ، might long have passed muster at Tory banquets and in Tory Journals, and has thrown a flood of new light' upon the state of Ireland. We are indebted to it for the statesmanlike production now before us; we are indebted to it also, as having been the means of eliciting the testimonies of such men as the Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Donoughmore to the vigour and efficiency with which the law has been administered by the present Irish Government. When it is recollected that the heaviest charge against this Government has been the impunity, nay, encouragement, which it has been alleged to extend to crime, the importance of these admissions, and the prudence of the step which called them forth, may be estimated. Were we to regard the speech before us as a mere reply to that delivered by Lord Roden, we should not only underrate its value, but misapprehend its object. The truth is, that the speech of Lord Roden called for no reply whatsoever. The details of three or four atrocities, none of them half so good a subject for a melodrama as many which, in the same space of time, were perpetrated in England,-a piece of tea-table chat about an importation of arms from Liverpool, with a pleasant story of a Ribbon conspiracy, filched from an evening newspaper, but shorn of all the merit of the original conception-such were the portentous disclosures which were to blast the character of the Irish administration! Well might Lord Mulgrave demand, when he contrasted the puny whine of his opponents in Parliament with the furious roar with which his Government had been assailed out of doors- Supposing I made no reply at all, and left any thing ' out that can be extracted from his (Lord Roden's) speech to be compared with what has been written and said behind my 'back, need I fear the impression upon the country?' Lord Mulgrave, however, wisely availed himself of the opportunity afforded him to submit to the country this luminous exposition of the tenor of his government-the grounds upon which it appeals to the confidence and affections of the people—and the complete success with which that appeal has been answered. To demonstrate that success, it is enough to exhibit a progressive amelioration. This is all for which the Government takes credit; and in their exertions to effect this amelioration it will be seen that the noble Earl bears cordial testimony to the zeal with which the people have seconded his exertions. 'It is sufficient for us that we see every reason to believe that the improvement is upon the whole progressive. We do not pretend, my Lords, to any magic charm, we make use of no animal magnetism to draw the hearts of a willing and peaceful people to their Sovereign and her Government; we depend, my Lords, entirely upon the natural result of cause and effect; we endeavour to induce a reciprocal feeling of confidence between the governors and the governed; and our influence is founded on the reliance of the people on the administration of Justice, and on the feeling which pervades all the nation, that the English will unite in procuring for Ireland that justice which she has not formerly expe rienced.' We shall proceed to avail ourselves of the full information which this speech affords; and, with the help of the materials thus placed in our hands, present a picture of the condition of Ireland, which at length may be contemplated by the philanthropist and the patriot with strong feelings of satisfaction. Notwithstanding, then, the cry that has dinned our ears, of the anarchy that prevails in Ireland,-of the omnipotence and impunity of crime,—of the total prostration of the law,—we fear not to try the condition of that country in all these respects, by the severest test to which any country can by possibility be submitted. We shall at once compare it with the state of Englandthat favoured land, where habits of obedience to the law are the result and growth of ages of popular government. Is this a fair test, or is it not? Ireland, containing a population plunged in destitution-onefifth of whom subsist upon those alms that charity, well-nigh exhausted, can afford-where the law has been regarded as the instrument of a faction, and not the safeguard of the people. It is such a country, and such a people, urged on to turbulence and crime by all the incentives of poverty acting upon ignorance, that we proceed to compare with a country flowing with plenty, with a people taught by long experience to look up to the law as their benefactor and protector. * Let us compare the amount of crime in Ireland, in 1836, with that in England during the same year. It was the second year of Lord Mulgrave's administration, and was marked throughout * In our last Number a comparison was instituted between the committals and convictions for crime in England and Ireland during the year 1836, which, without some explanation, might lead to an erroneous conclusion as to the state of crime in the two countries. The amount of convictions in Ireland (including all convictions whatsoever, whether had at the assizes, quarter sessions, or summary convictions) was compared with a list of convictions for England, which contained only those which had taken place at the assizes and quarter