PROSPERITY OF IRELAND DURING THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE, AND THE MEANS BY WHICH THE LEGISLATIVE UNION BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND WAS CARRIED. THE Committee of the Repeal Association voted, from the funds sacred to the God of Mystery, £225, as prizes for the three best "Essays written in support of the Repeal of the Act of Union ;" and suggested, among other things, that the authors "should develope a form of executive and legislative constitution" for Ireland. Fortyeight manufacturers of governments and artificers of constitutions, quickly presented schemes for the construction of parliaments, and the formation of cabinets. John O'Connell, Thomas Davis, and Smith O'Brien, Esqrs., presided over the sortilege,' by which was decided the chances, for we cannot conceive they pronounced judgment on the claims of the competing Benthams, and rival Sieyes. The three Solons, who obtained the prizes, diminishing in all the elegance of arithmetical propor tion, were Michael Joseph Barry, Esq., Alderman Staunton, and the Rev. J. Godkin. To their essays in the volume we are about to examine, is appended as a tail piece, a brochure on Federalism by a gentleman named Ramsay.t Now, we have never happened to see so perfect a correspondence between a subject proposed for investigation, and the mode of conducting its discussion, as those Essays exhibit. To effect this beautiful congruity, the union between cause and effect is almost uniformly repealed; the con"nection among related facts, nearly without exception dissolved; arguments diverge from arguments as if in horror of centralization; and the authors, in hatred of Britain, we sup pose, have even attempted to revolutionize the English language. Thus, Mr. Barry calls an abridgment of Plow * As we cannot discover the reasons why the essay of Mr. Barry was preferred to that of Alderman Staunton, which is in every respect so much its superior, we are forced to conclude that chance, not opinion, decided the prizes. The first prize is called-Ireland as she is, as she was, and as she shall be. The secondReasons for a Repeal of the Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland. The third The Rights of Ireland; and the fourth-A Proposal for the Restoration of the Irish Parliament. †This gentleman obtained praise but no pudding, which is at once disgraceful to the liberality of the Association, and derogatory to the dignity of Mr. Grey Porter. VOL. XXVII.-No. 157. B den's History of Ireland, and some statistical facts (or assertions) concerning the state of Irish manufacture in 1800, the "Consequences of a Repeal of the Union ;" and the Rev. Mr. Godkin, in the true spirit of lingual reform, and to establish, perhaps, a repeal vernacular, terms his chapters on "the Ancient Irish Nation," the "Anglo-Norman Conquest," "the English Pale," "the Reformation," &c., &c., "The rights of Ireland." ex Although, a contempt for logical arrangement, and a scorn of chronological order, may, under certain circumstances, be of great advantage to writers, and to the advocates of Repeal, we at once concede their utility; yet, from sorrowful perience, we know, that a lofty disdain of sequences and eras, is an almost intolerable evil to the unhappy being, whose deplorable destiny condemns him to read, and, if possible, to understand the productions of such authors. It is painful, nay, it is mentally excruciating, as we can affirm, with all the sincerity of misery, to peruse-study-ponder, and to find yourself, at last, about as ra tionally employed, as if you were making a succession of efforts to grasp a handful of water. When truth had to pass through the prism of repeal, although we knew that the brightness of the ray would be lost, still we looked for the beauty of the spectrum. The medium, no doubt, was misty, notwithstanding we hoped the iris would be distinct. We had not, indeed, the extravagant credulity to believe that the prize essays would contain lucid reasoning; still we expected that they would abound in brilliant sophistries; and it was with a feeling of disappointment, even in some degree resembling regret, we were forced to conclude, that the strongest case ever made against the repeal of the Legislative Union, was developed in the prize essays; and that the intellect of the empire could not produce positive arguments, of a value equal to the negative proofs supplied by these tracts, of the necessity and advantages of the imperial connexion. Yet, perhaps, we would be doing the authors of those essays injustice, if we did not furnish the instructions given them by the repeal committeeinstruction of such a character as must have, necessarily, influence both in the materials and style of their compositions. The committee suggested that the authors should state and refute the arguments which may be advanced against the establishment of a domestic legislature for Ireland; that they should state fully the arguments for repeal; that they should develop a form of executive and legislative constitution, calculated to secure the happiness of the Irish people, and to promote unity of feeling between the constituent parts of the British empire; that they should illustrate the inter-national relations which they propose shall hereafter subsist between Great Britain and Ireland, by examples taken from the history and existing * Mr. Barry thus gets rid of