THE WEEKLY OONSTITUTIONATLIS.
No More Punishment. .
GERKIT SMITH TO PROFESSOR LEWIS.
There were no writings in and on our late
■war more scholarly or better reasoned than
your owy. That they were also eminently pa
triotic was no more than td be expected oi one
who cave up his beloved sons to seal with their
blood their devotion to their country.
I see that yon continue to write for the salva
tion of that dear country. Well you may !
for she is, this day, more fearfully imperilled
than she was at any time during “ the clash of
arms.” I have read your pamphlet entitled:
“ The Heroic Periods of a Nation’s History.”—
I wish every one could read its wise and high
souled pages. They favor the shedding of
more blood. You would have had the South
punished after she had laid dotvn her arms.—
Some of her most prominent men you would
have had punished with death.
I wonder that yon, who are so familiar with
the writings of the most approved publicists,
do not tall in with their conclusion, that a
strife, which has reached the dimensions and
dignity of a civil war, and especially a civil
■war, which, like our own, divides a people into
distinct and completed national organizations,
has outgrown the crime of treason. Their ar
guments for this conclusion, together with such
as would suggest themselves, to a mind as en
lightened as your own, must, it would seem,
lack nothing to convince you of its entire
soundness. I need hardly add .that I dissent
from your definition of a civil wat. *
It is maiuly the fault of the Government
when oue-half of a nation breaks away from the
other. Had our Government been cvor wise
and just, the Great Secession, which has soak
ed our soil with blood, would not have been.
When one-half of England or France or Spain
shall break away from the other, the world’s
sympathies will pretty certainly be with the in
surgents, for the world will, pretty certainly,
infer that the insurgents were wronged. More
over, if the insurgents shall fail to maintain
their cause and to right their wrongs, the world
will, pretty certainly, feel that their failure is
of itself their quite sufficient punishment.—
Who is so foolish as to believe that, had the
whole history of onr Government been bright
with wisdom and beautiful with justice, there
would have been this throwing off its restraints
and this defiance of its power.
I have expressed my wonder that yon, who
should stand at this point with the Republicans
and Revolutionists of Europe, are so far be
hind them as still to recognize the crime of
treason in a civil war. Rut more do 1 wonder
at your overlooking the fact that,'however
much punishment the South may deserve, she
deserv s noneat all at the hands of the North.
The armed rising of the South was the effect,
not to say neecssary effect, of her pro-slavery
edusatiou. For this education it is true that
she was herself responsible. But the North
was more responsible for it. Northern words
for slavery had peculiarly great weight at' the
South, because the North, from having no
slaves, passed for a disinterested witness. This
taken-for-granted disinterestedness must never
be lost sight of when we would account for the
great inflttehce at the South of Northern apol
ogies for slavery. When Northern press, pul
pit, college, merchant, manufacturer spoke for
slavery, as with well nigh insignificant excep
tions they all did, was it strange that the
South should listen with both her ears, and set
a special value upon the testimony? It was
the voice of the North for slavery ! —of the
disinterested North /—ay, of the anti-slavery
North !
You seem to forget that there was a day when
the statesmen, or, better say, politieians of the
North, were proclaiming that the Constitution
bound us to uphold slavery; and when the great
majority of the colleges and churches oi the
North held with the slaveholders that the Bible
is for slavery. I say you seem to forget it: —
for did you remember it, would not pity, in
stead of punishment for the South be your
plea? Perhaps you will say that the South was
without excuse, because the Abolitionists were,
all this time, faithfully telling her of the match
less wickedness of slavery. I admit that they
tried to tell her of it. But the voice of those
few and obscure ones could not be heard by her
when the great andauthoritative'onesin Church
and State commanded her attention.
Perhaps it will be said that the doctrine of
Slate sovereignty contributed materially to this
artned rising of the South. It certainly did
somewhat. But this was far from being an ex
clusively Southern doctrine. It enjoyed wide
spread favor at the North also. Moreover, the
Constitution not sufficiently guarding against
it makes the whole nation measurably responsi
ble for the pernicious doctrine. Jefferson and
Madison would have given it no countenance,
-had they seen it to be clearly violative of the
Constitution.
