hopeful and remunerated--industry, free and inviolate, is the only sure foundation on which can be reared the enduring edifice of union and of peace. * * * * * IRELAND. V. HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENSION BILL. HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 17, 1866. [The Fenian Conspiracy and threatened Insurrection in Ireland compelled the Government to introduce a Bill to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. It was brought in suddenly, the House meeting on Saturday to consider it.] I OWE an apology to the Irish Members for stepping in to make an observation to the House on this question. My strong interest in the affairs of their country, ever since I came into Parliament, will be my sufficient excuse. The Secretary of State, on the part of the Government of which he is a Member, has called us together on an unusual day and at an unusual hour, to consider a proposition of the greatest magnitude, and which we are informed is one of extreme urgency. If it be so, I hope it will not be understood that we are here merely to carry out the behests of the Administration; and that we are to be permitted, if we choose, to discuss this measure, and if possible to say something which may mitigate the apparent harshness of the course which the Government feels itself compelled to pursue. It is now more than twenty-two years since I was first permitted to take my seat in this House. During that time I have on many occasions, with great favour, been allowed to address it, but I declare that during the whole of that period I have never risen to speak here under so strong a feeling, as a Member of the House, of shame and of humiliation, as that by which I find myself oppressed at this moment. The Secretary of State proposes--as the right hon. Gentleman himself has said--to deprive no inconsiderable portion of the subjects of the Queen--our countrymen, within the United Kingdom--of the commonest, of the most precious, and of the most sacred right of the English Constitution, the right to their personal freedom. From the statement of the Secretary of State it is clear that this is not asked to be done, or required to be done, with reference only to a small section of the Irish people. He has named great counties, wide districts, whole provinces, over which this alleged and undoubted disaffection has spread, and has proposed that five or six millions of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom shall suffer the loss of that right of personal freedom that is guaranteed to all Her Majesty's subjects by the Constitution of these realms.