18486.
Adm 49,

360

LIFE OF COBDEN. (cms?

violence. The Ministry resorted for the eighteenth time
since the Union to the stale device of a Coercion Bill, that
stereotyped avowal,—and always made, strange 10 says
without shame or contrition,—of the secular neglect and 10°
competency of the English Government of Ireland. T°
perilous inconveniences followed. The first was thab the
Irish members, led by O’Conmell, persistently opposed by
all the means in their power every step of this violent
snd shallow policy. It would have been ignoble if they
had done less. * But their just aud laudable obstruction of
the Coercion Bill interposed dangerous delays in the way of
the Corn Bill This, however, was not the only peril. The
Coercion Bill laid the train for a combination which
could hardly have been foreseen, but which was eventually
irresistible. Cobden and his friends were hostile to the
measure on the policy and the merits, nor in any ©8%
could their votes have saved the Ministry. Lord Job»
Russell and the Whigs had no objection to a Coercio®
Bill, of which for that matter they have been the steadios?
patrons, but they could not resist the temptation to pay of
old scores when the Minister declared Coercion to be urgent
and then actually let it slumber for five months. Lord
George Bentinck discerned very early the elements of
an invincible dilemma and a promising plot. If the
Minister pushed the Coercion Bill, that would keep back
the Corn Bill. If he gave the priority to the Corn Bill, th?
would prove that the Coercion Bill was not nrgent, and
therefore ought not to be supported.

4 Wo have an excellent ilinstration of the practioe of making Ireland the
shutilecock of English parties, in the faot that the Whigs who had gmrned
ont Peel on the principle of Non-Coercion, had not been in office a month
before they introduced an Irish Arms Bill The opposition, however, Wo*
so sharp that the Bill was withdrawn in a fortnight. This Whig levity **
» matoh for the Tory levity which had declered Coercion nxgent in Januar!
and taken no steps tO spoure It nutil Iroe.