It is unnecessary to remind our readers, that on more than one occasion we pointed out to the late so-called Conservative administration the dangers to which they were exposing the country, and the misfortunes which were sure to arise from the fatal policy which they had adopted for the government of Ireland. We told them on those occasions, that the lax manner in which the laws were administered, and the indecisive conduct of the Executive, would lead to the state of things which we then foresaw, and which all parties now deplore. We warned them, that tampering with the incipient evil, instead of boldly striking at its root, would advance its growth instead of diminishing its power; and that the welfare of all classes imperatively demanded at their hands the repression not only of crime itself, but of those causes to which the origin of crime was clearly traceable. Unhappily our advice was unheeded. The Peel government persevered in the same course which its Whig predecessors had pursued, augmented the obstacles which impeded the due administration of the laws, and retarded the pacification of the country by the culpable lenity which marked their proceedings against those who perpetrated crime, as well as towards those, still more criminal, who countenanced and abetted its commission.

The law which empowered the Crown to challenge improper jurors, rendered a dead letter by the Whigs in order to conciliate Mr O'Connell, was allowed so to remain by the Tories; and thus accomplices of the criminals in the dock became arbiters of their associates' fate in the jury-box; and it is unnecessary to say how much the impunity procured by this means tended to increase the audacity of the violators of the law, and to deter the mass of the people from having recourse to the tribunals of the country for justice and protection.

An association openly aiming at the dismemberment of the empire was not only allowed to pursue its seditious course in peace, but its leader was flattered and courted in the senate, until, imboldened by the subserviency of his opponents, and pressed on by the impatience of his followers, he assumed such a menacing position, as compelled the interference of the constituted authorities. He was condemned, imprisoned, released, and permitted again to talk his treason and boast his triumph to an ignorant and excitable people, who witnessed his success without being able to appreciate the causes to which it was attributable. While the feelings of the people were being acted upon by the orators of Conciliation Hall, the English press accomplished the triumph of agrarian outrage by the course which, with few exceptions, was adopted by the leading organs of public opinion. The unfounded statements of the demagogues, both lay and clerical, were adopted with avidity, and commented on with surpassing ability. In every instance the falsehood of those premeditated lies was subsequently established, but that did not prevent the adoption of every future tale, even though emanating from the same polluted source. The strictures based on those untruths were assiduously copied into the Irish papers; and, palliating as they did the crimes of the peasantry, by the ridicule, contempt, and detestation which they excited against the owners of the land, they tended not only to provoke and encourage the peasantry to resistance of the law, but the effect produced by their simulated horrors on the public mind tied up the hands of the Executive, and rendered the acquiescence of Parliament, in such measures as might be necessary for the preservation of the public peace, a thing scarcely to be expected or hoped for, even had the administration the good sense or the manliness to determine on demanding them. The writers in the English press denounced the landlords, under all circumstances, and for all manner of causes. If one of them dispossessed some of his tenantry who held portions of the soil too small to afford them support, even though given for nothing, in order that the holdings of the others should be enlarged to such a size as would enable them to live in comfort, he was denounced as an exterminator, even though he largely remunerated, and then at his own expense sent the dispossessed to countries where land was abundant and labour remunerative, and to which the most affluent of their neighbours were every day voluntarily emigrating. If, deterred by the abuse of the press and the denunciations of the priest, he allowed them to continue in the same state of misery and destitution in which he found them, he was represented as heedless and unfeeling, and the poverty of his tenantry (which, though willing, he dared not remedy) was made an article of dittay against him. If he endeavoured to enforce his rents, he was a tyrant. If he allowed them (as did Mr Ormsby Gore,) from mistaken compassion, to run ten and twelve years in arrear, he was pronounced to be "culpably negligent." In fact, no matter what he did, he was wrong; and in their desire to convict the Irish proprietors, the press acted on the principle of the Cork juror—"If he did not murder the man, my Lord, he stole my gray mare."

