NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Imperial Government have at length taken a decided line against the Repeal agitation in Ireland, and the Agitator's bold course has received a palpable check. There was to have been a mighty assemblage on Sunday last, at Clontarf—the scene in ancient story of an Irish victory over the Danes—three miles from Dublin : but a proclamation forbidding the meeting was issued on Saturday ; the ground was preoccupied by strong bodies of troops; the Re- peelers submitted peaceably, and those who came to swell the " demonstration " quietly went home again. There was much in- dignation at the Corn-Exchange ; but the " monster meeting" was dispersed before it could gather, without a blow. Though so long delayed, the decisive step appears to have been taken at the last with some degree of haste, and finally resolved upon on the receipt of the most recent intelligence. Last week, arrived in London accounts of the increasing audacity of the Repealers—their more openly warlike language, and more systematic aasumption of the functions of executive government. On Monday came the order for the muster of the " Repeal Cavalry," indicating the military parade intended for the next monster meeting, at Clontarf. There was an obvious stir in the Cabinet ; meetings
were held, not only in Council, but in personal interviews ; Lord DE GREY'S intended trip to the North was stopped ; he had a long conference with the Premier and the Home Secretary on Wednesday ; and set off with the Irish Chancellor, for Dublin, that very night. He reached Dublin early on Friday morning, and with all possible speed there was deep consultation with the Crown Lawyers : after remaining in conclave for some hours— probably scrutinizing the evidence on which military and legal pro- ceedings should be founded—they separated, and a Council was called. The Council met on Saturday morning at ten o'clock ; re- mained in conference until half-past one ; and about two hours after, appeared the proclamation forbidding the meeting at Clontarf on Sunday, and declaring such meetings, the language that had been held at them, and the intimidating display of numbers, illegal. On Sunday, the guards about Dublin were strength- ened; a reserved corps was posted to act in case of need ; but the main strength of a powerful garrison was sent to occupy the field of meeting ; so that when multitudes of Repealers came to the place, they found themselves confined to a narrow road, along which they were compelled to keep moving by the troops that lined it on either side. The Repeal Association had in the mean time taken the best means that remained to them of sub- mitting to the prohibition without exposing their adherents to danger : the hustings had been removed in the night ; Mr. O'Cos- rms. staid away ; and Mr. THOMAS STEELE, the " Head Pacifi- cator of Ireland," moved about with a branch of peace, signalling and commanding the people to go " home, home!"
The effect of this unexpected measure on the public was start- ling. In Dublin, the discomfiture of the Repealers defied conceal- ment : there was the sudden hush of dismay ; arrested in the midst of their career, they were called upon impromptu to strike out a new course ; and the astute O'CoNNELL suddenly assumed an ex- traordinary calmness of demeanour,—about the safest and most imposing guise that be could have adopted. In England, the proclamation took everybody by surprise ; but it met with almost unanimous approval. The Opposition press, it is true, made a factious use of the " coercion,"—which was their vocation ; but individuals of the highest character and influence in the party held a very different language. The strongest charge against Ministers is, that the precise period chosen for action was likely to prove disastrous. When action was resolved upon, it is asked, why not have issued the proclamation at the earliest possible moment—at any rate on the Friday, when there might still have been time to prevent the march of the multitudes bidden to the meeting; which it was no longer pos- sible to do on Saturday afternoon. Therefore, says Mr. O'Cost- Bay, if there was not a massacre, it was not the Govern-
ment that prevented it. It remains to be proved, however, that the proclamation could have been issued sooner. It would have been useless, if not dangerous—even on the score of hu- manity—to speak out until Ministers were fully prepared to make good their words by force—until, for instance, the mili- tary arrangements were complete. Nor does it appear that any time was lost when all was ready : the Lord-Lieutenant and his responsible advisers seem to have been fully occupied in the interval between his arrival and the issue of the document. It might possibly have been better if Lord DE GREY had been at his post at such a time, instead of seeking relaxation in England; for then no suspicion of avoidable delay would exist now. Serious mischief, no doubt, might have arisen from the mere congregation of numbers in the presence of a soldiery arrayed against the po- pular pursuit of the day. That, however,, was a danger inherent in the whole system of convoking such assemblages ' • which might at any moment have been interrupted by a collision between some part of the excited crowd and the military or police. Nor is it to be assumed, that if more time had been given, the Arch-Repealer would not have resorted to his habitual shifts, and contrived some evasion to defeat and mock the demonstration of the Executive authority. In point of fact, no disaster did occur ; and, with the vast number of those who judge solely by the event, Ministers will find their justification in their complete success : they will readily be supposed to have known their ground, to have calculated on the men with whom they had to deal, and to have foreseen the actual issue of their measures. Probably, those who thus judge by what hat happened, have as much reason as those who judge by what might have happened.
