Edmund Burke on Ireland.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 4057, 30 December 1881, Page 2

Edmund Burke on Ireland.

(Nation, July 23.)

Mr Matthew Arnold, recognising that his countrymen make far too little use of the English prose classics, nnd that an ignorance of Edmund Burke especially shuts them out from great sources of life, thought and language, has taken advan* tage of the prevalent interest in the 'state of Ireland to put together, in a volume of some four hundred pages, some of that! great political writer's more striking and valuable tracts, speeches and letters on Irish affairs. Few persons, if any, of those competent to speak on'the subject will differ with Mr Arnold in thinking *' that to leave Burkes writings out of the mind's circle of acquaintance is a loss for > which no conversance with contemporary prose literature can make up; but we ourselves would go farther' and say thai the more deep is .one's'acquaintance with the greater part of contemporary prose literature of at least the political .order,^ the more necessary it is occasionally 1 to~ have recourse., to such a corrective as Burke" supplies'; for/while* political writers of the present day, are, too generally, superficial thinkers—and in the crush and hurry of the time it isim-, possible that the case should be otherwise: *. —the. political philosopher who endea*-; voured in vain to enlighten the mind of England in the latter part of the last century has as his chief merit that he strives on all occasions to pierce" beneath the surface ofTus subject. It may be presumed, however, that Mr Arnold's object is not purely literary, bat political also. He doubtless desires by this collection of writings on Ireland to remove, the ignorance and prejudice ';' which prevent Englishmen from'dealing justly and thoroughly, even at the present ' day, witb|the question. If thisbe.so.tiis ' means are very well chosen, for in'these pages he shows by testimony which all educated Englishmen now profess to res-! '■' pect, many of the causes which have brought Ireland to. its present .state. "The tyranny," he writes,", " * the grantees of confiscation—of the English garrison; Protestant, ascendancy.; the reliance,of the English Government upon this ascendancy and its instruments, as' ;; their means of government; the ", yielding to menaces of danger and insurrection „ what was never yielded to considerations. ■ of equity and reason; tho recurrence to the old perversity of mismanagement as soon as ever the danger was parsed— .'; all these are -shown in this volume—the evils, and Burkes constant sense of their ■' gravity, his constant struggle > to' cure them." All this has a deep interest for Knglishmen, but not forjEoglifhrnen only. It teaches important lessons" to'.lrishmen, 'too. If Burke, spaakingVasi-it .werel it | from his grave, proves, to England that her present Irish trouble is a just Nemesis for her own misdeeds, he proves.to Ireland,; f on _ the other hand, that the modes in' '•' which? she is oppressed are of old standing, ' and disclose, an inveterate purpose, and! that therefore until she gets, rid of Eng* . lish rule altogether, in the matter at least: .. of her domestic affairs,' she will never be „ at peace, and will never reach that- pros- - perity to which she may justly aspire.) The penal laws for the subject of the majority of the passages Mr Arnold has collected,' and nowhere else is that subject ::"' more powerfully discussed. What Burke undertakes to show in this connection ho/ himself, after having summarised tns pro* •*■ visions of the penal code, states aa follows,:— '.■ ■ „.. -„'.-: ■- ;;- f v " The system which we have j nit revuprtd, and the manoer in whiqh religious influence on the public is made to • operate upon the ' laws concerning property in Ireland, is in its \ very nature singular, and differs, I apprehend,; essentially, and perhaps to its disadvantage, from any scheme of religious persecution now . existing in any other country in .Europe, for „ which has prevailed in any time or nation i X with which history has made U8 acquainted. I believe it will not be diffi ult to show that it is unjust, impolitic, and inefficacious » that it

hus the most unhappy influence on the proa* peril j, the morals, and.the safety of the country ; that this influence is not accidental,..but' ' has flowed as the necessary and direct conae* quonce of the laws themselves, first on / account of the object which they effect, and,..\next by the quality of the greatest part of '' '"- the instrument* they employ.". . . .."''.," What will probably moat . strike . the ' reader in the disquisition which follows ii ;: the fact that Burke deems it necessary.- :< ; for his English, audience, that he should, enter into the rery alphabet of the creed of toleration, and should combat assertions such as that the English parliament . were not bound to ratify or act up to international compacts like the treaty of Limerick. So late as eighty or ninety - years ago. the friends of liberty in these countries had to assert against the ruling class in England principles which are now regarded as absolutely fundemental, and '; what makes matters worse is that English writers themselves had previously asserted those principals against foreign powers, thus showing that England in trampling

