Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 6.djvu/202

THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS acquiesce in any measure of reform that your lordships can adopt that will not compromise the safety of the Protestant religion or violate our charters; but, my lords, by adopting this measure you will do grievous injustice to the population of a metropolitan city. Why subject us to the control of a democratic corporation, with which we have no sympathy, no unity of sentiment, no connection, no influence? Why place the bar, the professional classes, the gentry of Ireland, under the control of the populace of its chief city? The principle has never been carried into effect in England. I do not merely urge that London has been exempted; but what would your lordships say if it was proposed to incorporate into one vast corporation the whole of this immense metropolis, so that Finsbury Square should give law to St. James's? Is it because the professional classes and gentry of Dublin are distant, because they are unprotected, that you will inflict upon them a grievance and tyranny which you would not endure in London? I may be told that you must give the same Bill to Ireland that you have given to England, no matter how differently circumstanced the two countries. I take the argument. I say, if you give us all the evil, give us the one solitary good. London has been exempted—exempt Dublin. You have respected the Magna Charta of John in London; why not respect the Magna Charta of Henry in Dublin? Am I to be told that, because on the faith of England we 192