Mr. Stanley moved, that the Order of the Day for the House resolving itself into a Committee on the Tithes Composition (Ireland) Bill be now read.
§ House in Committee.
§ On Clause 13 being read,
Mr. Stanleyproposed an Amendment to leave out the whole clause after the first word and insert the following—" That no person holding or occupying land in Ireland as tenant at-will, or tenant from year to year, or having any lesser estate or interest therein, shall be liable to the payment of any sum or sums of money accruing due and payable on or after the 1st day of November, 1833, on account of any composition for tithes chargeable, or which may become chargeable, on such land; and the person who shall have, in such land, the first estate or interest, greater than such tenancy from year to year, shall be and become, for and during the continuation of such estate or interest, liable to the payment of the composition on such 1st day of November, 1833, and thenceforth 1078 from time to time accruing due and payable in respect of such land; and upon the expiration, surrender, forfeiture, or other determination of such first estate or interest, greater than a tenancy from year to year as aforesaid, the person having the next estate or interest in such land, greater than such estate as aforesaid, shall be and become, for and during the continuance of such estate or interest, liable to the payment of such composition as aforesaid; and so on, the liability to the payment of such composition attaching and devolving successively, upon the expiration, forfeiture, or other determination of each and every such previous estate or interest as aforesaid, upon the person having the next such estate or interest, for and during the continuance thereof, until such liability shall eventually attach and devolve upon the person having the fee-simple and inheritance of such land, who shall be and remain for ever subject thereto: provided always, that such transfers of liability shall be without prejudice to any arrears of composition, which may have accrued due at the times of such transfers respectively, and to all remedies for the recovery of such arrears: and provided always, that if any such tenant-at-will or yearly tenant, shall continue in possession, after such 1st day of November, 1833, of such land so liable as aforesaid, without entering into any new agreement with his landlord, such landlord having taken upon him the said composition in manner aforesaid, shall be entitled to recover from such tenant so continuing in such possession, in addition to the rent then payable by him, the amount of such composition theretofore payable by such tenant; the same to be recovered by all the ways and means, and as if the same were part of and added to the said rent, by agreeing between such landlord and tenant originally."
Mr. Shcilsaid, that he thought, that the clause before the House was one of the greatest importance, and the right hon. Gentleman should not seek to precipitate, at so advanced a period of the Session, a clause so exceedingly important in its consequences to the landlords of Ireland. This Bill was intended for the relief of the clergy, and of the people of Ireland. Well, now, he would ask, why be so impatient to hurry on the measure, or to anticipate the functions of a reformed Parliament, 1079 when this clause would not come into operation until November, 1833. [Mr. Stanley nodded assent.] Well he was glad to have that admission from the right hon. Gentleman, that the Bill would not come into operation before that time. Why, then, not leave the subject to the disposal of a reformed Parliament? Why force on this measure against the loudly expressed opinions of the Irish people universally, and despite the reiterated and earnest remonstrances of the Representatives of the Irish people in that House. He could not conceive a motive for the invincible pertinacity, that the right hon. Gentleman manifested in pressing forward a measure, and in preparing the machinery with which he was to relieve the distresses of the Irish clergy. This Bill was bad enough, but he did not see the necessity of augmenting its evil tendencies by the enactment of this clause, which, involving such important consequences, was one that ought not to be urged forward in the absence of so many of the Irish Members, and in the present state of the House. The Bill would not effectually come into operation until November, 1833. Well, then, the reformed Parliament would exist in the mean time, and what was the necessity of anticipating the legislation of a reformed Parliament, when they must know that it was to a reformed Parliament alone, that the Irish people looked with confidence for a final and satisfactory adjustment of the question of tithes. The Bill had for one of its objects to satisfy the people of Ireland; but surely the right hon. Gentleman himself did not imagine that it would have the effect. He must be well aware, that the measure would not only not satisfy, but that it would additionally dissatisfy the people of Ireland. Was the Bill that which the Irish people were taught to expect? They complained of the great oppression and grievous burthen of tithes. The right hon. Secretary held out to the people a promise of the extinction of tithes, and the Irish people did not certainly attach to the language of the right hon. Secretary more than its plain and ordinary import. When they talked of extinction of tithes, they meant the utter and total abolition of tithes, and in the promise of extinction of tithes, they understood an extinction actual and in fact, and not a mere transfer of the burthen from one part of the community to ano- 1080 ther. The Bill was unjust to the people of Ireland, and particularly unjust to the landlords of Ireland. It not only injured them in their property, but it would serve, in many instances, to estrange and alienate them from the confidence of the people, by transferring to the landlord all the odium of being the collector of a most oppressive, detested, and obnoxious impost. He trusted, that the right hon. Gentleman would reserve this entire clause for future discussion, and would not press it then. It was not demanded by any exigency which it went to meet, for it was admitted, that it could not come into operation until November, 1833. So far as the mere Amendment of the clause went, he certainly concurred with the right hon. Gentleman in thinking that it improved it very much; but what he objected to was, that the clause itself should be pressed forward at such a period of the Session. He trusted, that the right hon. Gentleman would not persevere, but would allow that whole clause to be omitted.