To the many internal causes which tended to aggravate the evils of Ireland, another, and one arising from circumstances of an extraneous nature, was added. The British minister determined to abolish the corn laws—to shelter himself against the attacks of his betrayed followers, and to enlist public sympathy in his support. He fabricated an Irish famine a year before that scourge actually visited the land; and, to prove the sincerity of his convictions and the truth of his statements, he had recourse to the establishment of food depots at the public expense, and to the system of public works, which effectually demoralised the bulk of the population; and the pernicious consequences of these measures, although now fully admitted, are yet far from having arrived at that portentous magnitude which they are daily threatening to assume.

While those continued and unremitting attacks of the English press led the peasantry to look with distrust and hatred on the class above them, the system of gratuitous relief and remuneration without labour, which Sir Robert Peel was forced to adopt, in order to evince his own conviction as to the truth of his statements in the House of Commons, told with fearful effect on the morals of the people; for if it was no crime to destroy a tyrant, so it was considered no disgrace to beg instead of to earn; and men who a few months before would have blushed at the thoughts of receiving public relief, were seen daily seeking for their rations, although they had cows, horses, and sheep, and in many instances profitable employment, which they abandoned to obtain gratuitous support. With a feeble and apathetic government, and with a powerful and talented press advocating their cause, influencing public opinion in their favour, and attributing with success to the misconduct of others the misery and destitution fairly assignable to their own indolence and dishonesty, it is not much to be wondered at, that the Irish peasantry should have become still more reckless and inattentive than they were before. When the principal protection which the law provided for the due administration of justice was withdrawn, it is not surprising that they should have become still more turbulent and criminal; and with the fierce denunciations of the lay and clerical demagogues ringing in the ears of an excitable and ignorant people, we cannot marvel at the scenes of horror and the deeds of death now enacting in their degraded country. And yet even the appalling catalogue laid before Parliament, gives but a faint idea of the fearful state of society in Ireland. It is but a list of the "faits accomplis;" and cannot depict the condition of those unhappy men who "live in death," who know their doom has been sealed, whose execution is openly spoken of as a thing certain to occur, who have no protection but God's mercy to rely on, and who are so circumstanced, in many instances, as not to have the means of fleeing from a country which has become the charnel-house of their class. And who can paint the feelings of the wives and families of those unfortunates? We ourselves know instances of their sufferings which would harrow the soul of any person possessed of the smallest portion of humanity.

But the other day, the wife of a clergyman, as amiable and charitable a man as lives, drove into a neighbouring town, and in the shop of a tradesman heard an expression of regret that certain gentlemen in the neighbourhood were so soon to be murdered, and amongst others, her own husband, whose charities and attention to the poor she vainly hoped would have secured his safety. Hurrying home, she found he had gone to attend one of his congregation, to whose sick bed he had been summoned. Distracted by her apprehensions, she went to an adjacent police station, and sent two of the men in the direction her husband had taken. He returned alive—her precaution had saved him,—but when she learned from his lips that the call was but a snare to bring him within reach of his assassins, the shock overpowered a weak constitution; she fell in a fit, and died entreating with her last breath mercy for the father of her children from the assassins, by whom in her delirium she fancied him to be surrounded. She left a large and helpless family, whose only protection is a broken-hearted and a doomed man; and yet there are to be found in the Senate those who protect the system to which this amiable woman has fallen a victim, by refusing to support even the paltry measure introduced by the government for its suppression.

We had hoped, when parliament was summoned at an unusual season to deliberate upon the state of Ireland, and when the condition of that country was so strongly alluded to in the speech from the throne, that effectual measures would have been resorted to for the suppression of crime, and for the protection of the lives and properties of the well-disposed portion of the Irish people. We did hope that the clear-sightedness and decision of Lord Clarendon had prevailed; that at last a man was found capable of threading his way through the maze of Irish difficulties, and of enforcing his views on the apathetic feelings of her Majesty's advisers. But we have been disappointed, and either the present lord lieutenant is not so competent for the performance of the arduous duties attached to his office as we had supposed, or his exertions are paralysed and his counsels are rejected by the imbecile administration to whose control he is subject.

