FREDERICK ENGELS
[THE COERCION BILL FOR IRELAND
AND THE CHARTISTS]
The Irish Coercion Bill came
into force last Wednesday. The Lord Lieutenant was not
slow  in taking advantage of the despotic powers  with which
this new  law invests him; the act has been applied all over
the counties of Limerick and Tipperary and to several
baronies in the counties of Clare, Waterford, Cork,  Roscom mon,  Leitrim, Cavan, Longford and King’s County.29
It remains to be seen what the effect of these odious
measures will be. In this connection we  already have the
opinion  of the class in whose  interests the measures were
taken, namely, the Irish landowners. They announce to the
world in their organs that the measures will have no  effect
whatsoever. And  in order to achieve this a whole country
is being placed in a state of siege! To  achieve this nine-tenths
of the Irish representatives have deserted their country!
This is a fact. The desertion has been a general one.
During  the discussion of the Bill the O ’Connell  family itself
became divided: John  and Maurice, two  of the deceased
“Liberator s”* sons,  remained faithful to their homeland,
whereas their cousin, Morgan  O ’Connell, not  only  voted for
the Bill, but  also spoke in its support  on  several occasions.
There were only  eighteen members  who  voted outright for
the rejection of the Bill, and only  twenty  supported the
*  Daniel O ’Connell.— Ed.

amendment put  forward by  Mr. Wakley, the Chartist mem ber for a borough  on  the outskirts of London,  who  demanded
that the Coercion Bill should also be accompanied by
measures aimed at reducing the causes of the crimes which
it was proposed  to repress. And  among  these eighteen and
twenty  voters there were also four or five English Radicals
and two  Irishmen representing English boroughs,  meaning
that out  of the hundred members  which Ireland has in Parliament there were only  a dozen who  put  up  serious opposi tion to the Bill.
This was the first discussion on  an important question
affecting Ireland which had been held since the death of
O ’Connell. It was to decide who  would  take the place of the
great agitator in leading Ireland. Up  to the opening  of Parliament Mr. John  O ’Connell  had been tacitly acknowledged
in Ireland as his father’s successor. But  it soon  became
evident after the debate had begun  that he was not  capable
of leading the party and, what is more,  that he had found
a formidable rival in Feargus O ’Connor.  This democratic
leader about whom  Daniel O ’Connell  said, “We  are happy
to make the English Chartists a present of Mr. F. O ’Connor ” ,
put  himself at the head of the Irish party in a single bound.
It was he who  proposed  the outright rejection of the Coer cion Bill; it was he who  succeeded in rallying all the oppo sition behind him; it was he who  opposed  each clause, who
held up  the voting  whenever  possible; it was he who  in his
speeches summed  up  all the arguments of the opposition
against the Bill; and finally it was he who  for the first time
since 1835 reintroduced the motion  for Repeal of the Union,30
a motion  which none  of the Irish members  would  have put
forward.
The Irish members  accepted this leader with a bad grace.
As  simple Whigs  in their heart of hearts they fundamentally
detest the democratic energy of Mr. O ’Connor.  He  will not
allow them to go  on  using  the campaign for repeal as a
means for overthrowing  the Tories in favour of the Whigs
and to forget the very word  “repeal” when  the latter come
to power. But  the Irish members  who  support  repeal cannot
possibly  do without  a leader like O ’Connor  and, although
they are trying to undermine his growing  popularity in

Ireland, they are obliged to submit  to his leadership in
Parliament.
When  the parliamentary session is over O ’Connor  will
probably go  on  a tour  of Ireland to revive the agitation
for repeal and to found an Irish Chartist Party. There can
be no  doubt  that if O ’Connor  is successful in doing this he
will be the leader of the Irish people in less than six months.
By  uniting the democratic leadership of the three kingdoms
in his hands, he will occupy a position which no  agitator,
not  even O ’Connell,  has held before him.
We  will leave it to our  readers to judge the importance
of this future alliance between the peoples of the two  islands.
British democracy will advance much  more  quickly when  its
ranks are swelled by  two  million brave and ardent Irish, and
poverty-stricken Ireland will at last have taken an impor tant step towards her liberation.
on  January 4, 1848
Published in La Reforme, Translated from the French
January 8, 1848