The North desires Peace with the South—a
sound and therefore an enduring peace. She
can have it. Her first step to this end is to
prove her sense of justice: and in no other way
can she do so much to prove it as by according
equal justice, and therefore the ballot, to all
races. Having proved this she will have laid
a foundation on which to build up her claim to
the heart of the South. And this, by the way,
it will bo far more difficult to succeed in than it
would have been eighteen months ago. From
what has passed in this time, it is far harder
now than it was then to win her heart. It will
cost far greater concessions to accomplish it.—
In the first place, we must take the ground of
no more punishment of the South—no more
depriving her people of life, liberty or estate.
In the second place we must restore them,
great and small, to the fulness of political rights.
In the third place we must show fraternal pity
for her poverty and desolation : and I think of
no better way to do this than to exempt her for
a number of years from direct Federal taxatiou.
But would she, even then, consent to hold the
National debt sacred and to let the Confederate
debt drop ? I believe she would. For, I be
lieve, that we should by that time have won her
heart. “I see it! I see it!” exclaimed an Indian
convert to his Christian missionary, who was
instructing him—“for I see it with my heart.”
The South will see the necessary terms of paci
fication in the right light when she shall come
to see them with that right heart, which it is in
our power to create in her. But, my learned
friend, we can have no part in creating it, so
long as we persist in our desire to punish her
—or in other words, so long as we persist in
that state of self-rigliteousness, which inspires
so lively a sense of others’ sins, as to leave no
remaining sense of our own. Al] our services
to this end will be unavailing, so long as we
feel that the South is to be hated* instead of
loved by us, punished instead of pitied. I add
that we can have no part in regenerating the
spirit of the South until we feel that she has
suffered enough; and that the War in which
she has suffered so much is to he traced back
to guilty causes for which the North as well as
the South is responsible.
A Literary Theft. —Swinburne is accused
of plagiarism. The critics say that his distich —
“ I dare not always touch her, lest the kiss
Leave my lips charred”—
is evidently borrowed from the old poet’s mon
key, which
“ Married the baboon’s sister,
Smacked his lips and then he kissed her,
Kissed to hard he raised a blister ;
She set up a yell.”
Seeing the Angels.—A little girl in Nor
folk, after listening to her mother’s description
of meteoric displays, exclaimed : “ Oh, me!
but if the stars fall out, can’t we see the angels
through the holes ?”
Antonio Barbarino, proprietor of a street
corner fruit stand in St. Louis, died a few days
ago, leaving an estate worth over 150,000.
"Mr. Bright in Ireland.
The Question of the Ballot— The True Remedy
for the Wrongs and Grievances of Ireland.
On the evening of November 2, Mr. Bright
addressed a large meeting of the workingmen
of Dublin. On risiug to speak, he was loudly
cheered. He said:
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: When I
came to your city I was asked if 1 could attend
a public meutiug on the question of Parliamen
tary Reform. I answered that I was not in
good order lor much speaking, for I have suf
fered, as I am afnid you may find before I come
to the erd of ray observations, from much cold
and hoarseness, but it was urged upon me that
there were at least some, and not an inconsid
erable number, of the workingmen of this city
who would be glad if I would meet them, and
it was proposed to offer to me some address of
friendship and of confidence such as this which
has been read. I have no complaint to make
of it but this: that while I do not say it indi
cates too much kitiduess, yet that it colors too
highly the services—the small services—which
I have been able to render to any portion of
my countrymen. [Cries of “No, uo.”j Your
countrymen are recognized generally as being
a people of great gratitude and of much enthu
siasm, and therefore I accept the address with
all the kindness and feeling of friendship with
which it has been offered, and I hope it will be
at least in some degree a stimulus to me in
whatever position in life I ant placed to remem
ber, as 1 have ever in past times remembered,
the claims of the people of this island to com
plete and equal justice with all portions of the.
people of the United Kingdom. [Loud cheers. J
Now, there may be persons in this room—l
should be surprised if there were not—who
doubt whether it is worth their while even to
hope for substantial justice, as this address
says, from a Parliament sitting in London.
