The Association must be suppressed: it will be folly to expect peace or tranquillity while that pestilent body is in existence; smite it "hip and thigh," and you at once cut off the fruitful sources of discontent and crime. Stop the rent, and at one blow you annihilate the profligate press, which turns the minds of the people from their legitimate avocations, which panders to their prejudices, and excites them to outrage. Of what use will it be to confine the peasant to his house by night, if you allow him to be beset during the day by the noxious publications which contain the treason of the Conciliation Hall? Will it be just to tax the unfortunate farmers when they are compelled to become participators in crime, and to shelter the guilty for the purpose of obtaining that protection from outrages which the government are too negligent or too impotent to afford them? The plan which it is proposed to adopt, of recompensing those who suffer in person or property by a tax levied on the locality in which the crime was committed, _has been long in operation,[11] and found to be utterly inefficacious_. What is the use of an additional police force, when all the exertions of those men will be rendered ineffectual by the insufficiency of the laws which you refuse to strengthen? The guilty cannot be affected by taxation, for they hold no land; they cannot be punished by the ordinary laws, for they have established a system which baffles their operation; but once enact effective Law, and proclaim down the Association--show the people that you are determined to maintain social order and to suppress insubordination--then, _but not till then_, will you rally the good in defence of justice, and deter the guilty from the commission of crime. FOOTNOTES: [3] _Times_, December 25, 1845. [4] It is a curious fact, that the only witnesses whose testimony the Earl of Devon ventured to use in support of Lord Stanley's bill, were those of Mr Balfe, chairman of the "committee of grievances;" a _discharged dragoon_, who was contradicted in almost every statement he made by the most respectable persons on their oaths, and who was obliged to retract some voluntarily; and of Mr Byrne, of the value of whose opinion, or whose statements, we can form some estimate, from the following extract from the evidence of Nicholas Maher, Esq. Appendix B., No. 1097. He is asked, has he read a particular statement of Mr Byrne's? And his answer is:--"I _have_ read the evidence, and I must just state that Mr Byrne is a person to whose evidence I would not give any weight." [5] IRELAND--LAND IS EXEMPT FROM Assessed taxes, £4,204,855 Income tax, 5,158,470 Malt tax, 4,998,130 ---------- £14,361,455