From the Cambrian (which in turn credits the Times, I assume of London):
Martial Law — South Wales.
Our Swansea reporter informs us, that the “opinion hourly gains strength that
it is intended to place Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire under martial law.”
He adds, “that nothing can exceed the exasperation of all classes of people as
this idea gains ground.” The news, if correct, is important, and somewhat
embarrassing to those who are called upon to pronounce an opinion upon public
events as they arise. It is embarrassing, because if such an invidious measure
is eventually shown to be necessary for the preservation of the public
peace — if it really becomes the only practicable course by which the outrages
which are disgracing the county of Carmarthen can be effectually
suppressed — it must doubtless be embraced; and it would ill-become those who
exercise any influence over the public mind to impede by complaint or
invective the effect of this bitter but unavoidable (if indeed it be
unavoidable) remedy. But, on the other hand, even supposing this necessity
established, it is not very easy to look with silent complacency upon the
proceedings of a Ministry or a magistracy who, having first, through their own
ignorance, or neglect, or helplessness, allowed an evil to become
irrepressible by ordinary means, proceed to make that consequence of their own
delinquency a reason why they, the delinquents, should be trusted with
extraordinary, unconstitutional, and most dangerous powers for its cure.
That the mischief is one which must be put down admits of little doubt. That
organised hands should proceed nightly through the country, pulling down toll
bars, was itself an evil wholly intolerable in a civilised country, or, if
this phrase is not applicable to Carmarthenshire, under a civilised
Government. That it was tolerated week after week, month after month,
without the adoption of such measures of police or of conciliation as should
even check the disorder, is the very crime for which we hold Ministers
originally responsible — the very head and front of their offending. The evil
is now far more virulent, the demand for effectual interposition more urgent;
incendiarism — must we not add, murder — a cruel cold-blooded murder? — has
been added to rebellion. Outrage has issued in atrocity; and then a sworn
jury, in one of the most astonishing verdicts we remember to have seen, has
virtually told us, as far as twelve farmers can, that there is no use in
looking to the ordinary administrators of the law for assistance — that they
will not, or dare not, do their duty. All this must surely be stopped.
Unnecessary severity — unnecessary extension of power — unnecessary
interference with the liberty of the subject — are without question among the
greatest evils to which the body politic can well be subject. But measures
which will terminate, or will check, or will show some symptoms of checking,
this state of things are necessary, and must be determined upon, at whatever
immediate inconvenience.
Thus much in general. But when we come to particulars, we are obliged to ask,
what prospect is there that martial law will answer this purpose? That the
ordinary powers given by the Constitution to Government and magistracy, as
at present wielded by that Government and that magistracy, are unequal to
the emergency, is indeed obvious. The continuance of the evil shows it. But
where is the fault — in the power, or in those who exercise it? If the radical
disease is in the head, we may chance to get little good and much harm by
strengthening the hands. It is common for power, when opposed and foiled, to
call out fresh supplies of brute force, and fresh facilities for using it. It
is the ordinary rough resource of despotic times, as it must be also the
ultima ratio of constitutional authority. In the former case
it is tolerably easy and safe; but in the latter it is delicate and
precarious. In a free country these overbearing tactics are always odious, and
are far from insuring success. And, therefore, before we trust Home Secretary
or Justice of the Peace with the direction of such an edge-tool as
martial-law, we should be glad to have some guarantee that they know how to
use it. Does their past conduct furnish such? What is the picture presented to
us by the history of the Welsh disturbances? The authorities, armed with such
powers as they have, have met with as ill success as can well be imagined.
Have they deserved any better? Does their conduct bear the appearance of a
manly contest with overpowering difficulties, carriried on with vigour and
discretion — with intelligence, consideration, and activity — with a proper
estimate of the strength, the grievances, and the character of their
adversary — and with a readiness to seize all the opportunities of successful
action which that knowledge gave them? or does it not rather resemble the
vague, bustling, indeterminate, aimless struggles of a man who is embarrassed,
not by the want of available force, but by not knowing what to do with what he
has?
We fear these questions are soon answered. As to the magistrates, they have
been pitted against the rioters, and have been found wholly inefficient for
good. The fruitless gallopings of the military, the absence of any apparent
plan for conciliating, for dividing, for discovering, or for anticipating the
followers of “Rebecca,” and the ease, the unimpeded ease, with which that
leader has been able to accomplish all his plans, furnish sufficient evidence
of their inefficiency and the account which we to-day publish of an important
and unhappy mistake in point of law, committed last month by three of them
(the Vice-Lieutenant of the county being among the number) — a mistake which
issued in the wrongful imprisonment of fourteen days of a Welsh farmer — is
certainly little calculated to weaken this impression. Nor does the Secretary
of State appear to have been more able to help the local authorities than they
were to help themselves. If he saw, as he might have seen, the hopelessness of
conciliation while the magistracy continue sole mediators between themselves
and the discontented poor — if he saw, as he might have seen, that there was
much to be amended which the magistrates would not amend, much to be
investigated which the magistrates would not exhibit, much to be said, done,
and thought of, which the magistrates would neither originate nor execute — if
he, understood, as he must have understood, that the continuance in such a
country as England, and for months together, of a successful and wholesale
resistance to law, baffling through a whole district the utmost efforts of
police and military, was “no light matter,” but a grave shock to the very
foundations of law and order — if he felt that the time for punctilio was gone
by, and that whether the magistrates liked it or not Carmarthenshire was to be
tranquillised — and if he had himself any idea how to deal with popular
disaffection, he would most assuredly, during the last three or four months,
have excogitated some happier expedient than a fortnight’s visit from a
respectable police magistrate.
On the whole, then, we see too much reason to apprehend that the disturbances
will not be terminated without, but very little to hope that
they will be terminated with, martial law. And if so severe
a remedy is to be administered, we have a right to demand conclusive proof
that less stringent remedies are no longer practicable, and some better
guarantee than the personal character of Sir James Graham and Colonel Trevor
for the effectual application of this. And, after every proof and every
guarantee, we still shall not cease to feel with some bitterness that this
assumption of extraordinary power on the part of the Ministry derives its sole
justification from their own past neglect or unskilfulness.
Since the above was written we have been informed by a correspondent “that a
special commission is about to issue for the trial of the prisoners concerned
in the recent disturbances in South Wales. The presiding judges have not yet
been named, but the most active exertions are in progress on the part of
Government to get together evidence against the prisoners already committed.”