[Loud cheers.f If there be such a man in this
meeting, let him understand that I am not the
man to condemn him [cheers] or to express
surprise at the opinion at which lie has arrived,
but I will ask him in return for this that he will
give me, at least for a few minutes, a patient
hearing, and he will find that whether justice
may come from the North or the South, from
the East or from the West, [several voices,
“from the West” and cheers] at any rate I
stand as a friend to the most comffiete justice
to the population of this island. [Cheers j
When discussing the question of Parliamentary
Reform, I have often heard it asserted that the
people of Ireland—and, I am not speaking of
those who are hopeless of good from a Parlia
ment in London—that the people of Ireland
generally imagine that the question of Parlia
mentary Reform has very little interest for
them. Now I will undertake to say, and.l think
I can make it clear to this meeting, that, what
ever may be the importance of this question to
any man in England or Scotland, if the two
islands are to continue under one Parliamentary
Government, it is of more importance to every
Irishman. *
You know that the Parliament of which I am
a member contains 658 members, and of those
105 ero.ss.thc Channel from Ireland. When the
105 Irish members get across the Channel they
meet, assuming that they all assemble together,
553 members who are returned from Great
Britain. Now, suppose that your 105 members
were absolutely good and honorable represen
tatives of the people of Ireland—l will not say
whether Whigs, or Tqjjties, Radicals, or -Repeal
ers, but anything you like —let any man sup
pose, for instance, that all those members wore
exactly the sort of members he would wish to
go fjorn Ireland, when they arrive in London
they meet with the 553 members who are re
turned from the rest of Great Britain.. But sup
pose that the Parliamentary representative sys
tem of Great Britain is very bad, that it repre
sents but very few persons in that groat island,
and that those who appear to be represented
are so distributed, in small boroughs and dif
ferent parts of the country and in counties, un
der thumb and finger of their landlords, it is
quite clear that the whole Parliament —less your
105 men, who might be very good men—the
whole Parliament to legislate for the United
Kingdom might still be a very bad Parliament.
; [Cheers.] Therefore, if any man imagines, and
'■ I should think that no man can imagine, that
| the representation of the people ot Ireland is
1 in a very good state, still, if he fancies that, un
j less the representation of Great Britain were
; equally good, you might have 100 excellent
i Irish members in Parliament at Westminster,
; but the whole 658 might be a very bad Parlia
ment for the United Kingdom. [Cheers.]
A member for a borough or county irt Ire
land, when he gets to London, votes for meas
ures for the whole Kingdom, and a member for
Lancashire or Warwickshire, or any other coun
ty or borough in England, votes not only lor
English measures, but also for measures for
Ireland, and. therefore, every part of the United
Kingdom. Every county, every borough, every
pal ish, every family, every body has a clear and
dis.iuct and unalterable interest in a Parlia
ment that should fairly and justly represent the
whole nation. ' [Loud cheers.] Now, look for
a moment at two or three facts with regard to
Ireland alone. I have stated many facts with
regard to England and Scotland at recent meet
ings held across the Channel, and now lor two
or three with regard to Ireland. In Ireland
you have five boroughs returning each one
member, the average number of eieetors in each
borough being only 172. Then you have 13
boroughs, the average number of electors in
each being 316; you have nine other boroughs
with an average number of electors in eaclt of
497; you have, therefore, 27 boroughs, whose
whole number of electors, if they were all put
together, is only 9,453, which gives an average
of 350 electors for each member. I may tell
yon, also, that you have a single county with
nearly twice as many voters as the whole of
those 27 boroughs. You have only 9,453 elec
tors, and your county of Cork has 16,177 electors,
and that county of Cork returns two members.
But that is not the worst of the case which hap
pens to be in Great Britain and Ireland wher
ever the torough constituencies are so small
that it is almost impossible that they should be
independent. Avery acute lawyer, for example,
in one ot the boroughs; a very active and in
fluential clergyman, whether of your Church or
of ours—and when I say ours I do not mean
mine, bat I mean the Church in England—half
a dozen men combining together, or a little
corruption occasioned by a candidate going
down with a well-filled purse, rnay carry the
representation of *a small borough eitiier in
England or in Ireland, and a free and real rep
resentation of the people is hardly ever possible
in a borough of this very small size. [Hear.]
But if I w'ere to compare your boroughs with
vonr counties, just see how the matter stands.
You have 39 borough members with 30,000 elec
tors, and you have 64 county members with
172,000 electors, and therefore, you see, the rep
resentatives are so distributed that the great
populations have not a quarter probably of ihe
influence in Parliament that the small boroughs
have in their members there. And here we
come to another question of great consequence.
Not only are those small boroughs altogether
too small for independence, but if we eorne to
yonr large county constituencies we find, from
the peculiar circumstances and relations exist
ing between the voters and the owner of land,
that there is scarcely anything of freedom
of elections even in your counties. [Cheers.]
