the charges of agitation, as well as to
suffer its penalties, lost all faith in their social future; they saw
not and looked not beyond the momentary excitement of a procession or
a monster meeting.'

Sir Robert Peel, when introducing the Emancipation Bill, had to
confess the utter failure of the coercive policy which had been so
persistently pursued. He showed that Ireland had been governed, since
the Union, almost invariably by coercive acts. There was always some
political organisation antagonistic to the British Government. The
Catholic Association had just been suppressed; but another would soon
spring out of its ashes, if the Catholic question were not settled.
Mr. O'Connell had boasted that he could drive a coach-and-six through
the former act for its suppression; and Lord Eldon had engaged to
drive 'the meanest conveyance, even a donkey cart, through the act of
1829.' The new member for Oxford (Sir Robert Inglis) also stated that
twenty-three counties in Ireland were prepared to follow the example
of Clare. 'What will you do,' asked Sir Robert Peel, 'with that power,
that tremendous power, which the elective franchise, exercised
under the control of religion, at this moment confers upon the Roman
Catholics? What will you do with the thirty or forty seats that will
be claimed in Ireland by the persevering efforts of the agitators,
directed by the Catholic Association, and carried out by the agency
of every priest and bishop in Ireland?' If Parliament began to recede
there could be no limit to the retrogression. Such a course would
produce a reaction, violent in proportion to the hopes that had been
excited. Fresh rigours would become necessary; the re-enactment of the
penal code would not be sufficient. They must abolish trial by jury,
or, at least, incapacitate Catholics from sitting on juries. 2,000,000
of Protestants must have a complete monopoly of power and privilege in
a country which contained 5,000,000 of Catholics, who were in most
of the country four to one--in some districts twenty to one--of the
Protestants. True, there were difficulties in the way of a settlement.
'But,' asked Sir Robert Peel, 'what great measure, which has stamped
its name upon the era, has ever been carried without difficulty?

At the present moment there is a loud cry in the English press for the
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and for the old remedy, coercion.
Those who raise the cry would do well to read Mr. Shiel's speech