THE ANGLO-IRISH ACT OF UNION

New Zealand Tablet, 10 July 1919, Page 42

THE ANGLO-IRISH ACT OF UNION

,Oi. (®y Alfred i W. McCann, in i America.)

of u Irish extraction as a rule; are unfapiKar with,the Act of Union passed in 1800, which destroyed, the Parliament of Ireland- by fusing it; with tfte. Parliament of England. We are hearing much of they']^nion'' :} nowadays, and there is nothing remarkable .in. the phenomenon that reveals scores of wellmeaning, 0 rightly-disposed, -patriotic American citizens, profoundly impressed by the British argument that the Irjsh. question is merely a domestic one, being to Englan"^,,what the negro . question was to the United States. ....; Irishmen in Ireland,; however, know how the Union was effected, following the defeat of the measure when first proposed in the House of Commons in 1799. They know how the Government dismissed from office everyone who voted against the Union in 1799 how it devoted .its efforts to bribing members during the recess how. peerages, bishoprics, seats on the bench and commands -in the army were freely given in exchange for votes for the Union. There are many aspects of the Union ; with which even the Irish in Ireland aro unfamiliar, and a still larger number with which* Americans, of Irish extraction are -unfamiliar. It is not surprising, therefore, that Americans who have no trace of Irish in them should be wholly unfamiliar with the Union , sophistry. =.,{ Few are the Americans who know that in the destruction of the Irish Parliament, 1800, and in the Act of Union that, followed it, 22 Irish peerages were created ; that five peers received English peerages and 20 peers received higher titles ; that 84 boroughs were disfranchised, treated as private property, compensation (bribes) being given for that "property" to their patrons. They do not know that each seat was valued at £7500, and the whole sum awarded as compensation amounted to -£1,260,000. They never heard that Lord Downshire received £52,000 as the owner of seven

borough seats, or that £45,000 apiece went to Lords Shannon and Ely. They do not know that 63 members, who refused to vote for the destruction of their native Parliament as the bribed patrons of their seats demanded, vacated their seats, which were filled at once by Englishmen and Scotchmen, who immediately voted away a Parliament, in the continuation of which they had ho interest and for the destruction of which they had accepted bribes. The British are telling Americans now, and exPresident Taft is echoing the British argument, that the United States fought to preserve the Union of North and South, wherefore the United States cannot now advocate any separation of the Union of Ireland with, England. ~ • r~;;: ;: Americans know that the Union between the North and the South was a real Union, entered into by a sacred covenant of voluntary origin. The people of the South and the North wereiof. the; same blood. They shared equally with each other in the laws and institutions ..of their ■-. own making. The bonds that united them^ad> been wrought by generations of mutual endeavor. In that Union between. North and South there was no consciousness of a separate nationality. All were on a parity with each other before the law nowhere was there discrimination, special privilege, or oppression. This was indeed a Union, and when the South attempted separation civil war resulted that the very foundation of our common liberty might not be undermined. Such a Union which the United States

fought to maintain is in no sense similar to the Union now referred to by ex-President Taft and the British in xj.menca.»*■ •- -' r --■ •■

Besidesthe £1,260,000 given as "compensation" to the patrons of the boroughs disfranchised by the Act of Union; £3,000,000 extra were expended in actual, : paynient to the persons who voted for tire Union. Of ; 300 members of the Irish; House of. Commons, 115 could not be reached by promises of promotion or reward. All of them voted against the Union, which

was carried by a majority of whom only seven were unbribed. : v j ' l^' JJ : '«.- . ~ . ■ .

■ v'' Lord Byron, speaking; in the House of Lords, April 21, ; 181 2 j said of this. unholy'marriage,' which ex-Presi-dent Taft how compares with the Union between North and South: "If it must be called a union, "it; is a union of the shark with'"'his 1 prey; the spoiler swallows up his victim and they become one and inseparable. Thus has Great Britain swallowed up the Parliament of Ireland, the Constitution of Ireland, the independence of Ireland." Seventy-four years later, April 16, 1886, Gladstone declared: '. "'

"I have avoided that subject because I did not want to enter into the details of it. It is dreadful to read the language of Lord Cornwallis and the disgust of an honorable mind at the transactions in which he found himself under the painful necessity of engaging. I will only say that we obtained that Union between England and Ireland against the sense of every class of the community, by wholesale bribery and unblushing intimidation."