A broader question arises—why, after permitting a long series of "monster meetings," interfere to prevent 'this, the " last ? Now, there is no certainty that it was really meant to be the last. Mr. O'CoNNELL says so ; but he said, at Lismore we believe, that there were to be "at least ,six or seven" more such meetings,—which would leave five more- to come: before that, he had said there
would be very few more : his intentions were not to be depended upon. Meanwhile, the daring of the Repealers had reached a climax. " The O'Cortsem." had reviewed his " army" on " Tara of the Kings," with rhetorical appeals to ancient Irish royalties and an allusion growing more distinct to separate nationality. This separate nationality was more powerfully excited at Mullaghmast by traditions of a massacre by " Saxon " invaders ; and there Mr. O'Corizisu, was crowned with a cap in the form of the old Milesian crown. At Clontarf was to have been celebrated, with another re- view of O'CorilisLis " army," an ancient Irish victory—a victory over the Danes, for want of one over the Saxons. It was convened by priests : what was to be the distinctive ceremony of the day— whether some quasi anointing of " the O'CoNNELL," we shall
never know ; but at all events, though the Agitator himself now treats the idea as a bad joke, there was to have been an unprece- dented display of military organization ; and the meeting of the
excited multitude had gradually been brought nearer to the capital. The same audacity which had brought the Repeal army to overawe
the capital, had also brought it within range of the guns mounted on the fortifications of the capital; and moreover, while the Re- peelers had ventured more within the reach of concentrated power,
the preparations to strengthen that power had been completed. There was therefore more urgent reason than before for inter- vention, and better opportunity to render the first blow signal and decisive.
But in fact, the question of interference was most probably de- cided by the state of opinion in England ; by which every Minister in this country must ultimately be guided. Some months back, the Repeal cry was mixed up in England with vague notions of " Irish wrongs": coercion is always odious, and it would then have seemed in English eyes the ready answer of Tory rulers to the claim of
"justice for Ireland:. There is no such feeling now : no Ministers were ever so passive and enduring with Ireland, insomuch that even
" Liberals" wondered much at their patience, and thought their inertness perilous. O'CoNNELL has been allowed "rope enough"; he has taken his full swing. But his range did not enable him to make out any stronger case. His argument was unprogressive : instead of bringing out new facts, he could do no more than ransack apocryphal histories for obsolete traditions ; his assertions failed to convince, his rhetoric grew hacknied, stale, and tiresome : the in- creasing extravagancies which he indulged in where alone they could be borne, among the Irish, provoked increasing doubts as to his sincerity ; his pretences sounded hollow ; and his demand was thought not only dangerous but impracticable. The progress of "the Repeal year" sufficed to convince England that the Repeal
agitation was either a " humbug " or a mad delusion; and the call upon Ministers to stop a movement directly tending to revolution— and such as no form of government ever tolerated in any country— was made in remonstrances by their own supporters and in taunts by their adversaries. It is objected that they have given O'CONNELL an advantage— that they have " played his game"; for "the fire was going out of itself," and in trying to blow it out they have revived the flame. The charge rests mainly ea the assumption AIM this was the last meeting ; which, as we have seen, was doubtful. Rut sup- pose it the last : O'Cosussra. would have been suffered to close the campaign in triumph, and retire to his winter-quarters at Dar- rynane with flying colours; the popular faith in his irresistible power being left to work for his objects during the interval between the recent physical manifestation and the next. Government have reversed his retiring triumph : the force he had mustered crumbles down at the first touch; the big words that had been sent abroad on the traditionary hill of Tara, among the wilds of Connemara, and in the market-place at Dublin, find no deeds to bear them out. He will indeed find some different pretext for agitation ; but that he would always and at all events have found ; and the " simulta- aeons meetings" of parishes to petition for Repeal and dismissal of Ministers, are means of annoyance so hacknied, though in abeyance for a time, that the Government proceeding cannot be considered to have afforded any stimulus to his invention.
It does not indeed remove the root of the evil—that which en- ables a man like O'Comvsia, to agitate Ireland with impracticable projects and keep it perennially on the verge of insurrection. That lies in the social effects of the "centuries of wrong" which Ire- land has really suffered ; and though it is as culpable as silly to charge ROBERT PEEL with the misdoings of CASTLEREAGH, OLIVER CaoxiwELL, or STRONGBOW, the Ministers are blameable if they undertake to settle Ireland without going beyond coercion—if they struggle in the attempt to bind the patient, without any curative course in store. The worst grievances of Ireland are few and gla- ring: the redress of these would introduce a better state of things, to be improved gradually ; whereas a reliance on mere force must destroy any Ministry that trusts it. We are inclined to believe Sir ROBERT PEEL too intelligent a politician not to know as much : the inquiry, just gazetted, into one abuse which gives great offence in Ireland—the disproportionate cost of workhouses—cannot be all that is meant to meet the demand, made in England as well as Ire- land, for plain justice to the country now coerced. There are certain things which should be done for Ireland whosoever rules it : it cannot have a mere Irish Parliament, but the Imperial Par- liament should be moved to prevent Ireland from feeling any pri- vation in the denial of a separate Legislature: all that ought to be done by a Parliament in College Green, ought to be done by the Parliament in Westminster.
Previous page
