Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

reach little further than the members of the Legislature and their families. The feat of judicature and the local executive government will, I prefume, continue where they are; and I believe those who frequent the gayer walks of life will not fuppofe that the votaries of pleasure and diffipation in Ireland will think the circumftance of the Irish Parliamentary representation reforting to London any great addition to the allurements of that place. That part of the population of this metropolis and of Bath will remain pretty much as before.

Indeed, I cannot help thinking there are feveral very ftrong reafons in favour of the probability, that, on the whole, the fear entertained cf a drain of wealth and population by an increase of abfentees would not be verified by the event.

Will the House give me leave here to recall to their recollection the obfervation of a Noble Lord on this part of the argument, which struck me as of great weight, namely, that the importance of a feat in the united and imperial Legiflature, the election to which, whether in Great Britain or Ireland, would then be indifferent to many perfons anxious to obtain it, would be felt by men poffeffed of property and intereft in the latter kingdom as much greater than that of one in her prefent local Parliament. They would therefore have a more powerful motive for attending to the cultivati-on of their influence there; and this could only be done effectually by frequent refidence on their eftates, and the expenditure of a confiderable part of their Irifh income, perhaps of their English alfo, in Ireland. This muft particularly happen in regard to county elections, in favour of which fort of reprefentation I make no scruple to acknowlege my pre

a Lord Hawkesbury.

dilection,

dilection, and to thofe in towns where the right is popular and extenfived.

If the abfence of perfons of diftinction and fortune were to increase, we have heard the very refpectable opinion of an Honourable Gentleman, who seemed to fpeak on the fubject from reflection and personal observation, and who must be confidered as deferving peculiar attention in regard to it, that the merchant and manufacturer would probably feel their means and difpofition for exertion expand, and their efforts become more fuccessful; that they would, as it were, breathe a freer air, by the removal from their neighhourhood, of the fplendour and dignity of rank and hereditary opulence; and that, as the flourishing condition of trade and manufactures naturally tends to augment the population of a country, this effect would much more than counteract the mifchief apprehended. The Honourable Gentleman spoke indeed with liberal and laudable fentiments of respect for that ariftocracy, which forms fo effential a part of our excellent conftitution, but he seemed to entertain the idea that commerce and industry, though they live by the demands and confumption of the great, thrive beft at a distance from them

Urit enim fulgore fuo qui prægravat artes
Infra fe pofitas.

With great deference, however, to the Honourable Gentleman, I must express my doubts on this point, though it is one of which I acknowledge him to be much better qualified to judge than I am. I doubt the justness of his opi

I think we have alfo Mr. Fofter's authority for this: In county elections and popular boroughs no man now an absentee can expect to be chofen.' p. 91.

e Mr. Peele.

nion, because it both differs from the moft general fentiments, and militates against the arguments in favour of that frequent and easy-intercourfe between the different, but intimately connected orders and claffes of our great civil and political fyftem, which is so gratifying to our feelings, and feems fo confonant to reason.

But as to the fuppofed tendency of a parliamentary Union to produce an increafed emigration and non-refidence of the great in Ireland, I own I confider the experimental knowledge we have, in this as in other refpects, derived from the cafe of Scotland, as of much more weight than any conjectural à priori arguments which can be suggested on the one fide or the other.

It has often been ftated, and indeed never denied, that no nobility and gentry refide more at home than those of that country. They almoft univerfally pafs the fummer on their eftates, occupied in the pleasures of rural hofpitality and the improvement of the national agriculture by encouragement and example; and many of them fpend the reft of the year in Edinburgh. The wonderful advances that Capital of the country has made in its fize, population, wealth, convenience, and elegance, fince the Union and removal of its Parliament, are notorious from universal report to all, and from perfonal knowledge to many who hear me. I will not say that the Union has caused this; that it has had a chief fhare in producing the great general improvement in Scotland, I think I have fhewn to be extremely probable; but it is evident, at leaft, that the Union has not prevented the increased profperity of Edinburgh.

Yet the advocates against that measure in Scotland were

as

as loud and as pofitive in their prophecies, that this ancient feat of Majefty, on the removal of the Legislature, would fink into poverty, mifery, and defolation, as many in Ire land have been of late, on fimilar grounds, in foretelling to the great and respectable metropolis of that kingdom, that its ruin will be the infallible and fpeedy confequence of the measure now under confideration. Indeed the common people of Dublin have had this topic fo impreffed on their minds in every poffible way, that many of them, I believe, have at last been brought almost to give literal credit to the ironical prediction, that when the Parliament fhall ceafe to fit there, the town will become fuch a perfect rus in urbe, as to furnish a new fource of provifions for victualling the British fleet by the extenfive paftures into which its streets and fquares are to be converted. It feems almost ridiculous to say that such fort of arguments can have fucceeded, yet I verily believe they have to a very confiderable degree. Nay, more, I have feen it afferted in fome publication againft the propofed Union, with a confidence which hardly could have exifted without the author's own belief of the fact, that Edinburgh, whatever may be pretended to the contrary, has, in truth, been in a conftant ftate of decay ever fince the lofs of the Parliament. The only anfwer fuch an ignorant affertion feems to deferve, is that ludicrous one I have read in one of the polemical writers in favour of the measure, who fuppofes himfelf to be told by a correfpondent that he has found with regret the fact was really fo; for that upon inquiry among fome gentlemen and ladies, natives of Scotland, and inhabitants of Edinburgh, they had affured him, that that ancient city had fuffered fo very much from the fatal event of the Union, that the Scotch had been actually under the neceflity of building a very large new one close to it.

a

Sir, a learned gentleman of our fifter kingdom, whofe tract against the Union is certainly the performance, of a man of abilities, has, however, a very curious way of arguing on the fact, which he admits, that the Union has not occafioned emigration and non-refidence in Scotland; but the analogy of which, in regard to what there may be reason to expect in the case of Ireland, he will by no means allow. The fact he admits in thefe very ftrong terms:

Can there be adduced five inftances of men of rank in • Scotland, however powerful and extended their English ⚫ connexions, whose chief or leaft temporary refidence is

not in Scotlande ? And again: A Scotch abfentee is ⚫ only a political or commercial fpeculator, who will in the • end enrich and adorn his native country: his money, acquired where it may be, and after absence ever so long, ' centers theref.'

But this, it seems, is all the anomalous effect of a peculiar nationality in the Scotchs, which a fimilarity of circumstances has no tendency to produce in any other people, and especially not in the Irish; though many of the inhabitants of one part of that country are not very diftant defcendants from Scottish ancestors, and moft of the reft throughout the kingdom are probably either fprung from one common Celtic ftock with the Highlanders, or else of that Saxon or Teutonic race who appear, in the early ages of the Chriftian æra, to have over-run and fettled themfelves in all the low country of Scotland as well as of Eng

land.

A Reply, &c. by Richard Febb, Efq.
€ Ibid.

e Ibid. p. 49.

Ibid.

An

« ZurückWeiter »