Americans can understand that where a real union exists a separation is impossible, but they can also understand that there can be no separation where there is no Union. The aspects of the Irish issue which even the Irish in Ireland do not fully appreciate are legion. Many of them, if not all of them, assume that the acts of bribery by which the Union was accomplished were specially devised instrumentalities, the operations of which were peculiarly anti-Irish. The facts are that bribery, corruption, and blackmail were characteristic of the period, and that England herself suffered losses through their operations, from which, to this day, she has never recovered. It would be remarkable indeed if self-respecting Englishmen persisted, as they do persist, in holding fast to the fruits of corruption, were their sentiments, convictions, and conduct not traceable to a past that even Gladstone hesitated to explore.

At the time of the seduction of the Irish Parliament, a Parliament in which Catholics were not allowed to sit, not only were royal persons dealing in army commissions, but they were also selling bishoprics and deaneries. The regulation price for securing army commissions by which young officers were promoted over the heads of veterans was fixed by the degree of superiority involved. An ensigncy was sold for £2OO, a lieutenancy for .£4OO, a captaincy for £7OO. The rank of major commanded £9OO. Places were openly bought and sold, so vicious had become the corruptions of the times. Such public advertisements as the following, from the Morning Post, June 14, 1800, were common:

"Public Offices. —A young man of good connections, well-educated in writing and accounts, and can find security, wishes for a Clerkship in any of the public offices. Any lady or gentleman having interest to procure such a situation will be presented with the full value of the place. The greatest secrecy and honor will be observed." So frequent were these advertisements that it became necessary to take official notice- of them, as note the following from The Dawn of the XlXth Century in England, by John Ashton (T. Fisher Unwin, London, i 906):

"Custom House, London, December 7, ; 1902. Whereas advertisements have at different times appeared in the Newspapers offering Sums of Money for the procuring of places, the Commissioners of his Majesty's Customs think it necessary to have it generally known that, in addition to the punishment which the Common Law would inflict upon the offence of bribing or attempting -to bribe any person entrusted with the disposal of any Office, the Statute passed in the fifth and sixth year oi the xteigii w mugjauiKuu one oiadu inflicts the penalty of incapacity to hold .such office in the person purchasing it and the forfeiture of office I in the person selling it." ba,h YXS'i&qo. J! (*: ••3££iio ,•;■ ) The Government i of ;> England finally became so corrupt that on January 27, 1809, G. Lloyd Wardell, |M.P. or Oakhamptou, began ian;>< indictment of the Duke of York before the House of Commons. . : He pro-

duced so much evidence of the sale of commissions by Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke, one of the .mistresses., of the Duke, 'that a Parliamentary Committee was appointed to investigate. So scandalous, were the disclosures that his Royal Highness' was J forced to "place his resignation as Commander-in-Chief in the King's hands. In this connection two facts are, noteworthy in- any study covering the merits of the' Union issue. The British Government announced on December 7, 1802, less than T two years after the wholesale : bribery of the .Irish Parliament, that:— ■ ,' . / , f '"' 'ln case any place or office either shall < have been, or shall hereafter be procured, or obtained by Corrupt means the Government are determined to enforce the penalties of the Law and to prosecute the offenders with the utmost severity. And they do hereby promise a reward of One Hundred Pounds to any person or persons who will give information and satisfactory proof of any place or office being so obtained, so that the parties' concerned therein may be proceeded against accordingly." This is fact No. 1. Fact No. 2 covers the "black list" of those members of the Irish Parliament who received bribes for supporting the Union. This black list was in the hands of the British Government, with all the evidence the Government needed, because it was the Government's own evidence, to punish the receivers of bribes as well as the officials who gave them. This black list, published in 1803, by Sir Jonah Barrington, discloses the identity of the receivers of bribes who, having been "planted" in the Irish Parliament, sold that Parliament to England in the consummation of the Union which ex-President Taft compares with the Union between the North and the South.

