of Parliament, or any measure of the English Cabinet, so long as it exists. They never have derived any protection from it; and they will never look for protection to any other quarter, but to the King and his Ministers in London. The communication between London and Dublin is now, by means of improved roads and steam-navigation, rendered so perfectly safe, expeditious, and regular, that there is no reason why à Secretary of State, resident in London, should not transact the business of Ireland, as easily and effectually as he transacts that of Scotland. A Lord Lieutenant ought to be appointed to each Irish county, who would, at all times, convey to the seat of Government intelligence of any symptoms of disturbance, at the same time that he would serve to control the violence, or rouse the activity, of the magistrates; and prevent them from being, as at present, either in a state of feverish excitement, or of indolence and apathy. By this means, the laws intended to conciliate the people would have their legitimate influence upon them; and the laws for their coercion would be administered with the force and effect of measures coming directly from the seat of Government. By this means, also, a most salutary reformation would be effected in the disposal of the patronage of the Crown in Ireland. The Bench of Bishops, the Bench of Judges, the Revenue department, and all the Public Offices would soon wear a different appearance, were the rules, such as they are, by which the patronage of the Crown is bestowed in England, applied in Ireland. It is commonly supposed that Dublin derives great advantage from the residence of the Lords Lieutenant, and that the recal of these func. tionaries would be productive of its decline and ruin. But this opinion is plainly unfounded. It is impossible that so populous a city can be materially affected by the expenditure of £30,000 a year! Dublin does not depend for its support on its being the focus from whence the follies and vices of a mímic Court are dispersed throughout the country. The foundations of its prosperity rest on a firmner basis. The Courts of Law, the University, the facility of conveyance to England, and the polished and agreeable society of that city, must always render Dublin a place of genteel resort; while the canals that connect her with nearly the whole interior of Ireland, and her advantageous situation with respect to the great trading cities of Glasgow, Liverpool, and Bristol, must always secure for her a very large share of the ex. port and import trade of the country. It is only necessary to walk through her streets to be convinced of her improving condition,-a circumstance which is now placed beyond dispute by the late census; which shows that there has been an increase of 4,421 houses, and of 55,821 inhabitants, since the census taken by Dr. Whitelaw in 1798. The faithful discharge of the duties attached to the office of Sheriff, is obviously a matter of the highest importance; but in Ireland, this office has been most shamefully prostituted and perverted. Nominally, the appointment of Sheriff is in the Lord Lieutenant and Council; but, in reality, it always rests with the head of the party in each county who supports ministers. The whole business is transacted by the Sub-Sheriff. “He is commonly,” says Mr. Wakefield, “some attorney in the county, and is the law agent for all dirty work, and the ready minister of corruption. His em. ployer requires no other qualification than good or substantial security; and al though this office is one of great risk, and high responsibility, these Irish attorneys are always anxious to obtain it, and generous enough to undertake it without any salary! The truth is, every thing is done by a "Chamberlain's Key." I was informed from good authority, that the situation of Sub-Sheriff for the county of Tipperary, was worth 2000l. a year. In matters of arrest, a writ might as well be sent to the Captain of a Newfoundland trader, as to a Sheriff's officer; it would be an immediate fee in the pocket of the Sub-Sheriff, who would apprize the debtor of his danger, and, in return, receive the expected present! Where the higher classes are concerned, the common expression is, "What, arrest a gentleman!" I should not venture to exhibit a charge of this kind, were I not certain of the fact. I have experienced practical instances of this corruption myself, and I could relate upwards of five hundred that have been communicated to me by respectable persons." Vol. ii. p. 346. Nothing can be more disgraceful to the executive Government, or more derogatory from the character of the courts of law, than their suffering such abuses to grow up and flourish under their immediate observation. Lord Reddesdale, when Chancellor of Ireland, said from the Bench, that he found the dictum of Sir Edward Coke, that execution was the termination of the suit, did not apply in Ireland; for that the writ of execution there, led to endless litigation, by the attachments which became necessary against the Sheriff. We hope the Commissioners of Inquiry into the Abuses of the Irish Law Courts and Offices, will sift these villanous and destructive practices to the bottom; and not only expose the extent and inquiry of the corruption carried on, but propose some effectual remedy for preventing a set of profligate attorneys from enriching themselves by the sale of law and justice. A reform of the Irish Magistracy is another absolutely necessary measure. Mr. Wakefield reprobates "the partiality, corruption, venality, ignorance, and tyranny" of the Irish Magistrates in the severest terms; and the charges which he brings against them, are supported by the concurrent testimony of the most respectable Irish Judges and Members of Parliament. When the question respecting the disturbances in the county of Sligo, in 1806, was before the House of Peers, Lord Kingston declared that he believed "the Magistrates were their real promoters." And his Lordship added, that "the conduct of many of these functionaries was such as to disgrace the Magistracy; and some of them deserved rather to