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Untitled Article
The object of those who call for a repeal of the Legislative Union is , to have all the advantages of being united with England and Scotland without paying any part of the price . They wish to be defended by British money and British troops ; to have their produce admitted duty free into the British market , while that of alL other nations is excluded ; to have all the rights of
citizenship throughout the British dominions ; to have all offices and honours open to them in the more powerful country ; to have their indigent population subsisted , and found in money to pay their rents , with the bread which they take out of the mouths of British labourers ; all this they want to have , and along with it the power to vote no more taxes than they please , and govern themselves as they please , without our having any right to be consulted * Now , these are not terms which will . suit us : we
must decline bearing all the burthens of the connexion , and leaving to Mr . O'Connell and his associates all the benefits . We are ready for either extreme , onl y * fchiib unhappy medium will not do for us . Great Britain and Ireland shall either be one country or they shall be two countries ; only they shall not be the one or the other according as it suits Mr . O'Connell . They must be one people , united under one legislature and one executive , or all connexion must cease , and England
and Ireland become as foreign to one another as England and Prance . If we were wise , we should prefer the latter side of the alternative for our own sake ; if we were honest , we should choose the former side of it for the sake of Ireland . We have never been able to understand the vast benefits which Great Britain is supposed to derive from her connexion with Ireland . Her commerce we should have , if the two countries
were separated ; the interests of the Irish landlords would not allow them to deprive themselves of the principal vent for their produce . Financially we not only gain nothing by the connexion , but it is the heaviest of the burthens we have to bear ; half
our army is kept up solely on account of Ireland ; a full third of it is constantly stationed in the country . If it be as a military post that the possession of Ireland is deemed important , it would cost us less to conquer the island at the beginning of every war , than it costs us in a very few years to govern it in time of peace .
But we have no right to keep a nation in leading-strings till she has a giant ' s strength , teach her by our perverse treatment all quarrelsome and rebellious and ungovernable propensities , and then let her loose to do herself a mischief . We have been far too guilty in our treatment of Ireland , to be entitled to shake
her off , and let her alone abide the consequences of ouf misconduct . We are bound not to renounce the government of Ireland , but to govern her well ; if indeed we are too weak or too base for that , rather than continue to govern her as we have done , we ought to leave her to herself . And perhaps we have let the time slip away .
Untitled Article
$ 78 Note * on ike Newspdpers .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1834, page 372, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2633/page/60/
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