I should suppose, if there were no compulsion
of landowner or agent, that in at least three
quarters of this island the votes of the county
eieetors would be by a vast majority in favor of
Liberal candidates. [Cheers.] And when lam
speaking of Liberal candidates I am not now
speaking merely of men who profess the sort
ofliberality which just enables them to go with
their party, but I speak of men who would be
thoroughly in earnest in carrying out, so far as
they were able, in Parliament the opinions
which they were thought to represent by the
large constituencies which had elected them. —
[Hear, hear.J The question of the ballot, in
my opinion, is of the greatest importance in
Great Britaiu and in Ireland ; but it is of more
importance in the counties thau it Is in the
large boroughs. For example : In Great Brit
liu take such boroughs as Edinburgh and
Glasgow, and Manchester and Birmingham,
and the metropolitan boroughs. There the
number of eieetors runs up from 10,000 to 25,-
000, aud bribing is of no avail where the num
bers are so large, beeause you cannot bribe
thousands of men, and to bribe only a hundred
or two would not secure a return at an election
with so large a constituency. What you want
with the ballot is tilts: In cases where the
tenant-farmers vote, aud where they live upon
their land without the security of a lease, or
without the security of any law to give them
the benefit of the* improvements they have
made upon the land, they feel themselves
always liable to injury, and sometimes
liable to ruin, if they get themselves
into a dispute with the agents or the land
holders with regard to the manner in which
they have exercised their franchise ; [cheers,]
and* what would be very important, also, if you
had the bailot, your elections would he tran
quil, without disorder and without riot. Last
week, or the week before, there was an election
in one of your great counties. [Several voices,
“In Tipperary.”] Yes, in Tipperary. Well,
making every allowance that can be made for
the supposed exaggerations of the writers of
I the two parties, it is quite clear to everybody
that the circumstances of that election —alas !
not absolutely uncommon in Ireland —were
| still such as to be utterly discreditable to the
j representative system. [Hear.J Aud you must
j*bear in mind that there is no people in the
| world that considers that it has a fair represen
tative system unless it has the ballot. The bai
lot is universal almost in the United States.
[Cheers.] It is almost universal in our colo
nies—at any rate in the Australian colonies. It
is almost universal on the Continent of Europe,
and in the new Parliament of North Germany
which is about to he assembled every male per
son of twenty five years of age is to be allowed
to vote, and to vote by ballot. [Loud and
continued cheers.J Now, I hold, without any
fear ot contradiction, that the intelligence
and the virtues of people of Great Britain
and the people of Ireland are not repre
sented in the Imperial Parliament. [Cheers.]
You have your wrongs to complain of —
wrongs centuries old, Atnd wrongs that long
ago the people of Irelaml, and I Venture to say
further, that the people of Great. Britain united
with Ireland —[Cries of “ Never I” and inflqr
ruption]—l say that the people ol Great Brit
ain, acting with the people of Ireland in the
fair representation of the whole nation, would
long, long ago have remedied every just griev
ance of which you can complain. Now 1 will
take two questions which I treated upon the
other evening at the dinner. One of them is
the question of the supremacy ol the Church
in Ireland. Why, half tlie people of England
are Nonconformists ; they are not in favor of
an Established Church anywhere, aud it is cer
tainly impossible that they can be in favor of
an Established Church in an island like this —
an Established Church formed ot a mere hand
ful of a population in opposition to the wishes
of the whole people, j Loud cheers.] Now,
take the Principality of Wales. When you go
to England by Holyhead you run right through
the Principality. 1 suppose at least four out
of five of the population are Dissenters, and
they are not in favor of maintaining the Pro
testant Establishment in Ireland. Take the
people of Scotland. They have seceded in such
large numbers from their Established Church,
although there their Church is of a very demo
cratic character, they have seceded from it in
such large numbers, that I suppose those who
have seceded are a considerable majority of the
whole population.
They arc not in favor of maintaining a
Church establishment in Irelaud in opposition
to the view of the great majority ot your peo
ple. Take the other question to which I re
ferred—the question of the land. There is
nobody in Great Britain—of the great town
population, ot the great middle class, or of the
still more numerous working class—none of
them have any sympathy with the condition of
the law and the administration of the law which
have worked such great mischiefs in your
country, but that upper class, whether in Eng
land, Wales or Scotland, aud that great middle
class, and that still greater working class.—
Why, they are in the position that yon are in.