The condition of Ireland is admitted by all parties to be such as no civilised country ever before presented; and what are the remedies propounded for its amelioration? Simply this, that two hundred additional police should be employed—that the carrying of arms, or their possession by a certain class of persons, in certain districts where crime has previously prevailed, should be a misdemeanour, and that the expenses of the proceedings to enforce those enactments should be levied on the inhabitants of the disturbed districts. But Sir George Grey, while he read his list of horrors, was most cautious lest he should offend the feelings of (what the member for Cork termed) "the most endearing and religious people on the face of the earth," by implicating more than four or five counties in the conspiracy which he denounced; and too tenacious of the constitutional privileges of the Irish assassins to propose their general disarmament, or the violation of the sanctity of their homes by the efficient remedy of nocturnal domiciliary visits. No: those visits are only to be paid by day, when the parties suspected of the violation of the law may have full notice of the approach of the constabulary, and, as a consequence, full time to remove the arms of which they may be possessed; and they are only to be made in search of arms, and not at all as a means of deterring "the endearing" people from leaving their homes at night, to perpetrate the murders which they now accomplish by day. Another clause is added, on the efficacy of which Sir George Grey seems to place great reliance, but which is of so ludicrous a nature that we scarcely know how to notice it seriously. "The justices and constables shall have the power to call on all persons between the ages of sixteen and sixty, residing or living in the district, to assist in the search for and pursuit of the persons charged with the commission of crime; and thus," triumphantly exclaims the Home Minister, "it will be the duty of every person to join in such pursuit, and do his utmost to assist in discovering and apprehending the offender; and any person refusing to assist in such pursuit and search, would be guilty of a misdemeanour, and would be liable to be imprisoned with or without hard labour for any term not exceeding two years." There is an old adage that "one man may take a horse to the water, but twenty can't make him drink;" and so it will be found in reference to the operation of this most sapient enactment. The justice or the constable may call out the lieges, but can they induce or compel them to guide them to the haunt of the murderer? "Not a bit of it;"—they will join most willingly in the pursuit, but it will certainly be to mislead the pursuers; and, as the police force is generally found sufficient to vindicate the law, if they can only arrive when the crime is being perpetrated, they will not summon any assistance except in those cases where the outrage has been committed previous to their arrival; and in such instances, the culprits will have had full time to escape, and the witnesses of the deed, ample opportunities of arranging their plans for his protection. We assure Sir George he will find that this clause, all-powerful as he hopes its operation to prove for the repression of crime, will remain a dead-letter on the statute-book; for no magistrate, who is acquainted with the feelings of the people, would be so silly as to expect efficient support or correct information from them; and no officer who understood his duty, would hamper himself with a mob of assistants, whose undoubted object it would be to deceive and thwart him in its discharge. A story is told, that, during Lord Anglesey's administration, when Whiteboy offences were prevalent in the South of Ireland, a Cabinet Council was summoned, at which the then Chancellor, (Sir Anthony Hart,) having been called upon to give his opinion as to the best remedy to be adopted for their repression, at once, with the feelings of an Englishman, declared,—"that he would order the sheriff to call out the 'posse comitatÛs.'" "By my sowl," interposed Chief Baron O'Grady, in his broad Munster brogue, "my Lord Chancellor, that's just what we want to avoid!