The Westmeath Bill moves slowly through the House, the Irish
Members resisting the clause which continues the Peace Preserva- tion Act for two years more. The ground of their opposition was 'usually the assertion that Ireland did not require exceptional Acts, but on Tuesday Mr. Martin, the Nationalist Member, carried the debate up to a higher region. In a speech of singular temper- ance, which was heard with marked attention and respect, he declared that it was the inalienable right of the Irish people to be governed by themselves ; that English Members who 'could not bear a match-tax were willing to give Ministers any powers for the coercion of Ireland ; that the British " nation Mill regarded the Irish people as the Irish enemy," and that the true remedy for the evils of Ireland was not the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, but the suspension of the illegal govern- ment of Ireland by the English. He produced statistics show- ing that murder was far more frequent in England than in Ireland, asked if we suspended the Habeas Corpus to put down rattening in Sheffield—(No, we only suspended the Sixth Com- anandment),—and promised that if the British rule lasted 700 years longer in Ireland, Ireland would still be found adhering to her national rights. It was a speech, in fact, to which there was but one answer,—that it could be spoken. The tyrant who listens with admiring patience to a discourse on the right of regicide is at least not a tyrant insensible to reason.
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