Only 16 out of every 100 men have a vote, and
those 16 arc so arranged that, in point of fact,
when their representatives get to Parliament,
they turn out for the most part to be no real
representatives at all. [Cheers, and a voice—
“ That’s Bob Lowe,” aud laughter.] Now I
will tell you fairly that I think the people of
Ireland have by far the strongest interest in a
thorough reform of the Imperial Parliament.
[Cheers.] And 1 believe that yourselves could
not do yourselves, by yourselves, more com
plete jastiee than you can do, fairly acting with
the generous millions of my countrymen, in
whose name I speak to you. [Loud aud con
tinued cheering.] You have on this platform
; to-night, I believe, two members the Reform
League, from London. I received, I think yes
| terday, or the day before, a telegram from tiie
Scottish Reform League, from Glasgow—l am
! not sure whether there has been an account of
: it in the papers, but I presume it was sent me
j in order that I might read it if 1 had the oppor
tunity of meeting any of the working men and
unenfranchised men in tins city. It is signed
by John Birt, President, James Smith, Treasur
' er, and George Jackson, Secretary of the Seot
' tish Reform League, and it says :
| “ The Scottish Reform League request you
! to convey to the Reformers in Ireland their
I deep sympathies. They sincerely hope that
| soon in Ireland, as in Scotland and England,
, Reform Leagues may be formed in every town
! to secure to the people their political rights,
■ urge upon friends in Ireland their duty to pro
| mote this great movement and to secure at
j home those benefits which thousands of their
! fellow-countrymen are forced to seek in other
i lands, where land and State Church grievances
j are unknown. We also seek co-openition that
i our freedom, though secured to-morrow, would
| not be safe so long as one portion of the United
\ Kingdom were less free than the others.”
| Now there is the outspoken voice of the rep
j rcsentatives of that great multitude which only
j a fortnight since I saw pass through the streets
|of Glasgow. For three hours the procession
passed with all the emblems aqd symbols of
their various trades, and the streets for two or
three miles were enlivened with banners, while
the air was filled with the sounds of music
from their bands. Why, these men speak but
the same voice that was heard in the West
Riding—that was heard in Manchester—that
was heard in Birmingham—that was heard in
London; mid that you, men of Dublin, you
never committed a greater mistake in your
lives if you come to the conclusion that there
are noL millions of men in Britain willing to
do you full justice. [Loud cheering and some
interruption, which the Chairman endeavored
to suppress, j The fact is, Mr. Haughton has
not been so much at political meetings as I
have, or he would only welcome an exclama
tion now and then which shows the vivacity
and difference of the audience. [Cheers.] I
am sorry that my voice is not now what it once
was, and when I think what the work is which
is to he done, I think it is sometimes a pity
that we grow old so fast.
Years ago, many years ago, when I have
thought of 'he condition of Ireland, of its sor
rows and wrongs, of the discredit its condition
brought upon the English and Irish and British
name, I have thought that if I could be in all
other things the same, but by birth an Irish
man, there is not a town in the island that J
would not visit for the purpose of discussing
the great Irish question and of rousing my
countrymen to some grand and united action.
