WHAT DOES IRELAND WANT? {From the Times )

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 285, 21 February 1849, Page 3

WHAT DOES IRELAND WANT? {From the Ti mes )

John Bull is in the main a very good-tempered fellow. He can put ud with a great deal in the way of losiei, of thnaitings, and ingratitude. It is not every petty insult that nettles him, nor every trifling failure that discourage* him. He beam with as much equanimity as any of" his neighbours the crosses ot fortune and the capriies of fkvou'. But it is quite possible to go too Jar with him. His temper will not bear unceasing and pertinacious freiting. For many year! Ireland had been drawing largely on h s sympathies, and in some ysars not less largely on his pur^e. Hejentered upon a course of penitential eelf-reproacb, and sought to atone for the errors of past ill-treatment by a system of kindness an. l benevu.cnce. He gave an ear to every grievance, and a t igh to every plaint. He j taught hims-lf to b-tieve, Hist, that the Irish Church was the fountain of all Irish miseries ; theu, that the landlords were ; and, listly, the potatoes. He exculpated the people from any participation in the creation of the miseries they endmed and the guilt of the crimes they perpetrated. Ha would gee nothing but an injured, persecuted, oppressed, but high-souled and intelligent people. Their faults were, the faults of their position ; tbeir virtues were ail their own. This went on for some time. John Bull shouted, spouted, and bellowed lustily about Ireland and her wrongs. He was sure he could cure them. The Irish people only wanted liberty and political privileges, and sympathy, to be the finest nation in the world. An extended franchise would put down the Tipperary boys. Tho asheg of mppreised hierarchy would fatten the com field and the piggeries. Thii continued for somo years ; the Irish continued to complain ; John Bull continued to sympathize. The Irish had a dearti, John Bull fed them; they had a famine, and he fed them again. They asked for recognition and equally ; Bull took them to his bosom, distributed bread and loup and ir,ont.y. Paddy still went on howling and eating, ai d — when the danger was past — took to buying arms with his doles. John did not like this, and remomtiartd. Paddy vent on buying more arms and using i hem. First one landlord was shot ; then another. At lust autumn became a regular spotting 1 season with the " fine peasantry," and its licensed game were unpopular landlords. Bull began to doubt his own predilections ; but still he made allowances, which were in seme degree justifi.d by facts. The peasantry had been harshly treated. Some landlords had been vety cruel indeed ; others very remiss. Bull did not kuow that it was against the good landlords, the resident landlords the improving landlords, that the musket was levelled and the pistol fired ; and that the foulest murders which Christendom has seen \rera perpetrated on men who had lived only to do good tv> their predestined assassins. But Paddy went further than this. He had tried murder on a small scale ; he would now luxuriate in its grander features. He hud raised his arm against his squire $ why should not he trail his pike against bis Sovtreign ? Accordingly he profited by the eaampie which the gamins of Paris had so conveniently set him. He began to concoct a revolution of his own. The only difference betweea him and his models was this—they talked big ayd acted accordingly ; he talked bigger, aod would not act at all. If flaming words and Jacobinical threat* could have upset a government, Paddy was the boy to reverie the whole order of things in Great Britain. But when all the expense of war had been incurred— when tents had been pitched, when troopn had been inarched, counter marched, and wetted to the skin, Paddy thought better of it. He skulked from the battle* field into the law court. The jury-box became hit barricade ; and there he crouched, and grinned at hit baffled foe. Then the slowly githering wrath of years, was concentrated to a point. John Bull was—as Jonathan would express it — •' properly riled" at the behaviour of his once beloved fondling. He could put up with ingratitude ; he could despise insolence ; he could treat bravado with contempt. But here was the most wonderful combination of insolence, ingratitude, bravado, and cowaidice that history has recorded. Hers were men belching out treason and fire and sword one day, and the next sneaking between the bulwarks of a cabbage garden, or through the loopholes of an indict* ment ! For such and on such had he been expending, not only money, but care, anxiety, sympathy, and fear. He was fooled in the ejes of the world and his own ! The only hop* for Ireland is in reit and a strong Government. Almost every Englishman who has regarded her with solicitude within late years, is convinced that what she and her people require beyond all things, is discipline. Her gentry require discipline ; her middle class require discipline ; her peasantry require discipline. They should altogether be disciI lined in a rigid but just system, as the picked Irish* men have been who are distinguished as the best foremen in our factories, and the best non-commissioned officers in our army. Political privileges have been tried and misused : judicial forms have been tried and abused ; Saxon institutions have been tried and found not to harmonize with the Celtic mind. It cannot comprehend them ; it does not appreciate them. It arrays liberty against law, and the technicalities of law against its spirit. It wants that moral seme, that instinctive justice and fairness, which has been the soul and strength of Anglo-Saxon jurhprudence. This it mutt be taught by a strong, an irresistible, and, if need be, a coercive authority. Duty must be impressed on it as a habit, and then it will be inauealtd! with its sympathies. The greatest boon to Ireland would be the rule of a benevolent autocrat, who would punish all classes and all parties alike for a breach of social mid civil duties; the landlords for their cruelty J the tenants for their mendacity, the priests for their, neglect of th'ir most momentous function.