—'the posse's' out already: may be you could give us some method of getting them to stay at home." And so it will be with "the posse" of Sir George Grey, if ever called out; they will prove an encumbrance instead of an assistance to the officers of justice. But what a lamentable state of ignorance as to the state of Ireland does the proposal of those most absurd remedies indicate, on the part of our present rulers! Every one at all acquainted with the country, knows that the assassin is never selected from the inhabitants of the immediate neighbourhood where the crime is to be committed; and yet, by this enactment, only the persons resident in such districts are to be disarmed, or deprived of the right of openly carrying arms. And thus, by residing beyond or by stepping over the ditch which bounds the proscribed locality, the murderer may assert his right of bearing arms, and defy the police to deprive him of his gun; or, by altering his position so as to avoid the forbidden ground, he may coolly wait the advent of his victim without the slightest danger of molestation. "On the very day that Major Mahon was murdered," continues Sir George Grey, "two persons were seen lurking about, who it was strongly suspected were the murderers. There was, indeed, no moral doubt that they were the persons by whom the fatal act was committed. Now, if the police had been armed with the powers which were sought for by this bill, those persons might have been arrested; the fatal weapons would have been taken from them, and they would have been amenable to the law for a misdemeanour, in carrying arms contrary to the provisions of this act, or for having arms concealed for the purpose of carrying them to effect a murderous object." Now we deny the Right Honourable Baronet's conclusions. This enactment could not have prevented the assassination of Major Mahon, for his murderers had only to choose a locality where it would not be in operation. Neither will it at all affect the commission of other meditated murders; for there is now organised (and we give the information to her Majesty's government, if they are not already in possession of it,) a new society,[55] who have regular hired assassins in their pay, for the purpose of pursuing, wherever they may be found, the denounced persons who have fled the country and escaped their vengeance. This may appear incredible; but it is well known and openly spoken of in the disturbed districts. One of those bravos, the other day, in Dublin, entered the office of a marked man, who is agent to an English gentleman, a large proprietor in a western county; he inquired for the person of whom he was in search, but who was fortunately absent. Suspicion having been excited by his contradictory replies to questions which were put to him touching his business, and from the well known fact that the gentleman he desired to see was denounced, he was given into custody, and on his person was found a case of loaded pistols. Now, there can be no doubt that this man meditated murder; yet he walked off with his arms, and we should be glad to learn how this enactment, even though it were on the statute book, could have interfered with his proceedings. Galway, from whence he came, might be proclaimed, but it is not possible that Dublin, where he purposed to commit the deed, should ever come under its operation. We admit that a general and stringent Arms act would have afforded, both in this and Major Mahon's case, probable protection, and possibly might have saved many other victims from a premature and bloody death. And whose fault is it that such is not in existence? Whose but that of the administration of which the Home Secretary is an influential member? To overthrow a hostile government, and obtain the reins of power for themselves, they sacrificed the peace of Ireland and the lives of multitudes of most estimable persons; and now they unblushingly come to parliament to ask the enactment of a measure which they must well know will prove but a mockery and a delusion, as a substitute for the efficient law which their factious opposition blotted from the statute book. Have those men hearts to feel or consciences to be smitten?—if so, what must their sufferings be at the record of each successive murder, which adds another victim to those already sacrificed by their fatal and unprincipled policy.