Mr. Stanleysaid, that he had more than once before explained his meaning relative to those words which had been so much cavilled at—namely, the extinction of tithes. He had before stated, in the most explicit manner, that when he mentioned the extinction of tithes, he did not mean the utter and entire abolition of tithes. By the expressions he had adopted, he did not mean to imply any thing more than a transfer of the burthen of the collection of tithes from the clergyman to the landlord. His great object was to do away with the many objections and annoyances to which the present system was liable. He wished to relieve the clergyman from the endless troubles and discontents attendant upon the collection of tithes, whilst he was also equally anxious to relieve the tenant from the annoyances attendant upon their collection by the clergyman, and also from the dissatisfaction and discontent consequent upon their uncertain and fluctuating value. He thought, that he had succeeded in a great degree in doing away with those objections; for, by making the tithes part of the landlord's rent, he relieved at once both the tenant and the clergyman. There was a great outcry made against this, as an injustice upon the people, and there was a clamour raised for the abolition of tithes. He thought, that 1081 the great object ought to be to effect a satisfactory change of the system, so as to relieve the occupying tenant from its pressure. Could any hon. Member deny, that, if, to-morrow, tithes were wholly abolished, the ultimate effect would be to increase the landlord's rent to the amount of the reduction; so that, in point of fact, if tithes were utterly and wholly abolished, the tenant would derive no advantage from the change beyond that which the present Bill went to afford them—namely, it would relieve the tenant from the trouble and annoyance of having to pay two collectors instead of one. That would be the result of the present Bill, and, however it might be objected to, and however unjust it might be considered, yet he was satisfied, that, in its practical operation, it would be found to be a very great improvement.
Mr. Shellsaid, that there had been much special pleading resorted to with regard to the meaning that ought to attach to the words employed by the right hon. Gentleman. What, he would ask. did the right hon. Gentleman mean by the total extinction of tithes? Surely he could not have supposed that the Irish tiller of the soil was so versed in the casuistical subtleties of language, as to explain "total extinction" by a mere "transfer of collection."
§ Mr. Shawsupported the clause The Catholic peasant never had paid tithe, it had always been paid by the landlord, and one good effect of the Bill would be to make that truth apparent to the peasantry.
Some verbal amendments being introduced into the Clause, the Question was put, that this Clause do stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Walkeragreed with his learned friend (Mr. Sheil) that the only effect of the Bill would be the transferring the odium of the tithe tax from the clergyman to the landlord. He did not think that the landlord ought to be placed in that situation. In his opinion the Bill gave the clergy more than they could reasonably expect, and it destroyed the vested rights of the landlord. This was most objectionable.
Mr. Callaghansaid, that the question had been so clearly and so ably put in its proper light by his hon. friend the member for Wexford, that he had little more to do than to express his full concurrence in all that had fallen from him. He (Mr. 1082 Callaghan) was himself a tithe owner, but so far as he was individually concerned, there was no sacrifice which he was not cheerfully prepared to make for the peace and benefit of his country. He had before stated his opinions on this subject—he had always himself paid tithe with reluctance, for he had never received any value for it, and he looked upon it in the light of a cruel robbery. He could bear his own testimony that this Bill would not satisfy the people nor the landlords. In his part of the country he knew that the landlords were decidedly opposed to it, and notwithstanding what had been said by the hon. and learned member for Dublin, he felt that it was a measure deeply displeasing to the landlords of Ireland generally, as being one which inflicted a direct and positive injury upon them. He certainly should feel it his duty to oppose the clause now under the consideration of the House. Though he did not approve of it, he would not strongly object to the extension of the Commutation Act as a mode of ascertaining the value; but what he most strongly objected to was the machinery of the Bill before the House.