[Great cheering and waving ot hats.] Ido not
believe in the necessity of wide-spread and hor
rible misery. I do not believe that we were
placed in this island and on this earth that one
man might be great and wealthy and glorylDg
in every profuse indulgence, and five or six or
nine or ten men suffering the abject misery
which we sec too common in the world. Why,
with yonr soil and with yonr climate and with
your active and spirited race, I know not what
this island might not do; but there have been
reasons to my mind why the soil and the cli
mate and the labor of your population have not
produced general comfdrt and competence for
all. This address speaks of friendly feeling and
sympathy which I have had for Ireland during
ray political career. Why, when 1 first went
into the House of Commons the most promi
nent figure in it was Daniel O’Connell. [Loud
cheers.] I have sat by his side for hours during
the discussions in that House, and have listened
to observations both amusing and instructive
on what was passing in discussion. I have
seen him, too, more than oucc on our plat
form on the Anti-Corn Law, and 1 recollect that
he sent to Ireland expressly for a newspaper
which contained a report of a speech which he
made against!lie Corn Law when the Corn
Law was passiug through Parliament in 1815,
and we owe much to his exertions in connec
tion with that question ; for almost, indeed, I
suppose the Whole Liberal Party of Irish rep
resentatives in Parliament supported the meas
ures ol free trade, of which we were the prom
inent advocates. [Cheers.] I know ol' nothing
that was favorable to freedom, whether iu con
nection with Ireland or with England, that
O’Connell did not support with all his great
powers. [Cheers, and a voice, “ That’s per
sonal.”] 1 know nothing pleasanter, and hard
ly anything more useful thau personal recol
lections of this nature. Why is it now that
there should be, if there be any kind of schism
between tire Liberal people of Ireland and the
Liberal people of Great. Britain. I don’t ask
you to join hands with supremacy or oppres
sion, whether in your island or in ours ; what
I ask of you is to open your heart of licarts,
and to join hands for a great cordial thorough
working union for freedom with the great peo
ple ot Great Britain. [Cheers.] Perhaps be
tore 1 sit down I may be allowed to Advert to a
point which lias been much commented on, a
paragraph n a'speech 1 made the other night
with regard to the land. I need not tell you
that there are newspapers in Dublin which 1
need' not name, because I am quite sure you
can find them out —[laughter]—I ant sorry to
say that there are newspapers which do not
feel any strong desire or any conscientious
compulsion to judge fairly anything which I
may sav. Among the various measures which
I proposed for what 1 should call the pacifica
tion and the redemption of the people ot Ire
land. I have said 'that it is of (lie first import
ance that the people of Ireland, by some pro
cess or other, should be made, and have the op
portunity of being made, the possessors of their
own soil. |Great cheering.]
You know perfectly well that I am not about
to propose to copy the villainous crimes of 200
years ago, and to confiscate the lands of tLo
proprietors here or elsewhere. I propose to
introduce a system which would gradually, but
•rapidly and easily, without injuring anybody,
make many thousands who are now tenant
fanners without leases and security the owners
of their own farms in this island. Now, this is
ray plan, and I want to restate it here, with a
little further explanation, in order that the gen
tlemen to whom I have referred may not again
repeat the very'untrue, and what 1 call the dis
honorable comments which they have made
upon it. There are, as you know, many large
estates in Ireland which belong to rich families
in England—families in England not only of
the highest rank, but of the highest character ;
because I will venture to say that there will bo
found among the English nobility lamilies of
as much perfect honorablencss and worth as
some of those to whom my plan would be of
fered ; therefore, I am not speaking against the
aristocracy or against the families, or against
property, or against anybody or anything that
is good. But I say this, if Parliament were to
appoint a Commission, and give it say at first
up to the amount of five millions sterling, and
power to negotiate or treat with the great fami
lies in England who have large estates in Ire
land, it is probable that some of these great es
tates might he bought at a not very unreason
able price. [Cheers, and a voice, “Could we not
get them for nothing ?”] Hear me to the end of
my statement. lam of opinion thatit would be
the cheapest money that the Imperial Par
liament almost ever expended, even though it
became possessed of those great estates at a
price considerably above that which they
would fetch if put up in your market to-mor
row. I propose that it should lie worked in
tills way. I will take a ease. Assume that this
Commission got a large estate iu its possession,
bought from Lord A, Cor D. We will take
one farm upon it, which I assume to be worth
£I,OOO, and for which the present tenant pays
£SO a year. He has no loase ; lie lias no secu
rity ; he makes almost no permanent improve
ments of any kind, and he is not q#ite sure
whether, when ho has saved a little money, ho
will not take his family off to the United States.
[Loud cheers and a voice, “ He will come back
again.”] We will assume, if you like, that we
are the Commission, and that we have got be
fore ns the farmer who is the tenant on that
particular farm, for which he pays £SO a year,
without having;a lease or security, and which I
take to be wortli £I,OOO. Now, the Govern
ment, I believe, lends money to the Irish land
owners for great drainage purposes at about
per cent, per annum. Suppose this Com
mission went to this farmer and said, “ Surely
you would not have any objection to become
possessed of this farm ?” “No ; not the slight
est,” he would say, [laughter and cheers ;] “but
how is that to be done ?” In this way, you tell
the farmer : “ You now pay £SO a year, that’s 5
per cent, on £I,OOO ; the Government can afford
to do these transactions for per cent., and
if you will pay £6O a year for n given number
of years, which any of the actuaries at the in
surance offices or any good arithmetician can
ealculatc—if you pay £6O a year for rent in
stead of £SO for a given number of years—it
may be ten, fifteen or twenty—at the end of that
time the farm will be yours without any further
payment.”
