Chapter LIX: {victoria. 1847} (5)

The bill was received with loud cheers. Mr. John O’Connell, who had declared that he would “die on the floor of the house” rather than allow a coercion bill to pass, admitted the necessity of some provision against the outrages which had prevailed, and that Sir George Grey’s bill was moderate and just; but he strangely added that he would oppose it at every stage, unless government passed such a bill regulating the law of landlord and tenant as he and his party approved. Mr. Fergus O’Connor bantered Mr. John O’Connell for his subservience to ministers, which ill accorded with his loud demonstrations of ministerial hostility in Conciliation Hall. Mr. O’Connor opposed the bill, even in its first stage. That gentleman wished the Irish repealers to join the chartist movement, and to place himself at the head of both. Mr. Horsman sensibly observed that the most appalling thing to him was that the government had allowed these murders to go on ever since, by the union, the imperial parliament had undertaken to govern Ireland. Mr. Maurice O’Connell did not oppose the bill. He also had been a man of fiery words in Ireland, and paltry deeds in the presence of the government and the legislature in England. Mr. Disraeli satirised the great outcry about suppressing outrage, if the addition of two hundred constables were sufficient. When the second reading was moved on the 6th of December, Mr. John O’Connell opposed it, and moved “that the orders of the day be read.” The honourable member had been so pressed by Conciliation Hall, and the Young Irelanders had raised such an outcry against the measure, that although he approved of the bill, and took care to let the house see that he did, yet he was obliged to oppose it, or forfeit his leadership of “Old Ireland.” His opposition, however, influenced the people of England against the O’Connells and their class. Murder and outrage stalked abroad, and whatever were the wrongs of Ireland, incendiarism and assassination were not the means of redress upon which brave men could look unmoved. That a country should fall into such a state of crime was horrible; that the political leaders of any party in it could be found to oppose measures so mild, and so little ultra-constitutional, to put down these dreadful deeds, was still more horrible. The speech of Mr. John O’Connell exposed himself and his country to just ridicule. A party numbering millions of persons, choosing as their principal leader a man so little qualified for the task, or for any great political undertaking, could not but sink in its relative importance. In spite of the opposition of a few Irish members, the bill passed the commons almost unanimously. In the lords but little opposition was offered. On the motion for going into committee on the 16th December, Lord Farnham brought under the notice of the house that Major Mahon was murdered after he had been denounced from the altar of the Roman Catholic chapel by a priest named M’Dermot, to whom Major Mahon had offered no other offence than objecting to that gentleman and his clerks constituting the relief committee of the district. The debate was rendered still more remarkable by a frank and manly speech from Lord Beaumont, a Roman Catholic peer, deprecating these altar denunciations, which had so frequently been followed by the murder of the persons denounced. Lord Beaumont expressed his astonishment that the bishops, clergy, and laity of the Roman Catholic community did not bring their moral influence to bear upon those priests who offended against the laws of God and man in so flagrant a manner. This gave rise to severe animadversions upon the whole body of Irish Roman Catholics for not having acted as Lord Beaumont pointed out. Lord Stanley especially adopted this line of remark, with the dextrous facility his lordship possessed for turning every occurrence and every admission of an opponent into an element of party attack. The measure was speedily passed through the house of lords, and became law.

Notwithstanding these weary debates upon Irish affairs, the house of commons was obliged to participate in another as acrimonious as any of the former. Mr. Fergus O’Connor moved for a committee of inquiry into the circumstances which led to the legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland, the means by which that act was attained, and its effect upon the working-classes of both countries. Mr. Henry Grattan denounced the speech of Mr. O’Connor, and his general spirit and conduct. Mr. John O’Connell and Mr. Smith O’Brien gave their support to the motion. It was all but unanimously rejected.

MOTION FOR THE REPEAL OF JEWISH DISABILITIES.

Baron Rothschild, a distinguished member of the Jewish persuasion, having been elected member for the city of London, the question of the right of Jews to sit in parliament was raised and warmly discussed, in the public press and in the country. Lord John Russell was also elected for the city of London, and was bound, therefore, by his especial duty to the citizens, to look particularly to the settlement of this matter. He moved, on the 16th of December, “that the house should resolve itself into a committee, to consider the removal of the civil and religious disabilities affecting her majesty’s Jewish subjects.” The resolution was carried by a very large majority, its principal opponent being Sir Robert Inglis, one of the members for Oxford.

ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE.—CLOSE OF THE PARLIAMENTARY LABOURS OF 1847.

On the 20th of December the house adjourned for the Christmas holidays, and did not meet again until February. Thus closed the first session of the new parliament, and the legislative business of the year.

Throughout the year the sanitary deficiencies of large cities, and their moral peculiarities, were the subjects of desultory conversation in parliament, and of extensive discussion in the newspapers and at public meetings. To such a degree did the sanitary question excite public interest, that her majesty was advised to recommend its consideration to the new parliament; and during the educational debates, the moral and intellectual condition of large towns, and especially of the metropolis, was a theme of desponding comment. The reverend Dr. Guthrie, of Edinburgh, has since then eloquently shown that the providential dispensation which consigns so large a portion of our people to the close confines of cities, like all the other arrangements of Providence, however mysterious, are full of goodness and mercy:—“Somehow or other, amid their crowding and confinement, the human mind finds its fullest, freest expansion. Unlike the dwarfed and dusty plants which stand around our suburban villas, languishing like exiles for the purer air and freer sunshine that kiss their fellows far away in flowery field and green woodland, on sunny banks and breezy hills, man reaches his highest condition amid the social influences of the crowded city. His intellect receives its brightest polish where gold and silver lose theirs—tarnished by the searching smoke and foul vapours of city air. The finest flowers of genius have grown in an atmosphere where those of nature are prone to droop and difficult to bring to maturity. The mental powers acquire their full robustness where the cheek loses its ruddy hue and the limbs their elastic step, and pale thought sits on manly brows, and the watchman, as he walks his rounds, sees the student’s lamp burning far into the silent night.”