While those provisions of the proposed law, to which we have already alluded, are utterly inefficient and valueless for the repression of crime, there is another clause in the bill which inflicts a positive and unmerited injustice. The proclaimed district is to pay the expense of the additional police force, necessary for its pacification. Now, the gentry and large farmers, who are the victims of the system sought to be repressed, and not its supporters, will be the persons upon whom this heavy charge must principally fall. The guilty have little or no land, and, consequently, will be exempt from the increased taxation; and thus the pockets of the peaceable and well-disposed will be picked, although their persons may not be protected. We do not understand why government, which is bound to protect the lives and properties of its subjects, should mulct those whose safety is their peculiar charge, because additional expense is rendered necessary to root out crime, generated and fostered by its own incompetency or neglect. But this is an administration of political economists, and the loyal and peaceable portion of the Irish nation need not expect ordinary security without the payment of an extraordinary price for it, upon the same principle that the struggling English trader could only obtain monetary assistance, at a rate of interest too usurious to leave the aid useful.

No wonder that Mr John O'Connell should express his "agreeable disappointment at the measures proposed," when, in common with the generality of the public, he expected that the melancholy state of things would have compelled even the Whigs to originate something more stringent and effective. Nor need we be surprised, that his gratitude overcame his discretion. This was but natural, even though it exposed him to the lash of his more circumspect rival. We have waded through the entire debates on the state of Ireland, from the schoolboy puerilities of Mr Adair, to the cold-blooded per centages of Sir George Grey, and we have discovered nothing which would lead us to anticipate the adoption of such measures, or of such a system of government, as would ensure the pacification, and, as a consequence, the prosperity of that unhappy country. Enough there is of the cuckoo cries of "developing resources," "introducing capital," "creating domestic manufactures," &c. &c.; but we would ask those holiday declaimers how resources are to be developed, or capital introduced, or manufactures fostered, in a country where property has no rights, and where life has no protection?

Whoever ventures to propose for the government of Ireland a system, stringent and effective enough to secure the enjoyment of the fruits of industry, and the preservation of life, is at once met with the cry of, "you have tried coercion long enough, and it has failed—try a conciliatory policy now, and you must surely succeed." But the truth is, that although both systems have been tried, neither have been judiciously applied; and it is to the shuffling and changing of successive administrations, that all the evils which now curse the land are mainly attributable. "You tried coercion for centuries," the Irish patriot will exclaim, "and what are you the better for it?"

It is true, that in former days, the Irish peasant was ground to the dust, and trampled on, when he was faithful, trustworthy, honest, and submissive. It is true the Popish priest was persecuted, and a price set upon his head when he was intelligent, educated, loyal, and pious. But it is equally true, that when the Roman Catholic layman was placed upon a full equality with his Protestant fellow countryman, and the Roman Catholic priest was recognised by the law, and protected in the discharge of his duties, another and an equally mischievous course of policy was adopted towards both. A sort of political saturnalia was allowed the emancipated slaves, and they were taught to riot in the enjoyment of newly acquired liberty. They were misled and corrupted by cunning and designing demagogues, while the government, which should have enforced submission to the laws when they had removed all just causes of complaint, remained passive, until the minds of the people were poisoned by false representations. Then first was yielded to political combination as a matter of expediency, that which, if conceded at all, should only have been granted as a matter of right. And when, by intimidation and violence, the representation of the country was vested in the heads of agitation, it became an object of the last importance to each of the political parties who rule the country to procure the popular support; and, to accomplish this, no sacrifice of principle was considered too great, and no concessions to democratic principles too exorbitant. The Whigs, after they had coerced with success, were obliged to abandon their protective policy, because they were denounced as "base, brutal, and bloody;" and then, adopting the other tack, they boldly launched their bark on the sea of conciliation. The lowest, and least intelligent class of men, and those who, from their callings and station in life, were most exposed to intimidation, were placed indiscriminately on the criminal jury lists. The right which the Crown enjoys of challenging improper jurors, was forbidden to be exercised, and, to consummate the glorious triumph of liberality, "the beloved Normanby" commenced his tour of grace, and, in the plenitude of his mercy, liberated those malefactors who had been consigned to the restraint of the gaols by the vindicated laws of their country. The Peel government followed in the same course as to the administration of the law, established the poor-houses, issued the land commission, and suggested the principle of tenant-right. They permitted the most unbounded liberty of speech and of action; they allowed hundreds of thousands of men to unite in military array, for the purpose of dismembering the empire; they endowed Maynooth, founded the godless colleges, and recognised the temporal rank of the Roman Catholic prelates, by placing them in royal commissions above the heads of temporal peers. They complimented O'Connell on his patriotism, after they had been compelled by his boastful menaces to prosecute him for sedition, and connived at his escape when they had procured his conviction. And after those conciliating measures, may we not ask, what has conciliation accomplished? The answer is obvious: its result is to be read in the list of crimes which have annihilated all law in Ireland—it is to be heard in the wailings and lamentations of those who have been made widows and orphans by the system of assassination which it has generated and protected.

