We used to be legislated
for separately, and in many instances we are so legislated for to-day,
which need not be the case if Lord Russell's assumption were true.
Again: England is a great manufacturing country, whilst Ireland has no
manufactures; from the nature of things the interests of two such
peoples could not be identical, and yet Lord John Russell and many
others talk and write about Ireland as a portion of the people of the
United Kingdom, in the sense that we are partakers of the great material
prosperity that manufactures have brought to England, which is supposing
that a fair proportion of the manufactures of the United Kingdom are
established and flourishing in Ireland: but so far from this being the
case,--so far from Lord John's political ancestors having supposed the
interests of England and Ireland to be identical, they never ceased,
until by a code of unjust and tyrannical commercial laws, they destroyed
all the manufactures we had, in order, as they avowed, to encourage the
same manufactures in England. What position did we then occupy as a
class of people of the United Kingdom? Where were Lord John's wonderful
free trade principles then? The time had not come for them.
Pages:
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430