be hanged than to be made Magistrates!" And Mr. Justice Day, in his address to the Grand Jury of the county of Kerry, at the spring assizes for 1811, publicly accused the Magistrates of the county "of neglect, corruption, and partiality." Religious prejudices, and the Ultra-protestant spirit of the Govern ment, seem to be the chief causes of the wretched state of the Irish Magistracy. The great body of Magistrates throughout the whole of Ireland are exclusively Protestants; and in the northern counties, they are not only Protestants but Orangemen, or violent supporters of the Orange faction. This partizan system vitiates and contaminates every thing; but, above all, the judicial character. A large class of the cases which come before the Magistrates in the capacity of grand jurors, sheriff's, &c., originate in the riots which are always taking place between the Orangemen and the Catholic peasantry; and with such Judges and such parties, it is idle to suppose that impartial laws will ever be impartially administered. What must be the situation VOL. I. No. 4.-Museum. 2 Q : of a country, where an insurrection act gives to such a Magistracy the power of transporting, without the intervention of a jury, any individual who shall happen to be out of his own house after sunset! We shall refer to one more authority to show the wretched composition of the Irish Magistracy, and the practicability of reforming it. In a speech made by the late Right Honourable George Ponsonby, in his place in the House of Commons, 26th April 1816, he stated, that, “ When he had the honour to hold the Great Seal for Ireland, he had found that the Catholics were, in point of fact, excluded from many of those offices they were by law eligible to fill. He had found that a Cathouc gentleman was never chosen för a Magistrate. Not only the office of Sheriff, but even that of Justice of the Peace, was invariably given to the friends of those who had political power. Such a state of things he had viewed as that which ought not to exist." A con, plete change he had felt must be effected in Ireland; and all idea of making the officers of justice subservient to political purposes, he was satisfied, ought to be put an end to. On looking into the state of the Magistracy, he had found it to be any thing but what it ought to have been. He found among the Magistrates one who had been a waiter at a little inn, and whose office it had been to wait behind the chairs of the Grand Jury over whom he had been chosen to preside! He had found several cases in some respects similar to that just alluded to, and to these he had thought it his duty to supply a remedy. He had tried to effect a general reform ; and he had undertaken so arduous a task in this way–he first wrote to every Privy Councillor and Peer in the kingdom, requesting each to point out to him, without any regard to political or personal feeling, any Magistrate known to them against whose continuance in office any fair charge could lie. Acting on this principle, the information he had obtained enabled him to effect some important changes. He had only been able to apply this plan to two counties before he retired from office. Enough, however, had been done to show that a general reform might be effected, and ought to be accomplished at the first favourable moment.”* Mr. Ponsonby left office in 1807, after being about a year in possession of the seals. An Anticatholic ministry succeeded; and the magistracy continues to this hour in the state it was in fifteen years ago. “In England there is a vigorous and united magistracy. In Ireland, the magistracy is distracted by party and political differences; and there are many magistrates on the bench who, to say the least, never ought to have been there." We do not mean to say that the character we have now given applies to all the magistrates of Ireland. In that country, as in most others, there are a number of gentlemen of character and fortune, who rise above the prejudices and party feelings which exert so powerful an influence over the conduct of the ultras of either party. But truth constrains us to say, that the number of such magistrates is comparatively few; and that the system which has been followed in promoting to the Bench, has had the effect of making a considerable number of them decline taking any active part in public business. This is a state of things which calls loudly for amendment. “From Henry to George, the habitual weakness of the law has been the first cause of the habitual weakness of the country.” To do away this cause of weakness, jealousy, and distrust, you must give the peasantry confidence in the law, and you must render it cheap and easily attainable. To effect the first object, the magistracy must be thoroughly reformed. The services of the clergy in that capacity, ought, if possible, to be dispensed with; the good they do is extremely problematical—the mischief certain and obvious. 'The justice seat ought to be preserved * Parliamentary Debates, vol. xxxiv. p. 70. alike from being polluted by the insignia of Orange societies, and the presence of Orangemen. But no man's religion ought to be a bar to his elevation, provided he be otherwise unexceptionable. For the same reason that we would not exclude Protestants from the Bench, because they are Protestants, neither would we exclude Catholics merely because they are Catholics. It is not to the conscientious Protestant or Catholic that we object, but to the intemperate zealots of both parties. No confidence will ever be placed in the tribunals of the country, if the utmost fairness and impartiality be not displayed in the selection of judges and magistrates. In vain do the apologists of the present system contend, that these functionaries are not so corrupt, venal, and partial as has been represented. The charges, we think, have been completely made out. But supposing them to be entirely unfounded, you could not, as the law now stands, convince the body of the people, that justice either is or can be impartially administered. It is the bane of the existing system, that it gives a suspicious