were tenant under lease or indenture, and | Session when there was a more anxious that had raised a great feeling in Ireland. desire to transact the public business than He thought Government should intimate in the present Session. On no occasion to the Commissioners that they should not had they failed to make a House; the pursue that course. To say that estates House had been rarely counted out; and, should be cleared for the purpose of fetch-excepting the debate on the foreign policy, ing a higher price, was to proclaim a war against life in Irelaud. MR. M. J. O'CONNELL said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in quoting from the returns which he (Mr. O'Connell) had moved for, had made an omission which showed more of official dexterity than of statesmanlike ingenuousness. The right hon. Gentleman had omitted the offence of robbery of arms-an offence which, more than any other, afforded a correct test of the state of Ireland. From that return it appeared that in the first half year of 1848 the robberies of arms were 100; in the second half year, 137; in the first half year of 1849, 67; in the second half year, 46; and in the first half year of 1850 they were 51. COLONEL DUNNE said, he felt as strong an objection as any one to this Bill. He believed that the Government themselves had produced the necessity for the measure, while throughout the Session, the only remedial measure passed had been the Franchise Bill, and that had nothing to do with the peace of the country. He had not opposed the introduction of the Bill, feeling that some such measure was necessary: but he would grant it for the shortest possible time. The all-absorbing question in Ireland was tenant-right; a sort of Parliament on that subject was now sitting in Dublin; and no doubt it would give rise to great agitation. He recommended the Government, instead of slandering the magistrates and abusing the landlords, to adopt just and conciliatory measures. SIR B. HALL thought a Bill of this nature ought not to be brought in so late in the Session; the House had now spent two hours in discussing whether they should go into Committee or not. The manner of disposing of the public business had come to such a pass that it was absolutely necessary the whole system should be revised, or it would be impossible to get through the business of the country. He must protest against important Bills, with deceptive titles, being brought forward at a period when most Members were wearied with their labours. Since the period of the Reform Bill, he had never known a the speeches had been shorter and more to the point than usual. The sittings of the House had been more protracted; and he defied any man to sit continuously, as they were required to do by the Government, and to give proper attention to the business before them-to say nothing of domestic enjoyments. [The hon. Baronet was proceeding to state the number of hours the House had sat on each day in July, when] MR. SPEAKER intimated that the statement was out of order. SIR B. HALL said, he was using it as an argument against important Bills like this being pressed at so late a period. He would take another opportunity of going into the statement to show the amount of time wasted, and the number of important Bills that had been abandoned. On the present question he should certainly vote for the Amendment. The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER said, he had no objection to the statement of the hon. Baronet, provided it were made in proper time. MR. MOWATT considered that no just ground had been shown for continuing this measure. In asking for additional powers, the Government signed their own condemnation. He should have supposed they must, ere this, have been convinced of the inefficiency of Gagging Acts, Alien Bills, and other coercive measures. To deal with crimes without going into their causes, was most unstatesmanlike. It was incredible that a people like the Irish would commit such appalling murders as had been recently recorded, except they were suffering from the conviction of extreme wrong. One of these wrongs was the absence of manufactures in their country, which our policy, so called, had put an end to. The power of inflicting two years' imprisonment for the mere possession of arms was most monstrous. The Bill was a reproach to the Government, especially looking at the time and the circumstances under which it had been brought in. MR. E. B. ROCHE did not think the time of the House had been wasted in the two hours' discussion of that morning, as the wrongs of the Irish people Go had been admitted on all sides, though they were traced to different causes. vernment, instead of redressing those wrongs, sought to coerce the people; for such a course their responsibility was very great. Admitting the unsatisfactory nature of the relations between landlord and tenant, they had introduced a Bill, and kept it dangling before the people's eyes all the Session, and then withdrew it at the last moment. The consequence was, the breach between landlords and tenants was widened. Had Government pressed that Bill, instead of the Coercion Bill, there would have been much less waste of time. Nothing was to be done this Session for the redress of wrongs. He could not but feel anxious as to the conduct of the people of Ireland, between