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Untitled Article
By governing Ireland ill foT so many centuries , we have made it so difficult to govern her well , that we may be compelled to renounce the attempt . When one country , and , as the case implies , a less , civilized one , falls under the power of another , there are but two courses which can
rationally be taken with her . She is either fit to be incorporated with the more powerful country , to be placed in a state of perfect equality with her , and treated as part of herself , or it is best for her to be governed despotically , as a mere province . Either Ireland was sufficiently advanced in civilisation to be fit for the same kind of government for which we were fit , and if so she ought to
have been treated exactly like Scotland or Yorkshire ; or she was in that stage of advancement at which absolute subjection to a more civilized and a more energetic people , is a state more favourable to improvement than any government which can be framed out of domestic materials ; and if so , she ought to have been governed like Jjadbijp by English functionaries , under responsibility to the English Parliament . She would then have been
habituated to government on fixed principles , not by arbitrary will ; would at an early period have obtained security to person and property ; would have rapidly advanced in all the arts of life ; would have known the protection of law , and learned to value it . She would have become civilized , would have acquired all those qualifications for self-government she now has not , and would long ere this have either achieved her independence by a successful contest like the United States , or been admitted to real , not
nominal , equality , as an integral part of the kingdom of Great Britain . But we , as usual , took that middle course which so often unites the evils of both extremes . with the advantages of neither . We did not govern Ireland as a province of England , but we did put the military force of England at the disposal of an indigenous
oligarchy , and delivered to their tender mercies , bound hand and foot , the rest of the people . We did not give the people , in lieu of their savage independence , the despotism of a more cultivated people ; we left them their own barbarous rulers , but lent to those barbarians the strength of ourcivilisation to keep the many in subjection . In this one pervading error , not to call it crime , lies the
philosophy of Irish history . A country may be improved by freedom ; or it may be improved by being brought under the power of a superior people : the greater part of the Roman empire was raised from a comparatively savage state by being brought under Roman dominion . But there is not an instance in history of a
native government supported by foreign force ,, which did not become a curse to its subjects . The best government which the mind of the nation can produce , may be a very bad one ; but if it be relieved from the only check upon a bad government , the dread of its subjects if it be propped up by the military strength of
Untitled Article
Repeal of the Unions 37 *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1834, page 373, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2633/page/61/
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