§ Mr. Leadersaid, that there were two questions which came to be considered: the first, the mode of ascertaining the amount of tithe in Ireland; and the second, the mode of collecting it. For this latter purpose, the Bill proposed to make the next landlord to the occupying tenant liable to all the tithes and arrears of tithes, and for this purpose to make him answerable both in his property and in his person. This attempt to make one man liable for the debt of another was the first of the kind of which there was any instance on record; and the hardship was aggravated, in the present case, by the attempt to connect an impost the most odious, and one derivable out of the produce of the soil, with the rent of the landlord, and to make the landlord liable for its payment, even though he had never received any rent. Under the composition law, the clergyman had the first charge on the land, for the year's tithe; he was paramount to the landlord, and his inability to recover did not proceed from the want of a legal remedy, so much as the alleged want of power to enforce the payment. He could not be divested of the opinion that if the agreement between the occupiers and the clergymen was just and reasonable, and 1083 the measure which the law allowed for the recovery of tithes, were fairly and fully put into execution, the tithe composition rent would even now be collected; and if the agreement was fair, he saw no reason why it should not, if the parties were pleased with the composition, as founded upon reciprocal interest, and if the proper baronial officer had full authority and reasonable percentage for the collection of the tithe. He denied that the landlords had taken any part in any insubordination that prevailed, and it was too much, when they proposed a fair Land tax as an equivalent for tithes, to be collected by the State, and paid to the clergy, to be exposed in their persons to arrest, and to have their properties liable to be ruined by the costs attendant on the appointment of a receiver, and the multiplied costs that were attendant on a resort to the process of the Court of Chancery to enforce the payment of the composition rent. In opposition to the hardship of making the landlord next the occupier, liable to the payment of tithe, it was asserted that the landlords of England would gladly submit to be placed on the same footing, and that they would cheerfully compound on the same terms. To this he would answer that the landlords of England were Protestant, the tenantry and tithe-payers Protestant, and the Church Protestant, whereas, in Ireland the landlords might be Protestant, but the tenants were Catholics, and never could be induced to pay 600,000l. or 700,000l. a-year to a Protestant Church. If the tenants-at-will were all the immediate tenants of the fee simple proprietor, it would be perhaps less objectionable, but in three provinces all the landlords next to the occupier were Catholics, and the House might rest satisfied that the present Bill would drive into disturbance, on account of tithes, thousands who did not at present participate in the resistance, and who had never before been engaged in it. The same officer and his assistants who collected the county cess might also collect the composition rent. He did not believe the landlords of Ireland objected to the clergy having the rent charge on their estates for the amount of tithes, nor did he believe there would be the smallest objection that the landlord should be prevented from distraining the tenant until he had obtained a certificate of the tithe being paid, but it was out of all reason, that though the landlord incur- 1084 red total loss of rent, or although the crop was destroyed by the visitation of Providence, that the landlord should be made liable, in person and in estate, for what he did not receive, or for what the dispensation of Providence rendered it impossible for the occupier to collect. He thought there was no disposition on the part of the landlords to elude the payment, or, as it was said, to spoliate the Church, and although the clergyman could never succeed, in collecting tithes, neither could the landlord. He certainly would give his strongest opposition to the clause.
Lord Sandonwas much surprised at the difference between the opinions of the landlords of the two countries upon this subject. The landlords of England looked with hope to having the principle of this Bill extended to this country, as conducive to the interest both of landlord and tenant. In the instance of a noble relative of his, where a composition had been made for tithe, it had proved highly satisfactory, both to the landlord and the clergyman, and of advantage to both.
§ Mr. Huntwould allow the noble Lord to speak for himself and his friends; but there was just as great a feeling against tithes in England as in Ireland. He hoped the right hon. Secretary would be in his place early to-morrow, when a petition from Preston, which was signed by 4,900 persons in two days, would be presented against this Bill, and praying the House to address his Majesty to displace the right hon. Secretary from office. If by this Bill landowners were obliged to pay tithes in all cases whatever, and were not at liberty, like Irish landowners, at present, to exempt part of their lands from tithes, by laying them down as pasture, it was one of the greatest acts of injustice he had ever known to be inflicted by an Act of Parliament.
§ The Amendment agreed to—Clause as amended to stand part of the Bill.
§ On the next Clause respecting the appointment of a Receiver being read,
Mr. Shellsaid, that the appointment of a receiver would be a virtual distress for tithes. The Bill went further than the Tithe Composition Act, and created a mass of increased and new expenses.
§ Mr. Huntrose to order. He was tired of these Irish tithes, and wanted to go home to bed. He had gone to the door, but he had found it locked. He was locked in. He was no longer a free agent. [loud 1085 laughter, in. the midst of which the door was opened, and the hon. Member was informed he was at liberty, whereupon he departed].
Mr. O'Ferrallsaid, that he, as an Irish landlord, felt the Bill to be so arbitrary and unjust in principle, that he would resist its operation by every means in his power short of force. It was too bad in English Members—who never read the Bill nor cared about its provisions, and who, by their total absence during the several discussions in which Irish Members in duty to themselves and their country engaged, testifying the interest they took in its progress—to come down, night after night for the mere purpose of being within call to outvote the Irish Members whenever they pressed important amendments to a division.
§ Mr. Leaderwould not be deterred by the slanderous calumnies that were thrown out against the Irish Members, from pursuing the path of duty. He would therefore oppose this clause. The Government appeared determined, at all events, to carry this Bill, which, he assured them, had created the greatest possible excitement in Ireland.
§ Mr. Ruthvensaid, he should take all the means possible of opposing the Bill, and should, therefore, divide the House on the passing of the Clause.
§ The Committee divided on the Clause: Ayes 45; Noes 17—Majority 28.
§ The remaining Clauses read, and agreed to. The House resumed.