But if we find that neither unreasonable persecution on the one hand, nor unjustifiable concessions on the other, have been productive of good, is that a reason why we should not now have recourse to temporary measures which are indispensable to secure the action of the law, and the lives of the Queen's Irish subjects? What is coercion, after all, but an extraordinary means to enforce the law, and to support the constitution, when the ordinary means have failed? In England, the law is respected and obeyed, and the people have sense and discrimination enough to perceive that their own welfare and safety are identified with its maintenance. But in Ireland, the case is widely different; we think it was Swift who said, "that what was considered morally wrong in other countries was considered morally right in Ireland,"—and if the Celt be not enlightened enough to appreciate, he must be taught to respect, the blessings which the British constitution confers upon him.

The utter inefficacy of the measures for which the Whig administration now seek the sanction of Parliament is not all that we have to deplore. On reading the debate, there will be found in the tone of the ministerial speeches, in their promises, and still more in their omissions, much to be lamented. Instead of boldly insisting on the vindication of the law as the primary object to be accomplished, they, to use Sir Robert Peel's expression, "hold parley with the assassins;" and instead of denouncing with firmness, they palliate, as far as decency will permit, the conduct of the Irish conspirators, and studiously avoid all allusion to the transgressions of the priests. Crime they say, must be repressed, but "a sop is thrown to Cerberus" at the same time, and an additional stimulus is given to agitation by the announcement, that a landlord-and-tenant bill is under the consideration of the government. Now we tell her Majesty's ministers that they never laboured under a greater delusion, than to suppose that any measure which they or any other administration can venture to propose to Parliament, on this subject, will be sufficient to meet the views or satisfy the wishes of the Irish peasantry; and furthermore, that even although they did apparently succeed in accomplishing this object, by other means than a transfer of the property of the land from the present proprietors to their tenantry, they would be just as far as ever from effecting the pacification of Ireland. The visionary and prosy Mr Scrope, or the egotistical Mr Crawford, may occupy themselves in talking and attempting legislation on a subject which the one does not understand, and the other is incapable of explaining; but any man of common sense who comprehends and considers the question, must at once perceive that great danger must attend on any attempt to legislate for the exercise of private rights, and that in this instance it would be an utter impossibility to satisfy the wishes of one party without absolutely sacrificing the just rights of the other. And, after all, what is this mysterious measure of "tenant-right," which like the wand of Aladdin is at once to restore peace and establish order, and to which the prosperity and happiness of the Protestant north is so often and so erroneously attributed? If it be what the advocates for its universal adoption represent it,—namely, "The right of the occupying tenant to dispose of the interest derivable from the improvement of his farm, should he fall into arrear or wish to emigrate, and the possession of what remains of the purchase-money after paying all rent due, as a recompense for his labour, skill, and expenditure,"—we at once answer that nothing can be more reasonable, unexceptionable, or just; but is any man so silly as to suppose that such a measure, if carried, would satisfy the desires of the Munster peasant? As Mr O'Connell used to say, he would cry "Thank you for nothing,"—he is much better off at present than he could be under any such arrangement; he in reality not only makes the want of tenant-right an excuse for his indolence and dishonesty, but he uses it as a cloak for his meditated spoliation.

