You are going to enact a
Coercion Bill against the peasantry and the tenantry, and my object is,
that you should turn to the landlords, and enact a Coercion Bill
against them." Who but Mr. D'Israeli can perceive any abnegation of
O'Connell's principles in these sentiments? He quoted Parliamentary
reports to prove what tyrannical use had been made of the powers
conferred by Coercion Acts, and he enumerated those passed since 1801,
under some of which trial by jury was abolished. He cited blue books to
show the misery and destitution to which ejected tenants were sometimes
reduced, closing his proofs with this sentence: "such is the effect of
the ejectment of tenantry in Ireland." He next dwelt on the physical
wretchedness of the people in general, relying chiefly for his facts on
the Devon Commission. He reminded Sir James Graham of a statement of
his, that the murders in Ireland were a blot upon Christianity. "Is
not," said O'Connell, "the state of things I have described a blot upon
Christianity? (hear, hear). This, be it recollected," he continued, "is
forty-five years after the Union, during which time Ireland has been
under the government of this country, which has reduced the population
of that country to a worse condition than that of any other country in
Europe" (hear, hear).
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