colour, an appearance of partiality, to the acts of the most upright judge. "It is in vain, while penal exclusion exists, to preach to the Catholic peasant the doctrine of equal justice between Protestant and Catholic. As long as he sees the judges, the sheriffs and their official dependents, exclusively Protestants; -the bigotted portion of the clergy on the bench of magistrates,-their very bigotry, and propensity to intermeddle in politics, often forming their title to that office; the beneficed parson the judge, and, in the ecclesiastical courts, the sole judge of tithe cases, and of the numerous questions thence arising-often adjudging the claims set up by his own tithe farmer-it is not within the power of rhetoric to persuade him to rely on procuring redress from oppression from such magistrates. So long as the wretched remnant of the Catholic code remains, so long will it excite suspicions of partiality,-so long will every error-every accidental slip, and many such must occur in a country like Ireland-of the judicial or civil magistrate, be imputed to a premeditated design, on the part of Protestants, to trample under foot those whom such distinctions continue to degrade.' To render justice easily attainable, which is as indispensable as a reform of the magistracy, you have only to repeal the worst of all taxes -those on law proceedings-and to reduce the fees of court!-to dispense justice, instead of selling it at a price which none but the rich can afford to pay. At present the grand juries appoint and dismiss the constables. They are authorized to appoint ten to each barony, and to give each a salary of 201. a year, though they rarely give them more than 41. or 51. The unfitness of the magistrates for their duties, has had the effect of rendering the constables, on whose efficiency so much depends, utterly impotent. Instead of appointing strong, active and vigorous persons to this arduous situation, the constables generally consist of the lodge keepers, coach drivers, and other dependents of the grand jurors, who protect them when they are charged with being absent, as they generally are, from their duty. The consequence is, that there is really no active or efficient civil power in the country; and to the impunity for crimes, which is thus produced, must be attributed no small portion of those violations of the public peace which are daily occurring. The system of intimidation, upon which the people act, has the greatest influence. And until a really efficient * Reflections on the State of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 53. 55. magistracy, and a numerous and active body of constables, shall have been formed, it will be impossible to counteract the illegal combinations of the people, or to give that security to witnesses which is indispensable to the ends of justice. The direct, and, we think, the best way to effect so desirable an object, would be to cancel all the existing commissions of the peace; to appoint a Lord Lieutenant, a resident nobleman if possible, at all events a resident proprietor, to each county, who should have the selection of the persons to be put into the new commission, an instruction being given him not to allow difference of religion to have any influence in determining his choice; and to give to the magistrates so chosen full power to appoint as many constables as they thought necessary, to raise or diminish their salaries according to the duty they had to perform, and to dismiss them at pleasure. By this means, the magistracy would be purified; and government would have to deal with a public functionary—with an individual of rank and fortune, who would feel himself personally responsible to ministers and the public for the peace of the county: The civil power would thus acquire a consistency, an activity, and a force which it can never attain so long as the present system is kept up; and we venture to predict that, under such an arrangement, the system of intimidation would be repressed; and that it would be comparatively seldom necessary to call in the military, or to bave recourse to the dangerous assistance of an armed police. The frequency of litigation might be lessened, and a most prolific source of oppression and irritation dried up, by making a change in the existing law between landlords and subtenants. We are not disposed to join in the clamour that has been raised against middlemen. In the actual circumstances of the tenantry of Ireland, subletting is unavoidable. But we think it equally unjust and inexpedient that a subtenant, who has paid his rent to the principal tacksman, should, in the event of the bankruptcy of the latter, be liable to be distrained by the landlord. Were this practice put an end to, landlords would be rendered infinitely more attentive to the character and qualifications of their principal tenants; and the occupiers would be relieved from that insecurity and want of confidence which at present tends to paralyze all their exertions, and to make them indolent and careless. The late Earl of Clare, then attorney general, had this practice in view when he affirmed in the House of Commons, that “ the peasantry were ground to powder by relentless landlords!" No scheme for the improvement of the institutions of Ireland deserves the least attention, which has not for its object to give the people an interest in the support of the government, to remove the existing provocations to violate the laws, or to secure their execution. Now, it appears to us that these three grand objects would all be materially forwarded by the adoption of the measures we have proposed. Catholic emancipation, by taking away all those degrading disabilities which the majority of the people now lie under, would remove one great source of distraction and of disaffection to the government, and would induce the people to rally round a constitution which protected and secured the rights of all. “Emancipation is not a charm that will allay every discontent, or remove every grievance, but it is a sine Ya non to this being done; and without it, no other system of mea |
