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“PHIS 18 ‘TRUE LIBERTY, WHEN FREEBORN MEN—HAVING TO ADVISE THE PUBLIC, MAY SPEAK FREE.” —Eorseives.

Vou. 1] CHARLOTTETOWN, P. E. ISLAND, SATURDAY, JANUARY 29, 1848. [No. 26.

SPIRIT OF RUZ SKELISM PRBS.

[From the London Tablet.} THE COERCION BILL.

On Monday night Sir George Grey, in a speech stuffed full of horrors, introduced a Coercion Bill for Ireland, which had the rare good fortune ofinot being vigorously opposed. It was accepted with resignation by the O’Connells ; supported by Mr. Callaghan; de- nounced by Feargus O’Connor and Mr, }'agan ; welcom- ed by Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Disraeli; and bewailed for its intolerable mildness by Lords Jocelyn and Bar- nard. The truth is, that some measure of coercion is absolutely necessary, and is felt to be so by all reasonable men. Some measure either of more stringent adminis- trative coercion under the existing law, if that be possible,

or of new legislative severity, if the existing law is un-

sequel to the occasion. Something must be done to re- | press crime. Those who object to the law now proposed, must show either that the Government possesses (and has not hitherto used) sufficient power to check crime;

-or that the powers which they now claim are not suited

‘tothe emergency. To leave matters as they now stand is absolutely impossible.

Power to prociaim any: district, even smaller than a barony or half-barony :

Power to increase the constabulary quartered on ajis not now thousands and millions made to waste an

proclaimed district within certain limits; to charge the same onthe district instead of on the county; and to levy from the district the estimated charge of the in- . creased constabulary for three months in advance:

Ina proclaimed district-no person to have or earry, otherwise than in his house, any kind of arms, under the penalty of imprisonment, with or without hard labour for not more than two years:

The exception to these provisions are—Justices, Sol- diers, Sailors, Coast-Guard-men, Revenue Officers, Police,constabulary,Special Constables, persous licensed to kill game, and persons specially allowed to carry arms

put an effectual check by law on their enormous and overwhelming crimes.

When we see how slowly and with what great diffi- culty the Government is driven to any measure for the protection of the miserable peasant, one is almost tempted to speculate on the moral fitness of murder in the body politic. For mere than a quarter of a century this Pha- risaical Government, which affects such horror at erime,

allowed the murder of the poor to proceed, wholesale, by force of laws enacted by itself. Not merely have they not stopped these diabolicai massacres of the poor—they

decade after decade, they have seen thousands and mil- lions of lives slowly extinguished in agony indescribable; have known themselves to be the makers of the legal weapons by which these tenant assassinations have been perpetrated. This they have witnessed, but not one hand or foot have they stirred during all that period to save the lives of the poor, and to stop these dreadful crimes. To all this guilt they—the Parliament, the Ministers, the Opposition—have-been accessory. They have supplied the means; they have continued the means; they have refused all solicitations to provide a remedy.

At length a remedy provides itself. Murder, under a more frank and honest shape, makes its appearance. Jt

pine away by hunger; not now death spread over a series of weeks, or months, or years; not now the plump and ruddy cheek of youth or infancy becoming lean and hollow, and pale; not now the blood slowly- consumed within the frame, and the means of replenishing the veins, empty of life, sternly and with devilish inhumanity refused. No: death now makes its appearance ina sharper form; reaches the heart by a sudden stab; drains the arteries by a shorter process ; and spares the victim the hideous-spasms and protracted convulsions that characterised the Tower of Famine. By this more ‘merciful end tens and hundreds perish, where before,

have not even attempted to do so. Year after year

d\

these priestly denunciations! The Priest spoke of the landlord as a bad landlord, and the man was shot—there- fore the Priest’s denunciation was the effective cause of the murder.

What stuff is this! The landlord’s inhumanity was in every mouth of the parish before the priest spoke of it. All people in a certain class execrated him. If he had looked through the chink of many a mud hut, or in

and which really does experience “sickening disgust” the shelter of many a ditch, he might have seen his own when rich men or pauper landlords are murdered, has handiwork, and the curses that it brought hita.

“ A baby beat its dying mother ;

He had starved the one and was starving the other.” When he rode over his ill-tilled acres, he passed amongst gaunt men, and fleshless women, and famished children. ‘heir tongues moved not as he passed, it may be, but their breaking hearts prayed to God against him—the maker of Orphans, and Widows, and Desolate and Dead. At Mass time some stay away, and others throng around ‘the altar rails. The Pricst speaks to, them—of what ? of their sins and offence; of the theft in such a field ; ‘the gambling in one cottage; the drunkenness in ano- ‘ther; the absence from Mass; and such neglect of | duties as happens to be most rife. He speaks to them also of their sufferings ; for he is a true pastor and shep- herd; not a hireling whose own the sheep are not, but ‘the father and keeper of his flock. He speaks to them ‘of their sufferings, laments their hard fate, shows his ‘sympathy with their woes and his indignation at their

‘oppressor, but turns their thoughts to a better world, and exhorts them to resignation and to peace.