sessions, and not the summary convictions. Now, when it is remembered that these latter, in the year alluded to, 1836, amounted to 53,270, it is apparent how fallacious any comparison between the two countries, from the mere convictions at the assizes and quarter sessions, must be. by a course of exasperating litigation, to which the clergy of the Established Church (thanks to the rejection of the tithe-bill of 1834 by the House of Lords!) were led to resort, to levy their present unpopular income. We shall exhibit first, the relative amounts of the convictions at the assizes and quarter sessions in both countries, and we find that they appear as follows :— Convictions at the assizes and quarter sessions in Ireland for the year 1836, returned by the clerks of the Crown and peace, Convictions at the assizes and quarter sessions in England and Wales, for the year 1836, 10,581 14,771 Now, when it is remembered that the population of Ireland is to that of England in the proportion of 8 to 14, we perceive an advantage on the side of the latter country. We see one criminal in every 800 in Ireland; in England but one in every 1000; yet this inferiority on the part of Ireland is assuredly not so marked as to justify us in appealing with pride to the tranquillity and orderly habits of the English people, and at the same time to designate Ireland as a country abandoned to lawlessness and crime. But let us extend our views-let us look to another and no less important feature in the state of the two countries. Let us see how a comparison of the summary convictions, had in the same year to which we have alluded, will bear out those whose constant cry it is, that nothing short of Lord Mulgrave's instant recall, and the application of the old Tory remedies--an Arms bill and the bayonet, can hold society in Ireland together. Summary convictions in Ireland in 1836, 8,000 Summary convictions in England and Wales in 1836, * 53,270 Now add the convictions exhibited by these two tables for the two countries severally, and we have then before us the relative amounts of all the convictions for crime of every description whatsoever, from murder down to the pettiest theft, or the most trifling misdemeanour. Total amount of convictions of all kinds in Ireland for 1836, 18,581 Wales for 1836, 68,041 That is, one criminal in England for every 212 persons; in Ire * Taken from the Second Report of the Inspectors of Prisons-Appendix. 2 G VOL. LXVI. NO. CXXXIV. land one criminal for every 450. Now the man who can read this appalling statement, and not tremble every inch of him at the frightful state of Ireland as compared with England, must have nerves of iron and a heart of stone. Far be it from us, however, to conclude from the foregoing tables (however a transitory glance might entitle us to do so), that demoralized habits are not more prevalent in Ireland than in England. We are aware that some of the very circumstances that swell the convictions in England bespeak the superior habits of the people. There is in England a prompt appeal to the legal tribunals, a confidence in a magistracy popular as compared with that in Ireland, and a general facility of obtaining magisterial interference ;these are features universally conspicuous in England, which but lately have begun to appear in the aspect of society in Ireland. Moreover, there are laws in force in England and Wales under which many of these convictions have been had,-such as game laws, bastardy laws, and vagrant acts,-that do not apply to the other country nevertheless, making allowance for all this, we conceive that man wholly unworthy of a seat in a legislative assembly who, duly considering the comparative statements of crime we have exhibited, can summon up hardihood enough to declare, with a pious Viscount, that' Ireland is in a worse state ' at present than in 1798.' Let us now see whether in those violent and sanguinary crimes, for which Ireland has hitherto obtained an infamous notoriety, we find any foundation for those tales of horror which have made the flesh of ancient dowagers creep, and opened their pursestrings to the call of Mr Spottiswoode. It is in respect to this class of crime that Ireland, as compared with England, has exhibited a demoralization so melancholy. It is here that the serocious dispositions, engendered by governments whose engines of redress and instruments of amelioration were the cat-o-ninetails and the bayonet, show themselves. It is here that the effects of a wise, humane, and popular government must be looked for. Crimes of a less heinous nature, such as larcenies and the like, will prevail under all governments, while men are men, and are often as much a symptom of national prosperity as of popular depravity. What find we then under this head? that insubordination has increased? that the popular dispositions are waxing more ferocious? that 1798 was a golden age compared with the present period? Let the following table answer. Table of offences reported by the constabulary during the first nine months of the years from 1832 to 1837 inclusive. The offences enumerated in these returns are homicide, firing at the person, cutting and maiming, assaults, abductions, rapes and attempts to ravish, levelling, burglary, |