frankly. When you withhold, withhold resolutely. Then what you give is
received with gratitude; and, as for what you withhold, men, seeing that
to wrest it from you is no safe or easy enterprise, cease to hope
for it, and, in time, cease to wish for it. But there is a way of so
withholding as merely to excite desire, and of so giving as merely to
excite contempt; and that way the present ministry has discovered. Is it
possible for me to doubt that in a few months the same machinery which
sixteen years ago extorted from the men now in power the Emancipation
Act, and which has now extorted from them the bill before us, will again
be put in motion? Who shall say what will be the next sacrifice? For my
own part I firmly believe that, if the present Ministers remain in power
five years longer, and if we should have,--which God avert!--a war with
France or America, the Established Church of Ireland will be given
up. The right honourable Baronet will come down to make a proposition
conceived in the very spirit of the Motions which have repeatedly been
made by my honourable friend the Member for Sheffield. He will again
be deserted by his followers; he will again be dragged through his
difficulties by his opponents. Some honest Lord of the Treasury may
determine to quit his office rather than belie all the professions of a
life. But there will be little difficulty in finding a successor ready
to change all his opinions at twelve hours' notice. I may perhaps, while
cordially supporting the bill, again venture to say something about
consistency, and about the importance of maintaining a high standard
of political morality. The right honourable Baronet will again tell me,
that he is anxious only for the success of his measure, and that he does
not choose to reply to taunts. And the right honourable gentleman the
Chancellor of the Exchequer will produce Hansard, will read to the House
my speech of this night, and will most logically argue that I ought not
to reproach the Ministers with their inconsistency, seeing that I had,
from my knowledge of their temper and principles, predicted to a tittle
the nature and extent of that inconsistency.

Sir, I have thought it my duty to brand with strong terms of
reprehension the practice of conceding, in time of public danger, what
is obstinately withheld in time of public tranquillity. I am prepared,
and have long been prepared, to grant much, very much, to Ireland. But
if the Repeal Associati