The same day the oppressor is shot—and by whom? By anybody in the chapel, or who heard the sermon? By one of the flock of the reverend denouncer? No: but, as in the case of Major Mahon, about whose denun- ciation we have heard so much, “by to strangers,” fetched from some distant parish in pursuance of a con- 'spiracy hatched and ripe for completion long before the Priest raised his voice.

If the police reports are true, itis physically impossible that the Priest’s “ denunciation,”—as it is called, to make a good thing odious by giving it an evil name—can have

under the authority of deputies nominated by the Lord.|thousands and millions were despatched by the active) a anything to'do with the murder. Major Mahon, of Lieutenant, and holding high offices in the Constabulary: |crimes of landlords and the permissive iniquity of legis-| « ourse wis thin ‘bea anwee—-cll semndieneé fand- ’

All persons unlawfully carrying arms out-of-doors to be apprehended; all who are suspected of so doing to be searched, and their arms, if any, forfeited :

Further power to the Lord-Lieutenant, by virtue of a

- supplementary proclamation, to compel all persons not included in the above exceptions, to give up their arms, and power to the Lord-Lieutenant, after second procla- mation, to order a search for arms during the day-time, and to compel their surrender:

‘Jators ; and then, at last, when the-evil reaches their own class; when it comes in a shape that threatens them ; when people in good coats begin to feel insecure ; when the snapofthe flint or percussion cap is heard throughout Europe, and wakes up a shameful echo over the whole civilised world—then forsooth our statesmen and politicians discover that it will be possible for them,

exactly redress the evil, but will tend to put the law on

The Hue and Cry to be put vigorously in force—if|a footing which, without absolutely displeasing the rich,

possible—for the detection of offenders : The Act to continue in force till the lst December, 1849, and till the end ofthe next session of Parliament; Such are the provisious of the new law; not severe or stringent, when considered as precautions against whole- sale assassination, but thoroughly disgraceful if brought forward without en cffectual attempt to grapple with the difficulties of the Tenant Law. If considered as an isolated measure, it is undeniably open to objections of ' the most opposite kind. It is at once too severe and too lenient; inasmuch as mere severity cannot succeed in the long run; and if severity alone is to be tried, it is absurd to try it in somild and ineffectual a shape. The worst feature of the case, therefore, is by no means the character of this bill, but the sad evidence of irresolution on the part of the iovernment as to grappling with the difficulties of the Tenant Law. The guilt of the murderer is most frightful ; but taking » class for class, there is no doubt that the moral condition of the tenant, even in the disturbed counties, is perfect imnocence compared with that of the landlords. Yet, in punishing the inddental guilt of the tenants, scarcely a hint is given of the original and provocative guilt of the jandlord, and nething like a promise of an intention to

will rub off from it a small portion of the Devil’s mark.

ference with which these men, high in station and in- fluence, regard the murders of the poor; their utter unwillingness to make party sacrifices in order to put an end to this evil. Ifa Minister could be found with the

and to the world afterwards—‘“I will not be responsible to God and to my fellow-men for the continuance of this giant iniquity. I will peril my whole official career on the suppression of tenant-murder. This evil shall be made to cease, or I will not administer, blood-stained, the affairs of this empire”—— Ifa Minister could be found bold enough to use such language, and to adopt this course, he might command whatever rational mea- sures he pleased from the Parliament and the country. But, alas! there are few such men, and no such Minis- ters.

Meantime it is an easier task to abuse the only true friends of the poor—the Catholic Priests; and we hear a great deal about those denunciations from the altar, which are necessary and wholesome, because there are no effective denunciations from the right-hand off the Speaker’s chair. What a quantity of cant is talked about

Oh, it is horrible to reflect on the cold-blooded indif-|

‘lords are; living they are the pests of society, dead they have the odour of saints. This landlord, accordingly, was a pattern to his class. Unfortunately his conduct to his tenants had been such that it had created “ an ex- tensive and deep-laid conspiracy against this gentleman’s life.” Is it pretended that the Priest’s utterance of his indignation produced suddenly this conspiracy—exten-

at some distant day, to do something, which shall not) "a... aid, and therefore of old standing? We think few people can be brazen enough to pretend so much. |

Did it bring the two “strangers” from a distance to exe- ‘cute the deed? Ofcourse this is impossible; and it is hard to believe that any one who has taken pains to in- form himself on the subject, can believe other than that ‘this cry against the Priests is got up by that class, who ‘having silenced in their hearts the fear of God, and be- ing for a time a good deal troubled with the fear of man,

heart and courage of a man, able to say to himself fient holding as.they do the local press in bondage, and find-

ing no one but the Priest who dares to wag a tongue against their atrocities—wish to clap fetters on that tongue also, and to stifle the only voice that is now raised against the legal murders they are in the habit of

‘committing.

{From the European Times. ] FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

In Italy tranquility is once more restored; and it is generally understood that the question of the occupation of Ferrara has been finally settled by the withdrawal of the Austrians from the town, In Sicily the insurrection seems quelled for the present, but much dissatisfaction against the Neapolitan Government stil! prevails.

The speech of the King of the French at the opening of the Chambers -will be found in another columu. It