this period and the next Session. He hoped the tenantry would be firm, but moderate, in their demands; but should, unhappily, any violent measures be resorted to on either side, the blame would rest on the Government. He thought the present Bill wholly unnecessary. Ireland was perfectly tranquil, more tranquil than any one had a right to expect, seeing that all redress of wrongs had been uniformly refused. MR. P. SCROPE could not but sympathise with the Government, under the attacks which they suffered from all sides, as to the principle of this measure. He hoped it would be a warning to them to cease governing Ireland by coercive mea Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the blank be filled up with the words until the 31st day of December, 1851, and from thence until the end of the then next Session of Parliament." MR. MOORE moved that the continuance of the Bill be limited to one year only. He confessed that he felt more anxious for the result of the Motion he now proposed, than for the fate of the Bill itself. The liberal Irish Members, who had always given a consistent support to the Government, were unanimous in favour of the proposition he now made. He trusted, therefore, that the Government would yield to their wishes in the present ease, and would consider that sufficient for the year was the evil thereof. Whereupon Motion made, and Question proposed, That the blank be filled up with the words for one year." 66 MR. HUME suggested to the Government to yield to the reasonable proposition now made. The former Act was based on the existence of certain facts, which in his opinion formed some justification for the Government in introducing it. But no such facts were produced on the present occasion. For this reason he should support the Motion; but he hoped the Government would accede to the proposition, and would not press the House to pass it for a longer period than one year. MR. REYNOLDS supported the Motion. He hoped the Government would see the propriety of not pressing the Bill on the people of Ireland beyond what was absolutely necessary. MR. E. B. ROCHE said, that Ireland was now, generally speaking, free from agrarian outrages, and, therefore, there could be no pretence for demanding the continuance of the Bill beyond one year. If Ireland became more disturbed, the Government would then be able to come to that House with a good case to ask for a continuance of the measure for a longer period. MR. M. J. O'CONNELL hoped some Member of the Government would attempt an answer to the arguments which had been used in favour of the proposition now made. The noble Lord at the head of the Government justified this measure on the ground that it would be inconvenient for the Irish Government not to have such a measure. Taking that to be the justification of the measure, the Bill ought not to be continued beyond the period which the necessity of the case demanded. SIR G. GREY said, that the object of the measure was not to punish crime, as had been supposed, but to prevent crime. With regard to the time which it was to continue, it was possible that the condition of Ireland might so improve, that the Act would not be any longer necessary. So it might in three months. But the Government did not think it right that this subject should be made a matter of discussion next year, and they only proposed to continue the measure for the ordinary period that all similar Bills were passed. MR. C. ANSTEY was afraid that the object was to continue this Bill from year to year, in order that Parliament, in a fit of desperation, should pass a permanent Arms Act. He, for one, should never consent to such a proposal. If it was the object to suspend the liberties of the people of Ireland, let them do it by an annual measure. He should vote for the Motion of the hon. Member for Mayo. jesty's Ministers had been unanimously made by the Irish liberal Members; but the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State did not think fit to give them any answer beyond the cut and dried one, that he had a duty to perform in resisting their application. He hoped a time would comeindeed, he doubted not it would—when, to the application of the Ministry to which the right hon. Baronet belonged, the Irish liberal Members would also respond that they had a public and a national duty to perform. LORD J. RUSSELL said, the Bill before the House was one for the discouragement of crime in Ireland; and that being the case, he considered that the continuance of the Bill for a period longer than twelve months would have a beneficial effect in discouraging and repressing crime, particularly the dreadful crime of murder. It was, indeed, desirable that the period for which it would be necessary might be short. What was desirable for Ireland, as for England and Scotland, was, that they should induce habits of order and obedience to the law; and having induced these habits and that obedience, they might then rely on the operation of the ordinary law for the prevention and punishment of ordinary crime. By limiting and shortening the duration of Bills, they withdrew the repression imposed upon crime, the consequence of which was that MR. SCULLY thought the grounds crime revived; and then, again, they were stated by the hon. Gentlemen the repre- obliged to have recourse to extraordinary