I want you to understand how this is. You
see if the farmer had been paying £SO and you
asked him to pay £lO a year more toward buy
ing his farm he might do it; hut the lact is that
the £I,OOO the Government pays for the farm
would not cost them more than £35, and, there
fore, the difference between £35 and S6O being
£25, would l«i the sum which the farmer paid
annuajly in his rent would be paying the Gov
ernment for the redemption of his farm, and
this at the end of a very lew years. The farmer
having perfect security that no one could turn
him out if he paid his rent, and nobody could
touch him tor the improvements he makes on
his lands, what would ho do the next morning
after haring made,that agreement ? He would
speak to his wife and his big boy who had been
idling abouf during a great deal of his time, he
would explain all this, and there is not a stone
on the land that would not be removed, there
is not a weed that would not be pulled up, not
a particle of manure that would not be saved,
there is not a single thing they would not do
with a zeal and enthusiasm, a labor and delight
they had never known before, to cultivate that
farm, and by the time the few years had run
out, when the farm had become his without any
further purchase, he would have turned a di
lapidated and miserable farm into a garden lor
himself and family. [Great cheering.]
This story and this statement trmy be com
mented on again by these newspapers.—
[Laughter.) You will understand that I pro
pose no forced purchase, no confiscation.—
1 would undertake to give, if I were the Gov
ernment, to any one of those landlords 10 per
cent, more for his estate than it would fetch in
any market in Dublin or London, and I say
that to do this would produce the most marvel
ous change In the sentiments of the people and
in the condition of agriculture in Ireland. But
then I see in one of these papers—l wish we
could only get these fellows before the public
and see them, for I dqn’t know what these men
can be who write tkese things—l see in one of
the paper* they say, “ How would I like a com-
mission to come down to Lancashire to Insist
on buying my factories.” I can only say that
if they would give ue 15 or 20 per cent, more
worth they should have them to-morrow.—
[Laughter and cheers.] But I did not propose
that the commission should come down and
insist on buying these estates. They say
further, “Why should an Irishman keep his
estate and not a man in England who has an
estate in Ireland ?” There is this difference.—
A man iu Ireland has an estate and has a house
upon it. It is his ancestral home, and there
are ties that attach him to it, which it would be
monstrous to think of severing, but a man who
lives in England, who is a rich man and never
comes here except to receive his tents, and
generally gets them through his hanker, who
has no particular tie to the country, and only
comes over here because he feels that he is a
great proprietor of Inn/ in Ireland, or is scru
pulous never to show his face to his tenants ;
in such a ease there cannot be much of senti
ment in it if he should be called upon to part
with his land at a fair price.
I have been charged very often, you know I
have, with saying very severe tilings of the En
lislt aristocracy. Now, that is not true in the
sense in which it is imputed to me. I have
always said that there are many men in the
English aristocracy who would he noblemen in
the sight of their fellow-men though they had
no titles and no coronets ; there are men ninong
them of as undoubted patriotism as any man in
this building or Ireland, and there are men
among them who, when they see that n great
public object is to bo served for the benefit of
their fellow-men, would make just as great
sacrifices as any one of us would be willing to
do. lam of opinion therefore —I may be al
together mistaken, l will not believe that I am
until it is proved—l am of opinion that if this
question were discussed in Parliament when
next the Irish land question is there discussed,
and if there were a general sentiment in the
House of Commons that soiao measure of the
kind would be advantageous to Ireland, then I
think that a commission so appointed would
find no difficulty whatever in discovering noble
men and very rich ineu in England and Scot
land, possessors of great estates in Ireland, who
would be willing to negotiate lor their transfer
to the commission, and the commission, by the
process I have indicted, might transfer them
gradually, but steidlly, to the teuant fanners of
this country.
I am told that I have not been much in Ire-
land, and that I do not know much of It. I
recollect a man in England during the Ameri
can war asking me a question about America,
and when I gave him an answer that did not
agree with his opinion he said, “ 1 think you
never have been in America, have you?" I
said, “ No ;” and he said, “ I have hceu there
two or three times, and I know something
about it.” He asked me if I thought the Yan
kees would pay when they borrowed money to
carry on the war. I thought they would, but
he thought tlnvt, as I lmd not been there and ho
had, his opinion was worth more than mine.