Mr Griffith, the government valuator, stated in his examination before Lord Devon's commission, that his valuation was based upon the market price of certain articles of agricultural produce, which, at the time he commenced his proceedings, were ten per cent higher in value than they were at the time when the act which authorised his valuation was passed; and that, consequently, being restricted to the respective values attached to each article in the schedule of that act, his valuation was in the first instance ten per cent under what it would have been had he not laboured under such a restriction. He further says, that while in the north the rent actually paid amounted in most instances to from thirty to fifty per cent above his valuation, in the western counties it was not much if at all more than the value he had put upon the land; and yet, he adds, the peasantry in the north, paying those high rents, were industrious, prosperous, and happy, while those in the west, who held better land on so much more reasonable terms, were steeped in misery and crime. It is then manifestly unjust to attribute the poverty of Connaught to the exorbitance of the rents, or the prosperity of Ulster to the moderate price exacted for the land. But then the northern tenant is secured remuneration for his toils if he wish to dispose of his tenant-right:—admitted,—but the southern and western tenant has still the advantage, for he sells or is compensated where he has never made any improvements at all. There is no absolute law to protect the right of the tenant in either case: but whereas custom, a due regard to justice, and we may also add, to his own interests, induce the northern landlord to consent to a sale which will secure not only his rent, but a thriving instead of a failing tenant,—intimidation and violence compel the southern landlord not only to forgive all rent due by a defaulting tenant, (and that in most cases amounting to three or four years) but also, after he has been put to heavy legal expenses, to compensate him for leaving his house a wreck and his land a wilderness. Under such circumstances, can it be supposed for a moment that any landlord would refuse a tenant the right to sell, thereby avoiding the loss of his arrears; or that he would prefer to evict at a heavy legal expense, and then in the end remunerate, in order that he might conciliate the outgoing tenant, and thus escape being shot?

Tenant-right is as really, though not so ostensibly, enjoyed in the south as in the north; and if we hear of sales of tenant-right in the one and not in the other locality, the difference arises from the fact that the northern tenant having improved his land, advertises his interest in it and sells, while the southern tenant having deteriorated, instead of having improved his farm, compensates himself for "his right of possession" by mulcting his landlord, and levying a species of black mail under the name of "good-will" money from his successors. Is any man weak enough to suppose that, if the southern tenant was secured by law a right to sell that which his indolent and lawless habits will not permit him to make, (improvements on his farm) such a contingent right would in any wise reconcile him to his condition, or render him more obedient to the law? Before the emancipation act passed, it was said by the leaders of the people, "Grant us this, and you secure peace and tranquillity to the land;" and the same has been said with regard to every other concession which they exacted. Peace was to follow the abolition of the tithes, the enactment of the Reform Bill, and the recognition of the right of the destitute to obtain support from the land: but what has been the consequence? Each successive triumph of the Popular Party has but imboldened their pretensions, and confirmed them in the doctrine which they have been assiduously taught—that "to succeed they have only to combine:"—and so it will be with tenant-right; give them what their advocates profess to ask for, and you will have them clamorous for more. This tenant question has been adopted as a sort of safety-valve to secure an escape for the leaders of repeal, now that the delusion on that question can no longer be upheld; and its agitation is prosecuted with vigour by the priests, because, by means of it, they hope not only to strike down their hated rivals, the landlords, but to secure the overthrow of all those legal rights by which the possession of property is guaranteed.

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.

