slaughter; and in that instance the innocent man was convicted, while the guilty escaped. At the same time, as he had said before, if simple error was to be allowed as an argument against punishment, there would be an end to human tribunals. It was his intention to oppose the motion.

His advocacy was on the winning side, for the suggestion was rejected by a large majority.

wrongs

A special acquaintance with a special subject is always appreciated by the House of Commons, and on the next occasion when Napier addressed the assembly he was listened to with the attention which information when united with sound deductions always commands. His remarks are as applicable now as they were then. It was upon the old old story of the of Ireland-wrongs which the agitator taught were the result of landlord avarice and oppression, and which common sense saw was but the result of peasant laziness, improvidence, and superstition. The outgoing Tenants (Ireland) Bill was being discussed (April 5, 1848), and led to much comment upon the state of the Irish land laws. No one was better calculated to speak with authority on this question, from his practical and professional knowledge of the subject as an Irishman and a lawyer, than Napier. He proved, by a comparison between the condition of Ulster and that of the southern and disaffected districts of Ireland, that the misery of the tenant was

not due to the land laws or the greed of his landlord, but to the indolence and fondness for sedition of the peasant. Let the peasant, he said, work as his brother in Ulster-be as sober, God-fearing, and proof against the tricks of the agitation-monger-and he would soon find that the same prosperity would attend upon his labours, and no more be heard of the sorrows and special griefs of the Irish peasantry.

If thus you have (he said) in one province the yeoman class combined in support of law and order-attached to British institutions-educated in the principles which have made England great and prosperous; but in other parts of Ireland the tenant-class conspiring against the law-stimulated to malignant hatred of everything English simply because it is English-and every reasonable effort at improving their condition frustrated by the energies of unprincipled advisers, who hate and fear the power of true constitutional liberty; in the one place religion appealing to the understandings and affections of the people,-in the other, to their passions and their senses-can you hope to equalise by human law differences occasioned by Divine legislation; or shall the former prevail where the latter is repudiated? It cannot be; another remedy must be sought and applied. While I admit the moral inequality, I would to some extent desire to be the apologist of many of my degraded countrymen. Remember their wretched state of social and physical depression; and, above all, reflect on the training they habitually undergo. How can legislation correct this? It cannot make men virtuous; and yet to be happy they must be good, and to be good, religious truth must warm their

hearts. You cannot transplant by statute the moral culture of one province to fix it in another; nor can that which is indigenous to a moral soil flourish in an atmosphere of disaffection and crime; and you might as well hope to transplant the luxuriant exotic to some bleak and barren mountain, and create fertility by exposing it to perish. In your agricultural improvements you begin by subsoiling, draining, and then manuring: noxious weeds have been removed and cold and chilling influences abstracted, and then by patient waiting productiveness is secured. Such must be the analogous process to produce in other parts of Ireland the prosperity of Ulster.

Here, then, is the secret as to the miseries of Ireland; you discover it by a candid comparison of the condition of her prosperous province and her degraded districts. The swell of agitation is thrown back from Ulster. British connection is valued, not denounced; its privileges made available, not counteracted-kindly feeling between landlord and tenant prevails-religious liberty is honoured, and truth diffuses its own peculiar blessings. You look away from this prosperous spot: you see suspicion displacing confidence-hatred of England inculcated and cherished as a religious dogma-the bad passions aroused and inflamed-the charities of human hearts curdled and corrupted-those relations dissevered which are the offspring of dependence and protection; here are the immediate causes of the depression which is acknowledged; you must renovate the soil before you can improve the products. So long as those who influence and stimulate. the mind of the people stoop to an ignominious popularity, to trade upon their distress or disaffection, the efforts of the wise and good are baffled and impeded. This is the evil which must be met, and honestly and boldly grappled with. Your legislation is all romance until this previous question

be decided. The constitution of England, that noblest edifice ever reared on earth, which stands amidst the storm which rocks all Europe to its centre -that which gives to England a name and a place on which Heaven shines serenely-it must by its own steady powers infuse its own principles by gentle processes into the habits of the people of Ireland; trusting to the energy and wisdom of its laws, and the power of its own executive; not suffering any irresponsible body of men to assume the right or the power of dictating terms of government; but with conscious strength and dignity imparting the light and warmth of freedom to shine on all with steady impartiality, and thus quicken into life the attachment and respect of the people.

During the debate, several of the Irish members did not fail to repeat the stale accusation that the House had scant sympathy with Irish grievances. Napier met the charge with one of those home truths none knew better than he how to deliver.

If it be so (he cried) it is the fault of Irish members. Where is the measure that has been brought forward in a practicable shape that has been capriciously rejected? When have facts, dispassionately stated and accurately ascertained, been treated with disdain? I must say, in justice to the English members, that in the limited opportunity I have had of observation, I see no indisposition to entertain the discussion of Irish questions, except so far as the manner in which they are introduced may have occasioned that indisposition. If men are content to indulge in vulgar clamour and general

1 The year 1848 saw almost the entire continent of Europe convulsed by revolution.

abuse, or, when they are precise in detail, if they are usually inaccurate in their facts and figures-if thus they nauseate Englishmen, without instructing them, on local matters-in common fairness, let themselves bear the blame of the natural result; and let those who send them as their representatives reap the fruit of their selection.

This speech of Napier's was singularly telling in its effect, and even those whose views it combated were compelled to acknowledge how much of truth there was in its strictures and criticisms.

To the efforts of Lord John Russell in the cause of Jewish emancipation we find Napier, like the rest of those who sat on his side of the House, posing as a strenuous opponent. He feared, as most of his party then feared, that the removal of Jewish disabilities would put in jeopardy the Christian character of our legislation.

The question involves (he said, May 4, 1848) a principle rather of national acknowledgment than individual conviction; but I feel myself at liberty to argue on the assumption, that as we are all professing Christians, we individually recognise what our law and constitution as yet maintain-that Christianity is the true religion; that national acknowledgment ceases when this Bill becomes law. No man can afterwards in this House assume Christianity to be true. The progress of toleration melted away the civil distinction between different classes of professing Christians. We would not rend the garment; are we now to cast lots for it? The importance of our national Christianity cannot be overstated; God deals