I said that I knew in England several people
who had been in England all their lives and yet
knew nothing at all about England. [Laugh
ter.] I ant told that if I were to live longer iu
Ireland among tho people I should hold differ
ent opinions from those which I now entertain;
that I should think the small Church of a minori
ty was the honest thing in the laco of tho Church
of themajorlfy ; that it was not tho. fault of the
landowners, but of the tenants, that everything
went wrong with the land ; and that I should
find that the Government and the Legislature
were mostly right, and the people mostly wrong.
Now, there are certain questions with regard to
any country which you may settle in your own
house, never having seen the country, not even
upon a map. Tints you mar settle that that which
is just is just everywhere, and that men, from
those of the highest culture and of the most
moral character, whatever their race or color,
have Implanted in their hearts by their Creator
—wiser much than these men—the knowledge
and the love of justice. [Loud cheers.] < I tell
you that since the day when I sat beside O’Con
nell—nay, at an earlier day—l had considered
the questions of Irclund; that In 1829, for sev
eral weeks in the Autumn, and for several
weeks in flic Autumn of 1-852, I came to Ire
land expressly to examine these questions by
consultation with all classes of tho people lit
every part of the island ; and I will undertake
to say that I believe there Is no other man iu
England who had .more fully studied the evi
dence given belore the celebrated Devon Com
mission, with regard to Ireland, than I had. —
Therefore I dare stand up before any Irishman
or Englishman to discuss the Irish question.
[Cheers. 1 I say the plans and the theories aud
the legislation ol my opponent on this matter
have failed deplorably, disastrously, ignomini
ously. [Cheers.] Therefore I have a right
now to offer to tho people of Ireland, ns I
would to tho people of Great Britain and the
Imperial Parliament, anew, a wise, and a just
policy for the people of this unfortunate coun
try. [Cheers.]
I have attended great meetings in England
and in Scotland during the last two months, and
I think 1 am at liberty to tender to you from
those scores and hundreds and thousands of
men a hand of fellowship and good will. [Hear,
hear.] I wish 1 might be permitted, whon Igo
back, and I think from this address I am per
mitted to say to my fellow-countrymen, that
amid all the factions by which Ireland has been
torn—amid, It may be, the errors that have been
committed—amid passions that have been ex
cited—amid hopes that have been blasted—amid
the misery that has been endured, there is still
In this Island aud among its people a heart that
can sympathize with all .those who turn to them
with a fixed resolution to judge them fairly and
do them justice. [Continued cheering.] Gen
tlemen, I have made my speech, I have said my
say, I have fulfilled my small mission, and I
thank you from my heart for the kindness with
which you have received me, and which I shall
never forget; and if I have in past times felt
an unquenchable sympathy with the sufferings
of your people, you may rely upon it, If there
be an Irish member to speak for Ireland, you
will find me heartily at his side. (The ltonora
’ble gentleman concluded amid loud cheers, hav
ing spoken a little over an hour.)
Tub Burning op tub Steamer llenrv Von
Phul. —The Cincinnati Commercial's New Or
leans dispatch of the 13th furnishes the follow
ing particulars of the burning of the steamer
Henry Von Phul: “Thesteamer Henry Von
Phul, with 3,800 bales of cotton, was burned
at 3 o’clock this morning, above Donaldson
ville. The fire communicated to the cotton
from tho pipe of a deck hand, and was soon
under full headway. The boat was immediate
ly run ashore. There were one hundred pas
sengers on board, Including ladles, nearly all
of whom escaped to the shore with the loss of
all their baggage and clothing, many of them
having on only their night clothes. One pas
senger was burned to death, and several
drowned. The boat and cargo were a total
loss.”
An editor in Illinois, says an exchange, re
eently saw a patent clothes-washer. It was in
tiie shape of a wheelbarrow. The revolutions
of the wheel put in motion a crank that moved
a plunger that pounded the clothes. The body
of the box was mounted where the load is in a
wheelbarrow. On the top of the box Was a
Wringer. A lady can put her clothes iu her
machine, pick it up and go out calling, the
longer her list of friends the further she will
have to'Wheel her burden, and "the better her
clothes will be washed. Calling will then be of
some use, and an eternal gud-übout will become
a first-rate washerwoman.
Bio Thing.— The Macon Telegraph is Indebt
ed to Mr. Pulaski 8. Holt for a large specimen
ol Spanish potato. It measured near two feet
in length, and was raised by Rev. Henry Bunn,
of Twiggs county.
The reverend gentleman raises no common
’talers.
