TOPICS OF THE DAY.
TRUSTING TO THE CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.
A SUSPICION gains ground, that Sir ROBERT PEEL, when he under- took the task of governing, had, properly speaking, no plan in view but to gain time. The opinions which might incline a statesman to such a temporizing system of inaction may easily be conceived. If he thought all sound at the core—if he regarded the immediate pressure of distress as one of those transient fever-fits which will at times shake the healthiest subjects—he might be perfectly justified in trusting to nature to work out the cure. This may have been Sir ROBERT'S view : the measures of last session may have been introduced and carried simply for the purpose of tran- quillizing people, by creating an impression that something was doing for them, as physicians will sometimes order draughts of coloured "aqua fontis" to quiet hypochondriacal patients.
Such opinions, and the conduct prompted by them, are quite in- telligible; and if the statesman who holds them has seen clearly and inferred judiciously—if he has been right in his diagnosis, his method of treatment will be crowned with success. But if he shall turn out to have been mistaken—if the distress which he took to be slight and transient was the result of some organic lesion in the body politic—his dilatory policy may lead to fatal consequences.
For instance, Sir ROBERT PEEL'S " chief difficulty," he admitted from the beginning, lies in Ireland. Even in that country there are appearances which might favour a surmise, that the present disturbances, if left to themselves, will die away, as others have done before them. There is something so theatrical and unreal in much of O'CONNELL'S declamation, that a Minister, with less tact and sagacity than PEEL, might easily see it will not be the Agitator's fault if matters come to extremities. Any person who will take the trouble to calculate the population of Ireland and its districts, and the distances between the different places where Repeal meetings have been held, will come to the conclusion, that, even making allowance for a large body of migratory attenders of meetings, the numbers composing these gatherings must have been grossly exaggerated. The ostentation of military movements towards Ireland elicited, as might have been expected, a burst of defiance from the Repealers ; but even that extra-excitement has again begun to die away. A warlike article in the Times shook the Funds from their propriety for a day or two; but they have again recovered. Some of the most intelligent and temperate observers on the spot see nothing in the present movements in Ireland that threatens serious acts of violence, unless under the provocation of some accidental collision. All these considerations may seem to be in favour of the policy of waiting and allowing the ferment to subside of itself.
But, however plausible this do-nothing view of the case may be, it is essentially false, and there is danger in acting upon it. The habit of England is, never to think of Ireland except when some troubles direct attention to that country ; then to start into a state of exaggerated alarm ; and again, after the first paroxysm is over, to subside into an unwise apathy. The importance attributed to the Repeal movement, in consequence of conversations in Par- liament and some other accidental circumstances, was absurdly exaggerated ; but now that the first alarm has passed over, there would be still greater folly in disregarding it entirely. O'Cossinais professions and declamations may be as hollow as many think them ; but the feelings of pride, suffering, and irritation, to which he appeals, are real. O'CONNELL has for a longer period than any other demagogue successfully exercised his power of stirring up the people to the exact pitch which suits his purpose, and then stilling the tempest he has raised. But the time may come when be shall tamper once too often with the dangerous passions of his auditory—when he may lash them up to a pitch of fury which he cannot tame down. And even should this not happen, in him "Nature's copy's not eterne." There have been insurrections in Ireland, political, religious, and agrarian, before O'CONNELL. It is not without justice that he boasts of having substituted a compara- tively peacefid movement of the nation en masse for those desultory outbursts of incendiarism and murder. But the influence by which he has effected this is personal, and will die with him. The peace of Ireland may be said to depend upon the life of O'CONNELL : for when he is gone, the causes which awakened the passions he has so skilfully wielded will remain ; the very words by which he has re- strained from physical violence will, after he is removed, add to the bitterness of hatred. Is that a safe time for folding the arms and looking on inactive, when the question whether there shall be tran- quillity or insurrection depends upon the life of an old man, who systematically prevents violence fur the present, but in doing so kindles angry passions in the populace, which when the restraint of his presence is removed will goad them to fiercer outrages ? The causes will remain : so many and so complicated are they, that to indicate them all would be a hopeless endeavour—but take one as an example. Throughout the greater part of Ireland there is no combination of labour : every man almost works for himself
and without aid. Every man raises his own miserable pittance of potatoes by his own labour on his own half-acre. If lie lose
his patch of garden-ground, there is no capitalist to employ him for wages: losing it, he loses every thing, and must starve. This it is that causes the desperate resistance of the Irish pea- ssntry to ejectmems. The traditional recollections of confisca-
tions of propertythe belief that the peasantry are the descendants of the rightful possessors of the soil, and that the present owners are the descendants of violent intruders—do not originate this feel- ing, though they strengthen and exasperate it. The fear of utter destitution is at the bottom of it ; but a legendary sense of injus- tice, and a habit of identifying that injustice with the cause of their religion, elevate the mere animal passion to the power of an idea. In his view of the means by which he may best be enabled to keep hold of his wretched scrap of land, the Irish peasant has advanced with the age. Twenty years ago, he burned the houses of intruding tenants, and shot ejecting landlords or middle-men from behind a hedge : now, become one of a disciplined mass, he talks of-" fixity of tenure,"—which means, in plain English, con- fiscation, transference of the property from the present owners to their tenants. The agrarian disturbers have been transformed into an organized political sect. The suffering and the turbulence are at least as intense as ever, and discipline and a definite aim have been superadded. That national temper, which O'CoNest,x. has wielded for his own purposes, is outgrowing his strength to control, and it will at all events outlive him.
This is not a state of affairs in which it is safe to wait till the effervescence of passion cools down. The "fixity of tenure" ques- tion must, along with others equally urgent, be fairly met. It is not to be met by argument alone ; for the idea of robbing the landlords to give the tenants an imaginary security is not an idea which has its growth in reason : it was prompted by suffering—it has been strengthened by misery and the habit of despondent brooding over distress front which there is no prospect of escaping. "Fixity of tenure" cannot be granted ; but the Irish peasantry will keep harping on that string, or something else to the same tune, so long as their universal pauperism endures. The means of removing this pauperism is a long chapter, or rather many chapters, not to be entered on at present. Our immediate object is to show, by one illustration out of many, that the distracted state of Ireland is not one of those social evils which by being left to themselves work out in time their own cure.
If Sir ROBERT PEEL cannot see in the state of the nation that the present crisis is one which demands action, not mere waiting on the chapter of accidents, be may feel it in his own position. His Government is no longer a strong one. Its strength consisted in the belief that men entertained—or, if that word is too strong, in the hope, the expectation—that he intended to do much. This impression has been weakened, if not obliterated. The discordant materials of which his party is composed were known from the first ; but it was supposed that when he took office he saw his way to make those heterogeneous elements work out his will. He has had his " trial "—a pretty " fair " one upon the whole. Men are now beginning to suspect that he holds office by the tenure of doing nothing lest he offend any one ; and the sceptre, which has not yet departed from him, lies loose in his grasp, to be snatched away as soon as a man comes capable of wielding it.
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