sentatives from Ireland were such measures to repress it. He, therefore, ought to induce Her Majesty's Ministers thought that, if they wished the measure to accede to the proposition of limiting should not in reality be of lengthened duthe operation of the Bill to twelve months. ration, they had better now consent to its He wished that the queries of the hon. enactment for two years, as such a course Member for Montrose, relative to the re- would be wiser than applying again for a turns of robberies of arms, with the locali-renewal. The hon. Member for Rochdale ties in which they occurred, had been answered; and also it was important that they should know what increase had taken place in the number of constabulary, and the extra expense incurred thereby. He hoped Her Majesty's Ministers would not drive them to a division, but accede to the proposition of limiting the Bill to one year. as MR. S. CRAWFORD protested against the renewal of the Bill for any term whatever. He thought Her Majesty's Ministers would do better to bring to a fair termination the disputed points between landlord and tenant. MR. MOORE said, he was not then going to reply. The call upon Her Ma He had alluded to the question of landlord and hoped they would then be more successful than they had hitherto been in their attempts to deal with that question. But in reference to the Bill then before the House for the suppression of crime and outrage, and particularly the crime of murder, he thought it absolutely necessary the Bill should be continued; and he should consequently vote in accordance with that conviction. MR. MOWATT thought the Government was bound to inquire into the causes that produced these murders referred to by the noble Lord, with a view to removing them. There appeared in the papers a few days since an account of some 600 persons having been ejected and thrown upon the world. If unfortunate creatures were treated in such a way, what was left them but to turn round like wild beasts on their destroyers? The murder of Mr. Pike was perpetrated in presence of an entire village; which showed how utterly gone the sympathy of the public was for the unfortunate victim. Penal and preventive laws would never answer; they should remove the causes. Question put "That the blank be filled up with the words until the 31st day of December, 1851, and from thence until the end of the next Session of Parliament." The Committee divided:-Ayes 75; Noes 34: Majority 41. MR. REYNOLDS said, he would move, on the third reading of the Bill, that its operation be confined to one year. He could assure the Government that no Coercion Bill would remedy Ireland, until the causes of her disaffection should be removed. The temporalities of the Irish Church, and the question of landlord and tenant, demanded settlement; and there would be neither peace nor quiet until they were settled-and indeed, in his opinion, there should not be. He believed the sufferings endured by the Irish people would justify them in resisting their oppressors to the death; and the peace and order that prevailed was not owing to Algerine or Coercion Acts, but to the high religious feeling of the people, as well as the lessons of patience inculcated by their revered clergy. LORD J. RUSSELL: With regard to what had been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor of Dublin, he thought that the question of the time to which the Bill should be limited had already been sufficiently discussed. The House resumed. Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow. STATE OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS- MR. HUME said, that he was sorry to occupy the time of the House; but having taken a warm interest in the affairs of the Ionian Islands for many years, and having introduced the subject early in this Session, with the view of obtaining the fullest information on a subject which had attracted the attention of all Europe-he meant the proceedings of Sir Henry Ward as Commissioner of the Ionian Islands-he could not allow the Session to pass without making an effort to procure for the inhabitants that which they had so long desired. The melancholy situation in which they were now placed was much to be regretted by any man who looked back to the history of the Ionian Islands. He had had a former opportunity of alluding to this question, but the House having been counted out, the decision did not appear upon the Votes of the House, and it became necessary to The noble Lord the renew this notice. Member for Aylesbury was anxiously looking forward to finish the speech which he had begun, but he was confined to his bed and was unable to attend. He (Mr. Hume) was anxious that the hon. Secretary for the Colonies should have the opportunity of offering any answer he could give as to the proceedings of Sir Henry Ward, of which he complained; and he should be pleased if he could learn from the noble Lord at the head of the Government that he was willing to concur in the object of his Motion, which was to send out a Commission to the inhabitants of these islands, in order that the facts connected with their misgovernment might be brought to the ears of the Government at home; believing, as he did, that our Government had not been in possession of the real truth as to the state of these islands. In order to show that he had ground for