WHAT DOES IRELAND WANT ? [From the Times, September 9.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 368, 10 February 1849, Page 2

WHAT DOES IRELAND WANT ? [From the Times, September 9.]

John Bull is in the main a very good-tem-pered fellow. He ran put up with a great deal in the way of losses, of thwarting^ ."and ingratitude. It is not every petty insult that nettles him, nor evejy trifling failure that discourages him. He bears with as much equanimity as any of his neighbours the crosses of fortune and the caprices of favour. But it is quite possible to go too far with him. His temper will not bear unceasing and pertinacious fretting. For many years Ireland had been drawing largely on his purse. He entered upon a course of penitential self-re-proach, and sought to atone for the errors of past ill-treatment by a system of kindness and benevolence. He gave an ear to every grievance, and a sigh to every plaint. He taught himself to believe, first, that the_ Irish Church was the fountain of all Irish miseries; then, that the landlords were ; and, lastly, the potatoes. He exculpated the people from any participation in the creation of the miseries they endured and the guilt of the crimes they perpetrated. He would see nothing "but an injured, persecuted, oppressed, , hut' highsouled and intelligent people. Their faults were the faults of their position ; their virtues were all 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. TheJrTsh people only wanted liberty, and political, privileges, and sympathy, to be the finest nation in the world. An extensive franchise would put down the Tipperary boys. The ashes of suppressed hierarchy would fatten the- corn field and the piggeries. This continued for some years ; the Irish continued to complain ; John Bull continued to sympathize. The Irish had a dearth, John Bull fed them; they had a famine, and he fed them again. They asked for recognition and equality ; Bull took them to his bosom, distributed bread and soup and money. Faddy still went on Howling and eating, and — when the danger was" p.ast— took to buying arms with his doles. ■ John did not like this, and remonstrated. . Eaddy went on buying more arms and using- them. First one landlord was shot ; then another. At last autumn became a Tegular' sporting season with the " fine peasantry," and Us/licensed game were unpopular landlords'. ' Bull began to doubt his own predictions ; but still he made allowances, which were in some degree justified by facts. . The --peasantry had been harshly treated. Some landlords. Jiad been very cruel indeed ; others very. remiss, Bull did not know 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 fbules? murders which Christendom has seen. were

pe^ptrated on men who had lived only to do good ' to 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 had raised his arm against his squire ; why should not he trail his pike against his Sovereign ? Accordingly he profited by the example which the gamins of Paris had so conveniently sent him. He began to concoct a revolution of his own. The only difference between him and his models was this — they talked big and acted accordingly ; he talked bigger, but would not act at all. If flaming words and Jacobinical threats could have upset a Government, Paddy was the boy to reverse the order of things in Great Britain. Never was there so formidable declamation, if declamation vi ere the only stuff of which revolutions are made. Scarcely had he digested the eleemosynary food of the summer, than he is arming himself for a winter campaign against his benefactor. The cost of his hostilities succeeded the cost of charity. But when all the expense of war had been incurred — when tents had been pitched, when troops had been marched, counter-marched, and wetted to the skin, Paddy thought better of it. He skulked from the battle-field into the law court. The jurybox became his barricade ; and there he crouched, grinning at his baffled foe, who found the armoury of 'his own beloved insti- , unions mockingly turned against himself. Then the slowly-gathering wrath of years was concentrated to a point.- John Bull was — as Jonathan would express it — " properly , riled " at the behaviour of bis once beloved ! fondling. He could put up with ingratitude; he could despise insolence : he could treat bravado with contempt. But here was the most wonder.'ul combination of insolence, ingratitude, bravado, and cowardice, that history has recorded. Here were men belching out treason and fire and sword one day, and the next day sneaking between the bulwarks of a cabbage garden, or through the loopholes of an indictment ! For such, and on such had he been expending not only money, but care, anxiety, sympathy, and fear. He was fooled in the eyes of the world and his own! It is at such a crisis as this, when every Englishman, and we may add, every Irishman of common sense — is indignant at the j caricature of law and war which has been enacting in Ireland — that Lord W. Fitzgerald iuaugutates a new, and Mr. J. O'Connell revives an exploded, agitation. The address of the latter, and the motives which dictate it, would be inexpressibly ludicrous, did we not know that causes as slight, and objects as small as this, are sufficient to keep Ireland in a fever of excitement for years. The old conventicle of diluted sedition is ininsolvent. It can't pay its own rent. A few more days and it will be rescued from the occupation of- repeal. Mr. J. O'Connell makes a piteous appeal to the Rump of the moral force faction. He conjures them by all they owe to their country to come forward and contribute to the preservation of that sanctuary where convicted treason first lisped its infant lessons, and perverted eloquence won its first fatal triumphs. It is thus clear that Mr. J. O'Connell wishes to drive a parallel agitation with Lord W. Fitzgerald, and keep the ball a-foot, until the efforts of the Government relax and its powers .are abrogated. If this hope is realised, it will be the most ruinous thing to Ireland that has happened for many a day. The only hope for Ireland is in rest and a strong Government. Almost every Englishman who b"as 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 disciplined in a rigid but just system, as the picked Irishmen have been who are distinguished as' tfie best foremen in our factories and the best noncommissioned officers in our army. Political privileges have been tried and mis-used ; judicial forms have been tried and abused ; Saxon institutions have been tried and found nqt to harmonize with the Celtipmind. It cannot apprehend them ; it does not appreciate them. ■ It arrays ljberty against law, and the technicalities of law against its spirit. It wants that moral sense, that instinctive justice and fairness, which have been the soul and strength of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. This it must be'taugbt 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 inanealed with its sympathies. The greatest boon to Ireland would be the rule of a benevolent autocrat, who would punish all parties and all classes alike for a breach of social and civil duties ; the landlords for their cruelty, the tenants for their mendacity, the priests for their neglect of their most momentous functions. This boon Ireland will not get ; but we can force upon her that which comes the nearest to it, the suppression of a vain, vapid, selfish, and sui-

cidal agitation. If we do not do it while we may, we shall rue it with bitterness and humiliation hereafter.