right and justice under foot in the case of Ireland acted with a full consciousness of the nature of her deed and with malice aforethought. Similarly, Burke, in defending his votes in favor of removing the abominable restrictions that gagged and killed the trade of Ireland, is obliged to put forth doctrines which, one would imagine, ought to be taken for granted in any society whatever from which the perception of the difference between right and wrong had not entirely departed. Thus, he writes in a letter to the Master of "The Society of Merchant Adventurers of Bristol," in reply to an attack made upon him for the votes to which we have just referred :— " After all, what are the matters we dispute with so much warmth? Do we in these

resolutions bestow anything on Ireland ? Not a shilling. We only consent to leave 1 them, in twio or threa instances, the use of the natural .faculties which God has given to them and to all mankind. Is Ireland united to the Crown of Great Britain for no other purpose than that: we should counteract the bounty of Providence in her favour ?—and in proportion as that bounty has been liberal that we are to regard it as an evil which is to be met with every tort of corrective ?" We bare said thatmany of the modes of oppression of which Ireland has even now experience at the hands of England are of old standing. This reflection^which is, indeed, after all only theexpres sion of a truism—-is suggested to us by a passage in the letter written to Sir . Hercules Langrisbe in 1792. At the present day, as. it is scarcely necessary to observe, we see a deliberate effort made, under cover of putting a stop to outrages, to discredit and put down by brute force a constitutional and peaceful movement for one of the most praiseworthy objecil for which men can struggle. Under an Act obtained on the pretence that it was required to arrest midnight marauders who burned down hayricks, houghed cattle, fired into dwelling-houses, and committed other such vulgar crimes, persons are every day arrested who, either as large farmers, well-to-do merchants, or professional men hare acquired the highest reputation for upright conduct in their respective districts, and whoie only crime, as far as the public pan see, has been that they busied themselves in organising the people against a system of combined oppression and extortion. The course of the Government in this particular is simply that of the strong headed.tyrant, and it astonishes every foreigner who comes amongst us now for the first time. But that it is nothing new is shown by what occurred in some parts of Ireland, with very few and short intermissions from the year 1761 to 1766, both inclusive :— " In a country of miserable police, pawing from the extremes of laxity to the extremes of . rigour—among a neglected, and therefore disorderly, populace—if any disturbance or sedition, from any grievance, real or imaginary, happened to arise, it was presently perverted from its true nature, often criminal .enough in itself, to draw upon it • severe, appropriate punishment} it was metamorphosed into'a conspiracy against the State, and prosecuted as such. Amongst the Catholics, as being by far the most numerous and the most wretched, all sorts of offenders against the laws must be found. The punishment of low people for the offences usual among low people would warrant no interference against any description of religion or politics. Men of consideration from their age,, .their profession, or their character—men of proprietary landed estates, substantial renters, opulent merchants, physicians, and titular bishops—could not easily be suspected of riot in open day, or of nocturnal assembling for' the purpose of pulling down heJges, making breaches in park walls, firing barns, maiming cattle, and outrages of a similar nature, which characterise the disorder., of an oppressed or a licentious populace. But when the evideuce given on the trial for such misdemeanours qualified them as overt acts of high treason, and whea witnesses were found (such witnesses as they were) to depose to the taking of oaths ■of allegiance by tho rioters to the King of France, to their being paid by bis money and embodied and exercised nnder his officers to overthrow the State for the purposes of the potentate—in that case the rioters might (if the witness was believed) be supposed only the troops, and persons more reputable the leaders and commanders, in such a rebellion. All classes in the obnoxious description who could not be suspected in the lower crime of riot might be involved in the odium, the suspicion, and sometimes in the punishment, .of a higher and something f&r more criminal species of offence."