that, and that the House ought to listen with attention to any thing that came from that quarter, he would only refer to the proclamation which had been alluded to on a former occasion. It was the proclamation of Her Majesty's Commissioner in the year 1813, for the government of the islands at that time when the Ionians put themselves under the protection of the British Government. General Campbell said— "I am directed by the Prince Regent, to im- | mission of two or three men able to make press on the minds of the inhabitants the deep in- inquiries upon the spot, to see with their terest his Royal Highness feels in the prosperity of these islands, and recommend the adoption of own eyes the grievances which the Ionians such measures as may be best calculated to secure had suffered, and the remedies by which the general happiness of the Ionian islands, and they should be relieved. He would now support freedom and prosperity." state the complaints he had to make against Sir Henry Ward; and he would not refer to any publications or statements but those which had been made by Sir Henry Ward himself. It appeared from the papers on the table, for which he (Mr. Hume) had moved early in the Session, that on the 29th of August last a most atrocious murder was committed in Cephalonia upon a member of an aristocratic family, possessed of large property, who had long resided there, but between whom and the people, he believed, no very good feeling existed. Two or three men had vowed his destruction, and they murdered him in his own house, which they burned down with all who were in it. That event excited considerable alarm, and the report arriving at Corfu, where the High Commissioner was, at 10 o'clock A.M., on Thursday, the 1st of August, at 11 o'clock A.M., according to the letters of Sir Henry Ward, he proclaimed martial law. Considerable alarm was immediately spread throughout the country, and it appeared from a letter, that what was called an outbreak was an assembly of a multitude, who, it was admitted, were brought together to obtain what they could from the attack, and therefore it was called an outbreak. In a despatch of the 7th of February, Sir Henry Ward said, that he had proclaimed martial law, he knowing nothing whatever of the subject. His (Mr. Hume's) complaint was that any man representing the British Government, and holding in his hands the liberties of British subjects, should not so lightly place himself in the situation of declaring military law. [The hon. Member then referred to one or two paragraphs in the despatch of Sir Henry Ward, from which it appeared that there was a gang of assassins, and that, instead of punishing these assassins, Sir Henry Ward had declared martial law, depriving every inhabitant of the protection of the civil law, and placing the island in a state of blockade.] Admiral Parker hastened down, surrounded the island, and kept the island in a state of siege. In one paragraph Sir Henry Ward had stated that in the measures which he had felt it his duty to take, he had used the power with which he was armed under the English Government, he being protector under the British Govern This was on the 30th of April. On the 24th of June following, General Campbell issued another proclamation stating that it was the desire of the British Government to afford every facility to their enjoying such a constitution as they had, and such improvements as might be made. General Campbell said that such had always been the rule of conduct held by the British Government, and great had been the sacrifices on all occasions made by Great Britain in maintaining the sanctity of her engagements. For six or eight years it had been his (Mr. Hume's) lot to complain of the conduct of Sir Thomas Maitland, who at that time possessed the constitutional power of the island, and he wished he had nothing more to complain of. He was sorry to say that since then the islands had fallen into the hands of worse men: but he would not enter into that further than to express his regret that those hopes which had been entertained by the islanders, and those promises which had been made by the British Government, had altogether failed; and they were now ruled by Sir Henry Ward, who called them semi-barbarians, not entitled to the free institutions which they claimed. The noble Lord at the head of the Government in one instance wrote a letter to them. They had applied for more liberal institutions, and difficulties were thrown in the way by Government. The noble Lord himself found it right to grant certain advantages to them, to enable them to carry on their improvements. In one sentence of the letter he argued freely against those who were unwilling to give the Ionian islanders this increased liberty which they wanted. The noble Lord said that it would not have been to the honour of this country to have occupied the Ionian Islands without having advanced the inhabitants to a better condition than that which they enjoyed before they were placed under the protection of this country. The islanders were in the hands of a clique who got round the Lord High Commissioner. Hence the discontent that had taken place. He regretted that the noble Lord was not better acquainted with the state of these islands. His object then was, and his object now was, to obtain from this Government the |