No. 1 in the list is R. L. Aldridge, an English clerk in the Secretary's office, who had no connection, even remotely, with Ireland. No. 2, Henry Alexander, Chairman of Ways and Means, cousin of Lord Caledon. As a bribe his brother was made a bishop, and he himself was appointed Colonial Secretary at the Cape of Good Hope. No. 3, Richard Archdall, was made Commissioner of the Board of Works. No. 4, William Baily, was made Commissioner of the Board of Works. No. 5, Right Hon. J. Beresford, was made First Commissioner of Revenue. He was brother-in-law to Lord Clare. No. 6, J. Beresford, jun., was purse-bearer to Lord Clare, afterwards a parson, subsequently Lord Decies. No. 7, Marcus Beresford, Lord Clare's nephew, was a colonel in the army. No. 8, J. Bingham, was created a peer and received £BOOO for two seats, which amount was afterwards increased to £15,000 by the Government. After the bribe he was known as Lord Clanmorris. No. 9, Joseph H. Blake, was created a peer. He was later known as Lord Walscourt. No. 10, Sir J. C. Blackwood, was created a peer. He bore the title of Lord Dufferin. No. 11, Sir John Blaquiere, was created a peer, with numerous offices and pensions. After the bribery he was called Lord de Blaquiere. No. 12, Anthony Botet, was appointed Commissioner of the Barrack Board. No. 13, Colonel Burton, brother to Lord Conyngham, received nothing as. far as is known except his rank as colonel. No. 14, Sir Richard Butler, voted against the Union in 1799; after he received £15,000 he voted for it in 1800. No. 15, Lord Boyle, son of Lord Shannon, received with his father £30,000 for their seats and boroughs. No. 16, Right Hon. D. Brown, was brother to Lord Sligo; it is not known what he received. No. Stewart Bruce, gentleman usher at Dublin Castle, was made a baronet. No. 18, George-Burdett, was made commissioner of a public board. No. 19, George Bunbury, was made commissioner of a public board. No. 20, Arthur Brown, voted against the Union in 1799. After the bribe, the amount of which is not recorded, he voted for the Union in 1800. No. 21, -'Bagwell,:- sen., received as a bribe half the patronage of Tipperary. , His son was made a dean. No. 22, Bagwell; jun., received the other half of the patronage of Tipperary and got the i Tipperary Regiment. No. 128 was William Bagwell, his brother. It is not known what he received. William Hancock, No. 60 on the list,: composed and sang.< songs against the

Union in 1799. After " fie was promised a peerage, which he subsequently got, he composed add fiiigT"patriotic" 'longs for the Union in 1800. No. 81, Lord Loftus, son of Lord Ely, Postmaster-General, bid high. He was created an English marquis, : receiving £30,000 for his own and his father's boroughs. No. 85, Francis McNamara, was cheap, being content with'-'-*a- private pension ( '( paid by Lord Castlereagh. No. ji 89, H:' : I)V Massey, was cheaper.' still. He sold out for'*£4oWcßisliiP Professional politicians, included, have 5 been sellr' ing ; . out ever since. Heaven' be praised ; for those who" with God's help resist -temptation.' 3 •'•■^"•• i -<?_ :fya ' i a { Slc3s This will suffice. The entire black list, containing 140 names, ; with < the amounts of the bribes ! and thehonors attached to them, 'is- too long- to publish here. It is a matter of record to which all statesmen may refer: 1 ' The American people, knowing nothing' 1 of £ the corruption in which the Union was born, cannot under-' stand the "hostile attitude" of the Irishman who knows t all about it. To compare such a Union with the Union of the United States, and to cite the Civil War of 18611865 as a precedent in the maintenance of all Unions,. is not only to strangle history, but it irritates 5 Irish :; men in Ireland and the sons of Irishmen in America.

Loving the Union of the United States and hating. the Union of England and Ireland, they are looked, upon as "hyphenates," who refuse to forget the '/more : or less vague wrongs of the past" and foolishly assert the right of L-eland to secede from a Union that never had existence. If ex-President- Taft would resort to. the records, I for one have little doubt that" he would become just as valiant a champion of Irish rights as he is now a champion of English wrongs. '■•''•" •' j»E-*c--sr-,.;