this suggestion, and avoids all historical investigation. Having drawn from the history of Ireland herself, the arguments which go to prove that necessity and those advantages, I might at once reply to any one, who sought to controvert them, by facts taken from the history of other countries, by saying, such facts may be very true, but they prove little. If you can show an exact similarity of produce, of geographical position, of national characterin fact, a complete resemblance in every particular between the country, whose example you cite, and Ireland, then, indeed, your argument has weight: if not, all it goes to show is that the circumstances of the countries being different, like relations to other countries have produced different effects. This would be fair and honest reasoning, but I will not now have recourse to it." Now, notwithstanding Mr. Barry's last statement, there is but one short passage having reference to foreign history in his Essay, although he devotes a chapter to the present condition of Belgium and Scotland. As the circumstances required by Mr. Barry to constitute an analogy are morally and physically impossible, all reasoning drawn from the experience of other countries must, according to his dieta, be abandoned. The attempt thus to extinguish the torch of history required no ordinary courage. institutions of other countries; and, in particular, that they should examine how far the constitution of Norway, and its connexion with Sweden, may serve as a model for the new constitution of Ireland; that they should decribe the probable consequences which may be expected to result from a repeal of the Union, pointing out the dangers to be apprehended, and the means by which those dangers may be averted. In these instructions, political problems, with impossible conditions, are offered for solution; inconsistent propositions required to be reconciled; a demand is made to discover analogies among contradictions, and to develop, in extenso, absurdities. They present a task well worthy of the genius of Byfoged Horneman and his fellow legislators, who altered, in about a month, the second-hand and cast-off constitution of Spain to suit Norway. The prize essays may be regarded as one of the results of the repeal policy to create a public opinion in favour of separation, since it has been found that threats of force, however violent, and the assemblage of mobs, however large, are insufficient to dissolve the connexion. For this purpose, an educational course has been prepared. The novel, the history, the ballad, literature in every form, have been made subsidiary to this object. Falsehood is insinuated in the beautiful language of poetry; sedition inculcated in the seducing pages of romance. This policy has been eminently successful: the youthful mind of the middle classes, of the men who have time to read, but not the skill to reason, is in the state of rapidly being debauched; and we trust that those facts will form our apology to our readers for having obtruded the prize essays on their attention. Disease may be transmitted by contagion; but there is no means of propagation of health; as is the physical, so is the moral nature of man; truth is the slow remedial process of individuality; error, a wide-spreading epidemic among multitudes; nonsense repeated, may at last become disordered opinion; and even such arguments as those contained in the prize essays (if unanswered) might have a power to effect evil. We will endeavour to examine, what we must in reverence to the memory of Chesterfield, term the arguments of the essayist, protesting, at the same time, vehemently—for we confess ourselves liable to contagionagainst any exception being taken to our consistency, should we, partially, deviate from this arrangement. "Under domestic legislation," says Alderman Staunton, "the progress of the country (Ireland) was without example." Now, if this assertion be true, the following are its deducibles, viz. that the prosperity of a country is best promoted by the sternest tyranny; its advantages most quickly forwarded by the grossest ignorance; its wealth most rapidly developed by rendering industry penal; that persecution must be an invaluable instrument of government; and cruelty the best means of rule; for the Irish parliament, skilled in the science of oppression, employed all those devices to dehumanise the great mass of the population it ruled. But, it may be alleged, that "the progress without example," is limited to the period which intervened between the era of Independence and the Union; now although, this sense of the passage will involve a most violent refraction of language, yet, in charity to Alderman Staunton's understanding, we must adopt it as his meaning. Is it true, then, that the prosperity of Ireland "progressed without example," between 1782 and 1800. The following Abstracts of the Exports and Imports of Ireland, for thirty-six years before the Union, will aid the solution of the question 1774 22,608 189 1775 22,305 650 1776 21,617 7,857 1783 19,540 23,303 1765 22,366 48,854 10,529 903 129,331 | 122,318 6,999 183,337 68,783 1769 27,524 4,759 2,199 15,447 1,023 420,584 268,358 2,100,419 4,852,197 1779 17,371 31,359 10,569 5,931 145,540 659,847 347,840 4,131 1 739 37 Bohea. Green. 213,132 148,551 256,272 3,549,954 555,878 109,650 267,305 5,501,535 1,224,506 517,127 2,781 2 158 19 74 30 345 22 460 588 31 708 |