The difficulty of dealing with the subject of emigration, when the task is undertaken by men who are not practically acquainted with the state of Ireland, and the feelings and habits of the Irish people, is made manifest by the speeches delivered on the scheme in parliament. Mr Hawes, when the question was brought forward last session, refused to sanction any government system, on the grounds that voluntary emigration was proceeding at too rapid a rate already; and that it would be much better to keep the people at home. Now, while we advocate a measure which would remove a certain portion of the population, who can have no permanent occupation afforded them on account of the numbers congregated in particular localities, and who consequently must become a charge upon the resources of the country, we quite agree with the under-secretary of the colonies, that nothing can be more lamentable or more ruinous to the prosperity of Ireland than the removal of those persons who emigrate at their own expense. But, paradoxical as it may appear to the honourable gentleman, the system which we consider absolutely necessary, would act as a most effectual check to the abandonment of their country by the industrious and comparatively wealthy, which he so justly laments. Those industrious and well-conducted men ought to be the "thews and sinews" of the land; but they are driven from their homes by the insecurity of life and property in their wretched country. They cannot extend their operations in proportion as they acquire wealth. They dare not venture to enlarge the size of their farms, although they see the land uncultivated and lying waste around them. Death is the penalty they are certain to pay, if they take the ground from which others have been removed, no matter what may have been the cause of their expulsion. They therefore realise their property, and carry their capital and their industry to other countries, where they can freely use the one, and fearlessly enjoy the fruits of the other; while the idle and profligate ruffian who is the means of driving them from the land of their birth, revels in his crimes with impunity, and derives a legal support from the community which he oppresses—he either cannot, or he will not emigrate. Now, it is clear, that if a system were adopted by which men who become a charge on the public should have the option of leaving the country at the public expense—of course we mean exclusively at the expense of Ireland—and that at the same time the laws were so vigorously administered, as to prevent the possibility of their earning a livelihood by the commission of crime at home; the country would get rid of the worst and most irreclaimable culprits, and society be relieved from the crimes and the oppressions which they practise; industry would be protected, and prosperity would advance. Lord Clarendon may seek, by his well-intended advice and his remonstrances, to stay the march of crime; but his efforts will only evince his ignorance of the habits and prejudices of the people he has to govern. He may subscribe his money to communicate agricultural knowledge to those, whose poverty and misery lead him to suppose that they only require instruction to become industrious and happy; but he should know, that those persons to whom he so praiseworthily wishes to impart information, are in fact the best skilled agriculturists the country can produce. They compose the migratory hordes who annually proceed to Scotland and England. There is not a man amongst them above sixteen years of age, who has not practical experience in the very best systems pursued in those countries to which they resort; and we would "wager a ducat," that scores of boys may be found in Ennis and in Galway, who could instruct his paid lecturers in the performance of the nicest operations of agriculture. The Irish Viceroy feelingly deplored the disappointment of his hopes with regard to the Irish Fisheries, when giving audience to the Clare deputation. "When I came to this country," said his lordship, "I indulged in the hope of promoting the prosperity of the Irish Fisheries; but I have been grievously disappointed. When the nets and gear were redeemed from the pawn-office, the men would not use them, or go to sea, unless they were fed; and when they were fed, they caught no fish." The same spirit which actuated the fisherman in this instance, actuates the agricultural peasant. He will not till his land, not because he is ignorant of the best method of doing so with success, but because he prefers idleness to industry, and gratuitous support to honest independence.

We respect Lord Clarendon's talents, and admire the honesty with which he has set about discharging the high and arduous duties of his office; but we tell him that the pacification of Ireland can never be effected by the powers now at his disposal, nor yet by the emasculated measures proposed by the ministry for the adoption of parliament. Neither need he calculate on any assistance in his efforts from the diplomatic devices of her Majesty's advisers. Lord Minto may earwig the Pope; but the Pope's influence is set at defiance by the Irish bishops, when it happens not to be exerted in the furtherance of their own particular views. The present pontiff's predecessor issued his commands, that both priests and prelates should abstain from agitation, and avoid those political festivals where some of their body had covered themselves with such well-merited disgrace; but his encyclical letter was treated as so much waste paper, and had only the effect of increasing the custom it was intended to abolish. The Viceroy can have no hope or expect no succour but from the efficiency of the laws, and their uncompromising administration. Military tribunals must be substituted for civil ones. No juror in the present state of the country will hazard his personal safety by the due discharge of his duties, when he sees no chance of obtaining adequate protection. Summary justice must supersede the ordinary law's delay; immediate punishment must follow upon conviction; agitation of every kind must be suppressed; and the disturbers of the public peace must be dragged forth and made amenable for their crimes, whether they be found beneath the smock frock of the peasant, or the cassock of the priest.